Last-Minute Proposal

by Jessica Hart

  And the final touch-a smear of mud left over from her splat landing on the river bank. She rubbed at it grouchily but that only seemed to make it worse.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Campbell, not knowing what all the fuss was about. She looked fine to him. A little tousled, maybe, but he thought that dishevelled, just-fallen-out-of-bed look suited her.

  Unfortunately, his attempt to sound soothing didn’t appear to have worked. ‘It does matter!’ Tilly was scrabbling in her pack for a hairbrush. ‘There’ll be cameras at the other end. I don’t want to go down in posterity looking like this!’

  Campbell sighed. ‘Can we worry about that when we get there? Look, I promise you can have a primping stop on the way down, but let’s just get to the top first.’

  Forcibly removing the hairbrush from her hand, he made her put everything away again. By the time she had finished, the tent was neatly folded up and stowed away in his rucksack. He picked up her pack, helped her into it and adjusted the straps for her as if she were a child.

  ‘OK,’ he said and pointed up to the summit that loomed above them. ‘Let’s get up there.’

  Tilly craned her neck to follow his finger and her heart sank. ‘I’ll never be able to do it! I can hardly walk!’

  Campbell swung his own pack on to his back. ‘You’ll feel better when you get going.’

  Annoyingly, she did. It was steep going, though, and they had to scramble up the last bit.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ Tilly kept wailing, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she clung to a rock or clutched at a clump of heather, but Campbell wouldn’t listen.

  ‘You can.’

  And, in the end, she could. It was an amazing feeling as she climbed the last few feet and stood on the summit, looking down at the magnificent hills spread out at her feet. Tilly felt her heart catch with awe.

  ‘Wow,’ was all she could say.

  Campbell was watching her face. He had deliberately waited so that she would get to the top first. ‘See what you can do when you try?’ he said as he joined her.

  ‘It’s amazing!’

  It was. It was like discovering yourself poised on the edge of a brand new life-one you never imagined you could have. A smile spread over her face and she stretched out her arms as she spun slowly, savouring her achievement. ‘I can’t believe I did it!’

  ‘And you got here first,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Unless Roger and Leanne have been and gone?’ Tilly suggested. She looked innocent, but the blue eyes were dancing with mischief.

  Campbell didn’t rise to the provocation. ‘They’re still on their way up,’ he said with satisfaction, and pointed down to where they could make out two tiny figures toiling up the slope.

  ‘Looks like Leanne got a lie in after all,’ said Tilly. ‘We should wait and say hello.’

  ‘We’ll do no such thing,’ said Campbell. ‘We haven’t won yet. We’d better get something on camera to prove we were here, and then we’re on our way down.’ He got the camera out and checked it. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Hang on, just let me put some lippy on…’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘For God’s sake, Jenkins!’ he said impatiently. ‘We’re on top of a mountain. This is no place for lipstick!’

  ‘It is if I’m going to be on film.’

  Tilly peered into her mirror, squinting so she didn’t have to look at her hair or the smudges of mud, and carefully outlined her mouth with her favourite cherry-red. It was extraordinary what a bit of bright lipstick could do for the morale. She had always wanted to be able to do the natural look but the fact was that she suited bright colours.

  Campbell had been setting up the camera on an outcrop and was squinting through it while he waited impatiently for her to finish. ‘If we sit on that rock, it’ll get us both in. Might be a bit of a squash, but it’ll be quicker than two separate sessions.’

  They perched together on the rock, and Campbell put his arm round her to keep them both in frame. ‘Smile!’ he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. ‘And say something for the camera.’

  Burningly aware of his arm, Tilly smiled. ‘Here we are on the top of Ben Nuarrh and it feels as if we’re on top of the world,’ she told the camera and gestured around her. ‘It’s the most beautiful morning.’

  She drew a deep breath. ‘I can’t believe that we got here at last,’ she confessed. ‘I feel incredible! I never believed that I could do it, and I probably wouldn’t have done if Campbell hadn’t bullied me all the way,’ she said with a glance at him. ‘I’m glad you did,’ she added almost shyly.

