‘My head’s fine. It’s my ribs that hurt.’
So he turned his attention to her body, checking for anything that could be a worry because she’d hit that rock hard and a punctured lung could kill her. He squeezed her ribcage gently.
‘Does that feel OK?’
‘Sort of. It’s tender, but it’s not catching any more when I breathe and I can’t feel any grating when you spring them, so I don’t think I broke any ribs,’ she said, taking it seriously at last. ‘I thought I had an elephant on my chest. I had no idea being winded was so damn scary.’
‘Oh, yeah. I’ve only ever been winded once, when I fell out of a tree. I must have been six or seven, but I remember it very clearly. I thought I was dying.’
She nodded, then looked away again, just as they heard a slither of shale and Sam appeared at their sides.
‘How is she?’ he asked tightly.
‘Lippy and opinionated but apparently OK, as far as I’ve checked. She was winded. At least it shut her up for a moment.’
Sam chuckled, but Matt could see the relief in his eyes. ‘Now there’s a miracle.’
‘Excuse me, I am here, you know,’ she said, shifting into a better position, and Sam looked down at her and grinned.
‘So you are. Good job, too, we don’t need to lose a promising young registrar, we’re pushed enough,’ he said drily, and sat down. ‘Why don’t you shut up and let him finish so we can get on?’ he added, and Matt laughed. As if...
‘Any back pain?’ he asked, but she just gave him a wry look.
‘No more than you’d expect after rolling down a scree slope and slamming into a rock, but at least it stopped me rolling all the way down,’ she said, trying to get to her feet, but he put a hand on her shoulder and held her down.
‘I’m not done—’
She tipped her head back and fixed him with a determined look. ‘Yeah, you are. I’m fine, Matt. I just need to get up because there are rocks sticking into me all over the place and I could do without that. You might need to give me a hand up.’
He held his hand out but let her do the work. She’d stop instinctively as soon as anything felt wrong, but he was horribly conscious that he hadn’t ruled out all manner of injuries that might be lurking silently, but that was fine, he had no intention of taking his eyes off her for the rest of the day.
She winced slightly, but she was on her feet.
‘How’s that feel?’
‘Better now I’m off the rocks. Did you see what happened? Did I step off the edge, or did it crumble?’
He snorted. ‘No, it crumbled. I told you the edge was unstable, but did you listen? Of course not. You were in too much of a hurry. When you weren’t walking backwards, that is.’
‘Only one step—’
‘I’ll give you one step,’ he growled. ‘So, are you OK to go on?’
‘Of course I am. You seriously think I’m going to give up now just because of this?’
‘You might as well. I don’t get beaten,’ Sam said, getting to his feet, and she laughed in his face.
‘We’ll see about that,’ she retorted, stabbing him in the chest with her finger, then she took a step and yelped.
Matt frowned. ‘What?’
‘My ankle.’ She tried again, and winced. ‘Rats. I can’t weight-bear on it. I must have turned it when the path gave way.’
‘Well, that’s just upped my chances,’ Sam said with a grin, and Matt rolled his eyes.
‘You two are a nightmare. Right, let’s get you off here and have a better look at that.’
* * *
Livvy flexed her ankle again and regretted it. She was so mad with herself, and she was hideously aware that it could have been much, much worse. If it had been her head against that rock instead of her chest...
After all she’d been through, that she could have died from a moment’s lack of concentration was ridiculous. She’d meant what she’d said about being careful. She was always careful, meticulous with her lifestyle, fastidious about what she ate, how much she exercised—she woke every morning ready to tackle whatever the day brought, because whatever it brought she had at least been granted the chance to deal with it, and she never stopped being aware of that glorious gift.
And now, after the physical and emotional roller coaster of the last five years, she’d nearly thrown it all away.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
‘OK?’
She nodded, her teeth gritted, because her ankle was definitely not OK and the rest of her body wasn’t far behind. She was going to have some stunning bruises to show for this. What an idiot.
They carried her carefully across the loose rock slope to where the others were waiting, clustering round her and looking concerned as they set her on her feet, and she felt silly and horribly embarrassed.
And annoyed, because she’d been really looking forward to climbing up Haystacks and there was no way she was going up it now, and she couldn’t see how she could get down, either, so one way or another she was going to miss out on the climb and coincidentally cause the others a whole world of aggravation.
Either that or just sit there and let them pick her up on the way back.
Whatever, they’d be worried about her, Matt especially since he’d seen her fall, and she felt awful now for scaring him. Scaring all of them, and putting a dampener on the whole trip.
‘Sorry, guys,’ she said humbly. ‘That was really stupid.’
‘It was an accident. They happen,’ Dan said calmly, but Matt just snorted and turned away. Because he was angry with her? Maybe, and she felt like the sun had gone in.
‘Want me to look at it?’
‘It’s fine, Dan. It’s only a sprain and anyway I’m not taking my boot off.’
‘OK. Just keep your weight off it.’
‘I can’t do anything else,’ she said in disgust, and lowered herself gingerly onto a handy rock.
‘So what now?’ Matt asked, still not looking at her.
She followed the direction of his gaze and traced the rough path that seemed to wind endlessly down until it met the track that led to the car park. Funny, it didn’t look so beautiful now. It just looked a long, long way away.
‘We’ll carry her down,’ Sam said.
‘No, you won’t. You’ve got to finish the challenge!’ she protested, but Sam shrugged.
‘Well, we can’t leave you here, Livvy.’
‘Yes, you can. I’ll be fine. I’m not ruining anyone’s day just because I was an idiot. Please, all of you, go on up and I’ll wait here. I might even work my way down. If I take my time I’ll be fine. I can go down on my bottom.’
‘No,’ Matt chipped in, turning round at last, his expression implacable. ‘I’ll take you back. Our team’s out, anyway.’
‘Are you sure?’ Sam asked him, but she shook her head, really unhappy now.
‘Matt, I can’t let you do that. You were looking forward to it!’
He just smiled, his eyes softening at last. ‘It’ll keep. It’s millions of years old, Livvy. It’s not like it’s going anywhere. I can climb it another time.’
‘But—’