Sure Thing (3 page)

“Yes, please. I’d like to know how she is.”

Tom reaches into his jeans pocket, pulls out his phone then hits a couple of buttons. The phone to his ear, he waits for Nathan to answer before he speaks.

“Hi. How’s Rosie? I’ve got my own walking wounded here, wanting to know.” A few seconds, then, “That’s great. Yeah, I’ll tell her that. And tell Rosie Barney’s still here with us. He’s fine.” Another brief pause, then, “Excellent. Email it over, would you?” He pauses once more, listening to whatever’s being said on the other end, then, “Best leave it till tomorrow. Barney’ll be fine here till then. I’ll text you. Give our love to Rosie.” He hangs up and turns to me. “Did you get all that?”

“I think so. Sounds as though Rosie’s come through it all right. Thank goodness.”

“Thank
you,
Ashley. If you hadn’t spotted her, got the air ambulance out, who knows? You did well. Nathan asked me to pass on his thanks, but I expect he’ll tell you in person when he sees you.”

Somehow I doubt he’ll thank me. I may well have got the air ambulance out, but I also left her up there with the paramedics, I didn’t stay with her in the helicopter. Nathan Darke is fiercely protective of his daughter, would definitely have expected more from me. At the very least I should have stayed with her until he or Mrs Richardson arrived at the hospital but I put my own needs first. There was also Barney to take care of, I suppose, but I can’t help thinking he’d have made his own way home perfectly safe despite Rosie’s worries on that score. I rather think Nathan will have a few choice remarks for me when he next sees me. Despite our ‘truce’ of sorts, I know perfectly well what he thinks of me. What he
really
thinks of me.

My doubts must have been obvious because Tom catches my chin in his palm, strokes my face gently, his expression puzzled.

“What is it, love? Why look so worried? Rosie’s fine.”

I give myself a mental shake, push Nathan Darke from my thoughts. If he wants to have a go at me he will. And I’ll survive it. Again. I know I did the best I could yesterday, in the circumstances, and as long as Tom thinks I did good then I’ll settle for that. And clearly he does. I stare at him. His face is serious, as though this is of much more significance than it seems to me. I can’t see why. Anyone would have done what I did. It was just a phone call, just a matter of dialing nine-nine-nine. I try to explain, to say that.

He shakes his head. “But that’s not all you did, is it. You went all the way up there, waited with her, brought her dog home.”

I snort at that. I abandoned Rosie with strangers, even if they were highly trained air ambulance staff, and I hardly brought Barney home. I didn’t even manage to bring myself home.

“You put yourself in danger, took a huge risk to help a little girl. Nathan knows it, I know it. Take credit for what you did yesterday.”

“I’m just glad it all turned out okay, that Rosie’s fine, and that you found me when you did. I thought I’d be stuck there all night. And I’m so grateful I had Barney with me.”

“Me too. Or I might not have found you till this morning. And that could have been too late.” He reaches for me, pulls me into his arms, buries his face in my hair.

I hear him breathing, breathing me in.

I wait a few seconds while the significance of his words sinks in. “Why? What do you mean? How did you manage to find me? In fact, how did you even know I was up there?”

He lets go of me, eases himself up against the headboard. I scramble up after him, snuggle against his chest. He loops his arm over my shoulders, idly sliding his hand under my hair to stroke my back.

“Okay, here’s how I knew. I coordinate the fell rescue team in this region so I get informed as a matter of routine every time there’s any sort of incident in my patch. Yesterday afternoon I had an email telling me an eight-year-old female had been airlifted from the moors. It didn’t take much to work out it was probably Rosie. Especially when I checked with control and found out the name of the informant, one Ashley McAllister. The incident report was logged at two thirty-seven, and the air ambulance reached the casualty at three thirteen. Left the scene at three thirty-two.”

Fell Rescue. Bloody hell. Makes some sort of sense though. Not that Tom seems like much of a fell walker to me, he always uses his Land Rover or the quad bike. I comment to that effect, not that I want to be too picky, though, considering.

He just chuckles. “You’re right. I hate bloody hiking, too much like hard work. I’m more of a caver myself, that’s my specialism. And I can abseil which comes in useful sometimes. But most of the farmers around here are volunteers with fell rescue. Local knowledge, you see? We know these moors better than anyone else. If you’re lost up there, we’re the ones who’ll find you. Eventually.”