  ‘That’s not what you said this morning!’

  ‘No, well, I was tired this morning,’ said Tilly with dignity. ‘I hardly slept at all.’

  Campbell pretended to gape in astonishment. ‘You most certainly did!’

  Forgetting the camera, she turned to look at him. ‘I didn’t snore, did I?’ she asked anxiously. She had been worried about that.

  ‘I wouldn’t call it a snore, exactly. There was quite a bit of snuffling and grunting and smacking of lips. It was like sharing a tent with a rather large hedgehog.’

  ‘Charming!’ Tilly made to thump him but she was laughing, elated by the morning and the mountain top and the fizzing awareness of his presence.

  ‘Other than that,’ he said, ‘I very much enjoyed sleeping with you.’

  That was when she made the mistake of looking into his eyes. They were the same pale, piercing green but alight with humour and something else that made Tilly’s laugh falter suddenly.

  She moistened her lips. ‘Do you think that’s enough for the camera?’ she asked, and Campbell’s gaze held hers for a moment longer.

  ‘I think it probably is.’

  For the umpteenth time, Tilly rearranged the wooden spoons by the hob and then snatched back her hand with an exclamation of annoyance. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she said crossly. She was driving herself mad!

  The television crew were due any minute. Tilly told herself she was just worried about having cameras in the house, zooming in on all the undusted mantelpieces, but deep down she knew that the prospect of seeing Campbell again was the real reason she was feeling so jittery.

  It was three weeks since they had stood on the top of Ben Nuarrh. Campbell had marched her down the mountain in record time to make sure that they won the first stage, so they were ahead on points. Winning, however, was by no means a foregone conclusion. He still had to complete his challenge first, and then the viewers would have a vote after seeing clips from the video diaries and filming, so they wouldn’t learn the final result until a grand awards ceremony later in the year.

  Remembering Campbell’s frustration at realising how much depended on the vagaries of the viewers’ reactions, Tilly smiled wryly. He was so obviously a man who liked a clear goal, a definite mission that he could go out and accomplish. Want a bridge blown up? A hostage rescued? A mountain climbed in record time? Campbell was your man. But all this waiting to see what people thought and felt was not for him. Having started, though, he was committed to finishing now or it really would feel like failure.

  And failure wasn’t something Campbell Sanderson was prepared to contemplate, that was clear.

  So he would be arriving any minute now to learn how to design and make a wedding cake, and he would be determined to succeed, however little he might enjoy it.

  Well, she hadn’t enjoyed abseiling, Tilly remembered, or crossing that river. Or being bullied up and down that mountain! It had been wonderful at the top, of course, and she was very glad that she had done it in the end, but she wasn’t at all anxious to repeat the experience. She had been very happy to come back to her cosy kitchen-or rut, as Harry and Seb would call it-and she was looking forward to being the one who knew what she was doing this time.

  How was Campbell going to react to that? Tilly didn’t see why she should make it too easy for him. He had made her suffer, after all.

  After the elation of making the summit, he had been br
isk on the way down, and clearly couldn’t wait to tie up the formalities at the end and get away. Tilly had been a little hurt by that, even though she knew it was silly. It wasn’t as if either of them had wanted to be there. Nothing had happened.

  It was absolutely ridiculous to be missing him, in fact.

  ‘So, what was he like?’ her best friend, Cleo had asked, brushing aside details of Tilly’s traumatic abseil and homing straight in on the man assigned to partner her. ‘Attractive?’

  Tilly thought about the glint in Campbell’s green eyes, about his mouth and that smile and the strength in his hands. She had barely known him forty-eight hours, and it was vaguely disturbing that she could still picture him in quite such detail.

  She decided to downplay all that, though. Cleo would never let her forget it if she thought Tilly had found herself alone in a tent with an attractive man and done absolutely nothing about it.

  ‘Quite,’ she said, deliberately casual. ‘In an I-could-show-some-emotion-but-then-I’d-have-to-kill-you kind of way.’

  ‘Ooh…’ Cleo brightened. ‘He sounds gorgeous!’ Her eyes sharpened. ‘Available?’

