So tonight he’d much prefer to sleep under the stars, only that would leave Pippa in Amy’s house alone. Or under the stars with him. And something told him…
Pippa wasn’t as tough as she made out, he thought as they walked the short distance to the house. Five days ago she’d nearly drowned. He’d learned a lot about trauma in his years in this service-he’d had victims come back and talk to him about their experiences and he’d talked to psychologists. ‘There’ll be flashbacks,’ he’d been told. ‘You can’t go so close to death without suffering.’ And after eight hours in the water believing she’d drown… She’d been close to an appalling edge.
This trip had been meant to break Pippa in slowly, before sending her back to her luxury hotel tonight. To make her sleep outside… Personally he loved it but the sky was immense, and for someone already fragile… Someone who’d just re-entered the world of emergency medicine after being a casualty herself… Even Joyce had seemed to sense it.
It had to be Amy’s house.
‘I won’t jump you,’ Pippa said.
He stopped short. ‘You won’t…’
‘I thought I should tell you,’ she said. ‘Joyce took me aside and told me you were honourable. You’re looking worried. Maybe I should reassure you that I am, too. In fact I’m feeling exceedingly chaste. I guess that’s what comes from being a jilted bride.’
‘You don’t sound very jilted,’ he said cautiously. He was feeling cautious.
‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘I’m exceedingly pleased to be free, so you needn’t walk three yards away from me as if you’re afraid I might latch on and not let go.’
‘You’re pleased to be free?’ This conversation had him floundering.
‘Yes, I am. I have the rest of my life ahead of me. I’ve had a very exciting afternoon and a very satisfactory day. I’m starting to make all sorts of plans but men aren’t included. And I’m very tired. So show me a bed and then you can do what you want, but you don’t need to look after me and you needn’t think I’ll be needy. I’m independent, Dr Chase, and I’m loving it.’
Only she wasn’t.
He woke at three in the morning and she didn’t sound independent at all.
Pippa was sleeping in the double bed in Amy’s bedroom. Riley was on the fold-out settee in the living room.
It wasn’t sobbing that woke him. It was gasps of fear, then the sounds of panting, breathless terror, muted as if the pillows themselves were drowning her.
If he wasn’t a light sleeper he would have missed it, but Riley was a light sleeper at the best of times and he was awake and at her door before he thought about it.
Moonlight was flooding through the window.
Her bedding was everywhere. She was wearing panties and bra but nothing else. She looked like she was writhing in fear. Her curls were spread out on the pillows, and her eyes were wide and staring, as if she was seeing…
Hell?
It was enough to twist the heart.
‘Pippa.’ He was by her bed, grasping her shoulders, holding her. ‘Pippa, wake up, you’re having a nightmare. Pippa.’
Her eyes widened. She jerked sideways, as if he was the thing that terrified her.
‘Pippa, it’s Riley. Dr Chase. The guy in the helicopter. Pippa, it’s Riley, the guy you’re planning not to jump.’
And somehow the stupidity of that last statement got through. Her body stilled, slumped. Her eyes slowly lost their terror, and the terror was replaced by confusion. She focused. Her gaze found his. Locked.
She shuddered and the shudder ran the length of her body.
She was cold to touch. The temperature in the desert dropped at night to almost freezing. She’d gone to sleep with a pile of quilts, but the quilts were on the floor.
She shuddered again and it was too much. He tugged a quilt from the floor, wrapped it round her and tugged her into his arms. He held her as one might hold a terrified child.
She seemed so shocked she simply let it happen. The shudders went on, dreadful, born of fear and cold and sheer disorientation.
He should never have agreed to her coming here, he thought, swearing under his breath.
When he’d been a kid, tiny, he’d found a budgerigar-or rather one of the feral cats around the dump they’d been living in had found it. He’d managed to get it free, then brought it inside, warmed it and settled it into a box. A couple of hours later he’d checked and it had looked fine.
