Last-Minute Proposal

CHAPTER ONE

‘DON’T let me go!’

Tilly’s voice rose to a shrill whisper as she grabbed Campbell Sanderson’s neck and hung on for dear life. He was rock-solid and smelt reassuringly clean and masculine. And he was the only thing standing between her and the bottom of a cliff.

Typical. The closest she had been to a bloke for ages and she was too terrified to enjoy it.

Campbell reached up to prise her hands away. ‘I’ve no intention of letting you go,’ he said irritably. ‘I’m going to hold the rope while you lower yourself down. It’s perfectly simple. All you have to do is lean back and trust me.’

‘And how many women over the centuries have heard that line?’ snapped Tilly, clamping her arms determinedly back in place the moment he released them. ‘It’s all very well for you to talk about trust, but you’re not the one being asked to dangle over an abyss with only a thin rope between you and certain death!’

One thing was sure-certain death was awaiting her twin brothers, who were responsible for getting her into this mess. She was going to kill them the moment she got off this sodding hillside.

If she ever got off this hillside.

Tilly risked a glance at Campbell. It was odd to be so close to a perfect stranger at all, let alone clasping him quite so fervently, and she examined him with a strange, detached part of her mind that was prepared to do anything other than think about abseiling down the sheer cliff face.

He had glacier-green eyes that were the coldest and most implacable she had ever seen, close-cropped hair and an expression of profound impatience. Of course, that might just be inspired by her, Tilly had to acknowledge, but she had a feeling it was habitual. He seemed the impatient type. Tilly was the last person to deny that appearances could be deceptive, but there was something about the austere angles of his face and the ruthless set of his mouth that made her think that here was a prime example of ‘what you see is what you get’.

And what you got in the case of Campbell Sanderson was a very tough customer indeed.

‘How can I trust you?’ she demanded, without releasing her limpet-like grip. ‘I don’t know anything about you.’

Campbell sucked in an exasperated breath. ‘I don’t know you either,’ he pointed out crisply. ‘So why would I want to drop you down a cliff, especially with a television camera trained on me? Or hadn’t you noticed they’re filming you right now?’

‘Of course I’ve noticed! Why do you think I’m whispering?’

Tilly’s arms were aching with the effort of holding on to him. Her feet were braced just over the lip of the cliff, but she could feel gravity pulling her weight backwards.

And, let’s face it, it was a substantial weight to be pulled. Why, oh, why hadn’t she stuck to any of her diets? Tilly wondered wildly. This was a punishment to her for not subsisting on lettuce leaves for the past thirty years.

Campbell glanced at the distant cameras in disbelief. ‘They’re miles away! Of course they can’t hear you, but they can see you. They’ve got a socking great zoom on that camera and it’s pointed straight at you so, for God’s sake, pull yourself together!’ he told her sharply. ‘You’re making yourself look ridiculous.’

And him by association.

‘Better to be ridiculous than splattered all over the bottom of this cliff!’

A muscle was jumping in his cheek and his jaw looked suspiciously set. ‘For a start, this is not a cliff,’ he said with the kind of restraint that suggested that he was only hanging on to his temper with extreme difficulty. ‘It’s barely twenty feet to the bottom there and, as I keep telling you, you’re not going to fall. You’re on a secure rope, and you can let yourself down slowly. Even if you did lose control, I’ve got hold of the rope and I’d stop you dropping.’

‘You might not be able to,’ said Tilly, not at all convinced. ‘That rope’s awfully fine. I can’t believe it’ll hold my weight.’

‘Of course it will,’ he said impatiently. ‘This rope could hold a hippopotamus.’

‘Now, I wonder what made you think of a hippo,’ Tilly said bitterly.

She wished Campbell hadn’t mentioned the zoom on that camera. It was probably trained on her bottom right now. Unsure of quite what ‘a day in the hills’ involved, but fairly sure it would mean getting cold, she had squeezed herself into her old skiing salopettes, bought in a burst of enthusiasm soon after she had met Olivier and was at least two sizes smaller. Now her big red bottom would be filling the screen down there, and the television crew would all be having a good laugh.