  ‘He’s divorced,’ Tilly admitted reluctantly.

  ‘I think you should go for it.’

  Tilly felt oddly ruffled. ‘I wouldn’t stand a chance. Besides, he wasn’t really my type. He wasn’t anything like Olivier.’

  Which was true. Olivier had been dark and passionate, while Campbell was all cool containment. It was hard to imagine two men more different, in fact.

  ‘All the better,’ said Cleo, who hadn’t liked Olivier. ‘Someone not like Olivier is exactly what you need.’

  ‘I don’t need Campbell Sanderson,’ said Tilly definitely. ‘I’ve never met anyone so competitive-unless it’s my father! All men like that care about is winning,’ she went on with a touch of bitterness. ‘Never mind whose feelings they might be trampling on their way to success.’

  ‘You don’t need to spend the rest of your life with him, just have a bit of fun. Boost your confidence after that toad, Olivier.’

  Tilly shook her head so the brown curls bounced around her face. ‘I can’t imagine anything less likely to boost my confidence,’ she said frankly. ‘Campbell is someone who has to have the best of everything, including women, and I don’t see me falling into that category, do you?’

  ‘You are the best,’ said Cleo loyally. ‘You’re funny, generous, warm, caring and sexy, if only you’d admit it. And you’re a fabulous cook. What more does a man want?’

  ‘A size six with legs up to her armpits?’

  Cleo clicked her tongue. ‘You are so screwed up about your weight, Tilly! Listen, you are not overweight, you’re just curvy. That’s the way women are meant to be, and that’s how most men like them if the truth be told. Why do you think their tongues hang out whenever they spot a cleavage? You’re never going to be a stick insect, true, but you shouldn’t just accept that, you should celebrate it!’

  ‘Maybe I would if I could just lose a stone,’ said Tilly, reaching glumly for the biscuits. ‘Anyway, don’t get your hopes up about Campbell Sanderson. He’s hung up on his ex-wife, if you ask me, and I don’t want to get involved with that again. I had enough of being a consolation prize with Olivier.’

  ‘Then why not think of Campbell as your consolation prize?’ Cleo suggested.

  The more she thought about it, the more Tilly had begun to wonder whether Cleo might have a point. She was over due a good time, after all. She deserved a treat, and it wasn’t as if she would have any expectations. A brief affair to boost her ego and make her feel good about herself again-was that so much to ask?

  Then Tilly would catch a glimpse of herself in a mirror and she would catch herself up, appalled at her presumption. What was she thinking? There was no way Campbell would be interested in her, even if she laid herself out on a plate for him.

  Anyway, she was probably building him up in her mind, she reassured herself. When she saw him again, she would probably wonder what she had made all the fuss about and be very glad that she hadn’t made a fool of herself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  E XCEPT it didn’t work out like that. The moment Campbell came through the door, Tilly’s heart gave a sickening lurch into her throat, where it lodged, hammering so hard she could hardly speak.

  He was exactly as she remembered him, but somehow more so. Everything about him seemed very definite, and she was aware of him in startling detail, down to the buttons on his shirt, the fine hairs on his wrist, the faint line between his brows as he watched the crew bustling around the kitchen, talking about light and angles.

  Momentarily sidelined with him, Tilly cleared her throat and forced her heart back into position. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Busy,’ said Campbell succinctly. ‘I’m moving to the States in three weeks, and there’s a lot to do before then.’

  So he clearly wasn’t going to have time for a little seduction on the side.

  Tilly told herself that it was just as well. Her confidence was so low that he would be boarding his plane before she got up the nerve to try a little light flirtation. She had never been any good at that.

  Anyway, look at him, so cool, so detached, so self-contained. It was all very well for Cleo to talk about having fun, but how could she have fun with a man like Campbell? It would be like trying to have fun with a granite rock.

  No, forget it, she told herself. Just do the programme. Think about Mum and what this could do for the hospice. Teach him how to make a cake and don’t for one second let him think you might even have considered the possibility of fun!

