Chapter Ten
When she woke the following morning, Brianna could still feel the heat of Mitch’s lips on her mouth and the hardness of his body against the softness of her own. With a groan of pure exasperation, she threw off the sheets and climbed out of bed. Why oh why did she have to fall in lust with the one man who had no intention of following up on the spark between them? She hated this tense, aching feeling that she could only guess was sexual frustration. It was totally alien to her. She was used to turning down what was being offered, not being turned down.
As she sat having breakfast with a few of the team, she realised it wasn’t only her body that had become sensitised to Mitch. It was also her mind. Whenever his name was mentioned, she felt the quickening of her pulse and her eyes automatically scanned for his tall, lean frame. She was acting like a schoolgirl with her first crush, which was frankly ridiculous because she hadn’t indulged in such childishness even when she had been a schoolgirl. She’d had no time for crushes. She’d been too busy deciding which males to date and which to ditch.
In her determination not to brood any further on her fixation with Mitch, Brianna went back to the medical tent and offered her help to Stuart and Jane. With no medical training, she was pretty useless, but at least she could wash floors, serve out drinks and give an encouraging smile or two. The gratitude of the patients was humbling.
It was when she returned from refilling the water jug that Jane tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Just to let you know, there’s been a mudslide a few villages down. It caught everyone unawares and I think a lot of the villagers were still in their homes when it hit.’
Brianna’s heart sank into her boots. These poor people, hadn’t they suffered enough already? ‘Oh my God,’ she muttered. ‘Are you going to help?’ When Jane nodded and turned to go, Brianna held her arm. ‘Can I come? I know I’m not much use but—’
‘An extra pair of hands is always useful,’ Jane interrupted. ‘Come on.’
* * *
She had never seen so much mud. It was horrific, like something out of a disaster movie. Everywhere she looked was brown and wet. Rescue workers were knee deep in the stuff, only their bright orange vests telling them apart from their surroundings. They dug and dug, some with spades, some with mechanical diggers, some with just their bare hands. Those who’d been lucky enough to be rescued were huddled together in a group. Dirty, shivering, eyes wide with terror. She spotted Mitch at the bottom of the mudslide, hunched over a prostrate body. Grimly she watched as he shook his head at the rescue worker standing next to him. A sheet was pulled over the dead body, and it was stretchered away.
In a daze, Brianna strode up to him. ‘What can I do?’ she asked softly, numbed by the catastrophic scene in front of her.
He turned towards her, eyes like dark, sunken pools. ‘Keep out of the way,’ he replied bluntly.
Brianna flinched. Eyes burning with tears, she stumbled away.
‘Brianna, wait a minute.’ Jane chased behind her. ‘Ignore him. He might work like a machine, but he’s a human being underneath it all. He’s knackered. I think he meant to say, keep away for your own safety.’
‘Maybe.’ She wasn’t so sure. Mitch saw her as a useless upper-class bimbo who was more likely to cause trouble than to help. And with her current track record, she guessed she couldn’t blame him. ‘Jane, I feel so useless. Is there anything I can do?’
Jane smiled and gave her a reassuring hug. ‘Come on, lovely, I’ve got just the job for you. See those terrified children standing over there?’ She pointed to a grubby, forlorn-looking group. ‘Alice, one of the WHO team, has gone to get some fresh clothes and towels for them. Why don’t you help her clean them up?’
At the sight of their huge sad brown eyes, Brianna’s heart melted. Plastering a smile on her face, she went to help.
For the next few hours she worked with Alice, helping to clean up the uninjured. She tried to offer comfort and a distraction from the fresh disaster that had befallen the area. No sooner had they ferried one group over to the camp, a fresh huddle would form. It was both heartbreaking and uplifting. The more villagers they tended to, the more had been rescued. She tried not to look at the mounting pile of body bags on the other side of the mudslide. She focused on the living, the well. That was traumatic enough.
* * *
Mitch had experienced many bad days in his line of work, but today had to rank with one of the worst. They’d rescued more than were killed, but only just. The saving grace had been that the village buried under the mudslide had been small. Those who’d made it out alive were able to tell them how many people should have been there. He’d worked on much larger mudslides, when they had no hope of knowing how many people had remained buried. That made rescue work really hard, not knowing when to give up. Thankfully, this time, all the villagers had been accounted for, one way or another, by nightfall.
Having showered off most of the grime of the day, Mitch made his way back to his tent. He was used to feeling tired, it was something that never left him when he was on site. Today though, the exhaustion was physical as well as mental. Pulling victims out of the mud had been a thankless task, one that had strained at every muscle and sinew. He stopped for a moment, rolling his shoulders to release some of the tension. That was when he caught sight of a slender female figure with her back against a tree. Her face was lit up by the amber glow of a cigarette. It was a face of great beauty, but tonight it held a hint of fragility. Of course the sensible course of action was to walk by and go straight to his tent.
Right now he didn’t feel like being sensible.
‘They can kill you.’
Brianna’s head shot up. ‘So I hear,’ she replied in her cultured voice.
He wanted to dislike it, as he wanted to dislike her, but there was something about the posh husky tones that sent a shiver up his spine. ‘I didn’t have you down as a smoker.’
She smiled slightly. ‘I’m not. At least not unless I’m very drunk, or emotionally overwrought.’
He leant back against the tree next to her. Close, but not touching. ‘Well, unless you’ve snuck into my tent and pilfered my whisky supply, I guess it’s the latter that’s led you to nicotine tonight?’
‘Umm, but I wouldn’t mind indulging in some of the former right now.’ She took a long, deep drag. ‘I don’t know how you do it.’
‘Watching you smoke?’ he asked, deliberately misunderstanding her. ‘It’s hard, especially as I used to smoke and had a devil of a job giving it up.’