Tilly had a dark suspicion that had been the idea all along.

‘Who thought up this show in the first place?’ she demanded, fear and humiliation giving her voice a treacherous wobble, but at least talking took her mind off the void beneath her.

‘God knows,’ said Campbell, thinking that a deep longing to be elsewhere was probably all that he and Tilly had in common.

‘I bet they were sitting around in some bar or wherever television types congregate, and someone said, “Hey, I know, let’s make a programme where we make fat people look absolutely ridiculous!”’

‘If that were the case, all the contestants would be fat and, in fact, none of us are,’ he pointed out impatiently.

‘I am.’

‘Not noticeably,’ said Campbell, although now she came to mention it, the figure clutching him was definitely on the voluptuous side.

He had been too focused on the task in hand to notice at first, which was perhaps just as well. Under other circumstances, he would have enjoyed the situation. He was only human, after all, and he certainly wasn’t going to object if a lush-bodied woman chose to press herself against him. Sadly, however many points Matilda Jenkins might score on the physical front, she was losing a lot more with all this carry-on about a simple abseil.

‘Your theory is nonsense, in fact,’ he told her. ‘None of the other novices are the slightest bit overweight.’

Tilly thought back to the meeting that morning, where they had met their three rival pairs who had also made it through from the first round. Much as it might go against the grain, she had to admit that Campbell was right.

Leanne had a perfect figure, for instance. Tilly had noticed her straight away as a possible kindred spirit. She was the only other contestant wearing make-up and looked about as happy to be there as Tilly was. It turned out that Leanne was a beautician, blonde and very pretty, and, almost as much as her figure, Tilly had envied her partner, a gregarious outdoor sports instructor called Roger who had all the latest equipment and was friendly and reassuring. The opposite of Campbell, in fact.

Leanne definitely wasn’t fat, and nor were the other two girls. Defying the usual stereotypes, one of them was a capable-looking outdoorsy type who had been teamed with a medieval art historian raising money for the restoration of some cathedral’s stained glass, and even he was downright skinny.

‘Well, perhaps they thought it was funny to make us all look ridiculous,’ Tilly conceded grudgingly, reluctant to let go of her theory completely. She managed a mirthless laugh, no small achievement when you were teetering on the edge of a sheer drop-and she didn’t care what Campbell said about twenty feet, it felt like the side of the Grand Canyon to her. ‘Ha, ha.’

‘More than likely,’ said Campbell tersely, ‘but, since we’ve all agreed to take part, we’re not in a position to complain about it now.’

Further along the rock face, he could see his three competitors preparing their partners for the abseil. There were three other beginners in Tilly’s position, chosen for their complete lack of experience with anything remotely connected with outdoor activities, but they seemed to be getting on with what they had to do without any of the drama Matilda Jenkins seemed determined to wring from the situation.

He blew out a breath. There were better things to be doing on a bright, cold Saturday in the Highlands. A brisk wind was pushing the clouds past the sun, sending shadows scudding over the hills around them, and the air smelt of peat and heather. It would be a great day for a climb, or just to walk off the restlessness that had plagued him so often recently.

Instead of which, he had a hysterical woman on his hands. Campbell didn’t care how lush her body was, how appealing her perfume. He would rather be behind enemy lines again than cope with a scene of the kind Matilda Jenkins was evidently all too capable of creating.

Why had he ever let Keith talk him into this? Good PR, indeed! How the hell could it be good PR for Manning’s Chief Executive to be seen being strangled by a panicky woman at the top of a drop so short you could practically step down to the bottom?

And this was only the beginning, Campbell reminded himself darkly. He had to get the bloody woman down this rock face, across the hill, into the valley and across the river at the bottom before the others, or they wouldn’t get through to the next round, and if they didn’t do that, they wouldn’t win the competition.

And Campbell Sanderson didn’t do not winning.

Tempting as it was to just push her over the edge and lower her to the bottom, Campbell reluctantly discarded that option. He was prepared to bet that Jenkins had a scream that would be heard across the border in England. The noise would be appalling, and she had a surprisingly strong grip, too. He wouldn’t put it past her to try and drag him back with her, and they would end up wrestling and making themselves look even more ridiculous than they did already.