  There was a pause. It didn’t seem to bother Campbell but the silence made Tilly uncomfortable. ‘Where are you staying while you’re here?’ she asked, hating how inane she sounded. The two of them had shared a tiny tent. They had laughed on top of a mountain. She had clung to him and begged him not to let her go. And now she was treating him as if he were a stranger she had met at a cocktail party.

  If Campbell noticed the incongruity of it, he made no comment. ‘In a hotel,’ he said. ‘The Watley…’ He twiddled his hand to indicate that he had forgotten the rest of the name.

  ‘The Watley Hall.’

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘Everyone here knows the Watley Hall, even if we can’t afford to eat there. It’s the best hotel in Allerby.’

  She might have known that was where he would be staying.

  ‘It’s not very enterprising of you,’ she commented tartly. ‘I thought you would be pitching a tent in the garden!’

  Campbell glanced at her. His face was perfectly straight but there was a glimmer of a smile at the back of his eyes, and her heart tipped a little, as if she had missed a step.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m just a boring businessman nowadays, wanting a place to work.’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be learning how to make a wedding cake?’

  ‘During the day,’ he agreed. ‘I will need to catch up with work in the evenings, so a hotel will suit me rather more than a tent. And you’ll no doubt be glad to know that I’ll be out of your hair once the baking lesson is over for the day.’

  The baking lesson. Tilly didn’t miss the dismissive note in Campbell’s voice, and her eyes narrowed. He obviously thought cake-making was a trivial business, easily mastered. A token few minutes in the kitchen every day and then he would be planning to head back to his hotel room to deal with real man’s business!

  They would see about that.

  Campbell was looking around the kitchen. He had somehow imagined Tilly living in a muddle, but although the room certainly had a relaxed feel to it, with a couple of comfortable old armchairs at the far end, he was relieved to see that it was clean and very well-organised. From what little he had seen of it so far, the whole house had a friendly, welcoming air.

  ‘This is a nice house,’ he commented. ‘There must be more money in cakes than I thought.’

  ‘Sadly not,’ said
Tilly dryly. ‘This was my stepfather’s house. My mother and I moved in here when I was seven. Mum died when I was twenty, and Jack the following year, so the mortgage was paid off. We spent quite a lot of time at the hospice over those couple of years,’ she explained with a little sigh. ‘I suppose that’s why it means so much to me.’

  ‘How old were your brothers then?’

  ‘Only twelve,’ she told him. ‘Jack made me their guardian before he died so I could keep this as a home for them. We’ll have to decide what to do with it when they reach twenty-five. If they ever settle down, Harry and Seb may want to sell so they can buy their own places, but there’s no sign of them doing anything remotely sensible yet, so until then I’m happy to stay here.’

  Campbell was watching her with a slight frown in his cool eyes. ‘Don’t you get a say?’

  ‘It’s not my house. Seb and Harry aren’t going to throw me out in the street, so it’s not as if I’m going to be destitute or anything.’

  ‘Still, it seems strange not to have made any allowance for you,’ said Campbell, surprised at how concerned he felt on her behalf. ‘I know you were just a stepdaughter, but presumably Harry and Seb are your half-brothers. You’re family.’

  ‘Don’t blame Jack,’ said Tilly loyally. ‘At the time it was the reasonable thing to do. My real father is still alive and has much more money than Jack ever had. Of course Jack assumed that I would be well provided for.’

  ‘And you’re not?’

  Tilly looked away. ‘I asked my father for help after Jack died. We had the house, but most of Jack’s money was tied up in trust for the boys’ education, and I didn’t know how I was going to manage with day-to-day expenses.’

  ‘Surely your father didn’t refuse to help you?’

  ‘No, not exactly,’ she said. ‘He offered me a home, college fees if I wanted them and even an allowance, but he wasn’t prepared to take on the twins. I don’t think he ever forgave my mother for being happy with Jack,’ Tilly went on thoughtfully. ‘Even though he was the one who left us, for a new wife more in keeping with his oh-so-successful image,’ she added with a touch of bitterness. ‘Mum wasn’t supposed to be happier than he was after that.’