by Sarah Morgan
‘He’s picked up a scent.’ She struggled the final few metres as Rambo carried on digging and barking. ‘How long has he been buried? Does he really stand a chance?’
‘There’s always a chance. Depends how near the surface he is and whether he has space in front of his mouth and nose. Victims often die of suffocation. Off the top of my head I think survival rates drop to about 35 per cent at thirty minutes. On the other hand, friends of mine pulled someone alive from an avalanche in Italy after ten hours, but admittedly that’s rare. He was in an air pocket and the weight of the snow hadn’t crushed him.’
Dino already had a shovel in his hand and he started to help Rambo. A few minutes later the sleeve of a jacket came into view. Rambo barked and continued to dig. Moments later a man’s face appeared, streaked with blood and crusted with snow. He looked at them, dazed, and Meg felt a rush of elation that he was still alive.
‘Hang on there. We’re going to get you out. Clever boy,’ she praised Rambo effusively, and then concentrated on helping Dino dig the last of the snow away.
‘I can’t feel my feet.’ The man was gasping for air and Dino dropped the shovel onto the snow and reached for his backpack.
‘That might be the cold, but it’s possible that you damaged your back as you fell so we need to be careful as we move you. Can you remember what happened?’
The man screwed his eyes shut, wincing with the pain. ‘Visibility was poor, I skied to the far left of the slope. Suddenly my legs went and I was falling. I rolled over and over, couldn’t breathe—tried to swim like they tell you to, tried to get my arms up…’ He opened his eyes. ‘Are my friends safe? They were behind me.’
‘They called us before they lost the phone battery. They saw the whole thing but they weren’t caught in it. The rest of the mountain rescue team is looking for them now. They were fine when they called.’ Meg tried to reassure him while helping Dino carry out the best examination he could in difficult circumstances.
‘Does this hurt? Can you feel this?’ He was treating the man for head, leg and possible spinal injuries, and Meg used her hands to dig away more of the snow so that Dino had room to see what he was doing.
‘Do you want me to contact the search-and-rescue helicopter?’
‘Helicopter?’ The man groaned. ‘I don’t think I can get into a helicopter.’
‘Trust me, it’s the best way. We’re going to put you in a vacuum mattress, Dave, to protect your spine,’ Dino explained. ‘You don’t have to do a thing. You’ll be winched into the helicopter and they’ll get you to hospital.’ He nodded to Meg and she quickly made the call while Dino started to prepare the casualty for the transfer.
Dave closed his eyes. ‘Can’t believe I’ve been caught in an avalanche in the Lake District. I’ve walked in the Alps, you know. Can you believe that? This is going to be so embarrassing down at the pub.’
Meg saw Dino’s mouth tighten and she knew he was annoyed by that flippant comment.
‘You could have died,’ she said mildly as she slipped the phone back into her pocket, ‘and so could your friends. The outcome could have been a lot worse than embarrassment.’
‘If you’ve done ski touring in the Alps then you must have carried transceivers? Shovels? Probes?’ Dino yanked his equipment out of his backpack and the man looked sheepish.
‘In the Alps, yes. I guess we were complacent here.’
‘Avalanches eat up complacent skiers and climbers. Don’t move, Dave. The winchman is going to lower the vacuum mattress and a stretcher and we’re going to get you to hospital.’ Dino walked across the snow to find a safe place for the helicopter to land while Meg and Rambo stayed next to the injured skier.
Dave put out a hand to the dog. ‘I have you to thank for being found. I recognise that guy. It’s Dino Zinetti, isn’t it? He used to be a member of the Italian ski team.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’m a keen skier. He was a maniac. His downhill times…’ Dave laughed. ‘Well, let’s just say he isn’t really in a position to lecture me for being reckless.’
‘He wasn’t lecturing. It isn’t our job to lecture.’ As the helicopter drew closer, Meg pulled together the rest of her gear, ready to move out. ‘But it is our job to point out where additional equipment might have helped so that people don’t put themselves in the same position again.’ The downdraft from the helicopter flung powdery snow through the air like a blizzard and Meg shifted her position and tried to protect the man from the sudden buffeting of icy wind.