No, he was going to have to talk her down.

Drawing a breath, Campbell forced patience into his voice.

‘Come along, Jenkins, you’re losing your grip here,’ he told her. ‘The way I see it, you’ve got two choices. You can let me pull you back on to the top here and admit defeat, sure, but are you really prepared to let down the charity you’re doing this for in the first place? They’re going to be pretty disappointed when you tell them that you bottled out because you were too chicken to do a simple abseil. They’ll be counting on you winning lots of money for them. What is your charity, anyway?’ he asked casually.

‘The local hospice,’ Tilly muttered. She wished he hadn’t brought that up. Of course she ought to be thinking about the hospice and everything they had done for her mother, and for Jack. She set her teeth.

‘Great cause,’ he commented. ‘There’ll be lots of people rooting for you to do well, then.’

‘Oh, yes, pile on the emotional blackmail, why don’t you?’ she said bitterly.

‘I’m just telling it like it is,’ said Campbell with a virtuous air. ‘One option is to disappoint all those people, not to mention the television company who have set up this challenge. The other is to take your arms from round my neck, lean back against the tension of the rope and walk slowly backwards down the rock face. It’ll be over in a minute, and you’ll feel great once you’ve done it.’

Tilly doubted that very much. More than likely, she wouldn’t be in a position to feel anything ever again.

‘Isn’t there another option?’

‘We could spend the rest of our lives up here with our arms around each other, I suppose, but I don’t imagine that’s an option you want to consider.’

‘Oh, I don’t know…’ said Tilly, playing for time.

The worrying thing was that it wasn’t actually that unappealing an option. Obviously, she hardly knew him, and he did seem rather cross, but on the other hand there were worse fates than spending the rest of your life holding on to a body like Campbell Sanderson’s. He might not be the friendliest or best-looking man she had ever met, but Tilly had to admit there was something about that cold-eyed, stern-mouthed, lean-jawed look.

If only he wasn’t so determined to make her lean back over the void. Why couldn’t he be intent on whisking her away for a fabulous weekend in Paris instead?

‘Come on, Jenkins, make up your mind.’ Impatience was creeping back into Campbell’s voice. He glanced along to where the other contestants were almost at the bottom of the rock face. ‘We haven’t got all day here. It’s time to stop messing around and just get on with it.’

Tilly sighed. Obviously he wasn’t keen on the clinging together for eternity option. She couldn’t really blame him. If Campbell Sanderson was going to spend the rest of his life with anyone, it certainly wouldn’t be with a panicky, overweight cook.

‘You’ll be absolutely fine,’ the production assistant had reassured her when breaking the news that her original partner had had to drop out. She’d lowered her voice confidentially. ‘Campbell Sanderson is ex-special forces, I heard,’ she’d whispered enviously. ‘You couldn’t be in better hands.’

Tilly looked at Campbell’s hands on the rope. They were strong and square and very capable. The sort of hands that would ease the strap of a sexy nightdress off your shoulder with just the right amount of frisson-inducing brushing of warm fingers. The sort of hands that under any other circumstances it would be a real pleasure to find yourself between, in fact.

More importantly, the sort of hands that wouldn’t drop or fumble with a rope when you were dangling on the end of it.

‘Jenkins…’ he said warningly, and Tilly dragged herself back to the matter in hand.

‘All right, all right…’

She was going to have to do it, Tilly realised. She had to do it for her mother and for everyone who needed the care she had had, but Tilly’s stomach still turned sickeningly at the prospect.

Trust me, Campbell had said. She risked a glance into his face and saw him in extraordinary detail. The pale green eyes, the dark brows drawn together in a forbidding frown, that mouth clamped in an exasperated line…Funny how she hadn’t noticed him in the same way when they’d been introduced.

Then, he had simply struck her as taciturn. Now, he seemed cool, competent, unsmiling. She could just see him in a balaclava, parachuting behind the lines to blow up a few tanks before tea. He clearly wasn’t the type to fool around. Unlike some males of her acquaintance, Campbell Sanderson wouldn’t pretend to drop her for a lark, just so he could chortle at her squeals of terror. No, he would do exactly what he said he would do.