Delighted, he’d lifted it out. The little bird had been someone’s pet. It was tame, it talked, it clung to his finger, it pecked his ear.
With no adult to advise him, he’d played with it until bedtime. He’d popped it back into its box for the night and the next morning he’d opened the box to discover it was dead.
Years later he’d talked to a mate who was a vet, and he’d told him the sad little story.
‘It’ll still have been running on adrenalin,’ the vet said. ‘You weren’t to know, but you’ll have stressed it more.’
And today… He’d allowed Pippa to come here…
He’ll have stressed her more.
He swore and held her close.
‘It’s okay, Pippa. You’re safe. Yes, you’re in the middle of the Australian desert with people you don’t know, yes, you nearly drowned, yes, your marriage is off, but, hey, the threats are all past. No one and nothing’s doing you harm. We’ll get you warm, and tomorrow we’ll fly you back to the coast. We’re intending to fly via Sydney. You could catch a plane home to England from Sydney. How about if we phone your mother? That might make you feel like things are real.’
He was talking for the sake of talking, not waiting for a response, keeping his voice low and gentle, keeping the message simple. You’re safe, there’s no threat, you’re under control.
The shudders were easing. She was curled against his body as if she was taking warmth from him, and maybe she was. He hadn’t undressed to sleep-he’d hauled some rugs over himself and relaxed on the settee, knowing he’d be up two or three times in the night to check on Gerry. He was grateful for it now. He was in his Flight-Aid uniform. The shirt was thick, workmanlike cotton. If he’d undressed, as she had…
It’d be skin against skin…
And he could stop his thoughts going there right now.
He did stop his thoughts going there. Discipline. Nineteen years of discipline since…
‘I’m… I’m sorry.’ She was recovering enough to talk, but not enough to pull away. She was taking every shred of comfort she could find. Huddled against him, spooned against his body, wrapped in quilts, she needed it all. ‘I shouldn’t… I woke you…’
‘Nightmares are the pits,’ he said softly, and he smelled her hair and thought… and thought…
And didn’t think. It was inappropriate to think.
‘I didn’t… I mean, I don’t know why…’
‘You didn’t talk to the psychologists back at Whale Cove?’
‘I didn’t need to.’ That was better. There was a touch of asperity in her voice. She had spirit, this woman.
If she didn’t have such spirit she’d be dead, he thought, and the idea made him hold her tighter. For some reason…
Well, for a very good reason it was good she wasn’t dead. But… Why was it more important that it was Pippa?
‘I’m okay,’ she said, but she didn’t move.
‘You’re freezing. You pushed all the covers off. Stay where you are until you’re warm.’
She was silent for a while and he could feel her gathering her thoughts, gathering her senses. Figuring out what had happened. How she’d ended up where she was.
‘So I didn’t have any blankets on?’ she said at last, cautiously, and he grinned. The woman in her was back.
‘Nope.’
‘Oh, my…’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve seen worse things come out of cheese.’
She stiffened. She sat up and swivelled. ‘Pardon?’
‘I’m a doctor,’ he said, apologet
ically. ‘I learned anatomy in first year.’
‘I am not your patient.’ That was definite.
‘No.’
‘I’m your colleague.’
‘Yes.’ He thought about it. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
He felt her smile rather than heard it and it felt good. To make her smile…
But suddenly he was thinking of her back in the water again, and this time it was he who shuddered.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Sorry.’
‘You’re cold.’
‘Nope.’
‘I’m fine. You can go back to bed.’
‘You’re still shaking.’
‘Not much.’
‘I could go across and get some heat pads from Joyce.’
‘No,’ she said, and suddenly the fear was back in her voice. Born straight out neediness.
It had been some nightmare.
He’d had nightmares himself. As a kid. One of his stepfathers had enjoyed using a horsewhip. The beatings themselves hadn’t been so bad. Waking up, though, in the night, when dreams blended reality into something worse…
Okay, he wouldn’t leave her.
‘The bed’s big,’ she whispered. ‘Sh-share?’
