Page 10 of Suddenly Tempted
He didn’t hear her, or he didn’t care. Probably the latter. As soon as they reached the ranger station she was going to start tearing strips off him. He was by far the least considerate man she had ever met.
She was so busy fuming that she didn’t notice he’d stopped, and she walked right into the back of him. It was like walking into a bear, he was so solid. She took a step back, shielding her eyes from the furious snow.
“I think that’s it,” he called back, nodding up the slope.
Darcy squinted, and saw that the mountain levelled out up ahead. There was a soft glow coming from just beyond the ridge. It didn’t seem so far. Her heart seemed to thaw at the sight of it, and she offered him a smile.
“Can you manage?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Of course I can,” she said. “Can you?”
He let go of his case for long enough to flex his fingers. He wasn’t wearing gloves, she saw, and his skin had turned blue. She thought about offering him hers, but then decided he wouldn’t have done the same if their roles were reversed. She was surprised he hadn’t asked her to give them to him.
“Try to keep up,” he shouted over his shoulder as he picked up his case. Then he was off again, storming up the slope.
Darcy took a deep, chilled breath and marched after him. The snow had soaked through to her feet, which were now completely numb. But the thought of a warm ranger station up ahead, with blankets and maybe even something hot to eat and drink, spurred her on. After a few minutes the ground began to level out, and they crossed the ridge to see the source of the light.
A helicopter landing pad sat in front of them, its four tall, yellow lights almost completely buried by snow. Past them was a squat, square, wooden cabin with absolutely no sign of life.
“Come on!” Devlin yelled. He cut across the landing pad, practically running to the cabin. By the time Darcy had caught up, Devlin was inside. This time he held the door open for her, and she stumbled through it into the cold, dark interior.
Chapter 5
DEVLIN
The wind was so strong that it took Devlin all his strength to close the cabin door. His right arm was a ball of agony — every time he moved it a bolt of pain blazed all the way from his wrist to his shoulder. He just didn’t have the strength to push the door shut, but Darcy appeared next to him, grunting as she put her shoulder to it. It closed with a solid click.
The building fell quiet, the wind just a forlorn howl from outside. Devlin turned so that his back was to the door, leaning against it and trying to catch his breath. He’d been out on these slopes countless times over the years, but never in weather like this, and never without a team of support staff and a Range Rover on standby. He would have kicked himself, if he hadn’t been in so much pain. If the chopper had landed just a few yards to the side, then they both would have plummeted into the ravine. It wasn’t just his life he had risked, it was hers, too, and that was unforgivable.
“I hope you’re happy,” she said. “That was utterly reckless.”
He could have argued with her, but what was the point. She was right. It had been reckless and dangerous and selfish. But that was Devlin Storm all over. He was reckless and dangerous and selfish. This wasn’t the first time he’d come close to death. It had happened a dozen times. It had only been a few years ago that he’d almost died climbing a mountain in the Rockies. He’d snapped a tendon in his knee, and suffered from dangerous levels of hypothermia. The only reason he’d made it back alive was because he was on the climb with some of his APEX brothers and they’d carried him back to safety.
He glanced down at his suitcase, wondering if this trip would even be worth it.
Only, itwasworth it. It was something he had to do.
“Utterly reckless,” the girl said again, her teeth chattering. He glanced at her, but it was hard to see anything because the building was so dark. A little snow-bright sun squeezed through the windows, but none of the lights were on. That was weird because ranger stations were usually manned twenty-four hours a day.
Not that this actually looked like a ranger station, he thought once he’d had a chance to glance around.
“If you could stop complaining for a second and give me a chance to think,” he said, ignoring the throbbing pain in his arm as he searched the wall for a switch. He found it after a few seconds, flicking it. The bulbs in the ceiling winked on sleepily, revealing a large room that was empty apart from a small stack of wood in one corner and a couple of crates. The walls were peeling, the floor filthy.
“We could have died,” she muttered, walking away from the door. She had her arms wrapped around herself, but even in the puffer jacket she looked frozen, and her words chattered with her teeth. “I think that’s a valid reason to be complaining, don’t you? Don’t answer that. It’s a rhetorical question that you don’t get a say in. Dead. I’ve done nothing with my life except try to avoid adventure and this is exactly why. Look at me. Frozen. Stuck here with you in . . . what did you say this was? A ranger station?”
“No,” Devlin said. “I don’t think it is.”
“But you said—”
“I said that’s what I thought it was,” he interrupted, walking across the room. There were two doors on the wall to the right and he walked to the first, opening it up to see a small restroom. “This looks more like a science outpost. A deserted one.”
“But the lights are on outside,” she argued. “There’s a helipad with lights on. That means there’s people here, right?”
“Solar lights,” he said, closing the restroom door and opening the one next to it. It led into a dark corridor. “They stay on all year, in case of emergencies.”
“There has to be something useful here, though,” she added, walking past him and switching on the corridor light. Three more doors led off from the narrow space, all closed. “Like a heater or a fire or a radio so we can call someone to come and rescue me. You, too, if you’ll let them.”
“Of course there will be a radio,” he said, ignoring her barbed comment. “This place will have everything we need.”
