Season of Desire: Complete Edition Read Online Free PDF Page A

understand? Just wait here and rest, and I’ll be back in a jiffy. Don’t be afraid. I won’t leave you alone.’
    ‘I’m not afraid,’ I retort. It’s not strictly true but I resent the idea that I’m helpless, a pathetic scaredy cat. ‘But if you get into trouble, you might need me to help you.’
    A smile flickers momentarily on his lips but to his credit he doesn’t allow it to stay there. ‘Good point,’ he says gravely. ‘You’ll just have to trust me on this one. Believe me, I’ve been trained for exactly this kind of situation.’
    I look at what he’s wearing: jeans, a black jumper over a shirt and a dark well-cut suit jacket over that, a just discernible grey stripe in the black wool. On his feet are well-polished leather shoes, already caked with snow. ‘In that get-up?’ I say sardonically.
    He flashes me a steely look. ‘In any get-up. Now sit down and let me get on with sorting out this less-than-desirable situation. God, look at you.’
    I’m shaking with cold, and my teeth are chattering. My fingers are numb and yet simultaneously burning with the icy cold. My toes are the same inside my ridiculously thin high-heeled black boots. He steers me back to the snow cave he’s made and lowers me down until I’m sitting. Then he tucks my hands inside the sleeves of my puffy jacket – thank God I put it on instead of the sparkly white tweed I was considering – and rewraps my scarlet scarf around me tightly. I let him. I suddenly don’t have the strength to resist.
    He comes down to my level, his face opposite mine. He’s serious now. Very serious. So serious that real fear swoops through me. ‘I’m going to leave you, but not for long, I promise. If you hear any helicopters, come out into the open and wave that scarlet scarf of yours as hard as you bloody can, understand?’
    I nod, trying to stop myself shaking.
    ‘Good. You’re brave. I won’t be long.’
    Then he’s gone, his dark form striding out over the snow before it’s quickly lost in the fog. I’m all on my own, on a freezing mountainside. And no one knows where the hell I am.
     
    I wait, shivering, trying to recall anything I’ve learned about survival in cold conditions. I mustn’t sleep, I remember. Instantly I feel desperately tired and long only to close my eyes and surrender to my deep fatigue.
    No – no! I mustn’t. Stay awake, Freya, for God’s sake.
    I remember that I mustn’t drink alcohol because the sensation of warmth it gives is an illusion.
    Well, that’s very useful, I tell myself sarcastically. Hold the gin and tonic, barman! I mustn’t get tipsy before I freeze to death.
    What else? Stay warm. Stay alert. Try and give a clue of your whereabouts to potential rescuers. All I have is my scarlet McQueen cashmere scarf with its motif of black skulls. If this doesn’t stand out against the snow, nothing will. It’ll be more use as a flag than keeping me warm.
    I struggle to my feet, fighting against the awful clenching pain that grips me when I try to move. What have I done to my chest? Have I cracked a rib? Pierced a lung? Displaced my heart, torn an artery . . .? Cold fear rips through me at the thought that I’m dying from whatever injury I sustained in the car’s ricocheting plummet down the mountainside. Every minute that ticks by is taking me closer to my body shutting down completely. Without medical attention, I may be finished . . .
    Shut up, I tell myself firmly. Being afraid is not going to help. Even if I’m dying, I’ve got to use what strength I have left to help myself as much as I can. Otherwise I might as well curl up here and give up.
    Breathing in short, shallow breaths to keep the pain to a minimum, I pull myself up out of the seat and begin to hobble through the snow into the open. I’m nervous. I’ve skied enough to know that there could be treacherous hidden ridges, invisible to the eye because of the effect of white on white. I might stride out onto what I think is flat