by Fiona Lowe
‘I’ve got two older brothers who were lured by the big city lights. One lives in Sydney, the other in Brisbane. I’ve always had a stronger connection to the farm and Laurelton. My brothers were born with wanderlust. Me, I’m content where I am.’
‘You don’t find country life confining?’
She turned to look at him. ‘Life confines us wherever we live. Work, family, societal rules. It’s how we deal with those confines that count.’
He thought about his family and the social confines their wealth had placed on him when he had been growing up. ‘I suppose the confines of family are similar in the city and the country, but here there is less to escape to. Such a small town wouldn’t offer, say, a vibrant performing arts scene.’
‘True, but I’ve always got the bush to escape to. Although I could truly do with her being a tad warmer tonight.’ Her shiver vibrated against him.
Concern whipped through him. ‘Cold? Sorry, dumb question—of course you’re cold. How can we change that? We’re not succumbing to hypothermia.’ He mentally ran through their limited options. ‘If we face sideways and you sit between my legs and lean back against me, we’ll transfer a lot more heat.’
Heat.
And it wouldn’t just be cosy heat radiating from him.
The thought of her leaning back into him, her back resting against his chest, her lower back resting against his lap terrified him.
But this was survival. Nothing more, nothing less.
His wayward libido would just have to deal with it.
Lean back against me.
Meg’s breath caught in her throat. Resting back on Will would warm her, but not quite in the way he’d meant. But he was right—they had to try something. It would be hours before they could expect to be rescued. The cold had now invaded her bones, and she was chilled to the core.
Chilled and hungry.
‘There isn’t much room to turn around in.’
He laughed and again the image of hot chocolate sauce cascading over caramel flooded her. Oh, God, now her imagery was making her hungry.
‘If you move forward, I can turn around and arrange the pack. Then I’ll move back and you can turn and sit back against me.’
He made it sound so easy. So normal. So very normal to be stranded in a snowstorm and cuddled up to a total stranger to survive.
A few moments later she sat between Will’s legs, the space blanket just reaching around them. Her back ached from sitting upright without support.
His hand burned into her shoulder. ‘Meg, lean back. I don’t bite, honest.’
No, but she might. Her heartbeat quickened as the memory of the feel of his skin under her fingers rushed back. Smooth skin, with taut muscle bands hiding beneath. She’d touched him and now she had a driving urge to taste him.
Oh, God, she’d lost it. This wasn’t her, she didn’t think like this. She’d sworn off men after Graeme and it was only shock, hunger and fear that were affecting her thoughts.
He gently increased the pressure on her shoulder and she eased back against him, feeling his chest supporting her aching spine.
‘Relax, Meg. I can take your weight.’
Relax!
He had no idea. She forced a deep, calming breath into her constricted chest. As she blew the air out of her lungs she concentrated on letting her body rest solely on his chest.
‘Comfortable?’
‘Yes, thanks.’ Was that her voice that squeaked out the words?
‘Great.’ His arms encircled her and came to rest on the tops of her legs in a natural position, as if they belonged there. Then his chin rested on her head.
She felt cocooned in a nest of warmth. She fought the overwhelming urge to totally relax into his arms. She knew it was pure survival, there was nothing more to it, but her reaction to him scared her. The last time she’d given in to a man, he’d left her. Left her scarred and with damaged Fallopian tubes. Abandoned her, leaving only a tattered and useless dream.
The hole in the pit of her stomach growled, reverberating off the snow walls. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit hungry.’
‘When the storm abates, we can get some food from the plane.’
She grinned. ‘It’s not all crash survivors who can claim to have eaten caviar and drunk champagne while they waited. Although someone on the mountain might have been forced to have supermarket dip and biscuits and—quelle horreur—Australian sparkling wine.’
He laughed. ‘Ah, but they will incorporate it into a great dinnertime story back in Toorak, which would make up for it.’
‘The night they slummed it?’
