“Good boy, Admiral. We’re here to help your master. Good boy, now.” Her voice pitched low and soothing, she watched the dog for any warning that it was about to attack.
In fact, Admiral had lain down beside a man in the hollow. Continuing her soothing words, Faith laid a hand on the dog’s side and looked it over for injury as she worked her way inside the tight space so she could grab the dog’s collar. The animal appeared to be unhurt, as far as she could judge. A more detailed examination would have to wait until later. The human casualty must take precedence. She turned her head and nodded to Hew.
The man on the ground had bruising on his face. His eyes were closed and his breath labored. At least he was wearing decent protective clothing.
“Ralph,” Hew said, crouching at the casualty’s side. “We’re from the mountain rescue. We’ll have you safely out of here soon.”
The man groaned and squinted in the rapidly fading light. The dark clouds had brought premature dusk. “Fell. Chest hurts,” he whispered, then clenched his jaw, obviously in pain.
Faith noticed a dog leash tucked in the man’s belt, and she gently freed the length of cord and attached it to Admiral’s collar. Talking softly to him, she drew him back a short distance to give Daniel room to reach his patient. She crouched beside Admiral and watched as Daniel transformed before her eyes from a smiling charmer to a serious doctor.
“Hello, Ralph. My name is Daniel Fabian. I’m the doctor on the team. I’m going to examine you now before we move you. Are you with me, Ralph?”
The man groaned again, and his breath came in shallow pained gasps as he screwed up his face when Daniel touched his torso.
“Broken ribs,” Daniel said softly to Hew. “A broken leg as well, by the look of it.”
Hew’s radio crackled. “The weather’s closing in. We have a snowstorm approaching. About ten minutes before it hits. You need to evacuate the casualty immediately.”
“Roger. Lower the stretcher, out.”
“Don, stretcher coming down,” Hew shouted to the younger man who was waiting outside.
Daniel and Hew worked in concert, efficiently putting a neck brace on the casualty, then lifting him onto the stretcher and strapping him into the protective pod. Then Daniel shouldered his pack, slipped into the strop beside his patient, and the helicopter droned above, the pilot fighting the wind as the winch raised them towards the aircraft.
Faith had been so busy watching the medical work, she hadn’t noticed how the trees waved in the rising gale. Admiral started barking and jumping up after his master, a note of panic in his doggy voice.
“They won’t have time to pick us up,” Hew said. “We’ll have to hike down to the car park at the bottom of the valley and hope someone can get through to collect us.”
Even as he spoke, the first small flakes of snow hit, the tiny icy points biting into Faith’s cheeks. “They need to take Admiral. The poor dog has already been out in severe conditions all night.”
Hew got on the radio, and the winchman lowered a member of the crew. Faith helped put a harness on the dog, and the crewman hooked the dog on the strop and gave a thumbs-up. They were still dangling from the helicopter as it moved away from the danger zone by the trees.
Faith held her breath until the man and dog disappeared inside the aircraft. As soon as they did, the helicopter angled away down the valley, the lights flashing beneath it the only thing visible as the snow blew in.
“We can’t walk back in this. We need to take shelter,” Hew said. “Isn’t there a bothy near here, Don?”
“Ten minutes away,” the younger man said. “Let’s hope it’s stocked with whiskey to warm us up.”
Faith thought she’d rather have a heater, but whatever.
They climbed up the now icy rope back to the tree level with difficulty. Donald led them a few hundred yards to a timber-built cabin in a sheltered spot against the rocks. He pushed open the door and they all piled into the tiny, dark room, out of the wind and snow.
It was going to be an interesting night.
Chapter Seven
Donald held a flashlight out, illuminating a cone of plank floor. The beam of light moved around the small cabin and stopped on a candle perched on a shelf.
“There we are,” he said. The skinny young man stepped past Faith, struck a match he got out of his pack, and a few moments later the darkness fell back from the yellow glow of the candle flame.
