that was—’
‘Will you stop interrupting?’ he barked. ‘I’m trying to tell you I love you.’
Oxygen-less air whooshed into her lungs.
Hayden snapped his mouth shut, and then his lips tightened. ‘Though I was hoping to do it more romantically than that,’ he muttered.
She didn’t dare breathe out in case there was nothing left to take back in. The dark patches appeared in her peripheral vision again. ‘More romantic than at the foot of Everest? Having flown halfway around the world and paid off half of Nepal and Tibet to find me?’
His lips twisted. ‘Yeah. More than that.’
She finally inhaled. A ridiculous lightness—totally different to what she’d felt coming up the mountain—suffused her.
His eyes darkened. ‘This is what I came to. Love liberates, it doesn’t entrap. It’s not something you can plan for or manage. It’s like stepping off a bridge into nothing.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But it’s so much less terrifying when there’s someone there, stepping off with you.’
She swallowed back tears. She’d done enough blubbing in front of Hayden for a lifetime. He took her hands.
‘If this isn’t love,’ he said, threading his fingers through hers and boring into her with the intensity of his gaze, ‘then it should be.’
So much for not blubbing. Tears spilled, heedless of her will, over her lashes and ran down her wind-whipped, make-up-less face. Lord, what a picture she must present. But she didn’t care. She’d bare her whole soul if he asked her to.
And then—despite every fear and doubt and heartbreak and agony of the past months—they were kissing again. The sensation she’d believed she’d never have access to again, the rush of adrenalin that came from just touching him, coursed through her blood where the oxygen couldn’t go.
She clung to his strong frame, weakened, and he gathered her more tightly in to him, worshipping her mouth with his. There was barely enough oxygen to go around for one, let alone keep two hearts pumping. They fell apart, panting.
‘I am good enough for you,’ she gasped. It felt important to make that clear.
He blinked, confused. ‘I agree.’
‘I mean that I’m through with doubting myself. Believing myself unworthy. I want a strong, equal relationship.’
‘Princess, you’re preaching to the choir …’
‘And I want you to admit that this wasn’t strategic. Neither one of us made the other love us.’
His eyes softened. ‘Everything about you made me love you, Shirley.’
She glared at him.
‘You want the lightning bolt?’
‘I want you to admit that something special happened here. Something bigger than both of us.’
‘How about I tell you when it happened, instead?’
She stared.
‘I first bought in to loving you when you stood on my porch and called me an ass that day. No one had challenged me like that, ever.’ He stepped closer. ‘Then when your ridiculous stockings at the beach forced such lightness into the darkness inside me.’ His hand twisted up into her hair. ‘Then when you gave up your seats at the symphony for some strangers way up the back and you revealed your soul.’
Her eyes brimmed over again.
‘But I still wavered. Then you were so natural and good with the boys at Tim’s party and all I could think about was what a spectacular mother you would make.’
A tear wobbled free.
‘But if you want the thunderbolt. The moment I knew I was screwed?’
Only from Hayden would she take screwed as a compliment. She nodded and shook another tear loose.
‘The giraffe. That moment surrounded by sea containers and diesel fumes when you held your hand out to me, your eyes filled with such magic and mystery and drew me into your fantasy. No-one had ever given me the gift of joy before. Unconditional generosity.’
And there was the magic word.
Unconditional.
‘I don’t ever want to have to earn your love,’ she whispered.
He stepped back and regarded her gravely. Then he sank to one knee, on the rocks and shale underfoot, just as he had inside the tent. It wasn’t a proposal. It was older and more classic than that. It was a Spartan honour pledge.
‘I give it to you. As a gift. Whether you want to keep it or not, it doesn’t change how I feel. My love is yours, unconditionally.’
She sank down onto her knees to join him. The stones cut into her skin. She ignored it. ‘I accept. And I love you. Every part of you.’
They fell forward into each other’s lips, kissed as if it were their first time. Then they pulled back and stared at each other, lost. Panting.
‘I caught up to you on the list,’ he got out between breaths.
She leaned against him. ‘In just a few weeks? How?’
‘I cheated.’ He laughed. ‘We’re neck and neck now that we’re both here.’
She smiled. ‘You know what? That list doesn’t seem so important now.’
He curled his arms around her. ‘Typical. Just as defeat is on the horizon.’
She chuckled. ‘We have something much more impressive on the horizon.’
They stared up at the Himalayan peaks together. Awed.
‘This really hurts,’ Shirley finally admitted.
‘You’re not kidding.’ He pushed to his feet and then pulled her carefully up with him off the sharp rocks.
‘You know you’re hiking down off the mountain with me, right? I won’t be seen in your chopper.’
‘And miss all those nights in a tent with you?’ He kissed her again. ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way. You still owe me from the dinosaur dig.’
‘We can’t do anything.’ She giggled. ‘We’ll have a guide sleeping just feet away.’
He pushed back and stared at her. ‘Did you Just … giggle?’
Truly unmasked now. Exactly how she wanted to stay. ‘That’s just one of a range of ordinary-person sounds I make when I’m not on guard,’ she joked. ‘And you’re going to get to discover them all.’
He swooped down to kiss the side of her throat. ‘That’s not going any way to preserving the
