And extraordinary as it was, given how slow she was to trust strangers, she realised why.
She believed in him.
‘We are not going to fall,’ he’d said. She nodded, letting her breath out on a long, controlled hiss.
But deep down she feared that while that might be true literally, she could see herself falling very easily for a man like Sam. And just as hard.
Under these circumstances, that was a very, very bad idea.
CHAPTER THREE
‘SO who’s Wayne?’
Aimee’s head came up with a snap as Sam shifted again behind her. He was a big guy, and he had squeezed himself into the small space left vacant by the tree branches in the back of her little car and been settled there for over an hour.
‘Wayne?’
‘You mentioned his name earlier. Boyfriend? Brother?’
Was this conversation or curiosity? ‘Ex.’
‘Recent ex?’
‘Recent enough. Why?’
‘There was a … certain tone in your voice when you mentioned him.’
‘A certain sarcastic tone?’
She heard the smile in his voice. ‘Possibly.’
Aimee shifted back in her seat. Wayne was not someone she usually liked to talk about, liked even to think about, but all bets were off in this surreal setting. Their physical proximity demanded it. ‘Wayne and I turned out not to be a good fit.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I’m not. I’d rather have found out now than later.’ And it was true—no matter how challenging she’d found it to walk away. Even though he’d been giving her clear signals that she was somehow deficient in his eyes. Even though she knew he wasn’t good for her. She’d wriggled out from under the controlling thumbs of her parents only to fall prey to a man just like them at a time when she was most susceptible to him. ‘If I’d put any longer into the relationship I might have been more reluctant to end it.’
Another long pause. Funny how she’d only known Sam a handful of minutes but she already knew how to tell a thinking pause from an awkward one. This was thinking.
‘Not everyone finds that strength,’ he finally said.
‘You learn a thing or two recording life histories for a living. About achievements. About regrets. I don’t want any regrets in my life.’
She’d lost him again. His eyes stared out into the darkness.
What was his story?
‘Sam,’ she risked, after a comfortable silence had stretched out, ‘any chance you can lower the back of my seat a bit? Safely?’ She didn’t want a repeat of what happened before.
He studied the angle of the car and her position in it. His answer was reluctant. ‘The seatbelt is working well right now specifically because it’s nearly at ninety degrees.’
‘Even just a little bit? It’s doing my head in, looking straight down, wondering what’s down there, knowing that I’d crash straight through if the seatbelt gave.’
His hand slipped onto her shoulder through the gap between the seats. ‘The seatbelt is what’s keeping your body from putting too much weight on your bad leg.’
Oh.
Her disappointment must have reached him, though, because he said a moment later, ‘Let me just try something.’ He rummaged in his kit again, and then emerged with a set of flex-straps.
Aimee chuckled tightly. ‘You got a decaf latte in that Tardis, Doctor?’
He smiled as he wrapped one strap carefully around her waist and fixed it behind the seat, then the other under her good shoulder and hooked it on the headrest. ‘These aren’t generally for people, but I’ll be gentle with them.’
He pulled the two together and clipped one end of a climbing tether onto it, then fixed the other end to his own harness. If she fell she’d snag on his safety rope. Or pull him down with her.
That was a cheery thought!
‘Ready?’
So ready. So very ready not to be facing death literally head-on for every minute of this ordeal. She felt him fumbling along the edge of her seat for the recline lever and then suddenly the back of the seat gave slightly—just slightly—and he lowered it halfway to a fully reclined position. She hung on to her seatbelt lifeline and prepared for the pain of more of her body weight hitting her leg, but the flexi-straps did their job and held her fast to the seat-back. It really wasn’t too bad.
‘Oh, thank you.’ Her view was now the buckled roof of the car. A thousand times better than hanging out over who knew what. ‘Thank you, Sam.’
With her seat now reclined into the limited free space in the back of the car, there was nowhere for him to go but into the expanded gap between the front seats. He wedged himself there, with his spine to the passenger seat back, his shoulder pressing against the branch, facing her across the tiny gulf he’d opened up.
Unexpected bonus. She could talk to him front on.
‘You look funny,’ she said softly. Though still gorgeous. ‘Your face is back to front without the mirror.’
‘You look good.’ He smiled, then flushed as she dropped her eyes briefly. ‘I just meant that pretty much everything on you is intact. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to find that. Just to hear you honk that damned horn.’
Aimee sobered. He must hold some truly terrible images in his head.
‘It’s always the calmest most compliant people that have the worst injuries. They’re the ones I dream about later.’ He tucked her foil covering back in, keeping up his part of the conversation. She let his deep, rich voice wash over her. ‘It’s the guy with a twisted ankle and a golf tournament to get to that makes life hell. We’ve had hikers activate their EPIRB halfway up a mountain because they’re tired and want a lift back down.’ He shook his head.
‘Where do I fall on that scale?’ Was she being too high maintenance? Get my handbag, Sam. Lower my seat, Sam …
‘You have a scale all your own. All the reason in the world to be losing it, but holding up pretty well all things considered.’
She was—and that was really saying something, given her upbringing. Where the heck would she have learned resilience from in her bubblewrap childhood? But honour made her confess. ‘I was sobbing my heart out before I heard you calling.’
That seemed to genuinely pain him. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get to you quicker. We had to assess the safety.’
She pinned him with her gaze. ‘I’m so glad you found me at all. Imagine if you hadn’t.’ It hit her then, for the first time, how long, slow and awful her death would have been. She swallowed back a gnarled lump and just stared, watching the play of emotion running over his features. Sadness. Regret. Confusion. But then his eyes lifted and it was just … light. And it changed him.
‘How old are you, Sam?’
‘Thirty-one.’
‘How is it that a man like you who wants children doesn’t yet have any?’ That was the closest she’d come to asking him outright: Why are you still single?
His eyes grew wary, but he finally answered. ‘It takes one to want it but two to make it a reality.’
‘You don’t have women knocking down your door to help you along with that reality? You’re gorgeous.’
His eyes grew cautious.