In return, all she had to do was lean back, walk down the cliff.

And trust him.

Tilly drew a breath. She was going to have to do something.

Very, very cautiously, she loosened her hold on Campbell’s neck.

‘If I do it will you stop calling me by my surname?’ she asked.

‘Whatever you want,’ said Campbell, one eye on the other competitors, who were already packing up and getting ready to head down the hillside. ‘Just do it.’

‘OK,’ said Tilly bravely. ‘Let’s get on with it then.’

In spite of her best resolution, it took a couple of attempts before she had the nerve to let go of his neck completely and put her hands on the rope instead.

‘Good,’ said Campbell, and she was ashamed of the tiny glow of warmth she felt at his approval.

He explained what she needed to do. ‘Off you go, then,’ he said briskly.

Tilly inched her way back to the edge. ‘You won’t let me fall?’ Her voice was wavering on the verge of panic again and Campbell looked straight into her eyes.

‘Trust me,’ he said again.

‘Right,’ said Tilly and, taking a deep breath, she leant backwards over the empty air.

It would be too much to say that she enjoyed her abseil, but the hardest part was that first moment of leaning into the void, and once she was making her way down the cliff, gradually letting out the rope, it didn’t seem quite so terrifying. Campbell was at the top, letting out the rope as she went, and very quickly, it seemed, her feet touched the grass and she was collapsing into an untidy heap.

The next moment, Campbell had abseiled down in two easy jumps and was gathering up the equipment. ‘Come on,’ he said briskly, barely sparing a glance at Tilly, who was still sprawled on the grass and recovering from the trauma of her descent. ‘We’re behind.’

Reluctantly, Tilly hauled herself upright. Her legs felt distinctly wobbly but when she looked up at the rock face, she could see that it wasn’t in fact that high. Campbell had been right, damn him.

‘What now?’ she asked.

‘Now we have to get down and across the river, and we have to do it before the others, or we can’t be sure of getting through to the next round.’ Campbell coiled the last rope and stowed it away in his rucksack. ‘Come on.’

He strode off, leaving Tilly to trot after him. ‘Are you sure you’re going the right way?’ she asked a little breathlessly, and pointed over her shoulder. ‘Everyone else has gone that way.’

‘Which is why we’re going this way,’ said Campbell, not breaking his stride in the slightest. ‘It’s a tougher route, but much quicker.’

‘How on earth do you know that?’

‘I looked at a map this morning.’

Tilly stared at his back. ‘Boy, you really do want to win, don’t you?’ Her father was the only person she knew with that kind of drive to win at any cost.

‘Why are you here if you don’t?’ he countered. Just as her father would have done.

‘I was tricked into it.’ Tilly’s blue eyes sparkled with remembered indignation. ‘My twin brothers decided that it was time for me to get out of my rut and entered me in the competition. The first I knew of it was when people who work at the hospice started coming up to me and telling me how thrilled they were that I was taking part and what wonderful things they would be able to do with the money if I won. So I could hardly turn round then and say it was all a terrible mistake, could I?’ she grumbled.

Campbell glanced down at her. Her heart-shaped face was pink with exertion and she was vainly trying to stop the breeze blowing the mass of curly brown hair into her eyes. She looked cross and ruffled and vibrant in her red ski-suit. It seemed a bizarre choice to wear for a weekend walking in the hills, but at least there was no chance of her getting lost. You could see her coming a mile away. Perhaps the television people had told her they wanted her to be noticeable-although it was hard to imagine not noticing her.

‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘If you didn’t want to do it, you could have just said so.’

Of course he would say that, thought Tilly. It was easy for people like Campbell Sanderson and her father, who only ever focused on one thing. They didn’t worry about what other people would think or whether feelings would be hurt. They just said what they thought and did what they wanted and it never occurred to them to feel guilty about anything.

‘It would have seemed so selfish,’ she tried to explain. ‘The hospice is a really special place. It was so awful when we knew my mother was dying. She was in pain, my brothers were very young, my stepfather was distraught…I was trying to hold things together but I didn’t know what to do.’

