eyes grew serious. ‘Yeah. I do.’
‘But you’re in here.’
‘I’ve made it safe.’
But still he was refusing to leave her. ‘You have to go.’
‘No.’
‘Sam—’
‘It’s going to get light in a couple of hours,’ he pushed on, serious. ‘I want to be here when that happens.’
For the rescue? Or for when she could see what was below them—or wasn’t—and went completely to pieces? She shifted her focus again and stared out through her shattered, flimsy windscreen, partially held together only by struggling tint film. The only thing stopping her from falling into—and through—that windscreen was her seatbelt.
She turned back to stare at him again. In truth she really, horribly, desperately didn’t want to be alone. But she didn’t want him hurt, either. Not the man who’d taken such gentle care of her.
‘Don’t even worry about it, Aimee,’ he said, before she’d even finished thinking it through. ‘It’s not your choice to make. It’s mine.’
‘I don’t get a say?’
‘None. I’m in charge in this vehicle. It’s my call.’
I’m in charge. How many years had she secretly rebelled against ‘in charge’ men. Men who thought they knew what was best for her and insisted on spelling it out. Her father. Wayne. Men who liked her better passive, like her mother. Yet here she was crumbling the moment an honest-to-goodness ‘take charge’ man told her what to do.
But, truthfully, she didn’t want to be alone. Not for one more moment of this ordeal.
‘So, what do we do until it gets light?’ she asked.
‘I’ll keep monitoring your condition, make sure the car’s still sound. I can radio up for anything you need.’
Silence fell. ‘So we just … talk?’
‘Talking is good. I don’t want you dropping off to sleep.’
But making small talk seemed wrong under the circumstances. And it was just too much of a reminder that she didn’t know him at all, despite the strange kind of intimacy that was forming between them. A bubble she didn’t particularly want to burst.
‘What do we talk about?’
‘Anything you want. I’m told I’m good company.’
She glanced up into the mirror in time to see him flick his eyes quickly away. Maybe this was awkward for him, too.
She scratched around for something to say that wasn’t about the weather. Something a bit more meaningful. Something that would normalise this crazy situation. ‘You said Search and Rescue is only part of your job. What’s the other part?’ With every minute that passed, her breath was coming more easily.
He seemed unused to making conversation with his rescuees, but he answered after just a moment. ‘I’m a ranger for Tasmania’s Parks and Wildlife Service.’
The man who abseiled down rockfaces to save damsels in distress also looked after forests and the creatures in them. Of course he did. ‘So this is just moonlighting for you?’
He chuckled, and shone the small torch on the fixings of her seatbelt. ‘Don’t worry. They sent me because I’m the best vertical rescue guy in the district. We don’t get enough demand for a full time Search and Rescue team up here.’
‘Small mercies.’
He sat back. ‘True.’
‘Which do you enjoy more?’
His eyes lifted back to hers in the mirror, held them in his surprise. Had no one ever asked him that? ‘Hard to say. Search and Rescue is more … tangible. Immediate. But the forests need a champion, too.’
‘This part has got to be more exciting, though?’ Her dry tongue had made a mess of that sentence.
Sam rummaged in his equipment for a moment, before reappearing between the seats with a sponge soaked in bottled water. He pressed it to her lips and Aimee sucked at it gratefully.
‘It’s not the excitement I’m conscious of.’ He frowned as she sucked. ‘Though that’s how it is for some of my colleagues. For me it’s the importance.’ He withdrew the sucked-dry sponge and resaturated it. ‘I think I’d feel the same way if it was national secrets I was protecting. Or a vial of some rare cells instead of a person.’
The ants’ innards were making her feel very rubbery and relaxed, and the water had buoyed her spirits. She chuckled, low and mellow. ‘Just in case I was beginning to feel special.’
He smiled at her. ‘Right now you’re very special. There’s sixteen trained professionals up there—all here for you.’
The scale of the rescue operation came crashing into focus for her. That was sixteen people who should be home in bed, wrapped around their loved ones. ‘I’m so sorry—’
‘Aimee, don’t be. It’s what we do.’
Did Sam have someone like that at home? Someone worrying about him when he was out? She could hardly ask that question, so she asked instead, ‘How many lives have you saved?’
He didn’t even need to count. ‘Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight after today.’
Aimee’s eyebrows shot up, and she turned in her seat as best she could. Her shoulder bit cruelly. His hand pressed her back into stillness gently.
‘Twenty-seven! That’s amazing.’ Then she looked more closely at him. At the shadows in his gaze. ‘How many have you lost?’
‘I don’t count the losses.’
Rubbish. Everyone counted the losses. It was human nature. ‘Meaning, “I’m not about to tell a woman trapped in her car whether or not I saved the last woman trapped in her car”?’
His smile was gentle. ‘Meaning I don’t like to think about it.’
No. She could understand that. Given how much of a partnership this rescue was, she could only imagine how he’d feel when he couldn’t save someone. Maybe someone he’d bonded with. Like they were bonding now. She smiled tightly. ‘Well, on behalf of all women everywhere trapped in their cars I’d like to say thank you for trying. We can’t ask for more.’
Ridiculously, just acknowledging that she wasn’t the first person who’d been in a life-or-death situation made her feel just a little bit more in control of this one. Other people had survived to tell their tales.
In control. A further novelty. She frowned. How bad had she let things get?
‘Sure you can. You can ask me for whatever you need right up until they’re loading you into the back of the ambulance. Then I know I’ve done
