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Bess parked around the back, adjacent to the helipad with the shredder set up on the other side for them, and climbed out.
She felt Gio come closer to her as she dropped the tailgate and they got ready to haul the trees across to meet their maker. She’d dropped his hand as she pulled into the airbase but she hadn’t wanted to. She’d wanted to continue their conversation, to tell him that she believed him, to admit she wanted to give this a go as much as he did.
But right now, they had work to do.
The blue team were on duty today so the red team were free to do this part of the fundraising drive, but she couldn’t help but be curious when she heard the phones ring – there was an outside ring to allow for calls to be heard wherever you were at the base – and Vik came out to start up the helicopter.
‘You’re itching to know what the job is.’ Gio had got it in one. He’d probably seen her looking over at Hilda.
‘Be quiet and take the other end of the tree when I drag it out.’ She liked the way they could go from weighty conversation to inconsequential banterso smoothly.
‘You get nervous that I know things about you.’
And now they were back to a more personal focus, but she let his teasing go. He was behind her as they walked the tree over to the guy in charge of the shredder and handed over the first tree before going back to get the next.
Once all the trees had been transferred, Bess picked up on Gio’s discomfort – his pace had slowed and every now and then she noticed him wince. ‘Your knee is giving you jip. Don’t even think about denying it.’
‘It’s not so bad.’
She pulled out the keys to the pick-up. She wasn’t going to let Gio try to prove himself because that’s what she suspected he was about to do.
‘What’s going on?’ Hudson was bringing out coffee for the guys at the shredding machine.
‘Hero here is suffering,’ she said, much to Gio’s frustration.
Hudson didn’t give Gio a chance to argue; he simply thrust the two cups of coffee forward and Gio took them on reflex. ‘I’ll help Bess. You take those to the workers, then get yourself inside. Sit down in there, take the weight off that leg of yours and eat something. Let’s go, Bess.’
She grinned at Gio. ‘Can’t argue with that.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Save me a scone?’
‘After you dump me for another guy?’ he called out after her.
Bess laughed and she and Hudson jumped back into the pick-up for Bess’s final round before Noah and Maya would take over.
She wouldn’t be telling Gio, but Hudson was twice as quick and they were back in no time, all the trees over at the chipper at record speed.
‘Thanks, Hudson. Appreciate the help.’
‘I appreciate the escape.’
‘The kids hard work at the moment?’ She’d heard murmurings of it between Hudson and Nadia. Nadia was the mother hen of the team and always ready to listen to problems, work-related or personal.
‘Something like that.’
She looked for Gio in the hangar, expecting him to have waited for her, but there was no sign of him.
She went through the hangar and into the main building and spotted him beyond the doors of reception out front.
She went outside and walked up behind him. ‘It’s freezing; why are you standing out here?’
The snow had started to fall in earnest even in the short time it had taken her to come from the back of the building to the front and when she saw the look on his face, she knew this was why he was braving the cold.
Bess, still wearing her big jacket, was warm enough. ‘Did you save me a scone?’
