style="font-size:15px;"> 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 brisk 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