She smiled, as he’d hoped she would. ‘I won’t offer you one then.’ She watched as the smoke trailed up from the end of the cigarette. ‘But that isn’t what I meant, as I think you know.’
‘It’s part of life,’ he replied simply.
‘But doesn’t it make you sad, or angry, seeing so much death?’
‘I used to get angry, on the battlefield. When I saw the body bags build because of a pointless war, it really got to me. This is just nature doing her thing. It’s tough on those caught up in it, but then life is tough.’ He gave her a sideways glance.
‘At least it is for most people. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’ Temper rippled through her, mixing with the sadness and anger he saw in her eyes.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, keeping his voice deliberately calm. He sensed she wanted to fight, but tonight he didn’t fancy being her punchbag. ‘Most people do have a tougher life than yours.’
‘You don’t know anything about my life. How can you stand there in judgement?’ He raised an eyebrow, daring her to continue. The temper fled as quickly as it had arrived and she sighed. ‘Okay, you’re right, I have had it easy.’
‘I didn’t say your life was easy,’ he qualified. ‘But I don’t think it has been tough.’
‘My first car was a Porsche,’ she admitted.
Mitch felt his lips curve upwards. ‘Impressive. How long did it last?’
‘Two days. I crashed it into a ditch going round a corner too fast. I was grounded for a week.’ She caught his grin and smiled. ‘What was your first car?’
Mitch settled further back against the tree. ‘Owned or borrowed?’ he countered.
‘Let’s go for borrowed.’
‘A Ford Capri, when I was twelve.’
‘I take it the owners didn’t realise you’d borrowed it?’ He just grinned, a flash of white teeth in the moonlight. ‘Did you give it back?’
Mitch thought back to the Capri that had landed in the ditch, mangled by a tree. He and his two mates had been lucky to get out of it alive. ‘I crashed it. I don’t think the owners would have thanked me for returning it.’
‘At last, we’ve found something in common. We’re both bad drivers.’
The laugh whooshed out of him. It had been so long since he’d had a really proper laugh, he was surprised his body still remembered how to do it. ‘In my defence, lady, I was only twelve and couldn’t reach the damn brake pedal.’
She conceded his point. ‘Hey, this is fun.’
‘What is?’
‘You and me actually having a conversation.’ Her grin was infectious and he found his muscles starting to relax. ‘My first birthday party was held in the Savoy,’ she continued. ‘For my eighth we took ten of my friends to Disneyland Paris.’ She cocked a look at him. ‘What about you?’
‘Birthday parties were for sissies.’
‘Aw, come on, you must have had at least one.’
Instantly his muscles tensed again. This was not a topic he wanted to discuss tonight. Or any night. ‘Let’s just say my mother wasn’t one for making too much fuss.’ He pushed his body off the tree and moved to stand in front of her. ‘You did well today,’ he told her, quickly changing the subject.
‘You mean I kept out of your way?’
He saw the teasing light in her eyes and smiled. ‘I guess I was a bit curt.’
‘A bit, but then again, nothing I haven’t seen before.’
An involuntary smile spread across his face and he watched as it was mirrored across her own. His body stirred. God, he was losing himself in those dancing green eyes. They were dazzling him, sucking him in. Instinctively he placed his hands on her shoulders. But as he bent his head towards hers, he suddenly stopped. You’re playing with fire, McBride.
Swiftly he pulled back, thrusting his hands deeply into his pockets. ‘Goodnight, Brianna.’
Watching Mitch’s retreating back, Brianna played out the scene again in her mind. She knew the predatory look that entered a man’s eyes when they were about to pounce. She’d seen it in Mitch’s eyes, just before he’d broken away. Why was he so determined not to get close to her?
Feeling restless, her head full of questions, Brianna wandered back to her tent. If ever there was a time she needed a chat with her best friend, this was it. Pulling the clunky satellite phone from her bag, she dialled Melanie’s number.
‘Brie? Wow, hey there.’
Instantly a smile tugged at her lips. ‘Hey yourself. What are you doing? It must be, what, afternoon with you?’
‘Pardon? Blimey, you sound like you’re in a toilet. Speak up girl.’
‘I said what are you up to?’ The signal was pretty scratchy but the tenuous contact with home was worth the frustration of trying to hear.
‘I’m shopping. What do you expect me to be doing? More to the point, what are you doing?’
Brianna gave her friend a quick rundown of the last two days, and though she tried to keep her voice neutral when she spoke of Mitch, Melanie’s gossip radar was far too sensitive. Even thousands of miles away. And with a poor signal.
‘So this Mitch you keep mentioning. Do I take it he’s a bit of a hunk?’
‘My God, how can you tell that?’
‘Because your voice goes all husky when you mention his name. So, dish the dirt. Have you kissed?’
‘Sort of.’
‘What did you say? Sort of ?’
‘Yes, okay, we’ve definitely kissed. It was . . . amazing, magical.’
‘And?’
‘And he doesn’t want it to go any further. He doesn’t want anything to distract him from his job, apparently.’
‘Do you believe him?’
Wasn’t that the million dollar question. ‘No, I don’t think I do. He seems pretty good at closing off all his emotions and focusing on the issue at hand. I think it’s to do with my money.’ Men fell into two main camps when it came to her wealth. The confident charmers were attracted to it. The shier, hesitant men were overawed by it. Mitch didn’t fit into either camp, but the very fact he’d mentioned it several times, proved it was an issue.
‘Well, the days are ticking by, sweetie. What are you going to do? Leave it, or go after him?’
Brianna took a nanosecond to make up her mind. ‘Go after him,’ she replied decisively. ‘I guess it will come down to who’s the more determined to get their way.’
Melanie let out a long, lusty laugh. ‘Well, watch out Mitch McBride, whoever you are. You don’t know what’s about to hit you.’