‘What? With the injury?’ He looks over at me and I nod. ‘Ness, it was five years ago. It’s not a problem now.’
He sounds offhand about it, but there’s something in his face whenever he mentions it that makes me think there’s more to tell.
‘But thank you,’ he says, quieter now. ‘No one’s ever asked me that before. It was my own fault. I didn’t deserve any sympathy, and I never told anyone at work how much pain I was in, and when I started getting on with things again, everyone assumed it was completely recovered, and I didn’t correct them.’
I go to say something else but he interrupts before I have a chance.
‘We should get a move on – it’s nearly ten and we’re nowhere near that path up to the ruins yet, and it might take a bit of chopping down, and—’
I find superhuman strength from somewhere and leap across the sand between us and throw my arms around him. It’s the wobble in his voice when he interrupted me, the look of surprise on his face when he says something without thinking and then his brain catches up moments later, and mainly it’s how much something so small says about him. I suddenly feel like I can’t not hug him, and whether it’s the sun, the exertion, or the genuine possibility of impending death on this mountain, for once I stop making excuses and just go for it.
I expect him to pull away in horror at the sweaty body suddenly clinging to his sweaty body, but his arms come up and wrap around me too, pulling me closer for a long moment, his chin resting against my damp hair, his shoulders dropping as he exhales and the straps of the bag slip down.
‘What’s this for?’ he murmurs, making no attempt to pull away, even though we’re both hot and sweaty and being so close to another hot, sweaty person is doing nothing to help the situation. There are ideal times for hugs, and this is not one of them.
I shake my head and squeeze him a bit tighter.
‘Note to self: old injuries make good chat-up lines.’ I feel tension shoot through his body. ‘Not that I was trying—’
‘I know.’ I reach up and pat the shoulder in question and then slide the strap of the rucksack back up as I pull away. ‘What were you saying about finding that path?’
I can feel his eyes on me as I step back, and my foot slides further down the dune than I intended it to and I end up doing a demented impression of the splits until I manage to get both feet back together again. Hazards of walking up dunes with gorgeous men should be taught in schools or something.
‘Er, yeah.’ He points above us to where the cliff face turns from open dunes to a covered mangle of greenery. We’ve even lost sight of the ruins that we could see from the bottom now. We’ve walked so much that we might not even be on the same cliff anymore. To be honest, we might not even be in Yorkshire anymore. ‘See those brambles creeping in? There was definitely a part of this dune that continued up through them.’
It’s the ‘through them’ part that I don’t like. When thinking of enjoyable things to walk through, brambles are right near the bottom of the list, just behind things like hot coals, broken glass, stinging nettles, and snake pits. All of which could well be lurking in there.
We keep walking up, although it’s more of a slow trudge than any form of walk. The hill is so steep and the sand is so thick that every time you put your foot down, it slides back at least half the length of the step you’ve just taken, making slow progress feel even slower with the morning sun burning down on us. We’re both experimenting with anything from tiny shuffles to long strides. Nathan was even brave enough to try a sprint, which was quite cartoon-ish in how quickly he slid back down even lower than where he was when he started.
I can feel him looking at me as we trudge upwards in a way that he wasn’t before the hug. He keeps looking behind – because, let’s face it, I’m usually the one of us lagging behind – and either he wants to say something or he’s monitoring me for signs of an impending heart attack. Maybe he’s trying to work out quite how that much sweat can come out of one person’s body and figure out the best way to sell me to science.
‘Look, this has got to be it.’
He’s managed to stand still on the steep dunes and he’s staring intently at a kind of opening in the brambles. It’s not really an opening. I suppose it could’ve been once, but now it’s just sand disappearing into the undergrowth at a slightly higher level than the rest of the sand that turns into grassy banks of prickly weeds. We’re too close to see what we saw from the beach. We just have to hope we’re in the right place and forge ahead into unknown territory. Like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. It feels like the moon might actually be nearer than the house ruins at the moment. And probably a lot more fun to get to.
