Page 53 of Suddenly Tempted
“Devlin radioed in this morning,” he said. “He’s asked us to take you back on your own. He said he had something he needed to do.”
“What?” Darcy asked, retreating until her back hit the table. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“We weren’t given an explanation,” said the woman, shrugging. “Now it’s safe to fly, Devlin’s chartering one of his own helicopters to bring him back this evening. But he didn’t want you to be here longer than you needed to. It’s a bit unorthodox, I’ll give you that, but then he is Devlin Storm.”
Darcy turned around, feeling like her bones had been replaced with ice. He’d abandoned her, just tossed her aside like she was rubbish. After everything they’d been through, everything she’d given to him last night, how could he do that?
“We really need to leave,” urged the man.
He said something else, but Darcy ignored him. There was a piece of paper on the table next to Devlin’s winning card hand, a pen resting on top of it. Snatching it up, she read the note that he had left her, growing colder with every word.
I’m sorry. You once said I’m like a frozen lake, and you were right. But you deserve warmth and sunlight in your life, not the cold I bring. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to thaw enough to give you what you truly deserve.
“What?” she shouted, gripping the note so tightly it ripped at the edges. “It’s best I leave. Never be able to thaw. You coward, Devlin.”
She used the sleeve of her jumper to wipe away a tear. What had happened? Why was he doing this? She was boiling hot, a rash of anger creeping up her neck. Devlin had proved himself to be the ignorant, hard-faced man the press warned her about. And she’d fallen for his soft-boy act. The note fluttered onto the cards. Darcy moved them about with her hands, looking at the four Queens he’d laid out before he’d kissed her and made her whole world light up.
“You’re an idiot, Darcy,” she whispered, noticing the suitcase and half halting at the sight of it.
Devlin had left her, that she understood in so much as he had a reputation that had screamed from the rooftops that that’s exactly what he would do. But to leave this suitcase? There was no way. Devlin had risked his life to get it from the helicopter. He’d shouted at Darcy when she’d gone near it. He looked like a broken man when he thought it had fallen down the crevasse. Yet, there it was, sitting beside the table in the outpost, forgotten.
Something didn’t add up.
“Darcy, we really need to get going in case another storm flies in,” the man said. “We don’t all want to be stranded here.”
“Wait, just a moment, please,” she pushed, pleading with the rangers. She opened Devlin’s suitcase and peered inside. His passport was there, but the only other thing it had contained — that strange tin — was now gone.
“Miss Wainwright, please,” said the female ranger, tapping her snow boots and sending a flurry of melted snow onto the floor. “We can’t stay here and put ourselves at risk. You must understand that?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, closing the suitcase and forcing herself to think. “Please just give me a moment.”
A metal tin that seemed to mean more to Devlin than anything. And a job he needed to do, right here on the mountain. Darcy paced around the room, moving back to the table and sifting through the cards strewn there.
Suddenly it made sense. A terrible, beautiful, heart-breaking kind of sense. Darcy lifted the Queen of Hearts and slid it into her pocket, looking back at the rangers.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry, but you have to wait.”
“Why?” asked the man.
“Because Devlin needs me,” she said. “He needs me, because he’s saying goodbye to his mum.”
Chapter 28
DEVLIN
It was harder going than he’d thought, especially with the pain that radiated from his broken arm. He felt like a car that was out of fuel, running on fumes and about to cut out completely. He stopped to take a breath, looking back down the slope he’d just climbed. The route he’d taken meant that he couldn’t see the ranger’s outpost anymore, but he’d watched the chopper drop. Any minute now he’d see it rise again, Darcy safely inside it.
The pain of that thought was somehow worse than the agony in his arm.
The tin had shuffled up as he’d been climbing, and it threatened to spill from his pocket. He pulled it out and clung to it with his good arm. The wind whipped around him, threatening to pull it free, but nothing would make him loosen his grip. It wasn’t for much longer. The place he needed to get to was just on the other side of a mound of rocks, maybe a hundred metres further up the mountain. The whole journey had felt like a lifetime, and now he’d be there in a matter of minutes.
“Hang on, Mum,” he said. “Not long now. We’re nearly there.”
He set off again, stumbling and just managing to keep his balance. The snow came up to the middle of his shins, so thick that it was like wading through wet sand. He’d eaten one of the protein bars, but it was barely enough to power him, and what little energy he had was fast being leeched away by the cold. He’d overestimated how little his body had recuperated overnight, and now he was paying the price. At least the sun was up now, hovering over the peaks of the distant mountains and doing its best to warm him up.
Except, it wasn’t just the weather making him feel cold.
Shuddering, he clambered over a pile of loose shale and up the final stretch of slope. Seven gruelling minutes later and he’d reached the mound of rocks. He put a hand to them and rested again, panting hard. This wasn’t exactly how he’d intended to get here, to this moment. The original plan had been to fly to the ranger station and trek up the slope — something he would have found easy, if he hadn’t been so exhausted and broken. It didn’t matter, though. He was here — he’d kept his promise.