I nod. I’d never thought of that before, but it does seem logical, I suppose. Who else? And the sequence of events so far all sounds about right to me.

“By the time I got the notification it was turned five. First thing I did was phone Nathan to check how Rosie was. I caught him at the hospital and he told me she was fine. Shaken, pretty cold, and her ankle was sprained. She’ll be off that leg for a couple of weeks. And she was desperate to know that Barney was okay. He told me that according to Rosie you were on the quad and you rode up to where she was, sat with her till help arrived. When the helicopter left with Rosie on board the dog stayed with you, and as far as she knew you were taking him home.”

I nod again. So far so good.

“So, I came here first, looking for you. If you recall, you texted me what seems like a bloody lifetime ago saying you’d see me tomorrow. Which would have been yesterday, if you follow…”

I do, more or less.

“But there was no sign of you here so I went to Smithy’s Forge. No sign of you there either, you or Barney. And no quad either. I began to get worried. I could see no reason why you’d be anywhere else except here or at your cottage. And you’d had ample time to get back by then, especially on the bike. It would have been going up to six by the time I checked out Smithy’s Forge. The only other place to look was Black Combe, but I didn’t expect you’d have gone there. It’s further away, and anyway, there’d be no one in. They were all at the hospital with Rosie, and you’d have known that. So I phoned Jazz…”

“Jazz? Who’s Jazz?”

“Jasmine Abbas. The medic on the helicopter. She was off duty by then, but I have her mobile number. It’s a small world, fell rescue. We all know each other.”

Yes, I guess they would.

“Anyway, she told me you had indeed set off, with Barney, riding the quad. She saw you leaving, was watching you from the helicopter as they headed off toward Airedale General with Rosie. She also told me she gave you medication for a headache, that you’d seemed unwell but said you’d be okay to get home. She said she’d checked you over and found no other signs of injury or illness, and you had transport, so she let you go.”

“I see. But I still don’t understand how you found me so quickly. How you knew where to look. And even if you’d known where I set off from, how would you have known my route if you didn’t know whether I was headed here or to my house?”

“I didn’t find
you
. I found Barney.”

No answer to that. At least, not one that springs to my mind at this moment. So I wait.

“So I knew for sure that you’d set off, heading for home—whether here or your place—with Barney, and that you hadn’t arrived at either. It was dark, you were overdue, presumably still up on the moors. I knew there had to be something wrong. But one thing seemed certain—both Jazz and Rosie had said you were with Barney. So I went up to Black Combe. I have keys to the place so I let myself in there and went into Nathan’s office. Fired up his computer and accessed his GPS. You probably didn’t know, no reason why you should really, but that bloody great collar that Barney wears is fitted with a GPS tracking device. Nathan had it installed when he first got the dog and Rosie took to disappearing with him up onto the moors. Rather than make her stay near home he just insists she always has the dog with her. And that way, wherever Barney is, so is Rosie. Or, last night, where Barney was, so were you. I located Barney’s signal easily enough, so I knew then exactly where he was, just above Top Withens. I assumed he was still with you, otherwise he’d have simply made his own way home. And I could see that the signal was stationary. Again, not a good sign.

“I got back in the Land Rover, headed straight up there to where I knew I’d find Barney. And hopefully you too. It was dark, rough going, I needed to pick my way slowly. I’d have been no use to you stuck under an upturned Land Rover. It took a lot longer than I’d have liked. God, I was so scared, I didn’t know what had happened, why you hadn’t made it home. Christ, Ashley…” His arm tightens, his face sinks into my hair.

“When I found Barney alone on the moors, at first I couldn’t see you. The great mutt was barking, leaping around the land Rover and charging off behind that wall. But I got the message, brought the land Rover around until I caught you in the headlights.”

“Nearly bloody blinded me…” I mutter, but without heat. Despite the flashing lights and din of the Land Rover, I was so glad to see him, so grateful. Still am. Always will be.

“And the rest you know. I brought you back here, put you to bed to sleep it off.”

