Stay with what you know best, Doctor, Xavier told himself, hardening his heart. Casting a professional eye over Sophie, he took comfort in the fact that he never had been able to see a problem without wanting to find the solution to it. That had been the basis of his attraction to the medical profession. And that was his motivation now, he told himself firmly, taking hold of Sophie’s exposed arm and tucking it inside the sleeping bag.
‘Sleep well,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’ And, switching off the light, he left the room.
The instant Sophie’s head hit the pillow she fell deeply asleep, but when she woke the next morning she heard Xavier moving around outside the room and, climbing out of the sleeping bag, she quickly pulled on her clothes and went out to join him. She was determined to behave as if nothing untoward had happened the night before. It was the only way they were going to be able to work together—and, to her relief, the look on his face told her Xavier had drawn the same conclusion.
‘What time is it?’ She hadn’t got round to resetting her wristwatch on to the new time zone, and could only guess by the faint pink still lining the horizon that it was shortly after dawn.
‘Time for a swim,’ he said casually, raking his hair in a way she was becoming accustomed to, so that it stood up in short, dark spikes.
‘Swim?’
‘Why not?’ Alone, to give him the chance to think over what had happened the previous night, had been his original plan—but now she was here…
‘The water around here must come down from the glaciers.’
‘So?’ Xavier demanded with a wry look of enquiry.
‘So, it will be freezing,’ Sophie pointed out reasonably.
‘Have you grown soft since you used to come to Spain to ski in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Sophie?’
She hid her surprise. The past was not an entirely forbidden topic for him, as she had supposed.
‘I can still remember you rolling in the snow in just your underwear when you were a little girl.’
‘That was different,’ Sophie protested.
‘How?’
‘I didn’t know any better back then.’
‘You seemed to enjoy it at the time,’ he observed casually. ‘Why don’t you come with me now and see if you’ve got any of that pluck left?’ He had told himself he wasn’t going to goad her ever again. He was going to keep his distance from now on—professional interest only. The last thing he had wanted was to bring that glint back into her eyes. Xavier groaned inwardly—maybe they had just known each other too long. It was already there.
‘Forget it!’ Sophie exclaimed, meaning just the opposite. A swim sounded great—especially if it helped to clear the air between them after last night.
She had driven him to the limits last night, Xavier realised, angling a stare at her. But anything—anything on earth was preferable to ever seeing her cowering at his feet again. Even this, he accepted ruefully, seeing her chin tilt up for combat. ‘Forgotten how to swim?’ he demanded, intentionally ratcheting up the challenge.
‘No.’
‘I’ll take good care of you.’
Sophie squared her shoulders as she glared at him, all thoughts of warm sleeping bags forgotten. ‘You think I need it?’
‘Yes.’
There was so much going on behind that dark, challenging gaze. Quite unexpectedly, a shower of sensation left no part of her untouched.
Easing on to one hip, Xavier threw her an insolent stare. ‘Chicken?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘I am woman,’ he mocked. ‘Or does that not extend as far as being as hardy as the male of the species?’
Sophie blazed back a look. ‘I see you are determined to goad me.’
Xavier contented himself with a lazy shrug. ‘The sun’s coming out. It will soon be warm. Remember how hot it was yesterday?’
‘But the water will still be freezing.’ And she was shivering already, but not from the cold, Sophie realised.
‘You are chicken,’ he said, starting to move away.
‘We’ll see about that,’ Sophie countered determinedly. ‘I’m coming with you.’
‘How far did you say it was?’ she demanded when they had been trudging up scree that slid away beneath her feet for what seemed like eternity. But when they crested the steep hill Sophie saw why Xavier had insisted on climbing so far. A blemish-free pool of water, surrounded by lush vegetation, stretched out in front of them like an oasis in the mountains.
‘Worth the climb?’ Xavier demanded, turning to look at her.
‘More than worth it,’ she was forced to admit. ‘It’s really beautiful.’ Sophie shook her head in awe as she stared around. She knew many deep lakes had been carved out by the glaciers, but had never expected to visit one—let alone
swim in one. They had climbed even higher than she had imagined, but still the towering crags surrounding them seemed to stretch away into infinity. The sun was blindingly bright and already quite hot on her face as she peered upwards trying to see where the snow-capped peaks ended and the puffball clouds littering the clear blue sky began.
‘Feeling OK?’ Xavier said, casting a professional eye over her. ‘You did prepare properly for this trip? We’re at a really high altitude now.’
‘Of course.’
‘In the gym?’ he pressed, refusing to be satisfied by the brevity of her answer.
‘That too,’ Sophie admitted, knowing she was going to have to give him the whole nine yards. ‘But I’ve been taking supplements like iron and Gingko Biloba too, to boost the supply of oxygen to my brain. Don’t,’ she warned, when she saw the hint of a smile tugging at his lips.
‘Starting when?’ Xavier said, reverting swiftly back to doctor mode.
‘A couple of weeks ago.’
‘Quality brands?’
‘Of course,’ Sophie confirmed, knowing there was a wide spectrum of homeopathic remedies, some of which fell off the poor end of the chart in quite spectacular fashion.
‘OK, then.’
He appeared satisfied with her answers. ‘After you,’ Sophie invited, staring out across the mirrored surface of the aquamarine lake.
‘Let’s take a moment first,’ Xavier suggested, sucking in a deep breath.
He looked almost relaxed for the first time since she had arrived, Sophie thought, as they stood listening to the silence. They might have been the only two people in the world. ‘The air feels as if—’
‘We’re the first people ever to breathe it in,’ Xavier finished for her.
‘Pretty much.’ She moved away from him to stand on a ledge overhanging the water. ‘Maybe we are the first people ever to step on this piece of ground,’ she said, turning back to look at him.
Xavier was surprised at the amount of pleasure it gave him to see Sophie looking so happy. There were no dark shadows marring her beauty, and the anticipation in her face had brightened her eyes to the shade of a wild pansy. ‘Come on,’ he said, before his feelings ran away with him. ‘We have a lot of work to do today—there’s not much time for swimming—and perhaps I should warn you that the last one in the water gets to sort out the filing system.’