Nathan pushes a bramble aside and instantly pulls his hand back when he gets scratched. He slips the bag off his shoulder and crouches down to root around in it.
‘I’ve got secateurs.’ He holds the tiny garden tool aloft in victory.
‘Great,’ I say, trying not to compare them in size to the brambles wrapped around gorse bushes that are taller than even Nathan.
There’s not even a way around them – they’re too dense, creeping in on either side from the surrounding cliffs. I suddenly wish we could’ve seen it as it was back in Ivy and the carousel maker’s day. It couldn’t have looked like this. It couldn’t have been this steep or this eroded, and there must have been an access road somewhere. I look around. Those days are gone. Unfortunately. I could just do with a nice flat road. And a shower. And a glass of wine.
There’s a plink as the secateurs snap together and Nathan uses them to remove the bramble he’s just cut because he hasn’t got gloves. Make that several glasses of wine.
‘There was a machete in Camilla’s garden storage box but I didn’t bring it,’ he says. ‘I thought it might be a bit weird for you to go to a remote location with a stranger and a machete. Not that we’re strangers now but you know what I mean? I thought it might be less murder-y to stay away from machetes in general.’
‘Do you think the machete’s actually for gardening or for use on Charles when he steps out of line?’
‘Oh, definitely for Charles. Probably for us too if we don’t win the PPP, which is not looking likely considering this is the extent of my gardening ability.’
I watch as he parts cut brambles and edges forward, using his bare arms to push them aside. I like how dedicated he is to getting up here. From the moment he saw the ruin from the beach, he decided to go there, and nothing has put him off. It would be admirable if we weren’t halfway up a sheer cliff face and forging our way through a narrow, spiky, prickly, painful path, but a path nonetheless.
I look at Nathan’s back in front of me. The nape of his neck is red with exertion or sunburn and there are sweat patches around the edges of his black T-shirt. He cuts brambles and holds them back until I get past too, using his boots to stamp them down underneath our feet and create a walkway bit by bit, until scraggly grass takes over from the brambles, the gorse bushes become more sparse, and we emerge from the undergrowth onto another open dune before the cliff side flattens out and disappears over a hill, which I’m fairly sure is where the ruins are standing. Unless we really have taken a wrong turn and ended up in Belgium.
When we emerge from the brambles, we stop for another drink and to get our breath back, and I’m surprised to see over an hour has passed since the last stop. Nathan’s determination really is admirable.
‘Nearly there.’ He holds his water bottle up in a toast gesture and grins, his forehead glistening with sweat in a way that somehow looks sexy. Sweat on most people just looks sweaty. It’s not just the sweat though. It’s the achievement that’s making him look so happy. He doesn’t mention it, but I don’t think he was half as assured about getting up here as he sounded, but he did it anyway.
I’m suddenly really glad I came. Despite how much I’m convinced that my pounding heart is about to literally explode and how I can’t hear anything other than the blood thundering through my ears and t
he rasp of my oxygen-deprived lungs. I grin over at him as he holds the cold water bottle against his forehead, taking in gasps of air. He’s resplendent as he grins back. There’s sweat beading in his short hair that was styled this morning but has blown out into a spiky mess by now, but his eyes are light, the blue sky making them look closer to a deep grey than the usual dark brown, and his arms are covered in raised pink scratches from the bramble bushes, whereas I barely have a mark on me because he’s such a gentleman.
I stand up straight and shake my shoulders out, re-do my ponytail, which has gradually fallen down and is clinging to my sweaty neck, and flap the bottom of my T-shirt around me. I can feel his eyes on me and he smiles when I look up and it makes something inside of me flutter again. Which is no easy task considering that every part of my body is currently gasping for breath and has no business fluttering when death is probably imminent.
‘You ready?’ he asks when the sweat has started to dry and our breath has got back to semi-normal rather than the panting rasps of earlier. ‘It looks steeper here until it levels off.’