He stiffened. She felt him stiffen, and he felt her immediate reaction. Indignation.
‘We’re colleagues,’ she said, pulling away. Backing against the bedhead. Eying him with something that looked suspiciously like scorn. ‘We have one bed. Why does everything have to be about sex?’
‘I didn’t think it was about sex.’
‘It wasn’t, until you reacted like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like I’d jumped you. Go back to your sofa.’
‘No.’ He could cope with her need, he thought. She was a colleague.
No. She was a patient. Think of her as a patient.
The lines were blurring. He wasn’t sure how he thought of her. But he knew he couldn’t leave her.
‘Why not?’ she demanded.
‘Because one of two things will happen,’ he said. ‘Either you’ll lie and stare at the ceiling for the rest of the night, scared to go back to sleep. Or you’ll go back to sleep and the nightmare will be waiting. You’re not out from it yet.’
‘How do you know?’
He knew. If the shaking hadn’t stopped…
‘So what’s happened to you?’ she asked, her voice suddenly gentling, and that caught him so unawares he could have dropped her. Only he no longer had her. She’d slipped back onto the bed and only her feet were still touching him.
He wanted, quite badly, to be holding her again.
The thought jolted him. What was happening here?
He didn’t react to women like this, but she’d somehow pierced something he’d hardly known he had. It was like she’d opened some part of him he’d been unaware existed.
It made him feel exposed. He had to get it sealed up again fast, but how could he do that while she was… here?
‘Harry says you have a daughter.’ Her voice was suddenly prosaic, like they were making polite conversation at a dinner party. She tugged her quilt. He let it go and she pulled it over her. She huddled under it and she tried to hide the next wave of shivers. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Harry talks too much.’ He sighed. ‘Lucy.’
‘You want to tell me about her?’ She was eying him over the top of the quilt. ‘I’m guessing Lucy isn’t one of 2.4 children in a suburban back yard with Mummy in her apron and a casserole warming on the stove.’
‘There are no slippers and pipe waiting at my place.’ He said it almost self-mockingly and she slid to the far side of the bed and hauled one of her disarranged pillows to the empty side. She patted it.
‘You want to tell me about it?’
She was still asking for help. He knew she was. She couldn’t camouflage those tremors. This woman was needy.
So what was stopping him lying on the spare pillow, hauling up a quilt and telling her about Lucy?
Pride? Fear? Fear at letting someone as perceptive as she was close?
He wouldn’t be letting her close. Or… no closer than she needed to be to get her warm.
She wanted distraction from terror. What harm?
He sighed. He slid onto the pillow and tugged up a quilt. Then, because it was what she needed and he knew it was, he slid an arm around her shoulders and tugged her close. She stiffened for a moment, but then he felt her relax. It was as if she, too, was reminding herself to be sensible.
‘Back to front,’ he growled. ‘I can warm you more that way.’
‘Wait,’ she said, and sat up, grabbed her shirt and tugged it on.
Two Flight-Aid shirts. Colleagues.
‘Needs must,’ she said, lying down and turned her back, letting him tug her into him. He felt her force herself to relax. Muscle by muscle.
He was doing the same himself. The smell of her hair, soft and clean and with a scent so faint… if he wasn’t this close he could never have smelled it.
‘Tell me about Lucy,’ she said, with sudden asperity, and he wondered if she realised what he was thinking.
If she had, then a man was wise to stop thinking it. Right now. Tell her about Lucy.
‘She’s my daughter.’
‘I know that much.’ She sounded amused.
‘She’s beautiful. She’s dark and tall and slim. Maybe a bit too thin.’ According to the one photograph he’d seen. What would he know?
‘How often do you see her?’
‘Never. I didn’t know she existed until three months ago.’
‘Wow!’ She didn’t sound judgmental. She just sounded… interested. It was the right reaction, he thought. She made it sound like not knowing you had a daughter was almost normal. That came from years of medical training, he thought. Nothing shocks.
‘Wow’s right.’
