The Christmas Marriage Rescue (Lakeside Mountain Rescue 4)

‘You can’t just swan up a mountain when you haven’t been near one for years.’

‘That’s rubbish! I may not have been on the team, but I’ve done plenty of climbing and walking and I’m every bit as fit as you are!’

The atmosphere in the car was simmering with mounting tension and she looked away, so angry that she wanted to hit something. Or someone.

‘Fine.’ His voice was tight as he concentrated on keeping the car on the road in the lethal conditions. ‘Just no heroics.’

‘Heroics?’ She turned and glared at him as she tugged a hat onto her head. ‘Since when have I suffered from a hero complex?’

‘You always took risks when you were climbing.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘As you said yourself, you haven’t been with the team for a long time.’ Alessandro changed gear with a vicious thrust of his hand. ‘What you’ve forgotten could prove dangerous. I just don’t want your ego to get in the way. If you don’t know something, say so.’

‘What I know is that I’m not the one with the ego around here,’ she spat angrily, jamming her feet into her boots and yanking so hard at the laces that she almost snapped them. ‘There’s only room in this car for one ego and yours is taking up all the space!’

He had no confidence in her whatsoever, she thought, her temper building to dangerous levels. ‘I hadn’t been in A and E for years either,’ she pointed out angrily, ‘but so far I haven’t killed anyone! This used to be my life, Alessandro! This was what I did, but somewhere along the way I’ve lost it all. I’ve lost A and E, I’ve lost Mountain Rescue and now I’ve lost—’ She had been about to say ‘you’ but she stopped herself just in time. Instead, she clamped her teeth down on her bottom lip and blinked back the hot sting of tears.

His opinion of her was obviously at rock bottom, she thought miserably as she turned her head and stared out of the window while she struggled for control.

He slowed down to take an icy corner. ‘You make it sound as though your entire married life has been one big sacrifice.’

‘No.’ Confident that she was back in control again, she turned her head and studied his hard, handsome profile. She loved him so much. Despite everything, she completely adored him and always would. ‘That isn’t how it is. The children are everything. But there are parts of me that I put to one side while they were small and you can’t blame me for wanting them back now.’

Alessandro was silent, his strong hands gripping the steering-wheel. ‘I had no idea that you missed it so badly.’ His voice was a low growl and she swallowed hard, her anger dissolving to nothing, suddenly desperate to make him understand.

‘Wouldn’t you miss it? If you were the one who had to give it all up, wouldn’t you miss it?’

‘That’s different.’

‘How is it different, Alessandro? Because you’re a man and I’m a woman?’ Her temper boiled up again and she resisted the temptation to thump him hard. ‘Well, I’ve got news for you, my Neanderthal, chauvinistic male, it isn’t different at all! Which marriage rule book says that it’s the woman who has to make all the changes in her life?’

He inhaled sharply. ‘You knew when you married me that I wasn’t the sort of man who could stay at home and change nappies, but if you’d wanted a nanny you could have said so.’

‘I didn’t want a nanny! I wanted to be the one to raise our children.’ She was shouting now, shouting as she zipped up her jacket and reached for her gloves. ‘But I’m allowed to be honest about missing some bits of my old life. And I’m also allowed to see if I want some of those bits back now that the children are older. Is that really asking too much?’

Alessandro flicked the indicator and pulled into the car park at the mountain rescue base. Then he switched off the engine and sat staring into the freezing cold December day, his handsome face blank of expression. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘It isn’t asking too much.’

‘When we first met, we were doing the same things,’ she said, suddenly desperate to say the things that had been building inside her for months. ‘We were on the same path. But somehow that’s all changed. You’ve gone on ahead and I’ve been left behind.’

He turned towards her. ‘Is that how you see it?’

‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s just how it is.’

She wanted to ask where that left their relationship but he seemed so distant and icily remote that she didn’t know what to say and was relieved to see Jake and two other members of the MRT striding across the car park towards them.

‘Oh, great—there’s Jake.’ Grateful for a reason to escape from the chill inside the car, she opened the door and slid out.

* * *

Alessandro sat for a moment, simmering with mounting tension, the expression in his dark eyes approaching dangerous as he watched her greet Jake with a warm hug.

Had she always been so demonstrative with Jake?

Why had he never noticed how physical they were before now?

He knew that Jake found Christy attractive but never before this moment had he had reason to ask questions about where Christy’s affections lay because he’d always known that she adored him. He’d been utterly secure in their love.