Burnt (25 page)

‘Is it far?'

‘Far enough. You think you're up to a bit of hike?'

She nodded. ‘What about your leg?'

‘I'll manage.'

‘It needs attention.'

‘I said I'll manage.' He paused. ‘Look, Bec, we don't have time to get into a debate about this. I don't know where the bastard is and I don't want you stuck out here in the open.' He held her gaze, willing her to agree. By some miracle, it worked.

‘Okay. Let's go.'

She was still dressed in her uniform and the sleeves of her work shirt were no defence against the cold air coming across with the approaching storm. Reaching through the smashed rear window of his four-wheel drive, Seb brought out a jacket and handed it to her. ‘Take this. It's going to get cold once the sun goes down.'

She took the jacket from his hands, managing a wobbly smile of thanks. He put his fingers against her cheek, and her gaze shot to his in surprise. Mesmerised by the depth of tenderness he saw there, he spoke.

‘I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, Bec, but I swear he won't hurt you again.'

She shook her head slightly. ‘You couldn't have known what he was going to do. None of this is your fault.'

‘It's all my fault. It's
always
been my fault,' he growled, dropping his hand and turning away from her. ‘We'd better move. It'll be dark soon.'

Keeping to the bushland, they picked their way through the undergrowth. He did his best to ignore his injured leg, pushing on hard. He heard Rebecca suck in some deep breaths and came to a standstill; she probably needed a rest after what she'd been through, but they couldn't afford to waste the time. He placed his foot on the lowest rung of a barbed-wire fence and created a space for her to duck under.

With a small sigh of resignation, she scrambled through and waited for him on the other side. He glanced at her briefly as he passed, checking her condition and caught the slightest tightening of her expression.

‘Seb, if you need to go faster, just go. I'll be okay.'

‘I can't leave you out here alone, Bec. And he's not going to do anything to Dad – he's waiting for me.'

Seb cursed beneath his breath as he watched Bec walk on. He knew she was doing it tough; he could hear her heavy breathing behind him, and he wished he didn't have to drag her along. But he couldn't leave her out here – he didn't think she'd be able to find her way back, and images of snake bites, nasty falls and broken bones were playing through his mind like an old-fashioned slideshow. The thought of something happening to her out here without him was enough to make him panic – and he never
panicked.

On top of that, there was his father to worry about.

How had he allowed this happen? Why hadn't he seen it coming? He let his mind flick back over the past few weeks, looking for something that he'd missed, anything that would have given him a clue as to what lay in store for them all, but there was nothing. At least, nothing that could predict the mess he now found himself in.
Great work, Taylor
.

Rebecca raised her head as she heard the sound of water babbling. The happy gurgling grew louder and she glanced at Seb to see what he would do. The churning, swirling water looked almost black beneath the shade of the tree canopy above.

‘The creek's deeper up here in the hills,' she said.

‘Yeah. It doesn't get any shallower – at least nowhere close by, from memory,' he said in a distracted tone. ‘Looks like we'll just have to take a dip.'

‘Excellent.' Rebecca didn't even try to hide her sarcasm about what she knew was coming; walking through the bush in wet clothes, just on sundown.

Seb removed his pack and held his hand out for the jacket he'd given her earlier. He shoved it into the pack, then held it above his head to keep it dry as he cautiously waded into the creek.

With a reluctant groan, Rebecca shut her eyes against the first icy fingers of water that soaked through her shoes and inched up her ankles. She pushed on, clenching her teeth, her discomfort forgotten as she struggled to find her footing on the slippery stones at the bottom of the creek bed. Then her foot slid, throwing her forwards, and she gave a small cry of alarm. Seb instinctively reached for her with one arm and managed to stop her falling, face first, into the mountain-chilled water.

‘You're okay – almost there now,' he said encouragingly.

With her teeth chattering and body shivering, she didn't bother trying to reply.