Oh, joy. I look up at the wide dune ahead of me, the sand so clean that it looks almost white, probably because no human has ventured up here in years. It does look a bit steep, but it can’t be that bad now we’ve come this far, can it?
* * *
Famous last words. At least, they would be if I could think about anything other than my burning thighs and screaming calves. Sand always looks so nice in pictures, but trying to climb up an almost vertical cliff face knee-deep in it is not so much fun.
‘We’re there!’ Nathan calls from above me. ‘I can see stone and grass!’
He’s ahead of me – of course he’s ahead of me, his legs are about two foot longer than mine – but I’m so focused on remembering how to breathe that I’ve lost track of where he is. It’s probably the first time all day that I’ve managed to take my eyes off the curves of his shoulder muscles in that tight T-shirt or the flex of his forearms as he’s been cutting down brambles.
One step at a time. Shuffle, shuffle, slide back down a bit, another shuffle, a longer slide back down, one foot in front of the other. Will it ever end? I think I’ve been shuffling up this mountain since 2010.
When I look up, Nathan’s reached the peak of the hill and shrugged the bag off his shoulders, and I’m so close to solid, flat ground I can taste it. Unless that’s the sand I’ve inhaled.
‘C’mere, I’ll pull you up.’ He reaches a hand out and I slip mine into it, and at exactly the same time as he hauls me up with an almighty pull, I go for a final sprint to make it easier on him, and the momentum is just too much. I go careening into him with so much force that he lands on his back in the sand and lets out an ‘oof’ as I land on top of him.
‘Oh my God,’ I say, bracing my hands on either side of his head to stop us sliding right back down where we came from.
He’s laughing so much he can barely speak. ‘You know when you envision doing the gentlemanly thing and charmingly helping a lady up? That is not how it was supposed to go.’
Him having the giggles sets me off and we’re both lying there on an almost sheer sand dune laughing over nothing.
‘I wish someone had caught that on camera. We couldn’t have done that if we’d tried.’ He throws his head back in the sand, his crow’s feet crinkling up, tears of laughter pooling in his eyes.
‘Sorry, Nath,’ I pant, trying to get the giggles under control, but every time I look at him, I laugh at how much he’s laughing.
I’m lying on him from top to toe, his hands have come up to either side of my waist to stop me sliding off, and his sandy denim-clad leg is hooked around one of mine.
‘Why is this so funny?’ He looks up at me with his eyes shining and his forehead glistening with sweat.
I can feel his chest heaving, although that could be more to do with the fact he’s got my weight on top of him than the struggle of getting up here. I feel weirdly close to him, like we’ve known each other forever, and laughing with him feels so natural.
‘Why aren’t we getting up?’ I lower my forehead to his and try to remember how to breathe.
‘I don’t know how to,’ he murmurs, so close to my ear that his breath stirs the wisps of hair that have come loose again.
‘Good point.’ It sets us both off again and I realise we’re just lying here in the sand clinging to each other, and we’re both so hot and sweaty that we need an ice bath, but neither of us have made any attempt to move.
‘You okay?’ I say, suddenly realising he could’ve actually hurt himself, falling over like that and cushioning my fall.
He looks up and meets my eyes, and all the laughter stops, and his eyes are dark and serious again. ‘Never been better.’
I swallow at the sudden intensity as I realise this is the perfect position for kissing. My mouth is level with his for what is probably the first time due to our usual height difference. My boobs are pressed against his chest. I can feel every breath he takes as they turn quicker and more ragged. Every inch of his muscular body is pressed tight against mine and his hands tighten on my waist.
I want to kiss him more than I’ve ever wanted to do anything in my life before now. I often feel like life has just moved along without my input. I sort of go with the flow and don’t really push for anything; I make excuses to avoid dates and find sensible explanations for why I’m still in the same job. I don’t take risks or do anything that might rock the boat, even though the boat isn’t very comfortable in the first place, but with him underneath me, I suddenly want to steer the boat. I want to wrap both hands in his hair and crush his lips against mine.
