by Jessica Hart
Tilly could practically hear him saying it, and she scowled. No, she wouldn’t be gratifying Seb and Harry by finding Campbell Sanderson attractive.
Well, not very attractive, anyway.
‘Let’s go, then,’ she said. Campbell wasn’t the only one who could do a good impression of don’t-give-a-damn. ‘I’m starving.’
She followed him down to the river’s edge, where he walked up and down for a while, sussing out the situation while she eyed the river with some misgiving. It was wider than she had imagined, and the water was a deep, brackish brown and fast-flowing. It looked freezing.
If Campbell hadn’t trailed the possibility of lunch on the other side, she would have been tempted to have given up there and then.
‘Now what?’ she asked as he prowled back. ‘Surely they’re not expecting us to throw up a pontoon bridge?’
She was joking, but Campbell seemed to think it was a serious suggestion. ‘That’ll take too long,’ he said. ‘Let’s try further up.’
Still boggling at the idea that anyone would know how to build a pontoon bridge, let alone how long it would take, Tilly trotted after him.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To find a better crossing place.’
Perhaps lunch might not be such a distant possibility after all. Tilly brightened. ‘Do you think there might be a bridge?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Campbell. He stopped abruptly as they skirted a bend and his eyes narrowed. ‘Ah…that’s more like it,’ he said with satisfaction.
Tilly stared at the river. ‘What is?’
‘There,’ he said. ‘We can cross here.’
She stared harder. All she could see were a few boulders just peeking out of the rushing water. ‘How?’
‘Stepping stones,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t be better.’ He jumped lightly out on to the first boulder. ‘We don’t even need to get our feet wet.’
Leaping nimbly on to the next stone, he stopped and looked back to where Tilly was still standing on the bank. ‘Aren’t you coming? The sooner you get across, the sooner you get lunch.’
Did he think she couldn’t work that out for herself?
‘I’m terribly sorry.’ She offered a sarcastic apology. ‘Didn’t they tell you I can’t actually walk on water? I’ve been practising and practising, but I just can’t get the hang of it somehow!’
‘Look, it’s just a step,’ he said, impatience seeping into his voice once more.
‘It’s a step if you’ve got legs that are six feet long, which I haven’t, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘OK, it’s a jump, but you can do it easily.’
‘I can’t.’
‘That’s what you said about the abseil, and you did that.’
‘Well, I really can’t do this,’ said Tilly crossly. ‘I’ll fall in.’
Muttering under his breath, Campbell stepped back on to the bank. ‘Look, it’s really not that far between each stone. Why don’t I take your pack? You’ll find it easier to balance without that.’
Tilly had to watch him stepping easily from stone to stone with an ease your average mountain goat would have envied before dumping both packs on the far bank and making his way back to her while she was still trying to formulate an excuse.
‘Now it’s your turn,’ he said, waiting on the first boulder and stretching out a hand. ‘All you need is a little jump and I’ll pull you the rest of the way.’
‘Oh, yes, I can see that working!’ scoffed Tilly, with visions of her taking his hand and promptly pulling him into the water with her.
‘Or shall I come and carry you across?’
‘Don’t even think about it!’
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a cameraman approaching on the far bank. The crew had obviously spotted their approach from an unexpected angle and were hurrying to catch some entertaining moments on film. What a terrific shot it would make: Campbell trying to lift her, staggering under her weight, collapsing into the water with her. Ho, ho, ho. How everyone would laugh!
Over Tilly’s dead body.
‘All right,’ she said quickly, seeing Campbell getting ready to come and fetch her if necessary. ‘I’ll jump.’
Without giving herself time to change her mind, she launched herself off the bank and Campbell only just managed to grab her and haul her on to the boulder with him. Tilly teetered wildly, only seconds from toppling backwards into the icy water before his arm clamped round her and pulled her hard against him.
He was steady as a rock and incredibly reassuring. Throwing pride to the chilly Scottish wind, Tilly clung to him.