It was only a matter of minutes before Dino came back with the stretcher and the vacuum mattress and together they moved Dave, careful to protect his spine.
‘This will hold you secure,’ she explained, as they pumped up the mattress and strapped it to the stretcher. ‘I expect I’ll see you at the hospital. Good luck.’
‘Thanks.’ The man closed his eyes, choosing not to look as he was winched into the hovering helicopter.
As the aircraft became a dot in the distance, Dino turned to her. ‘The team have found the rest of his party on the other side of the ridge, so they’re going to walk them back down the other track. We’ll go back together. Although frankly this isn’t a great place to be walking. There’s a lot of loose powder snow up there just waiting to bury someone stupid enough to walk beneath it. Watch yourself.’
Meg glanced up at the pile of snow that had almost claimed a life. ‘I have to confess I’m not an expert on avalanches.’
‘It isn’t hard to spot dangerous slopes when you know what you’re looking for.’ He drew her to one side and pointed, his breath clouding the air. ‘Look up there.’
Trying to block out the fact that he was standing within kissing distance, Meg looked at the snow-covered gully. ‘I’m looking.’ But it was hard to concentrate. She was breathlessly conscious of him. Unable to help herself, she turned her head and glanced at his profile. It was an unmistakeably masculine face—eyelashes thick and dark, his jaw shadowed by stubble. Meg felt something elemental uncurl inside her.
‘Can you see where the wind slab fractured above him?’ His head turned and his gaze sharpened as he caught her looking at him.
Meg immediately whipped her head back towards the slope, feeling her face turn scarlet. ‘Yes,’ she croaked, ‘I can see.’ For a moment she thought she’d got away with it. And then she felt his gloved hand brush against her cheek. He turned her head so that she had no choice but to look at him.
‘How long are you going to carry on pretending last night never happened?’
Trapped by his gaze, Meg stared up at him and he slid his hand behind her head and drew her towards him. The blood throbbed in her veins and a delicious, thrilling feeling of inevitability gripped her. As if in slow motion he lowered his head. His eyes held hers until the last moment. And then he claimed her mouth and sent her brain spinning.
Excitement, almost agonising in its intensity, speared her body. Her eyes closed, the world ceased to be grey and white and became a multicoloured kaleidoscope of feelings and emotions. And suddenly there was no doubt left in her head.
Standing in this wild, beautiful place, being kissed by this man, felt completely right. She knew what she wanted. Him. She knew that if he wanted to make love to her here, her answer was going to be yes.
Meg closed her gloved hands on the front of his jacket and leaned into him. His hands were in her hair then on her shoulders and down her back. She tugged at him and he lowered her onto the soft snow, pillowing her head with his arm as he kissed her. And it felt incredible. The skilled brush of his fingers against her face, the warmth of his breath against her mouth as he nudged her lips apart and, finally, the seductive stroke of his tongue as the kiss turned deeper and more explicit.
She’d had no idea, Meg thought dizzily. No idea that a kiss could feel like this.
With the snow pressing against her back, she should have felt cold. The air around them was freezing and a few stray flakes had started to fall, but she fel
t nothing but scorching heat and burning need. Without disconnecting the kiss, Dino drew down the zip of her jacket. Meg gasped as cold air brushed against her flesh and then moaned as he pressed his mouth to the sensitive flesh of her throat. She murmured his name and slid her hands around his neck, her fingers encountering the collar of his jacket as she tried to get closer to him. She wanted to touch—she needed to feel—but their outdoor clothing prevented them from anything but the most minimal contact. With a sob of desperation, she twisted against him, feeling the fingers of cold penetrate the neck of her jacket where he’d exposed her flesh. She started to shiver and instantly Dino hauled himself away from her and dragged her to her feet. ‘Mi dispiace, I’m sorry.’ His voice hoarse, he yanked her zip back up to her throat and rubbed her arms to warm her. ‘I can’t believe I did that. I don’t know what I was thinking. You are going to get hypothermia. We shouldn’t be doing this here. It isn’t the time and it isn’t the place.’ As if reorienting himself, he glanced around and gave an exasperated shake of his head. ‘Can you walk or are you too cold?’