“Here’s another,” Hew said behind her. Another candle on the beam beside the door flared to life. Although still shadowy, there was enough light to get a look at what would be their abode for at least one night, and if the snow didn’t let up tomorrow, maybe longer.
A small fireplace was situated against the rock wall at the far end, a metal chimney pipe rising from it to disappear through a hole in the roof. Piles of logs rested on both sides of the fireplace, along with small bunches of kindling sticks.
A box of matches in hand, Donald knelt in front of the fireplace and teased some of the kindling alight before adding a larger log.
Faith watched almost mesmerized by the flames, weariness suddenly descending on her. As if he could sense how she felt, Hew settled a gentle hand on her back.
“It’s the dip after the adrenaline rush,” he said. “Sit down and take it easy. We aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so you might as well get comfortable.” He reached up and lowered a wooden platform to the floor that had been propped against the wall out of the way. “That’s your bed for tonight, I’m afraid.”
Faith laughed. “Of course it is.”
A good thing she was used to roughing it in the army. And a good thing they were all equipped with packs containing essential supplies, although she wasn’t sure what hers contained, apart from the medical technician’s equipment.
Hew lowered a second wooden platform bed from the opposite wall and dropped his pack on it. With the sleeping platforms on the floor, there was no more than two feet of space between them to move about.
Faith sat and started to poke through her backpack while Hew pulled his sleeping bag out. He unzipped his wet jacket, removed his boots, and slipped off his waterproof trousers, stripping down to his skintight thermal base layer.
In the flickering firelight, Faith watched Hew hang his wet things on a line stretched across the room, the outline of his perfect masculine form of broad shoulders and narrow hips silhouetted against the candlelight. He glanced up and she dropped her gaze, realizing she had been holding her breath.
Hew stepped into his sleeping bag, drew it up beneath his arms, and sat on his wooden platform. He set out some ration bars, a bottle of water, and a bottle of whiskey beside him.
“Well done, Donald, lad,” he said, and Faith finally registered that the young man now had a decent fire burning in the grate, already radiating warmth.
Donald moved to the back of the room, lowered a third wooden platform that had been leaning against the wall behind the door, and quickly stripped off like Hew before snuggling into his sleeping bag.
Hew took a sip of whiskey and passed the bottle to Donald, who followed suit.
“You’ll need to get those wet things off before you get into your sleeping bag, lassie.” There was a dry note of amusement in Hew’s voice.
She had to clear her throat before she answered. “I know. I was just checking what I’ve got in this pack.” Although the fact she hadn’t taken anything out of the pack yet belied her words.
Hew’s gaze seemed to twinkle in the firelight as if he knew she’d been watching him, and he downed another swallow of whiskey.
“You’re enjoying this,” she accused him.
“Aye. I won’t deny I take a certain pleasure from being shut away in a snug, warm bothy with a bottle of good whiskey while a snowstorm rages outside. It’s a bit like sitting safe and warm inside a car while it’s raining outside.”
Faith listened to the wind roaring around the tiny building and considered his words. “Okay, I can see what you
mean, as long as the bothy isn’t in danger of blowing away.”
“Oh, it won’t blow away, lassie. A bothy has been in this spot for nearly fifty years, the site chosen so it is protected by the rocks and unlikely to be snowed in.”
She believed him. Hew radiated assurance and integrity like the best commanding officers she’d encountered. He instilled trust.
The inside of the small room was warming up now, what with the fire burning and three bodies giving off heat. Her wet jacket was almost steaming.
Acutely aware of Hew and Donald only a few feet away, Faith stood and turned her back to the men as she unzipped her jacket and slipped it off. She removed the fleece layer underneath to fold and use as a pillow, as Hew had done, and dropped it on the bed.
Then she stepped out of her thermal waterproof trousers, leaving her clad head to foot in the tight double base layers Naomi had loaned her. Shaking out her sleeping bag, she stepped into it without taking time to unfasten the zipper, nearly toppling over in her haste as she pulled it up to her armpits. She glanced at Hew to find him smiling at her.