‘We must stop meeting like this,’ he said dryly over the top of her head as she burrowed into him.
Aware of how ridiculous she must look but not daring to let go, Tilly did her best to play it cool. She kept her voice casual, as if she hadn’t even noticed how strong and solid he was, or how good it felt to be held against a male body like his. Given that she was stranded in the middle of a freezing Scottish river, it was amazing that she was noticing anything about him at all.
‘I usually like to get to know a man before I start hugging him,’ she said, teeth chattering with a mixture of cold and nerves. ‘You know, have a cup of coffee together or something first.’
‘Our relationship does seem to have progressed quite quickly,’ Campbell agreed over the top of her head. ‘We’d hardly met before you were flinging your arms around my neck, and now this. I feel I should at least have sent you roses.’
There was a thread of amusement in his voice that only succeeded in flustering Tilly more.
‘Roses will be the least I deserve if I survive today,’ she said.
‘Well, if we win, you can have a dozen,’ said Campbell, looking for a way to get her to move on. Not that he wasn’t appreciating having a soft feminine body squashed up against him, but the minutes were ticking by.
‘Make that bars of chocolate and you’re on,’ said Tilly.
It would be too much to say that she was hot, stuck as she was on a rock in the middle of a freezing river with a chill wind whipping round her, but that was definitely warmth tingling in the pit of her stomach. This was one hell of a time for her hormones to start acting up.
‘Do you think you’re ready to try the next one then?’
She groaned a little. ‘God, must I?’
‘There’s a camera trained on us right now,’ Campbell pointed out. ‘It must be getting a little boring for the cameraman, just the two of us entwined on a rock.’
If her hormones had their way it wouldn’t be at all boring, Tilly thought. It could be extremely interesting, but knowing that a camera was pointing straight at her rather took the edge off any piquant little fantasies. Everyone knew that a camera added at least two sizes, and she didn’t want to look any more ridiculous than she did already.
‘OK, let’s do it, then.’
Boulder by boulder, Campbell helped her across the river until there was just one last jump on to the bank. He went first and, the moment she let him go, Tilly started teetering. Her arms windmilled wildly and she took a wild leap for the bank before she fell back into the water.
Unprepared for her sudden jump, Campbell had no time to turn and catch her, and she missed her footing as she landed flat on her face, half on top of the bank, half down it. For a moment she lay stunned and splattered with mud before realising that she had provided the cameraman with his perfect action shot.
Excellent. She was so glad she was going to provide so much light entertainment for the viewers tucked up in their nice warm houses.
Tilly lifted her face from the mud. ‘I want to go home,’ she announced.
‘You can’t go home now. You’re in the lead,’ said Campbell, putting a hard hand under her arm and lifting her to her feet as easily as if she were a size six. It wasn’t often that Tilly got to feel like thistledown, and she would have appreciated it more if she hadn’t been spitting out mud. ‘You’re doing fine,’ he told her.
‘The viewers will love you,’ soothed Campbell, helping her on with her backpack.
‘Do you want to try that one again?’ she enquired with a touch of acid. ‘I think you’ll find that the correct reply there was, No, of course you’re not making a prat of yourself, Tilly.’
The corner of his mouth quirked. ‘Would you believe me if I said that now?’
‘Obviously not,’ said Tilly crisply as she tried to quell her fickle senses, which were fizzing at the mere hint of a proper smile.
‘Then I’ll save my breath. Come on, we’re nearly at the end of the first section. You’ll feel better when you’ve had some lunch.’
Lunch wasn’t very exciting, but at least it was provided. As she plodded after Campbell to the checkpoint, a horrible thought occurred to Tilly. What if they were expected to take survival skills to the extreme? She wouldn’t put it past the television crew to make them catch their own rabbit or dig up worms for a quick snack.
In the event, the flaccid cheese and tomato sandwiches were a huge relief and Tilly devoured all of hers before Campbell, who had been in discussion with the producer, came over.