Meg felt numb, but she knew it had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the way he made her feel. ‘I’m fine. Really.’ Or she would be once she’d got herself home and talked some sense into herself. She had a child. She had a life she liked. Why, after all these years, was she risking all that?
Misinterpreting her silence, Dino dragged her against him and held her close, warming her. ‘You must be freezing. I can’t believe I lost control like that. It’s you—the way you make me feel…’
Despite the warning bells in her head, his words caused a buzz inside her and she pressed her lips to his cold cheek. ‘You smell good, have I told you that?’
He turned his head to capture her mouth. ‘Unless you want to find yourself flat on your back in the snow again, you’d better not say things like that. All these months I’ve been feeling as though I need to take a cold shower when you walk into the room, and suddenly I discover that even freezing ice isn’t going to work.’
Months?
He’d felt like this for months? She’d had no idea. Seriously unsettled by how much that frank confession disturbed her equilibrium, Meg stooped and picked up a handful of snow. ‘Want me to help you out with that problem of yours, macho man?’
Laughing, he caught her wrist in an iron grip. ‘Put that anywhere near my trousers and we won’t be able to take this any further.’
Did she want to take it further?
Confused by the feelings fluttering inside her, she dropped the snow and stepped close to him. ‘Dino—’
He smothered her words with a kiss and then stepped back and held up his hands. ‘Accidenti, enough! We need to get going before we are buried in another avalanche or it grows dark.’
It came as a surprise to realise that she really didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave this place. If he hadn’t pulled her to her feet, she never would have stopped. She’d been willing to risk frostbite in order to claw her way closer to him. She hadn’t wanted the kiss to end. She would have happily gone on kissing him for the rest of her life, rather than confronting just how dangerous falling under Dino Zinetti’s spell could be for her.
Looking around, Meg realised just how isolated they were. The sky was a threatening shade of grey. At some point while they’d been generating heat with each other, it had started snowing again.
Dino hauled his backpack onto his shoulders and secured the waist strap. ‘Are you all right to walk?’
Refusing to reveal how shaken she was, Meg gave a mocking smile. ‘You may be a good kisser, Zinetti, but even you’re not so good I can’t put one foot in front of the other.’
‘Is that a challenge?’ His took her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers again. ‘Do you know how long I’ve waited to do this? I was about a day away from just throwing you onto a trolley in the emergency department.’ This second frank confession of need made her stomach flip and she laughed against his lips.
‘That bad?’
‘Worse.’ Reluctantly, he lifted his head. ‘Much as I’m appreciating the solitude of this place, we have to go. Otherwise our fellow team members will be making another trip up the mountain, this time to rescue us.’
‘And that would be almost as embarrassing as being caught in an avalanche in the Lake District.’
Dino helped her slide her arms into her backpack. ‘Rambo didn’t bark at us. Two bodies in the snow, and he didn’t bark. Do you think he knew he was supposed to be discreet?’
‘No. He knew we weren’t lost.’ Meg started to trudge through the snow but it was deep and heavy and the going was exhausting. ‘That guy recognised you. Said you used to risk your neck on downhill runs. Why did you stop competitive skiing?’ Rambo ran ahead, light on the snow, nosing the ground. She envied his ability to move so easily in the unfriendly terrain.
‘I had a couple of injuries. Shoulder…’ He flexed his shoulder under his pack. ‘That was a nasty one. Concussion. But in the end I just had to make a choice between skiing and medicine. I couldn’t compete at high level and study. So instead I combined my mountain knowledge and my medical knowledge.’
‘So you must have seen some real avalanches.’
‘That was a real avalanche, Meg. And there could be more.’ Glancing back over his shoulder to where they’d come from, Dino frowned. ‘We ought to talk to Sean about getting some sort of warning issued. Local radio. Hotels. That sort of thing. The snowpack is too unstable for people to be taking risks. In some ways it’s even more dangerous than the Alps because people underestimate what they’re dealing with here. That man was lucky. It could easily have ended differently and Rambo would have been barking at a dead body.’
