along, Jenkins, you’re losing your grip here,’ he told her. ‘The way I see it, you’ve got two choices. You can let me pull you back on to the top here and admit defeat, sure, but are you really prepared to let down the charity you’re doing this for in the first place? They’re going to be pretty disappointed when you tell them that you bottled out because you were too chicken to do a simple abseil. They’ll be counting on you winning lots of money for them. What is your charity, anyway?’ he asked casually.
‘The local hospice,’ Tilly muttered. She wished he hadn’t brought that up. Of course she ought to be thinking about the hospice and everything they had done for her mother, and for Jack. She set her teeth.
‘Great cause,’ he commented. ‘There’ll be lots of people rooting for you to do well, then.’
‘Oh, yes, pile on the emotional blackmail, why don’t you?’ she said bitterly.
‘I’m just telling it like it is,’ said Campbell with a virtuous air. ‘One option is to disappoint all those people, not to mention the television company who have set up this challenge. The other is to take your arms from round my neck, lean back against the tension of the rope and walk slowly backwards down the rock face. It’ll be over in a minute, and you’ll feel great once you’ve done it.’
Tilly doubted that very much. More than likely, she wouldn’t be in a position to feel anything ever again.
‘Isn’t there another option?’
‘We could spend the rest of our lives up here with our arms around each other, I suppose, but I don’t imagine that’s an option you want to consider.’
‘Oh, I don’t know…’ said Tilly, playing for time.
The worrying thing was that it wasn’t actually that unappealing an option. Obviously, she hardly knew him, and he did seem rather cross, but on the other hand there were worse fates than spending the rest of your life holding on to a body like Campbell Sanderson’s. He might not be the friendliest or best-looking man she had ever met, but Tilly had to admit there was something about that cold-eyed, stern-mouthed, lean-jawed look.
If only he wasn’t so determined to make her lean back over the void. Why couldn’t he be intent on whisking her away for a fabulous weekend in Paris instead?
‘Come on, Jenkins, make up your mind.’ Impatience was creeping back into Campbell’s voice. He glanced along to where the other contestants were almost at the bottom of the rock face. ‘We haven’t got all day here. It’s time to stop messing around and just get on with it.’
Tilly sighed. Obviously he wasn’t keen on the clinging together for eternity option. She couldn’t really blame him. If Campbell Sanderson was going to spend the rest of his life with anyone, it certainly wouldn’t be with a panicky, overweight cook.
‘You’ll be absolutely fine,’ the production assistant had reassured her when breaking the news that her original partner had had to drop out. She’d lowered her voice confidentially. ‘Campbell Sanderson is ex-special forces, I heard,’ she’d whispered enviously. ‘You couldn’t be in better hands.’
Tilly looked at Campbell’s hands on the rope. They were strong and square and very capable. The sort of hands that would ease the strap of a sexy nightdress off your shoulder with just the right amount of frisson-inducing brushing of warm fingers. The sort of hands that under any other circumstances it would be a real pleasure to find yourself between, in fact.
More importantly, the sort of hands that wouldn’t drop or fumble with a rope when you were dangling on the end of it.
‘Jenkins…’ he said warningly, and Tilly dragged herself back to the matter in hand.
‘All right, all right…’
She was going to have to do it, Tilly realised. She had to do it for her mother and for everyone who needed the care she had had, but Tilly’s stomach still turned sickeningly at the prospect.
Trust me, Campbell had said. She risked a glance into his face and saw him in extraordinary detail. The pale green eyes, the dark brows drawn together in a forbidding frown, that mouth clamped in an exasperated line… Funny how she hadn’t noticed him in the same way when they’d been introduced.
Then, he had simply struck her as taciturn. Now, he seemed cool, competent, unsmiling. She could just see him in a balaclava, parachuting behind the lines to blow up a few tanks before tea. He clearly wasn’t the type to fool around. Unlike some males of her acquaintance, Campbell Sanderson wouldn’t pretend to drop her for a lark, just so he could chortle at her squeals of terror. No, he would do exactly what he said he would do.
In return, all she had to do was lean back, walk down the cliff.
And trust him.
Tilly drew a breath. She was going to have to do something.
Very, very cautiously, she loosened her hold on Campbell’s neck.
‘If I do it will you stop calling me by my surname?’ she asked.
‘Whatever you want,’ said Campbell, one eye on the other competitors, who were already packing up and getting ready to head down the hillside. ‘Just do it.’
‘OK,’ said Tilly bravely. ‘Let’s get on with it then.’
In spite of her best resolution, it took a couple of attempts before she had the nerve to let go of his neck completely and put her hands on the rope instead.
‘Good,’ said Campbell, and she was ashamed of the tiny glow of warmth she felt at his approval.
He explained what she needed to do. ‘Off you go, then,’ he said briskly.
Tilly inched her way back to the edge. ‘You won’t let me fall?’ Her voice was wavering on the verge of panic again and Campbell looked straight into her eyes.
‘Trust me,’ he said again.
‘Right,’ said Tilly and, taking a deep breath, she leant backwards over the empty air.
It would be too much to say that she enjoyed her abseil, but the hardest part was that first moment of leaning into the void, and once she was making her way down the cliff, gradually letting out the rope, it didn’t seem quite so terrifying. Campbell was at the top, letting out the rope as she went, and very quickly, it seemed, her feet touched the grass and she was collapsing into an untidy heap.
The next moment, Campbell had abseiled down in two easy jumps and was gathering up the equipment. ‘Come on,’ he said briskly, barely sparing a glance at Tilly, who was still sprawled on the grass and recovering from the trauma of her descent. ‘We’re behind.’
Reluctantly, Tilly hauled herself upright. Her legs felt distinctly wobbly but when she looked up at the rock face, she could see that it wasn’t in fact that high. Campbell had been right, damn him.
‘What now?’ she asked.
‘Now we have to get down and across the river, and we have to do it before the others, or we can’t be sure of getting through to the next round.’ Campbell coiled the last rope and stowed it away in his rucksack. ‘Come on.’
He