‘What happens now?’ she asked, her heart sinking at the sight of the map under his arm.
‘We were first across, so we’re definitely through to the next round.’
‘Fabulous.’ Tilly sighed.
Why couldn’t she have been paired with a loser? He would have been much more her style, after all, and she could have been waiting for the bus home right now, which would have suited her fine.
Then she remembered the hospice, and what it had meant to her mother, to all of them, and immediately felt guilty. She shouldn’t be wishing they could lose just so she could go home and get warm and comfortable.
‘What do we have to do now?’ she asked Campbell to make up for it.
‘We have to get ourselves to the top of Ben Nuarrh.’
‘Where’s that?’ Already Tilly knew that she wasn’t going to like the answer.
It was even worse than she had feared. Campbell squinted into the distance and pointed at a jagged hill just visible in the purplish grey haze on the horizon. ‘That’s Ben Nuarrh.’
‘But that’s miles!’ she said, aghast.
‘It’s a fair trek,’ he agreed.
‘We’ll never do that this afternoon!’
‘No, we’ll have to camp. They’ve given us a tent and supplies.’
‘A tent?’ This was getting worse and worse. ‘Nobody said anything to me about camping!’
‘You must have been told you’d be away all weekend, weren’t you?’
‘Well, yes, but I thought we’d be staying in some lovely hotel. A baronial hall or something, with antlers in the library and a fire and deep baths and clean sheets…’ Tilly trailed off. ‘I should have known.’ She sighed. ‘My fantasies never turn into reality.’
Campbell lifted an eyebrow. ‘What, never?’
Well, there had been Olivier. He had been a dream come true, at least at first, Tilly remembered, but the rest of her fantasy hadn’t come to anything, had it? It had been so lovely, too. Olivier would look at her one day and the scales would fall from his eyes. You’re beautiful, Tilly, he would say. Marry me and share my life for ever.
No, that fantasy hadn’t lasted, she thought a little sadly. Not that there was any need to tell Campbell Sanderson that. A girl had to have some pride.
She lifted her chin. ‘Hardly ever,’ she said.
‘Maybe you need to have more realistic fantasies,’ he said.
‘Like what?’
‘Like a tent that doesn’t leak, or a dry sleeping bag…or a bar of chocolate to have halfway there.’
Tilly was unimpressed. ‘The chocolate sounds OK,’ she conceded, ‘but otherwise that’s not really the stuff my fantasies are made of.’
‘What about the fantasy of winning this challenge?’
‘That’s your fantasy, not mine,’ Tilly objected, but she got to her feet, brushing the crumbs from her lap. ‘Still, may as well try and make your fantasy come true at least.’
‘That’s not an offer a man gets every day.’
His mouth was doing that infuriating, tantalizing half-smile again. Tilly averted her gaze firmly and tried not to think about what other fantasies he might have that would be a lot more fun to help him with than traipsing up and down bloody mountains.
However, winning seemed to be all Campbell was interested in right then. ‘We’ve got a good forty-five minutes on the others,’ he told her with satisfaction as they went to collect the extra equipment. ‘We’ll be well ahead by the end of the day.’
He put the tent and most of the food in his own rucksack, deftly packing everything away.
‘I’ll take the chocolate,’ Tilly offered generously, but Campbell only sent her an ironic glance.
‘I think I’d better keep it,’ he said. ‘I may need it to get you up that mountain.’
‘It’ll take more than chocolate.’ She sighed, thinking of the long afternoon ahead of her.
‘It’s a challenge,’ he reminded her, handing her the lighter rucksack.
‘I’ve been challenged enough today,’ she grumbled, but she put the pack on. ‘I’ve abseiled-twice!-and forded a river, and walked for miles…It’s only lunchtime and I’m exhausted! I don’t need any more challenges.’
Campbell tsk-tsked. ‘That’s not the right attitude, Jenkins. You’re supposed to be thinking positive.’
‘Don’t call me Jenkins,’ said Tilly crossly as she jerked the straps into place. ‘It makes me feel as if I should be doing press ups and shouting sir!’