‘Something like that.’
His words carried a reserve she hadn’t heard before. Realisation hit her. He was probably talking from experience. She wanted to know. She needed to know if her gut feeling about his privileged life was correct. That would be the ammunition she needed to fight her attraction to him. And she must fight it, otherwise it would all end in tears. Her tears.
‘You asked who is worrying about me. So, who’s worrying about you?’
‘I’m guessing that when the plane didn’t land the people meeting me will have contacted my parents.’
‘Were you staying with family friends?’
‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose they are. My parents certainly consider them family. I’ve known them all my life, went to school with them.’
A leaden feeling sank in her hungry stomach. Her intuition was correct. ‘Old Penton Grammarians?’
‘Yes.’ Surprise, mixed with an eagerness to establish a shared connection, played though his voice.
She recognised it from Graeme’s family and friends. First came the enthusiasm that she was an ‘old girl’. Then came the blank ‘Oh’ when the connection didn’t exist.
‘Did you go to the sister school?’
Bingo. ‘No.’ She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice. ‘I went to Laurelton Secondary College.’ She waited for the ‘Oh’ and the inevitable silence that followed.
‘Didn’t Laurelton win the ski cup six to eight years ago? I remember my cousin, James, up in arms that Penton had been outmanoeuvred by a local high school.’ He laughed. ‘Did them good to learn that even with a truck-load of money, you still need skill to win.’
Surprise at his comment wriggled though her. She was amazed he would remember that. ‘We had Stuart McGregor that year. He was a gun skier and went on to represent Australia in the Olympics. But, win or lose, the Penton boys seemed to think it their duty to gatecrash our party. Apparently we were supposed to be grateful for the attention and the fact they added class.’ Teenage memories, some tinged with resentment, swirled in her head.
He laughed. ‘Yes, some of them could smell a party thirty kilometres away. Although vomiting in the snow never struck me as all that classy.’
‘That’s true.’ Will’s answers astonished her. She longed to pigeonhole him but he wasn’t quite fitting into the round hole she’d created for him. And her body was betraying her. Her bone-chilling coldness was receding. A bank of heat now permeated her back and she was desperate to press back to soak more of it in. To touch more of him.
With Will’s arms cocooning her, his warm breath skating along the edge of her cheeks, the heat from his body surrounding her, she could feel her flimsy walls of defence crumbling. She couldn’t let this attraction go anywhere. She had to stop it dead in its tracks.
She drew on what she knew. ‘What I don’t understand about Penton is why, as adults, old Penton boys want to live in each other’s pockets.’
‘Security, shared experiences. All the same reasons people hang out in groups.’
‘Yes, but…’ A niggle of irritation chafed against his reasonableness. ‘You have to admit, Penton has made it an art form. It isn’t just their ex-schoolmates—they marry the girls from the sister school and then enrol their yet-to-be-conceived children at both schools.’ Her words rushed out, carried on a wave of ingrained bitterness and hurt.
‘Not all old Pe
nton boys socialise with their schoolmates.’ The words seemed clipped.
She heard his change of tone. She’d learned from Graeme that Penton was sacrosanct, above criticism. She’d expected Will to react like that.
Good. She pictured Will slowly morphing into the round shape to fit into the round hole she had all picked out for him. The same hole Graeme had slotted into so well. Money, privilege and a sense of superiority. Use, abuse, move on.
Once she had Will in that hole, her attraction to him would shrivel. ‘Yeah, right, weren’t you on your way to spend a week with your old school pals?’ She squashed the sensible voice in her head that told her she was being childish, sounding petulant. ‘I bet you were staying at the Alston, where all good Pentonians stay.’
‘Actually, I was staying at a private apartment.’
His voice became cool and for the first time she noticed his independent school accent.
A private apartment meant serious money.