She was used to bunking down with men in combat situations, but never a man she had feelings for. Granted, they were nascent feelings, but this first flush of attraction and uncertainty made the situation worse than if she knew him better.
She sat on her wooden pallet with a bump as that thought bounced around her mind and sank in. Did she really have feelings for Hew Mackenzie? She’d only known him a few days, yet her awareness of him seemed to be growing by the hour.
He held out the bottle of whiskey to her and angled his head in question.
“I don’t like it neat.”
He pulled a plastic cup from his pack, sloshed in some whiskey, and added an equal measure of water from his bottle. Then he held the cup out to her.
“Whiskey cut with fifty percent water for the non-whiskey drinker. It’ll warm you up.”
Faith was already warming up just fine, but she accepted the cup and sipped. Even this diluted, it spread heat through her as it slid down. She set the cup aside and dug in her pack to find she had four ration bars, all fruit, nuts, and oats. She unwrapped one and started chewing.
Donald had already eaten two of his. He penguin-walked inside his sleeping bag the few yards to the fire to toss the wrappers on the burning logs to sizzle.
Faith eased her sleeping bag up over her shoulders, pulling the zipper down a little so she could reach out if she wanted to. Wedging her folded fleece top behind her as a backrest, she leaned against the log wall of the cabin and pulled her knees up to her chest.
Hew looked as though he was cross-legged inside his sleeping bag, and Donald had lain down on his side, his head propped up on his hand.
Daniel called on the radio to tell them the casualty was safely in the hospital and should recover. Admiral had been collected by the RSPCA until they could track down Ralph’s family.
Once Daniel ended the connection, they talked about the events of the day and wondered how Ralph and his dog had come to be walking on the mountain in conditions when most people would be safe in a warm house.
“His wife probably nagged him until he had to get out,” Donald said, and Hew laughed.
“Why blame his wife?” Faith asked. “Anyway, we don’t even know if he’s married.”
It irritated Faith that men automatically thought women were the unreasonable ones in a relationship. She’d suffered that bias herself when she broke up with Liam. His charming manner made everyone think he was a good guy and she must be the one in the wrong.
Water under the bridge, she told herself. No point in dwelling on the past and making herself angry all over again.
As the two men passed the whiskey bottle back and forth between them, the amber liquid gradually disappeared, although Donald drank far more than Hew. Faith sipped her watered-down drink, alternating with sips of water from her bottle. It didn’t seem sensible to become inebriated while trapped in a cabin on a mountain in a snowstorm.
After an hour or so, Donald closed his eyes and his breathing fell into the even rhythm of sleep.
Hew capped the much-depleted bottle of whiskey and chugged down some water from his bottle. He rose, did the penguin walk to the fire inside his sleeping bag, added more logs, and then returned to sit on his sleeping platform, facing her.
Faith poked her wrist out of the warm cocoon of her sleeping bag to check her watch. “It’s 19:56.” She sighed. “Feels like later.”
After the initial awkwardness of getting changed, she’d felt perfectly comfortable with Hew, but now that Donald was asleep, the little cabin seemed very intimate. Hew’s dark brown eyes caught the dying flickers of the candles, and the shadows closed in around them. The darkness only made her more aware of him.
“Why did you decide to join the army?” he asked softly.
The only people who knew the answer to that question were her friends in the Romantic Hearts Book Club. Many of them had experienced their own relationship issues, and she’d felt safe confiding in them because she knew they wouldn’t judge her.
The warm cabin lulled her into a drowsy sense of unreality as if they were detached from real life, and the darkness helped. Donald was asleep, leaving nobody to hear her embarrassing story except Hew. Although she’d only known him for a few days, she sensed she could trust him.
“I was running away,” she said.