“Why here? Why not Smithy’s Forge? When I asked you to take me home, I meant…”

“I know what you meant. Maybe I was being selfish, but I wanted you here. Also, I couldn’t have just left you on your own in that state, and it seemed easier to bring you here where I could take care of you, get you a doctor. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, I’d have preferred to come here. I just didn’t like to ask, wouldn’t have assumed…”

“Idiot,” and this time his voice too lacks heat. Then, “I’ve got a question for you…”

“Okay, what is it?”

“When did you start to feel ill? Was it before you went rushing up onto the moor to Rosie?”

I’m puzzled, can’t see what this has to do with anything. “Yes, it started to come on just before I saw her. I’d started to see stars and was just packing up to head for home and put myself to bed for a couple of days or so, when I spotted her pink jacket. I used a telephoto lens to get a good look and realized she was hurt. And crying. I phoned the air ambulance straight away, then went up to wait with her till it arrived.”

“And knowing what was coming, and how quickly, you still went up the moors, still went up to Rosie. That was not very sensible, love.”

“I wasn’t going to, not at first. I was going to come straight home after I dialed nine-nine-nine. But I could see she was on her own, and scared. There was no way she could know I’d even spotted her let alone phoned the ambulance, that she was about to be rescued. I couldn’t just go off and leave her there. She was crying, Tom…”

He settles his arm more tightly around my shoulders, pulls me in close. “I know, I get it. But it was dangerous. Christ, you might have died up there last night but for Barney. When I think how close I came to losing you…”

“Barney was wonderful, fantastic. Not just because of the tracking device. He kept me warm, dragged me over to that wall when I collapsed. He deserves a medal. Or at least a nice big bone.”

“You both deserve medals. But you need to know, sweetheart, that if we had a Dom/sub thing going on, if we had some sort of understanding between us right now, one that included discipline and obedience as well as shit-hot kinky sex, you’d be over my knee at this moment screaming for mercy. And agreement or not, no safe word would save you from the spanking you’ll get if you ever, ever scare me like that again. Is that clear? Is that absolutely crystal clear?”

I gaze back at him, my dark brown eyes caught by his emerald green ones. Is this it, the threat, the underlying Dom cruelty re-emerging? Is this what I’ve been expecting, what I’ve been afraid of? But I know that it isn’t. I may not be able to articulate it yet, but I sense this is different, very, very different. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, “I want an agreement. One like that. And, you can spank me now if you want.” My fear has evaporated. This is
Tom
, my Tom. And Tom makes me safe. There’s a lot I need to understand, to learn, and I’ll start with Abbie as soon as I can. But for now…

His eyebrows shoot up. He clearly didn’t expect that response to his threat. Or was it a promise?

“Ashley?”

I rush on. “I want to be your sub. Your submissive. If you still want me…”

“Of course I bloody want you.” The words are ground out, a growl almost. He pauses for a moment, his expression uncertain. “Are you sure about this? Do you know what you’re agreeing to?”

“I think so, in broad terms. I read about how it works. More or less. And I’ll talk to Abbie. I don’t know the details, of course, you’ll have to tell me exactly what you want me to do. I don’t mind, it’s up to you really, whatever you like…”

He’s staring at me, his surprise evident. “Sweetheart, we need to talk this through. You can’t just hand yourself, your body, over to me without agreeing your limits, without knowing what I intend to do.”

“But I trust you. I do. Will there be a contract? Do I have to sign anything? Some sort of consent form?”

He’s silent for a few moments, thinking. “No. No paperwork exactly. Some Doms do write it down, but not me. I think a written contract clouds the issue, muddies the terms. Especially as it’s not a legal arrangement, not enforceable. If it helps though you could download a model contract from the internet to get an idea of what’s involved, what a Dom/sub relationship is like. I prefer to reach an understanding with a submissive by talking. I prefer to tell you what I want to do to you, and you tell me how far you’re prepared to go. You ask me questions. I explain, clarify, we talk it through and come to an understanding. It’s part of building trust. Communication is everything in a Dom/sub relationship, and it always comes down to talking. And listening. Hearing. It’s serious stuff, especially for the sub, and might seem very confusing at first. You need to know what you’re letting yourself in for, but also be prepared to take a few risks with me. It’s good that you feel you can trust me, but I’ll also need you to be able to talk to me, be completely open with me. I need you to be honest about what you want, uninhibited. And you need to know that I care about you, that I know what I’m doing and
will
keep you safe. But, Ashley—”