Meg knew the mountain like the back of her hand. Each year when a new hotel or apartment complex was built, part of her was pained that fewer ordinary people could afford to enjoy the mountain in the winter. She sat forward and half turned toward him. ‘Which apartments?’
‘The Grenoble complex.’
She breathed in hard and fast. The Grenoble was the development the local environment group had protested against. She’d protested against it. And they’d lost. ‘Those apartments should never have been built. Money bought off that planning process. Now the mountain is being taken over and controlled by a select few.’
He tensed behind her. ‘Skiing has always been a rich man’s sport. There are lodges that provide access to the mountain for people with less money.’
Fury blazed inside her. That was such a ‘Graeme’ statement. ‘Yes, but it’s people like you who are driving up the prices for everyone, taking all you want during winter and never giving back.’
‘Never give back? We pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into the region, including into Laurelton. We support your livelihoods.’
Face it, Meg. You need my money, you need my connections and you need me. Graeme’s smarmy voice boomed in her head.
‘That champagne and caviar was probably ordered by your host!’ Her voice rose on a wave of anger.
‘There is every chance it might have been.’ The words were as icy as the cave.
Triumph saluted inside her. She’d been right from the start. Will was in the pigeonhole. Her lust shrivelled. She was safe.
‘Do you need me to apologise for that?’ He enunciated each word. ‘Does being an ex-Pentonian mean I am automatically a lesser person in your eyes?’ He paused for a brief moment, his words hanging in the air. ‘The fact you don’t know anything about me and that you’ve jumped to a massive stereotype conclusion says more about you than me.’
A kernel of guilt sprouted inside her.
‘I don’t need to justify myself to you. If you must know, this week’s ski trip was as much about work as it was about skiing. This group of rich bastards you so like to malign have the capabilities to donate large amounts of money for research and health-care facilities. Money is tight. The government gives limited amounts and research absorbs money like a bushfire absorbs oxygen. My old school connections come in handy sometimes and I don’t apologise for that. I use them to my advantage when I need to.’
An ugly silence settled over them. Meg was physically warm but his words sent shards of ice through her. She’d deliberately been aggressive, so determined to make him the same as Graeme, so determined to protect herself, that she’d been judge and jury with scant evidence.
From the moment they’d met, he’d only been polite and considerate despite the fact she knew she’d been deliberately chilly toward him. He’d put her first so often since the crash, tried to protect her, kept her warm, drawn her out on her life to keep her mind off the situation they found themselves in.
And he was right—she’d jumped to conclusions based on an old festering hurt. She thought she’d moved beyond that pain. Dismay filled her at the knowledge that it still coloured her judgement. She prided herself on being egalitarian but the truth was that since Graeme she no longer trusted. She’d lashed out in self-defence…but she was fighting the wrong person. She needed to be fighting her own prejudice.
‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I had no right to say those things. I know nothing about you except you ski and you’re a doctor.’
His hands balled into fists by his side. ‘Apology accepted.’
Yet she knew she wasn’t really forgiven. His tension flowed into her. The relaxed man she’d laughed with earlier had totally disappeared. A sense of having lost something she hadn’t even known she wanted settled like a stone inside her.
The longest night of her life had just got longer.
Will swallowed a curse. What had just happened? How had they gone from laughing together to this strained silence? And why had he gone out to bat for his old school when he knew she had a point about some of the past students and their lives?
Hell, he spent enough of his life trying to avoid the type of people she’d described, only attending functions he was obliged to because of his work commitments.
But to have this dynamic woman form an opinion of him and his life based on the actions of a few riled him. And he’d gone in boots and all. He’d heard the sanctimonious tone in his voice, the same cold pitch his house master at Penton had used.
Sounding like him cut him worst of all. He knew the feelings of smallness and guilt that tone generated. He’d heard them in Meg’s voice when she’d apologised.
But being right didn’t make him feel any better. He was stuck out in the middle of an alpine national park, focusing on survival, yet he let his own discontent eat at him and spill over to taint this gorgeous woman. Life dealt out the cards. Dealing with them was another matter completely.