She half expected him to ask her from what, yet he remained silent as she took a sip of her weak whiskey.
“When I graduated, I landed a great job with a veterinary practice in Kent. There were three partners—the senior partner, Liam Hinton-Brown, Paul Wily, and Gemma Richards. Everything was fine for a couple of months and I was really enjoying myself. Then Liam asked me out.”
Faith paused for a moment and bit her lip. “There’s something you need to understand about Liam. He’s in his late forties, far too old for me, I know, but he’s one of those men who charms everyone. Daniel reminds me of him, actually.”
Hew grunted at that, and Faith wasn’t sure what the grunt meant.
“I was flattered. He’s good-looking, wealthy, and popular. And I was the new girl on the block.” Faith rubbed her face, wishing she was explaining things better. “I imagine you can guess where I’m going with this.”
“Go on,” Hew said softly.
“It was great for a while. I know I was very pleased with myself and probably got on everyone’s nerves, thinking I was special as the big boss had chosen me. After eighteen months, I discovered he had been seen with the woman who ran the local mare-and-foal charity. We had a very public argument in the veterinary hospital waiting room. At that point, I admitted to myself what a naive fool I’d been. He’d been married and divorced twice, and I thought I’d be the one to change him.”
“So why join the army?”
“The world of veterinary medicine in England isn’t a large one, and people talk to each other. I quickly discovered it was going to be near impossible to leave my mistake behind me and have a fresh start. Anywhere I went, the gossip would follow.”
“Ah. I see.”
Faith wished Hew would say more, tell her it wasn’t her fault because she’d been young, fresh out of college in her first job, and the senior partner held a position of authority that made it difficult for her to reject his attention without causing offense—all the arguments she’d given to her parents to justify what had happened. But Hew remained silent.
Faith sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. “I had two choices if I wanted a fresh start, to move abroad or join the army. Petty gossip is overshadowed by bigger concerns in the military.”
“Do you enjoy being in the army? That’s what matters.”
It wasn’t often people asked her what she enjoyed. She stopped to think for a moment. “Yes and no. It has been a challenging experience, and I’ve learned a lot about myself and grown as a person. The main problem is the lack of clinical experience. For the last three years, the s
um total of my veterinary work has been dogs, a few horses, and the odd regimental mascot such as a goat.”
Hew chuckled at that, and the sound made her smile.
“My four years is up in June, and I’ve already given notice I’ll be leaving. The challenge now is to find a civilian veterinary practice that will take me on. My lack of experience on a wide range of animals is a disadvantage. Daniel told me he knows the senior partner at the veterinary hospital in Kinder Vale and that he’ll introduce me.”
“Greg Coburn, you mean? I know him as well. We’ve been taking the dogs to him for as long as I can remember. I can drive you over to meet him on Monday, if we ever get out of here.”
“That’ll be great, thanks.” Hew sounded eager to help her. Did that mean he would like her to stay in the area?
“Well, we might as well try to get some sleep and hope we wake to better weather.”
Faith had almost forgotten where they were while she was talking to Hew. She rolled up her fleece as a pillow, pulled the sleeping bag up to her chin, and lay on the hard wooden platform. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but she’d slept on worse while she’d been on deployment with the army.
Hew stood up and shuffled to the fire in his sleeping bag to top the glowing embers with two more logs. After that, he set his pack on the ground between them and lay down. Although the room was almost in darkness, the flickering firelight gave her brief glimpses of his face, and she found she couldn’t close her eyes to sleep, even though she was weary after the anxious hike down the mountain earlier.
They lay in silence for maybe ten minutes, and Faith could tell by Hew’s restless movements that he was still awake.
“What about you?” she said softly. There was something she’d been wondering ever since she first met him. “You seem young to have a ten-year-old son.” And was the boy’s mother still in his life?
Hew didn’t answer right away. She wondered if maybe he had fallen asleep or didn’t want to answer.
Faith (Beach Brides Book 11) Page 5