breathed as they reached the summit of one trail that had ascended up out of the canyon and on to a rocky plateau where the chill wind seemed only cooling after the heat generated by their hard-pushed muscles. ‘You don’t need a gym at this place, do you?’
Max gave a laugh, leaning back on a rock to take a long draught of water from the flask that hung around his neck—an absolute necessity for hiking, as they’d been firmly instructed by the rangers—and she did likewise.
‘No, indeed,’ he agreed. ‘We’re going to feel it in our legs tomorrow, though, I suspect. But it’s worth it ten times over.’
‘Oh, yes.’ She nodded, her eyes sweeping out over the grandeur of the wilderness that stretched as far as the eye could see and much further still. Her gaze came back to Max. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
He smiled, warm and affectionate. ‘I knew this was a good idea,’ he said. He lowered his backpack to the ground. ‘Right, that hike’s made me starving—time for lunch.’
They settled themselves on a sun-warmed rock in the lee of a boulder that sheltered them from the keening wind and companionably started on the packed lunch prepared for them. Ellen lifted her face to the sun. Happiness filled her. Complete and absolute happiness.
Her eyes went to Max.
You...you make me happy. Being with you makes me happy. Whether we’re making love or sitting like this, side by side in the silence and the grandeur of nature’s gift to us. It’s being with you that makes me happy.
Yet even as the thoughts filled her head their corollary came. If being with Max made her happy, what would being without him make her?
For being without him was what awaited her. It had to—there could be no escape from that. In days they would be heading back to England.
And even if it were not mere days...even if it were weeks...even months...at some point I would have to be without him.
Shadows clouded her mind and through the shadows words pierced her. Pierced her with painful knowledge.
The longer I am with him, the harder being without him will be.
There was a little cry inside her head as the piercing knowledge came. Instinctively she sought to shield herself. To hold up a guard against the thought that must come next but which she would not permit. Dared not permit.
Fiercely she fought back.
Enjoy only this! Enjoy this for what it is and don’t ask for more.
Yet even as she adjured herself to be cautious she knew with sudden certainty that it was already too late for caution. Awareness opened out within her like a physical sensation, and the words that went with it took form in her consciousness—loud and unstoppable.
Am I falling in love with him?
She pulled her mind away, tried to silence the words. Sought urgently to counter them. To deny them. No—no—she wasn’t falling in love with Max. She was only thinking she was!
And it was obvious—wasn’t it? Max was the first man in her life...the only man to have made love to her, embraced her, kissed her, spent time with her. It was obvious that she should fancy herself falling in love with him! What female wouldn’t fancy herself falling in love with him when he was so incredibly attractive, so devastating, from his deep, dark eyes and his curving smile to his strong, lean body?
That was all it was—just a natural and obvious reaction. It was only that, nothing more—it was nothing real...just her imagination.
Beside her, Max was packing away his now empty lunch box and fishing out his phone.
‘Selfie time,’ he announced, hooking one arm around her while holding out his phone ahead of them. ‘Big smile!’ he instructed, and set off a flurry of shots of them both. ‘There,’ he said, showing her the images.
Ellen smiled, but she could feel a pang inside all the same. A sudden sense of impending loss.
This is all that’s going to be left of my time with him—photos and memories.
She took a steadying breath. Well, she would deal with that when she had to. Right now, as Max slipped his phone away and got to his feet, hefting his backpack on to his broad shoulders again, she would make the most of this time with him. So she got up too, and set off after him on the descent.
More hiking, cycling along the paved valley trails and even horse riding—with Ellen discovering the novelty of a Western saddle—comprised their days, and dining at the lodge in rustic comfort passed their evenings. Roaring log fires in the lounge and no TV or other electronic distractions all added to the ambience and mood. Yet all the same the days passed, one by one and ineluctably, taking them nearer to their return to the UK.
Ellen’s mood, as they finally headed north to pick up their flight from Salt Lake City, became increasingly sombre as mile after long mile ate up this last time of being with the man who had so utterly transformed her.
Inside as well as outwardly.
An ache caught at her. Soon they would be parting. One plane journey away and she would be heading back to Haughton, and he—well, he would be heading to whatever was next on his busy schedule. This time tomorrow he would be gone from her life.
A silent cry went up inside her. And a savage admonition.
You went into this with your eyes open. You knew why he was doing it, what his reasons were—so don’t bewail it. Think of it as...as therapy!
She shut her eyes, blocking the sight of him from herself. There would be other men in her life now. He had made that possible. Made her see herself as desirable, as beautiful. That was the gift he’d given her, even if he’d given it to her for reasons of his own. From now on she knew that men would desire her—
But even as she told herself that she could hear that voice cry out again in silent anguish.
But what man could I desire after Max? What man could ever compare to him? Impossible—just impossible! No one could ever melt me with a single glance, could make love to me as he does, could set the fires racing through my veins as he can! No one! No one else ever will.
A shiver went through her, as if she had stirred ghosts from a future that had not yet happened but was waiting to happen. A future without Max Vasilikos in it. An empty future.
No, she mustn’t think like that. A future without Max in it would not be empty. Could not be—not while she had to fight for her beloved home, keep it as long as she possibly could, safe from those who wanted to take it from her. Including Max.
Her face shadowed. Here, on the far side of the Atlantic, she had been able to forget that it was he who wanted to oust her—for her own good, as he believed—but that bitter truth was not something she must ever forget.
And it was a truth that loomed larger with every hour on the plane as they flew back to the UK.
Her