Ignoring her, Campbell turned to the producer, Suzy, who had come over to give them their final instructions before they set off.
‘You know where you’re going, and where the final checkpoint is?’ she asked.
‘All under control,’ Campbell told her.
‘Have you got everything you need?’
‘A lift home would be nice,’ muttered Tilly before Campbell frowned her down.
‘We’re fine.’
‘Roger and Leanne were second across, so they’ll be racing you to the top and back,’ said Suzy. ‘Roger’s got GPS,’ she added. ‘That’ll give them an advantage, but we’ve got it here, and I can give it to you, too, if you like.’
‘What’s GPS?’ asked Tilly.
‘It’s a satellite navigation gizmo,’ said Campbell dismissively. ‘Some people can’t get from A to B without them.’
‘Is that what Roger had on his watch?’
Tilly remembered Roger showing Leanne his watch and explaining loudly how it would not only tell him where he was but could measure altitude, barometric pressure, temperature and even his heart rate.
It wasn’t just his watch that was top of the range either. Roger’s jacket was apparently a wonder of technology, his boots were cutting edge and his thermal underwear had been tested under polar conditions. He had the gear for every eventuality.
Next to Roger, Campbell had cut an unimpressive figure. He had no fancy watch, no smart jacket, not even a plastic cover to stop his map getting wet. His trousers were tucked into thick socks and old leather boots, and he wore a thick blue Guernsey-oh, and a contemptuous expression, although Tilly couldn’t see why he was sneering at Roger. Roger was younger than Campbell and much better looking.
He smiled a lot, too, unlike some people who couldn’t manage much more than a twitch at the corner of their mouths, she remembered with a darkling glance at Campbell.
If GPS told you where you were, it sounded a very good thing to Tilly. ‘I think we should take one, just in case,’ she said, but was overruled by Campbell.
‘We’ve got a map,’ he said with finality. ‘That’s all we need.’
‘I’m surprised you’re even deigning to take a map,
’ Tilly grumbled. ‘I’d got you down as one of those men who refuses to even look at a map. I bet you think you can get wherever you’re going by some kind of primeval instinct, as if you’ve got some universal A to Z encoded in your genes. I’m right, aren’t I? How many times have you driven round and round for hours rather than give in to the woman sitting beside you who’s bleating, “Why don’t we stop and ask for directions?”’
Campbell opened his mouth to make a cutting reply, but Suzy got in first. ‘That’s great!’ she said enthusiastically. ‘There’s real chemistry between you two. The viewers will love it!’
‘What viewers?’ said Tilly blankly.
‘This is a television programme,’ Suzy reminded her. ‘That’s why we’ve been filming you.’
‘What, just now?’ Tilly cast a hunted look around. Sure enough, one of the cameramen was filming them from a few feet away. ‘I thought it would be just when we were doing stuff,’ she whispered, hurriedly turning her back on him.
‘The interaction between you is just as interesting as how you get down a cliff or across a river,’ Suzy explained patiently. ‘The winners won’t necessarily be the ones who get to the end first. They’ll be the ones the viewers vote for, the ones they like and feel they can identify with. That reminds me,’ she said and dug in her bag. ‘You’ll need this.’
She produced a smart little video camera and handed it to Campbell.
‘What’s this for?’
‘You’ll have to film yourselves at the top of Ben Nuarrh, and then of course you’ll have to keep a video diary.’
‘What?’ Campbell’s brows snapped together and Tilly stared, united for once in their consternation.
‘The viewers aren’t just interested in whether you can rise to these challenges or not,’ said Suzy. ‘They want to know your reactions, too. Video diaries are a great way to get insight into what people really feel, and of course they’re very visual, too. People tend to treat them like a confessional. There’s nobody asking questions. It’s just you talking to the camera on your own, and it’s much harder to pretend somehow when you’re alone. People say things they wouldn’t dream of admitting in front of anyone else.’