Meg shuddered. ‘The weather is closing in. Are we going to make it home before dark?’
‘Yes. Why? Don’t you fancy a night up here in the wilderness with me?’
Struggling with the deep snow, she smiled. ‘You take up too much room in the tent. And anyway, I have to pick Jamie up from my mum’s. Tonight is her bridge night or something. I don’t want to ruin her social life. Talking of which…’ She kept her voice casual. ‘I’m afraid I can’t make the ball—Ellie needs me to work that shift so I had to swap.’
‘Yes, she told me. I swapped it back.’ He caught her arm as she stumbled in the deep snow.
‘You swapped my shifts?’
‘I simply explained to Ellie that you were going to the ball. She was most surprised that you’d offered to switch given that you have a date.’
Trapped, outmanoeuvred, Meg ground her teeth. ‘She won’t be able to spare me. It’s a nightmare trying to staff that shift.’
‘On the contrary, she said that given the number of times you’ve covered for other people over the years, the least she can do is give you the evening off. You’re working a late shift. We agreed that you’d work until eight o’clock. The night staff are going to come on early as a favour. It will mean you’ll have to get ready at the hospital, but I don’t suppose that matters.’
‘Now, wait just a minute—’
‘Meg.’ He locked his hand in the front of her jacket and pulled her against him, leaving her in no doubt about who was in charge of the decision-making on this particular point. ‘Changing your shift isn’t going to work. Talking to Ellie isn’t going to work. Contracting some mysterious illness isn’t going to work. I’m taking you to the ball.’
‘What if I tell you I just don’t like you enough to go to the ball with you?’
‘Then we’ll both know you’re lying.’ Without giving her the opportunity to argue, he leaned in and kissed her. As his lips brushed over hers, her blood heated and for a moment she forgot what they were talking about. Everything important slid out of her mind, leaving a vacant space occupied only by the most intense, sizzling heat she’d ever experienced.
Terrified, Meg shoved at his chest. ‘Does that confidence of yours ever get you into trouble?’
‘Not
so far.’
‘You can’t run my life.’
‘What is it that frightens you? The ball, or me?’
‘Both.’ Angry with him and suddenly furious with herself too, Meg pulled away from him but he hauled her back against him, his hands firm on her body.
‘It’s just one evening.’ He murmured the words against her lips. ‘One evening. If you hate it, I’ll take you home after an hour and that’s a promise.’
She was about to tell him that an hour was going to seem like a lifetime when she remembered the way she’d felt when he’d tumbled her into the snow. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe she should stop being stupid. He was right, wasn’t he? It was just a ball and it had been years since she’d been to anything like that. Maybe she’d feel differently about the whole thing now that she was older. It wasn’t as if she was going to be standing against the wall, waiting for someone to ask her to dance. She had a partner. And not just any partner—she had Dr Hot.
‘All right, I’ll go on Saturday,’ she said finally. ‘If that’s really how you want to spend an evening. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when you come back with bruised feet. You’re going to regret this.’
She had a feeling that she would, too.
Rambo sat watching Meg, his tail wagging.
‘It’s all very well telling me to wear whatever I have in my wardrobe, but I don’t have anything in my wardrobe. One dress. That’s it.’ Meg pulled it out and hung it on the outside. She brushed the dust off it. Her mother had bought it for her years before when the mountain rescue team had thrown a party to celebrate her eighteenth birthday. Frowning at the plain black dress, she shook her head. She had absolutely no idea what to wear to a Christmas ball, but she knew she wasn’t looking at it. She didn’t own anything suitable, which meant that now she needed to go shopping and she absolutely loathed shopping for clothes. Buying a new pair of hiking boots was easy, but endless rails and racks of different dresses turned her brain to useless mush. She didn’t know which colours or styles were in fashion. She didn’t know what looked good on her. All she knew was that Dino Zinetti was going to take one look at her and wish he’d never invited her.
