As they approached, Sally called out a warning, anxious that their sudden arrival didn’t startle the woman.
‘You’re too close to the edge.’ She hurried up to the woman and gently coaxed her away from the precipitous drop.
‘She fell.’ The woman’s face was chalk white and her eyes were full of tears. ‘She was bouncing along the path, playing, and suddenly it just fell away. She scrabbled frantically and yelped and then she just disappeared.’
‘And she’s on a ledge?’
The woman nodded, her lower lip caught between her teeth. ‘You probably think I’m crazy, making all this fuss about a dog. But she’s all I’ve got.’
Sally gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘I don’t think you’re crazy. And we’ll get her for you. Just make sure she stays still on that ledge.’
‘I’m trying to …’ the woman’s eyes filled ‘… but she wants to get back to me and she keeps jumping up.’
‘Well, at least she’s fit enough to jump,’ Sally said practically, taking various bits of equipment from Tom as he removed them from his rucksack.
It occurred to her that in almost every aspect of their lives they worked together almost by telepathy, each responding to an instinctive knowledge of what the other needed.
Reminding herself that she wasn’t going to think about what she needed, Sally moved alongside Tom and wriggled into a harness. She clipped on a karabiner and attached the rope.
‘I’ll abseil down to her,’ she said quietly, and Tom nodded, checking the knot on her rope.
‘Don’t do any of your fancy tricks, Jenner.’ His tone was light. ‘Just get the dog and leave, got that? No social chit-chat. None of your free climbing or flash moves.’
She smiled mockingly, paying out the rope and stepping towards the edge. ‘I might hang around if the view is nice.’
She abseiled skilfully and confidently down the side of the mountain and stopped by the ledge where the little dog was trapped.
As soon as the dog saw her, she started to wag her tail frantically.
Sally saw the danger instantly and gave a gasp of dismay. ‘Stay! Sit! Oh, help, you’re going to fall, you silly thing.’ Seeing the dog’s back legs slide off the ledge, she lunged across and grabbed it by the collar, just managing to secure it before it plummeted down to the valley floor.
Her heart was thumping so hard she thought it might explode out of her chest. ‘Don’t do that to me again,’ she scolded, drawing the dog towards her and attaching the harness and the rope. Satisfied that the dog was safely attached, she indicated to Tom that she was ready for him to lift the dog, and then concentrated on climbing back up to them.
Back on the ridge the woman collapsed on the little dog, hugging her tightly.
‘I can never thank you enough for saving her. I saw what happened. If you hadn’t caught her when you did … She’s all I’ve got.’ She buried her face in the dog’s coat and closed her eyes.
Sally unfastened the rope. ‘Well, I did catch her, so let’s not think about it.’
The woman gave a sniff. ‘She doesn’t even seem injured. She was so lucky to land on that ledge. If she’d gone over …’
Tom put a hand on her arm. ‘As Sally said, let’s not think about it. Come on. Let’s get you off this mountain. The weather is closing in.’
But before they reached the bottom another call came from Sean, reporting four boys overdue from a walk.
They agreed that Tom would rendezvous with the rest of the team and Sally would continue to the bottom and take the woman and the dog safely to base.
Initially relieved to be away from the temptation of being near Tom, Sally glanced at the sky and suddenly felt a twinge of disquiet. There was a storm brewing and it had all the signs of being a bad one.
It would mean a difficult and potentially dangerous rescue for Tom and the rest of the team.
Dragging her eyes away from the building cloud, she concentrated on guiding the woman and her dog to safety.
An hour later she climbed on her bike to ride home from the base and then looked at the weather again and decided to wait.
She wouldn’t be able to relax, knowing that Tom was out there.
She needed to be at the heart of what was happening. And it wasn’t as if he ever needed to know that she’d stayed.