I wet my lips and his breath catches, his eyes blown almost-black with desire. His head lifts as mine lowers, and we’re so close …
And then sweat drips from my forehead onto his cheek, a bit like Rapunzel’s tear at the end of Tangled, but not quite as romantic, obviously. It ruins the moment a bit, to be honest.
He bursts out laughing again and any hint of desire is gone. So long gone, it’s probably in the Outer Hebrides by now.
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry.’ I didn’t think I could get any redder, what with the desire to kiss him, the giggling, and the exercise, but my traitorous body somehow manages to add even more redness from embarrassment to my already flushed face.
‘Don’t worry about it, I’m dripping with sweat too,’ he says, struggling to breathe through the laughter again. Maybe it’s the relief of stopping before we did something stupid. No matter how much I wanted to in that moment, I can’t kiss him. I barely know him, and then there’s the article I’m supposed to be writing about him. This is complicated enough without adding kissing to the mix. And I definitely didn’t want to stop at kissing.
I automatically reach out and go to wipe his cheek but my hand was obviously one of our only anchors because the movement dislodges us and we’re suddenly sliding down the dune again.
I squeal and Nathan shrieks and our arms tighten around each other as we go flying through the sand and come to a screeching halt just moments away from the forest of blackberry.
Nathan rests his forehead against mine again and tries to get his breath back. ‘Well, that was fun. I was just thinking how much I’d like to walk up that steep hill again. Like my thighs aren’t on fire.’
We both dissolve into laughter again.
It shouldn’t be funny. That last stretch of sand dune has nearly killed me once already, but somehow I can’t stop laughing because he’s laughing. And we’re not dead yet. If we’ve made it this far without dying, surely we’re on the home stretch now.
‘I thought the burning thighs was just me,’ I say when I can breathe again.
‘Are you kidding? My thighs are killing me. I’m aching in places I didn’t know I had. I had shins once but I haven’t felt them for at least two hours. You’ll have to come up to the cottage for breakfast again tomorrow morning because I might need you to haul me out of bed and tip me down the stairs
.’
Any excuse to do something with Nathan in bed, even if it is hauling him out of it. And another excuse to have breakfast with him, like every other morning this week. ‘If I can walk tomorrow. At the moment, it’s looking doubtful.’
He laughs. ‘At least we can creak around the village together with all the ninety-year-olds. Maybe someone will be kind enough to lend us a Zimmer frame.’
I grin down at him. ‘My best friend is eight months pregnant and she moves faster than me. Your level of fitness makes me feel normal.’
‘I wouldn’t know what the inside of a gym looked like if a treadmill smacked me in the face, but I had a couple of years of physio that taught me a lot and made me stronger than I was before. I rely on my job for fitness because I’m active with that.’
A couple of years? His injury must’ve been much worse than he makes out. But at least it explains why he feels so good, I think as his sinewy thigh presses against my flabby one. I’ve watched him working on the carousel in the past week. He almost never stops moving; he’s constantly back and forth to grab different parts or tools.
‘Speaking of active …’ His big hand is spread open on my back, supporting me as I roll off him and struggle onto my knees even as they’re sliding underneath me in the sand. I sit on them and look up the hill we’ve just climbed once. It was hard enough the first time.
He gets onto his knees too and looks over at me, and I know he’s thinking the exact same thing. ‘This might be the best way up actually.’
‘What, crawl?’
He grins. ‘Yup. Come on, hands and knees, I’ll race ya. Go!’
‘Nath!’ I squeak as he takes off, scrambling up the dune, arms and legs everywhere, like a giant spider. He makes it look easy.
I barely have time to consider how undignified it is as I rush after him, not managing it quite as elegantly as he did, and glad that he’s too busy with winning to look back and see the state I’m in. When he gets to the grassy edge, he holds a hand out to pull me up to the safety of the green flat bit.
The Little Vintage Carousel by the Sea Page 16