They passed the rest of the night by playing innocuous games of twenty questions. There’d even been moments when their original camaraderie had briefly reappeared, but Meg sensed a reserve in Will. The flirting doctor had disappeared, gone for ever.
By dawn the wind had dropped and the snow had stopped. The sun rose, a yellow ball in a clear sky, nature almost mocking in its power to change on a penny. Today would have been perfect weather for flying.
‘Let’s get out of here and stretch.’ Will moved away from her and crawled to the entrance, knocking the bracken out of the way.
A deep and intense ache dragged inside her. When she’d been cradled in his arms she’d had moments when she’d hidden from the real world and had fantasised about him wanting her there. But with the dawn she could no longer hide from reality. She realised a person could be cuddled in someone’s arms and those arms could be a lonely place when that person didn’t care. It was purely a survival tactic. She knew that was all it was, all it would ever be.
It was just her crazy reaction to him that was turning her inside out. Well, the time had come to act like the grown-up she was. ‘I’ll go fire off more flares now we have a chance of being found. Hopefully the search and rescue team were mobilised to start at first light and will be here soon.’
She followed Will out of the cave, stumbling as her legs adjusted to standing straight after being cramped for so many hours.
His hand caught hers and he steadied her.
‘Thanks.’ She looked up into his dark eyes, glimpsing concern and something else, which flashed past so quickly it was gone before she could interpret it.
‘OK?’ His deep voice caressed her.
‘I’ll be fine, just some pins and needles.’ She spoke too quickly, unnerved by the trail of heat his hand generated.
‘What about your ankle?’
‘It’s down to a dull throb.’
‘I guess that’s as good as you can hope for.’ He started to move forward but caught sight of the stick marking Tom’s body. Snow covered three-quarters of its height. He bowed his head and squeezed he
r hand.
His touch, a light squeeze of comfort, said more than words. Guilt dug in over her behaviour the night before. But now wasn’t the place to deal with that. Today’s focus had to be getting found.
They trudged back to the plane, silent in their own thoughts. Meg fired off the flares, the flame scarring the clear sky. She sent up a silent prayer, hoping it would not be much longer before they were found.
Snow had covered a lot of the food that she’d pulled from the plane but she found some dry biscuits. With cold, clumsy fingers she opened the box and offered them to Will. ‘Let’s imagine cheese.’ She gave him a weak smile. ‘I fancy some runny Camembert.’
His grin, the one she’d memorised and replayed in her head last night while listening to his voice in the dark, split his face. ‘Seeing as we’re no longer sharing a small space, I reckon I’ll go for pungent blue-vein.’
She laughed, enjoying the sensation, appreciating she still had the opportunity to laugh.
‘Coo-ee! Coo-ee!’ Men’s voices rent the air.
Meg spun around toward the sound, the biscuits flying out of the packet.
‘Coo-ee!’ Will’s deep voice resonated around the area.
‘Over here! Over here!’ Excitement rushed through her. She wanted to jump up and down but her ankle wouldn’t let her. Instead, she peered through the trees, hoping to see the rescuers. She turned back to Will, grabbing his arms. ‘They’re coming, they’re really coming.’
‘Hurray.’ He slung his arm around her waist, his gaze locking with hers. Deep green eyes, flecked with chocolate brown, swirled with relief and exhilaration.
Pure longing rocketed through her, taking her breath away.
He laughed, a deep-throated sound that made her toes curl with desire. Then he pulled her close, her chest resting gently on his. It was as if the layers of polar fleece and coats had disappeared. His heat scorched her.
He brought his hand up to her face and his scent of damp wool, sweat and pine enveloped her. He lowered his head to hers and firmly captured her lips with his.
Surprise and wonder raced through her.
The kiss was ice and fire. Pressure mixed with tenderness. He tasted of salt, cold and fiery heat.