The dark blue eyes were sad as she remembered that terrible time. ‘I was so afraid of Mum dying,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how any of us would have got through it without the hospice. It wasn’t that we were any less bereft when she did die, but when she was there we were all calmer. They were so kind, not just to Mum, but to all of us. They helped us to understand what was happening, and accept it in a way we hadn’t been able to do before.

‘It was the same when my stepfather died,’ said Tilly. ‘It was still terrible, but we weren’t so scared. I owe the hospice so much that I can’t just back out. They were all so thrilled about the prospect of me taking part for them! If we win, they’ll get the prize money, which would mean so much to them. They’re building a new wing, so that other families can have the help and support we had. How could I turn round and say I wasn’t going to try and help them after all?’

‘There must be other ways of helping them,’ Campbell pointed out.

‘I volunteer in the shop,’ said Tilly, ‘but that isn’t much of a sacrifice, is it?’

‘It’s more than most people do.’

‘Maybe, but most people don’t get a chance to win a huge donation to the charity of their choice either. If an opportunity like that comes along, it’s virtually impossible to turn it down. I’d have felt worse than a piece of poo on your shoe if I had-as Harry and Seb no doubt worked out.’

‘Harry and Seb?’

‘My twin brothers,’ Tilly told him without enthusiasm. ‘This whole thing was their idea. They found out about the programme and took it upon themselves to enter me on my behalf. They sent in a photo and some spurious account of why I was so keen to take part-and then made sure everybody knew that I’d got through to the first round before I did so they were all lined up to lay on the emotional blackmail when Seb and Harry finally broke the news.

‘At least, they didn’t mean it as emotional blackmail,’ she amended, wanting to be fair. ‘Everyone at the hospice thought I wanted to take part and had just kept quiet in case I wasn’t picked. So of course when my brothers told them that I was going to be on the programme, they were all delighted for me and kept telling me how proud Mum would have been if she knew what I was doing, which she would have been, of course.’

Tilly sighed. ‘I couldn’t disappoint them by telling them it was all a mistake, could I? It would have felt like letting Mum down, too.’

Campbell frowned as he headed across the hillside, cutting down from the track so that they had to leap between clumps of heather. At least, Tilly did. Campbell just carried on walking as if he were on a pavement. Tilly had never met anyone as surefooted. There was a kind of dangerous grace about the way he moved, and it made her feel even more of a lumbering walrus than she did normally.

He was obviously incredibly fit, too. Look at him-he wasn’t even out of breath, thought Tilly, aggrieved, while she was puffing and panting and tripping over heather and generally making it obvious that she was extremely unfit.

‘Why were your brothers so keen to get you on the programme?’

‘They’ve got this bee in their bonnet that I’m in a rut,’ puffed Tilly, struggling to keep up with him. ‘I was thirty earlier this year and you’d think I was about to cash in my pension the way they’re carrying on about my missed opportunities!’

‘Are you in a rut?’

‘If I am, it’s a very comfortable one,’ she said with an edge of defiance. ‘I’m perfectly happy doing what I’m doing, and I haven’t got time to worry about ruts. The boys only think that because they’ve been away at university, and they’ve got this idea that Allerby is boring-although I notice they don’t mind coming back when they’re short of money and in need of some good square meals,’ she added tartly.

Of course, Campbell would probably think an attractive market town in North Yorkshire was boring, too. He didn’t look like a provincial type. He would stand out like a tiger amongst a lot of fat, pampered pets in Allerby, for instance.

On the other hand, he didn’t look like a true townie either. Tilly couldn’t imagine him going to the theatre or sipping a cappuccino. His military background probably explained that slightly dangerous edge to him, but then what was he doing here?

There was one easy way to find out.

‘So what are you doing here? You don’t seem the kind of bloke who does things he doesn’t want to do.’

‘I seem to have ended up doing this,’ said Campbell sourly. ‘I’m Chief Executive of Manning Securities.’

‘The sponsors of the show?’