Reaching up to take Seb's offered hand once they made it to the opposite bank, Rebecca stared down miserably at her dripping clothes.

‘Take off your shirt,' Seb instructed as he dropped the pack on the ground and sank to his haunches to dig through the contents.

With numb fingers, Rebecca pushed buttons through holes that seemed far too small, before finally shrugging off the wet garment. Seb stood before her and silently handed over the dry jacket for her to put on. The warmth of his body radiated across the small distance between them, and Rebecca found it hard to concentrate as she pulled on the oversized jacket. She glanced up as big fingers closed around her smaller ones to help zip it up. His eyes were hooded, secretive, making it difficult for Rebecca to read him. He might be a master of masking his expression, but he couldn't disguise the awareness that fairly crackled between them like a campfire. ‘A-aren't you cold?' she stammered. ‘What will you wear?'

‘I didn't decide to go for a swim like you,' he murmured, his eyes holding the barest hint of amusement. Her gaze travelled down the length of his torso and noted the mostly dry clothing. The water had only managed to reach mid-thigh on him. ‘I can't help you out with trousers, so we'll both have to just make do with wet ones until we get back, but the jacket should keep you a little warmer.'

Rebecca looked once more into his eyes and, for a fleeting second, had the insane desire to lean against him and feel the warmth of his lips and skin against her own, but the long, echoing cry of a bell bird nearby shattered the silence and snapped her back to reality.

‘We'd better get moving,' Seb said.

‘Do you know where we're going? This all kind of looks the same to me.'

‘The creek's the natural boundary to the national park. All we have to do is keep heading in this direction and we should come out somewhere close to the farm.'

Rebecca took in the ridge that lay directly in front of them. ‘In this direction?'

‘Yep,' he said, taking in her reluctant expression with a sober sigh. ‘Ready?'

‘Sure.'
Not!
With a deep sigh of her own, she trailed behind him once more; the sooner they started, the sooner it ended. Thoughts of a long hot bath and a cup of steaming pumpkin soup filled her head. Holding tight to this comforting image, she kept her eyes on the ground and tried to avoid tripping over.

Seb pushed some low-hanging vines aside as he irritably picked his path through the bushland. What was happening to his control and focus? Rebecca Whiteman – that's what was happening. Again!

The woman somehow scrambled his common sense and messed with his ability to think clearly. Seeing her standing there in nothing more than goose bumps and a lacy excuse for a bra, all he wanted to do was throw her down on the ground and sink into that soft, warm place he already missed. With a small grunt, he realised his chances of that ever happening again were pretty much zero. He'd seen to that by telling her he wasn't going to be sticking around much longer.

He heard Bec slip and turned just in time to see her catch herself and regain her balance without falling. The recent rain and damp earth underfoot were making climbing the steep incline hard going. His boots were made for the job, but unfortunately the same couldn't be said for Bec's footwear and she was finding it difficult to get any traction on the slippery climb.

‘You all right?'

‘I'm fine,' she puffed, flapping an arm in his direction in some semblance of reassurance.

His admiration for her went up a few more notches. For a woman who didn't enjoy the outdoors as much as he did, she was doing a great job – she'd hardly complained at all, and he was proud of the effort she was making to keep up.

‘We're almost at the top; it'll be easier on the way down.' He couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard her mutter something under her breath that didn't sound at all ladylike.

‘Shouldn't we get some reception higher up?' she said between heavy puffing.

‘I'll give it a try, but the only radio tower out this way is still hidden behind the next ridge. I'm pretty sure we aren't going to get anything.'

Glancing at the sky, he noticed they were losing daylight fast. He really didn't want to be out here in the dark, but it was looking doubtful that they'd make it back before the sun went down. He thought about the torch in his pack. He always kept it charged, with spare batteries on hand, but it would be hard going through the bush at night with only one torch. He considered making camp until first light. It went against his grain to stop, and he was worried about his father – more worried than he'd let on to Rebecca earlier – but there was nothing he could do to get there faster. If they suffered a serious setback such as a broken leg – or worse – as they stumbled through the bush at night, it would be an even bigger disaster.

