‘Jamie, it’s time for you to get some sleep.’
‘Can’t I have a story? You haven’t read to me.’
Meg grabbed the book from the bed and sat down next to him. But instead of seeing the words, she saw the sexy look in Dino’s eyes as he’d bent his head to kiss her.
It wasn’t the champagne. It was the man.
Jamie sighed, wriggled upright and turned the book the other way up. ‘You can’t read if it’s upside down, silly.’
Meg blinked. ‘Oh. Just testing to see if you were concentrating.’ She gave a weak smile and tried to focus on the page but her lips were tingling and her pulse was still racing. ‘Right—where were we? Dragons…’ She read the words aloud without digesting the meaning. What now? What was she supposed to say when she saw him at work? Was she going to behave as if nothing had happened? Would he? And what about the Christmas ball? She’d said no at least ten times, but Dino didn’t listen to ‘no’.
‘You’re not using the right voices. Normally you do a high voice for the baby dragon and a low voice for the big dragon.’ Jamie peered at her. ‘Are you sure you’re OK? You look sort of weird. Did you bang your head when you walked into my door?’
She felt sort of weird.
She felt…different.
It was just a kiss, for goodness’ sake. She rolled her eyes. That was like describing champagne as ‘just a drink’. Who was she kidding? As kisses went, this one had blown every circuit in her mind. Judging from the way he hadn’t argued about leaving, she guessed it had blown every circuit in his, too.
‘I’m fine,’ Meg said firmly, concentrating hard on the dragon story and trying desperately not to think about Dino. He shouldn’t have complicated everything by kissing her, but they could move on from this. She wouldn’t be going to the ball with him. The mere thought of it filled her with dread. It would show off all the worst parts of herself.
She knew that most of the girls working at the hospital looked forward to it all year. It was the highlight of the Christmas social calendar and there was always a fight for tickets and an argument over who was going to work and who was going to have the night off.
Meg didn’t feel that way, which was why she always ended up working.
She gave a slow smile as the answer flew into her head. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? She’d volunteer to work, as she always did every other year. If Dino wouldn’t take no for an answer, she’d simply make herself unavailable.
CHAPTER FOUR
MEG was dressing the leg of an old lady who had slipped on the snow and ice when her team pager went off. ‘Oh.’ She looked down at herself. ‘I’m bleeping, Agnes. That’s the mountain rescue pager.’
‘Someone in trouble on the mountains, dear? The snow was falling all night but I still see walkers trudging past my front door.’ The woman flexed her foot. ‘That feels very comfortable, thank you. You’d better see what they want, Meg. Don’t mind me. I can get my own shoe back on.’
‘Don’t move until I’ve talked to you about how you’re getting home, Agnes.’ Meg dragged the pager out of her pocket and read the message. ‘Avalanche? You have to be kidding me.’
‘Worst weather conditions for eighteen years. I had to wait three hours for a bus yesterday.’ Ignoring Meg’s instructions, Agnes stood up. ‘It isn’t safe to leave the house without crampons. And a young thing like you shouldn’t be going out in all weathers. I remember your dad was the same.’
Meg washed her hands quickly. ‘Agnes, if you come with me now, I can drop you off on my way to the mountain rescue base. I drive past your house. Then you won’t have to stand in the freezing cold waiting for a bus that might never turn up because of the snow. I just need to tell the sister in charge what’s happening. Wait there for me.’
She found Ellie, grabbed her coat and her car keys and minutes later she was dropping Agnes off outside her cottage. Having seen her safely inside the house, Meg drove to her mother’s house, collected Rambo and made her way through the falling snow to the rescue centre.
‘A party of three men were ski touring.’ Sean, the leader of the local mountain rescue team, was standing over a map, pointing out the search area. ‘They were traversing along the top of this gully when one of them was caught in an avalanche. Their last known position was here, but since then the battery on their cellphone has died, or else they’ve been caught by another avalanche.’
‘Who called you?’
‘One of the other three. They were higher than him. The slope broke below them and took him with it.’
Dino strode into the room, zipping up his jacket as he walked. ‘Were they carrying transceivers?’
Meg kept her eyes fixed on the map. ‘I doubt it.’
‘Phone went dead before they could tell me—I’m assuming not.’ Sean’s face was grim. ‘You know how people underestimate the Lake District. Don’t any of you do the same. The snowpack is unstable on the south and north-easterly
aspects so this is where we need to be careful. Remember that it’s loading—adding weight—that causes most avalanches and the fastest way to load a slope is by wind.’
Still not looking at Dino, Meg pushed her hair under her hat. ‘And we’ve had plenty of wind.’
‘Precisely. Wind erodes from the upwind side of an obstacle such as a ridge and it deposits on the downwind side, and wind can deposit snow ten times more rapidly than snow falling from the sky.’ Sean sketched a quick picture, showing what he meant. ‘Be wary of any slope with recent deposits of wind-drifted snow.’