‘Exactly,’ he said, without once breaking pace. ‘Keith, my PR Director, convinced me that the show would be good for our image. Personally, I’d have thought it was more effective just to give the money to charity, but Keith was adamant that this would have a greater impact. It fitted with our ethos of corporate social responsibility and, as I didn’t think I’d have to be involved myself, I gave the go-ahead.’

‘You look pretty involved now,’ Tilly commented, and he grunted a reluctant acknowledgement.

‘Not out of choice. This is Keith’s fault. He rang me yesterday morning, saying that one of the contestants had had to withdraw because he’d broken his leg and that the production team were desperate for a last-minute replacement with survival skills.’

‘That was Greg,’ said Tilly. ‘I met him last week when I learnt I’d got through to this round. They said he was an experienced Outward Bound instructor and a vegan, so I suppose they thought he would make a good contrast with me. He seemed a nice enough guy, but I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I heard he’d broken his leg. I thought I’d have the perfect reason to withdraw, and then they partnered me with you!’ Her expression was glum.

‘Glad I was such a nice surprise!’ said Campbell with a touch of acid.

‘Well, you can’t pretend you’re exactly thrilled at being stuck with me for the next couple of days,’ she pointed out.

‘I’m not thrilled to be doing this at all,’ he said. ‘I’m moving to a new job in the States in a few weeks, so I’ve got better things to do than mess around with television challenges. But Keith is very committed to the project and, as he knows that I used to be in the forces, he was piling on the pressure to get me to agree to help out.’

‘If you didn’t want to do it, why didn’t you just say so?’ Tilly was delighted to be able to quote Campbell’s words back to him. ‘Aren’t you military types trained not to give in to pressure?’ she added innocently. ‘You could have stuck to name, rank and serial number.’

Campbell shot her a look. ‘Keith was a little cleverer than that. He talked a lot about how the programme wouldn’t work if they didn’t have the right number of contestants, and what a shame it would be if my last few weeks at Manning were remembered for a failure.’

‘Sounds like he knows just how to press all your buttons,’ said Tilly, full of admiration for the unknown Keith. It was clear that he had his boss sussed. She had barely known Campbell for more than an hour, but even she could see that he was driven by the need to be the best. Any suggestion that he might be associated with failure would be like a red rag to a bull.

‘He said it would just be a weekend with an amateur in the Highlands,’ Campbell went on, darkly remembering how he had been misled. ‘I didn’t realise quite how much of an amateur you would be, I must admit.’

‘Look at it from the television producers’ point of view. Where’s the fun if both of us know what we’re doing? If you ask me, they want scenes like the one at the top of the cliff.’

‘What cliff?’

‘The one I abseiled down!’

‘That little drop? You could have practically stepped down it!’

Tilly eyed him with dislike. ‘So what’s your charity?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Everyone who’s taking part is doing it for charity. So I’m doing it for the local hospice, and I think Greg was hoping to raise money for mountain rescue dogs or something. You must have some incentive to win.’

Campbell shrugged. ‘Winning’s enough for me,’ he said. ‘But I tell you what. My prize money will go to your hospice if we win, so they’ll have a double donation.’

Double the money. Tilly thought about what that would mean to the hospice. ‘Really?’ she asked.

‘Only if it gives you some incentive to hurry up,’ he said astringently.

‘I am hurrying,’ said Tilly, miffed. ‘I’m not used to all this exercise. I suppose that’s why they picked me,’ she added with a glum look. ‘They thought I’d be just the person to hold you back.’

‘Then I hope you’ll be able to prove them wrong,’ said Campbell, pausing on a ridge to look down at the river below.

His eyes scanned the valley. A television crew was waiting on the other side of the river, but there was no sign of the other contestants yet. They had taken the straightforward route, which meant that his gamble had paid off.

Tilly puffed up to stand beside him. ‘Where next?’

Campbell pointed to the river. ‘Down there.’

‘But how…?’ Tilly’s heart sank as she peered over the edge at the precipitous drop.

‘This is more like a cliff,’ Campbell conceded.

‘Oh, no…’ Tilly started to back away as she realised just what he had in mind. ‘No! No, absolutely not. There’s no way I’m hanging off that rope again. Don’t even think about it!’