He pushed on, his brain running through a variety of scenarios; it was in his nature, and something his training had ingrained, to think on his feet. This was no different to being on a mission. The two most important people in his life were in serious jeopardy. He needed to slip back into SAS mode.

Rebecca wasn't aware of her surrounds; all she was thinking about was placing one foot in front of the other without falling over. It wasn't as though they were ascending a particularly steep cliff face – that would have probably been easier – but they were cutting across country to the Taylor property, not following a track, and because of this they had to negotiate the obstacles of the bushland floor: climbing over fallen trees; unsnagging themselves from prickly plants; avoiding large stinging nettles; watching for hidden snakes and spiders. The occasional steep decline, where keeping their footing seemed almost impossible, added to their difficulty.

Rebecca was so caught up in her own progress that she didn't immediately notice Seb's increased caution. His frequent pauses to stop and listen were at first a relief, a chance for her to sink to a fallen log and catch her breath. But after a few stops, she began to take a closer look at his face, and his expression was not reassuring in the least.

Opening her mouth to question him, he quickly raised a hand to indicate silence. Then he dropped his hand and beckoned to her to get up and keep going.

‘Seb. What's going on?' she managed as she picked up her pace and drew level with him.

‘Nothing, we just have to keep moving.'

‘It's not nothing. I can see you're worried. What's wrong?' Her foot caught on a loose tree root and she stumbled slightly.

‘I think someone's following us.'

‘What?' Rebecca stopped walking and spun around in alarm.

‘They aren't close. I just thought I heard something earlier, and I haven't heard it again since, so it was probably nothing. We just need to keep moving and we'll be fine.'

‘It's him, isn't it,' she stated rather than asked, and fear niggled at her stomach when he gave a one-shouldered shrug.

‘I'd rather not stick around and find out,' was all he said, keeping his eyes ahead.

They walked in silence for another hour until Rebecca set her foot on the side of a particularly slippery moss-covered log and fell heavily on her knee, releasing a startled gasp of pain. Seb was at her side immediately, running his hands down the length of her leg, feeling for any damage.

‘I'm okay,' she said, trying not to wince as he manipulated the knee joint carefully. She pushed his hands away and used his shoulder as support to heave herself upright. She put her weight on her sore leg gingerly and was relieved when she didn't crumple back onto the ground in agony. It was sore, but it didn't feel like she'd done too much damage.

She felt him looking at her and her spirits sank. She hated being the reason for holding him up. ‘We can't be that far from somewhere by now – you go on ahead. I can just stay put here and you can send a search party back for me when you get phone reception.'

He seemed to almost consider it, maybe for a fraction of a nanosecond, but then shook his head. ‘I'm not leaving you out here alone. We'll make camp and stay here until first light.' He searched the surrounding terrain carefully.

‘Seb, we can't. Your dad –'

‘He's not going to hurt him, Bec.
If
he's even over there. He could be just playing some weird-arse psycho game with us. I'm not going to take the chance that he could be out here somewhere, and leave you here alone.'

‘If only we could get some reception to call the police,' Rebecca said, sinking back onto the log and looking down at her muddy trousers and grimy hands.

‘The cops are all over your disappearance. They're probably already out here searching.'

Her spirits lifted slightly at this piece of news. Was it possible? She hadn't thought her disappearance would be discovered this early, since her parents were out of town and no one would have missed her. She wasn't even sure work would do more than try to call her at home then fire her for not showing up.

A drop of moisture hit her face and she absently lifted her hand to wipe at it, before feeling the light sprinkle that quickly followed.

Seb began pulling things from inside his pack. Within minutes, he had a small pop-up shelter erected and was indicating she should crawl inside. He passed her a shiny silver thermal blanket to wrap around her, followed by his pack.