Page 23 of Suddenly Tempted
No, she said to herself.You’re stronger than that. Don’t let him get to you.
She took a deep breath, smudging the tears from her eyes with her gloved hands. She felt like she wanted to burn down the mountain with a flame-thrower, but she’d settle for not letting Devlin get away with taking his yo-yo emotions out on her. He wasn’t the only one feeling scared. He’d said it himself that they had to work together. It wasn’t her fault he had the emotional intelligence of a toddler who’d skipped their afternoon nap.
Placing the protein bar and the spare gloves in the pocket of her jacket, she stepped out of the cabin. The cold hit her instantly, stinging the exposed skin of her face. It didn’t feel as freezing as it had the previous night, though, because there was hardly any wind, and the sun was just peeking over the smaller slopes to the east. The snow came up to her shins, perfectly crisp and white. She’d had the good sense to wrap the boots she’d found in old pieces of cloth, then in plastic bags, so even though they weren’t exactly ideal, and they might have been abandoned because they were holey, at least they felt warm and dry.
Devlin was already a dozen yards away, struggling through the snow with his case clutched in his good hand. He was moving fast, without so much as a glance back. Darcy looked past the cabin to where the mountainside dropped away. She thought she might have been able to see the distant resort, or maybe a town or something, but there was just rock and snow for miles, with the occasional scrap of forest poking through. Part of her thought about heading down the mountain anyway. Who needed Devlin? She could find her own way back. Then she thought about those ravines, hidden by the snow, and the shudder that passed through her was enough to put a stop to that idea.
She considered staying right where she was, too. The cabin roof was covered in six inches of snow, and the helipad was nowhere to be seen. She could spend the morning clearing the helipad lights, though, and she could probably find enough rocks to spell out SOS. Any helicopter flying overhead would be able to find her. She laughed, a billowing cloud of breath hanging in the air in front of her as she imagined a rescue team dropping her back at the resort while Devlin clambered up the mountainside in the cold and the dark.
No, for a start, Darcy was pretty sure that if the rescue team got to Devlin first and they weren’t together, he’d be likely to just leave her stranded and head back down the mountain to get his stupid, perfect face on the front covers of all the papers as quickly as he could. Secondly, she wanted to prove she could climb this bloody mountain. Prove it to Devlin. Yes, that would shut him up. But also, as she lifted her face to the sun, she wanted to prove it to herself.
Stupid Devlin and his stupid man bag.
Steeling herself as best she could, she closed the cabin door behind her and set off after him. She trod in his giant footsteps, but even then it was difficult because the snow was so deep. She was panting for breath after the first ten paces, her feet already numb, and Devlin still showed no sign of waiting for her.
“Hey, you want to stop a minute?” she yelled, her voice both weirdly muffled and amplified by the thick snow. It was so quiet up here — just the crunch of their feet and the thump of her pulse in her ears.
“No,” Devlin shot back. “Keep up.”
Darcy roared into the mountain, all of a sudden realising what people meant when they saw red. The snow turned a deep shade of merlot through the veil of anger. How dare he talk to her like that. Her fury pulsed through her veins, powering her legs and closing the distance between them. Darcy had no idea what she was going to do when she caught up to Devlin, all she could focus on was each individual step. The mountain above stretched higher than she could see, and the drop away was spectacular. Maybe Devlin could have a helping hand over the edge. Or a sharp boot to his backside. She let out a laugh. Barely able to lift her feet high enough to tread in his footprints, she was unlikely to be able to reach his bum. And it was so muscly that her foot would just bounce right off it and she’d be the one tumbling down the mountain, gathering snow like a snowman. The idea was so ridiculous it took the edge off her anger. Just.
Up ahead, Devlin was carefully navigating a pile of boulders blocking their way. It looked like it was hard going for him, especially with the case in one hand and his other arm broken. Darcy waded through the snow until she finally caught up to him.
“Do you want me to carry it?” she asked, swallowing her anger.
“So you can look inside again?” he shouted down. His foot slipped and pebbles rained down around her feet.
“Are you kidding me, right now?” she shouted, placing a foot on one boulder and using another to haul herself up. Stars pulsed in the corner of her vision and she wasn’t sure if it was from anger or exertion. “I offer to help even though you were awful to me and you’re accusing me of what? Spying? Who cares about your stupid case? As much as you seem to love your own life, I don’t find it remotely interesting. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone into it without asking, no, but I just wanted to put something in it. Bring along some protein bars to help us BOTH on the way up this stupid mountain.”
“You’re infuriating,” he grunted, pulling himself up to the boulder next to Darcy.
The heat radiating from him was like a lit firework. She pushed her hair from her face with a gloved hand.
“Me?” she shouted, inching closer and pressing her glove to his chest. “I’m infuriating?”
His eyes blazed at her, but he stayed quiet.
“I’m not the one acting like a child.” She stepped back, thinking about the shoe-box-sized tin and passport in his bag with rage. “For what reason? None, that’s what. I am not one of your minions, Devlin. I’m not here to be shouted at or spoken down to or left to die out here because you’re too much of an idiot to wait for me. Out here on this bloody huge mountain we are equals, you hear me. We’re both in danger of storms and avalanches and ravines. The mountain doesn’t care who you are. It’s not going to save you. It doesn’t care about your empire or your fleet of helicopters or the servants you have tending to your every whiny whim. This mountain cares for your money about as much as I do.”
She poked his chest again and turned clumsily in her bag-covered boots and thick coat, staring at the climb ahead with tears stinging in her eyes. A sharp thought flashed across her mind and she turned back, blinking away her emotion before postulating just in case he got the wrong idea.
“Which is Not. At. All.”
Devlin looked down, his expression still dark.
He was silent, unmoved, but Darcy didn’t want to waste valuable time waiting for him to develop feelings, so she set off on the climb ahead. Carefully, she manoeuvred her way up the boulders, trying to count to ten and recalibrate her breathing so she didn’t accidentally fall off in a fit of anger. Hauling herself up the last rock, she found herself on a wide, open plateau. There was a gentle breeze here and it picked up swirls of snow, making them dance like angels in the morning light. Darcy could feel them on her tongue as she stopped for breath. She scooped up a handful of snow, letting it melt on her tongue and then swallowed the cool water.
Devlin had stopped, too, looking a little worse for wear. He rested his case by his feet and clamped his broken arm to his chest. Darcy looked at him, the angel and devil on her shoulders unable to fight for victor. She was angry at him, but she also needed him to be okay so they’d make it to the ranger’s station. The angel winning out, she walked to him, her feet slipping in the snow.
“Look, Devlin,” she said, forcing her tone to stay civil. “We need to stick together. I’m offering to help you. Please just accept my help and let me carry the case for you.”
He sighed out a steaming breath, staring at the floor. Then he turned to her, his green eyes shining in the fierce light.
“No,” he said, with a voice that made Darcy flip.
Counting to ten was out of the window now. Darcy could count to infinity and still not understand the man standing in front of her.
“You’re standing there all cold and unapproachable,” she scoffed. “I guess I must have misread nearly every single one of our interactions back in that research hut, then, because all I’m asking you to do right now is trust me. And if you don’t trust me, then what chance do we have out here?”