‘Harry says she’s coming tomorrow.’
‘So it seems,’ he said harshly. ‘Let’s talk of something else.’
‘Something else.’ She was silent for a while. Absorbing an absent daughter? He wondered if she was drifting into sleep, but apparently not.
‘So what about your parents?’ she asked.
‘What about them?’
‘Where are they?’
‘My mother’s in Perth. Last time I heard, my father was in New Zealand but that was twenty years back.’
‘Not a close family, huh?’
‘You could say that.’ Family wasn’t something he chose to talk about but if it stopped the trembling… This was therapy, he decided, and tugged her tighter and thought, Yep, medical necessity.
‘You’re so warm,’ she murmured, and she was relaxing a little, warming a little, tension easing.
‘So tell me about your family,’ he said, deciding to turn the tables.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Why your mother didn’t get on that plane and come. She knew how close you’d come to death.’
‘Just as long as it didn’t hit the papers. That’s all she’d care about.’
‘Not close either?’
‘Too close. They should have had more children. Only one… it’s all your eggs in one basket and a girl can’t live up to it.’
‘Do they like you being a nurse?’
‘They hate me being a nurse.’ The tension was back again. ‘I wanted to do medicine so badly but there was no way they’d support me. I was to go into the family business. That was my grandfather’s decree. It’s my grandfather who pulls the strings. I’ve had to work my way through nursing. He fought me every step of the way.’
‘But you’re doing something you love.’
‘I’m not sure,’ she whispered. ‘Or… I am but I’m not doing enough. When I was trying to stop myself drowning, there was a part of me thinking… If I get out of here, I want to make a difference. Not just… be.’
‘I can’t imagine you just being,’ he said, and she sighed and yawned and snuggled.
‘It’d be so easy to sink into my parents’ world. Like my hotel room. I have three different types of bath foam.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’ She snuggled again. His body was reacting. Of course his body was reacting. He’d have to be inhuman for it not to react.
He was wearing heavy-duty pants with a heavy-duty zipper. He was becoming exceedingly grateful that he didn’t routinely pack pyjamas.
‘I’m so warm,’ she murmured. ‘I shouldn’t let you do this.’
‘My pleasure.’
‘I’m sure it’s not.’ Her voice was starting to slur. ‘I’m sure it’s just that you’re a very nice man and a fine doctor. You saved my life and you’ve rescued me from my nightmare. Now you’re making me feel wonderful. I’m so sorry you didn’t know about your daughter.’
‘I’m seeing her tomorrow. She’s the guest I told Coral about.’
‘That’s great.’ She sighed again, a long, sleepy, languorous sigh that made the night feel impossibly sensual. ‘That’s wonderful. Tomorrow you’ll turn into a father. You’re a lifesaver, a doctor, a father, a guy with pecs to die for… and you’re holding me. Like three types of bath foam… what more could a girl desire?’
She was making no sense at all. ‘Go to sleep.’
‘I will.’ She smiled-he heard her smile. ‘I am. But I first I need to say thank you.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘No, but tomorrow you’ll be a father,’ she said. ‘And a doctor again, and a lifesaver, and I need to say thank you now.’
‘Pippa…’
‘You saved my life.’ She was no longer even trying to make sense, he thought. She was simply saying what came into her head. ‘You saved me from Roger. I could have married him.’
‘That was hardly me…’
‘You were part of it. If you hadn’t been there for me… Apart from being dead… if it hadn’t been you I might even have been weak enough to let him come. He might have bullied me into believing in him again. Marriage for the sake of family. Ugh.’ She shuddered and clung.
‘Not now, though. You’ve shown me how… ordinary it all was. Just ordinary.’ Her voice was a husky whisper, part of the dreaming. Filled with pleasure and warmth and something more… ‘Today… Not only am I alive, not only do I not have to marry Roger, there’s a whole world you’re showing me. You’re showing me how it is to be alive. New. Wanting…’
The Doctor & the Runaway Heiress Page 9
