only so much rejection a girl could take.
No, if Harry and Seb thought their plan to drag her out of the kitchen would lead her to Mr Right, they were in for a disappointment.
Tilly was prepared to admit that she found Campbell attractive, but that was as far as it went. She wouldn’t be letting her defences down or getting her expectations up.
On the other hand, since she was here, being held tight against that hard body, it would be silly not to enjoy it, wouldn’t it? Tilly closed her eyes and snuggled closer to Campbell. She might as well make the most of it.
‘Time to get up.’ Campbell touched Tilly on the shoulder to wake her, but she only groaned and turned away from his hand to bury her face in her sleeping bag.
He shook her harder. ‘Come on, wake up. We’ve got a mountain to climb.’
Tilly groaned louder. ‘Climb it yourself,’ she mumbled.
‘Unfortunately, I can’t do it without you,’ said Campbell. ‘Come on, get up. I’ve made you some tea. You can drink it while I’m packing up the tent.’
Tilly was tempted to tell him what he could do with his tea, but Campbell was already rolling up his bag and stuffing it into his pack. Clearly he wasn’t going to let her rest until she was up and out.
Grumbling, she climbed blearily out of the tent and straightened, only to freeze as she found herself staring at a view that was literally breathtaking. The rain had stopped some time in the early hours and the chilly wind had blown away all the clouds, leaving a pale luminous sky suffused with sunrise. Great golden brown hills rolled away into the purple distance, without a single sign of human habitation. No roads, no telegraph poles, no electricity pylons. Just rocks and heather and a lone bird calling somewhere above them.
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Quite something, isn’t it?’ Campbell poured tea into an enamel mug. ‘Now, aren’t you glad you got up?’
‘Ecstatic,’ said Tilly sourly, grimacing as she tried to straighten her back. Awe-inspiring it might be, but it would take more than a view to improve her mood. ‘I love being bullied awake at the crack of dawn and dragged outside to drink tea in the freezing cold halfway up a mountain when I’m so stiff I can’t even stand up straight! I mean, it’s the perfect way to start a day. Who wants to wake up in a big, wide bed with sun striping the crisp white sheets as some gorgeous man brings in a tray laden with fresh coffee and croissants and apricot jam when you could be here?’
Campbell handed her the mug of tea with a mixture of incredulity and amusement. ‘You’ve only been awake two minutes, woman! It’s too early for fantasies.’
‘It’s never too early to fantasise about food,’ she told him. ‘Especially when you missed supper. Is there any breakfast? I’m starving.’
‘Well, I can’t provide coffee and croissants, but otherwise I can fulfil all your fantasies,’ said Campbell, and Tilly looked hopeful.
‘Really?’
‘Here.’ He produced a cereal bar from his pocket and offered it to her.
She took it suspiciously. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a high energy bar. You’ll need it to get you up to the top.’
Unwrapping it, she took a cautious bite. ‘Disgusting,’ she pronounced, chewing madly.
‘Hey, you wanted breakfast, I gave you breakfast.’
‘You’re going to have to work on the fantasy thing,’ said Tilly, still chewing.
‘I will if you’ll work on the getting going thing,’ said Campbell pointedly. ‘Roger and Leanne are probably already on their way.’
‘I bet they’re not. I bet Roger is being nice and letting Leanne have a lie in after walking so far yesterday.’
‘More fool him.’ Campbell bent back to the tent and hauled the two packs outside before starting to pull out the tent pegs. ‘He’ll never win by being nice.’
‘No chance of catching you making that mistake,’ Tilly said acidly, and he looked up at her with a fleeting grin.
‘I never make that mistake,’ he said.
Jarred anew by the effect of a smile on that wintry face, Tilly looked away. She almost wished he wouldn’t do it, especially not when she had just decided that he was impossible and how glad she was that she wasn’t his type.
She busied herself looking in her pack for a toothbrush instead, and took her empty mug to the burn so that she could clean her teeth. She felt a little better after that, at least until she found a tiny folding mirror.
Aghast at her reflection, she went back to Campbell, who was dismantling the tent poles with his customary efficiency. ‘Why didn’t you tell me I looked like a dog’s breakfast?’
He glanced up briefly. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Look at my hair! That was you messing it up last night,’ she accused him. ‘And my face!’
Dismayed, she peered into the mirror once more, hoping that the red welt across her cheek might have miraculously disappeared. She had obviously been lying with her face pressed against the zip of the sleeping bag. It didn’t make for a good look, particularly not when combined with eyes that were piggy with tiredness and hair that resembled a straggly bird’s nest. There were probably things nesting in there already.
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,’
