Secrets at the Loch (Loch Lannick #5) - Hannah Ellis Page 0,51

feet was beginning to sting where her shoes rubbed.

“Are you hungry?” Nick walked over to her, hopefully not noticing how out of puff she was.

She nodded, her throat stinging as she inhaled the bitterly cold air. Nick pulled two thin waterproof jackets from his backpack and laid them on the ground. “You were right about the rain gear!”

She smiled as she sat down on the pale blue one. It was such a relief to rest her legs. She was even tempted to take her shoes off and give her throbbing feet some respite, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to put them on again. “You brought one for me too.”

“I presumed you wouldn’t be overly prepared.”

“I brought sandwiches,” she said, pulling them from her bag.

“Me too.” He also had crisps and chocolate bars and they sat quietly as they shared what they had. “It’s cold,” she said, rubbing her hands together after she’d eaten enough. Thankfully, she had a hat, scarf and gloves in her bag and put them on.

“There’s snow at the top,” Nick said, gazing at the path which meandered up to the summit.

“I thought there’d be more people around.” There was a small group of people a little ahead of them on the path. She and Nick had had them in their sights the whole way up, but they appeared to be heading back the way they’d come.

“They’re obviously not as fit as us,” Lexie remarked, defiantly ignoring the pain in her feet.

“Or more sensible,” he said, staring at the route up the mountain.

“It’s not that much further, is it?”

“About the same again. Probably a bit longer. But I don’t like the look of those clouds.”

“There aren’t any clouds,” Lexie said, craning her neck.

“There.” He pointed.

“They’re miles away.”

His lips twitched to a smirk. “Clouds move, you know.”

“Obviously. But I’m not about to let a few clouds stop me from getting to the top.” Standing, she folded the waterproof that Nick had laid out for her and handed it back to him.

After packing them away again, he stood and hauled the pack onto his back. “You don’t have to go all the way up just to prove a point. I absolutely believe you can. But the conditions aren’t great. It’s dangerous.”

“It’s a bright, beautiful day! And I’m not trying to prove a point. So long as we stick to the path nothing will go wrong. You worry too much.”

“Probably. But near the summit conditions can change quickly. It drives me mad when tourists treat it like a walk up a hill, then get stranded. The rescue teams put themselves at risk coming up to help out.”

Lexie paused. “So you think we shouldn’t go further?”

Clearly he’d been expecting more resistance. As much as she wanted to make it all the way up, she had no desire to have to get rescued. And she wasn’t daft enough to think she knew more about hiking than Nick.

“We can go a bit further,” he said. “But if the path gets icy and slippery we should turn around.”

“Okay.” She marched on, part of her wishing he’d insisted they go back down. Two parts of her actually – both feet.

“Why do you want to get to the top so badly anyway?” he asked as they settled into a steady pace. “The view’s already great from here.”

“I’m not sure. It’ll feel like an achievement, I suppose. Plus, this guy told me that standing on top of the mountain clears your head and solves all your problems.”

“Which guy?” Nick asked.

“Some guy I met a couple of days ago,” she said with a shrug.

“Do you have guys falling over you everywhere you go?”

“No.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “He wasn’t falling over me. We were just chatting. He kept talking about his wife. Also, he wasn’t my type. This will be hard to believe, but he’s an even bigger geek than you!”

He stifled a grin as he knocked against her on the path.

“So there’s no need for you to get all jealous,” she said cheekily.

“I wasn’t jealous.”

“Yeah, you were.”

“Fine.” He quickened his pace, striding ahead of her. “Maybe I was jealous.”

Lexie hung back a little way as her smile faded. It baffled her how he could be so open about his feelings. Whatever he thought or felt, he said it. The two of them were like polar opposites.

They walked in silence for the next hour. As the path wound its way higher, the temperature dropped quickly. At least if her feet went numb with the