Wedded in a Whirlwind

‘Sure? If you can just make the next move…’

‘Go!’

Tough. Foolhardy. Determined not to slow him down. Miranda Grenville might be the most irritating woman he’d ever met, but she still earned his grudging respect as he edged carefully back to his original position on the ledge.

He reached out instinctively to grab her as he heard her foot slip, her grunt as some part of her anatomy collided painfully with stone, afraid that her mouth had finally out-reached her strength.

All he got was a handful of air and then, somehow, she was there, alongside him.

‘Shall we go mad and have another mint?’ he asked.

‘My treat,’ she managed, biting one of her own in half and sharing it with him.

They both sat there for a while, side by side, their backs against the temple wall, chewing slowly while their breathing recovered and the feeling began to flow back into tortured limbs.

From above them a few small stones rattled down the face and Manda stopped breathing as Jago threw his arm across her, pinning her back against the wall, waiting for another aftershock.

Waited. And waited.

Finally she shuddered as she let out the breath she was holding and Jago slumped against her. ‘A bird,’ he said. ‘It must have been a bird. Good news. If a bird can get in, we can get out.’

‘Sure,’ Manda agreed.

She wasn’t entirely convinced. The bird could have been trapped like them. Or it could be a bat. One of those big, hairy, fruit-eating bats…

‘Why don’t you talk to your family?’ she asked, into his neck, not wanting to think about bats, or what else might be tucked up with them. Lurking in the crevices into which she was blindly poking her fingers. Not wanting him to move. Wanting to stay exactly where they were.

His only response was to remove the arm he’d thrown protectively across her and say, ‘We’d better get on.’ But even as he made a move she caught at his sleeve.

‘Tell me!’ Then, shocked at herself, knowing that she could never talk about her own miserable childhood, she apologised. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay. I’ll tell you when we get out of here. Over a cold beer.’

‘Another date?’

‘It sounds like it.’

The climb was both mentally and physically exhausting. Feeling in the dark for each hold, convinced that every dislodged stone was a new tremor, Jago’s worst fear was that he’d reach up in the darkness and find only chiselled-smooth rock.

He’d done some rock climbing as a young man and field archaeology was for the fit, but he understood why Miranda wouldn’t wait for him to make the climb, find help and come back for her.

He didn’t think he could have remained at the bottom in the darkness either, but with every move he was waiting for the slip behind him, tensed for her cry. He was unable to do anything but keep going and guide her to his own footholds. Praying that he wasn’t just leading her into a dead end.

At least she was listening, didn’t panic when she couldn’t immediately locate the next hand-or foot-hold.

‘How’re you doing?’ he asked.

If it had been physically possible, Manda would have laughed.

Doing? Doing? Was he kidding?

A muttered, ‘Fine…’ stretched her ability to speak to the limit.

It was a lie. She wasn’t ‘fine’. Not by any definition of the word.

The muscles in her shoulders, arms, back were quivering with exhaustion. Forget the ‘burn’. Her calves and thighs were on fire and she couldn’t feel her feet. She was just moving on automatic.

Then, as her fingers, wet with sweat-or blood-slipped, her forehead came into sharp contact with smooth stone and for a moment everything spun in the dark. As she sucked air into her lungs, hanging on with what felt like the ends of her fingernails, she managed to gasp, ‘If I fall you’re not to climb down.’

He’d stopped moving. ‘You’re not going to fall.’

‘Promise me,’ she demanded. ‘You have to get out. I want my family to know what happened to me.’

‘Like I could look them in the eye and tell them I’d left you lying on the floor of the temple, not knowing if you were dead or alive.’ His breath was coming hard too. ‘Stop gassing and move. You’re nearly there.’

‘Of course I am,’ she muttered. Did he think she was totally stupid?

‘Reach out with your left foot and you’ll find a good ledge. Carefully!’ he warned, as she felt for the ledge, thought she had it, only for it to crumble away, leaving her scrabbling for purchase. What was left of her nails scraped across chiselled-smooth stone as she fought to hang on, suspended by one toe and raw fingertips over a blackness that seemed to be sucking her down.

She’d been there so many times in her head but this was real. This time she really was going down and never coming up again. All she had to do was let go…

‘Stop pussy-footing about and move, woman!’ Jago’s harsh voice echoed around the ruined temple, jerking her back. How dared he?

Ivo had never shouted at her. He’d been gentle. Coaxing her back from the brink…

‘Any time in the next ten seconds will do!’

But anger was good, too…

‘You pig!’ she cried, as her toe finally connected with something solid, but her leg was trembling so much that she couldn’t make the move.

‘Come up here and tell me that!’

‘What’s the matter, Jago? Are you in a hurry for another kick?’

‘Looking forward to it, sweetheart!’

‘I’m on my way!’

‘Promises, promises. Are you ready for another kiss?’

The adrenalin rush got her across and she didn’t wait for him to guide her, but reached up, seeking the next move without waiting for guidance. She’d survived her moment of panic. The black moment when falling would have been a relief.

She’d come through…

He’d brought her through.

Jago.

‘The next bit is a bit of a stretch,’ he said as she groped in the darkness for a hold in the darkness. ‘Reach up and I’ll pull you over the edge.’

Edge? She’d been that close?

And now she was out here alone?

Without warning, the blackness sucked at her and she made a desperate lunge upwards, seeking his hand. For a moment his fingers brushed tantalisingly against hers.

She was alone. Out of reach…

‘It’s too far…’

‘Hold on.’ She was showered with a fine film of dust as he moved closer to the edge above her. ‘Okay. Try again.’

His palm touched hers. Slipped.

He grunted as he grabbed for her wrist, his fingers biting hard as he held her.

‘Give me your other hand,’ he gasped.

Let go?

Put her life entirely in his hands?

In the millisecond she hesitated, another aftershock ripped through the wall and the ledge on which she was standing gave way beneath her, tearing her hand away from the wall so that she was left hanging over the empty temple.

Somehow, Jago managed to hang on, his arm practically torn from its socket as he stretched out over the chasm, taking her full weight with one hand as Miranda struggled to find some kind of footing. Slipping closer and closer towards the tipping point when they’d both fall.