The Doctor & the Runaway Heiress

by Marion Lennox

  He didn’t speak. He stood staring at her in the moonlight like she was someone he didn’t know-and didn’t want to know.

  ‘I know how Lucy’s mother and grandparents treated you,’ she said, her anger finally fading at little as she remembered the bald outline Lucy had told her. She had every right to be angry, but money had messed with so much of her life that in a way she understood his confusion. His emotion. If she could come to this man on his terms…

  But there was no way she could. Her money was there, like it or not. She would help Joyce, and she would help other communities, even if it meant Riley looked at her the way he was looking at her now.

  ‘I’m not my money, Riley,’ she said softly. ‘That’s not me. I’m who you pulled out of the water, a woman at the end of her life, a woman with nothing. But one thing this week has taught me is that I only have one chance at life. And Flight-Aid is what I want. But you know what? There’s a part of me that wants more. There’s a part of me that wants…’

  She faltered. She couldn’t say it. He was a stranger, standing aloof against the balcony rail, a shadow against the moonlight and the fluorescence of the sea.

  He didn’t want anything. He didn’t want the posters and curtains and the accoutrements of home.

  He didn’t want her.

  What was she doing, being angry with him? She had no right. He’d made love to her only because she’d been needy.

  She had to move on.

  ‘I’ll stay here for as long as Amy needs me,’ she said, making her voice even, almost calm. ‘You’re stuck with me until then and I’m sorry. I invited Amy here and that was a mistake. I should have got an apartment for her and for me. But moving now… I don’t think that’s possible without heartbreak. So I’ll stay here and we’ll lead separate lives. On Monday I’ll talk to Coral about being rostered onto a different crew from you. We’ll work apart. That’s the best I can do, Riley, but I won’t do more than that. I can’t walk away completely.’

  She closed her eyes and bit her lip. This was so hard.

  Just say it.

  No.

  Yes. Why not?

  Why not be honest?

  ‘I can’t walk away because I’ve fallen in love,’ she said softly now, but with her dignity intact. ‘With Flight Aid, with Jancey, with Amy, with Whale Cove.’

  Deep breath. Just say it.

  ‘And I’m very close to falling in love with you,’ she whispered. ‘Because… there’s this connection. I don’t get it, I can’t figure out why I’m feeling it, but I am. Like we’re linked. Our backgrounds. Something. I’m sorry but there it is. Honesty on all fronts. But I’m a big girl. I’ve walked alone all my life and I’m good at it. I know you don’t want whatever I’m feeling, and that’s more of a reason for me to get myself as apart from you as I can without leaving Whale Cove. So for now… you need to put up with posters, put up with sharing your home, put up with people in your life for another week or so. And then… I’m not sure what you’ll do with Lucy, but that’s up to you and Lucy. For the rest of it I’ll respect your right to be alone.’

  ‘Pippa…’

  ‘There’s nothing else to say,’ she said, and then before she could stop herself she stepped forward, took his hands in hers and stood on tiptoe.

  She kissed him and it was a kiss of farewell. She wasn’t leaving but she was moving away.

  He didn’t respond. He didn’t touch her.

  There was nothing else to be said. She released his hands. She walked inside and she closed the door behind her.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THEY didn’t swap crews. There was no need. Riley simply held himself distant.

  Pippa was introduced to full crew membership and she loved it. She loved the work, she loved the remote clinics, and after a couple of days she figured she and Riley could handle a professional, working relationship.

  They were both good at holding themselves contained. Practice.

  On Tuesday they did a retrieval upcountry-a truck had rolled with three kids in the back. It took all their medical skills to get a good outcome-three kids recovering in Sydney Central-and it felt fantastic.

  She could do this.

  The house was trickier.

  Amy’s Jason arrived late on Wednesday night, dusty and worn from hitchhiking for six hundred miles.

  ‘I couldn’t wait any longer to see my kid,’ he said simply. ‘I’ll sleep on the beach; I don’t need a bed.’

  His boss had told him he could take time off to settle Amy and the baby. Amy was so proud she looked like she might burst, so there was now another mattress on the floor. The pair sat and watched their baby slowly work her way through her jaundice. They waited every night for Riley to tell them she was doing well.

  Lucy and Adam sat on the veranda, read their birthing books and practised the breathing Amy proudly taught them-and waited every night for Riley to tell them they were doing well.

  They depended on him.

  Except… they didn’t. None of them depended on him. Not really, Riley thought as the week wore on. Because there was Pippa.

  She was like the sun with planets spinning around her. She was the life of the house.

  She was embracing life like she’d never realised she was alive until this moment, soaking up every moment of this new, wonderful world she found herself in. Her joy was impossible not to share.

  Except he didn’t share it. Not if he could help it, because it seemed like a void. It seemed a sweet, sensual lure, a vortex that if he entered he’d end up as he’d ended up twenty years before when he’d met Marguerite.

  Maybe he wouldn’t.

  Maybe he wasn’t brave enough to find out.

  Thursday night. He was on the beach, looking back to the house. Pippa’s curtains were left undrawn. The lights were on and he could see them all. They were squashed on the divans, watching television. Pippa had been making popcorn when he’d left. He could see them passing bowls. Laughing.

  He’d go back soon. He was necessary in the house. He had to sort Lucy’s life. He had to check Amy’s baby.

  He was useful.

  He was… loved?

  No. Love was an illusion. Something that happened to others, not to him.

  He didn’t need it.

  He had everything he needed-his medicine, his surf, his independence. He’d set Lucy and Adam up in their own place. Next Thursday Amy would go back to Dry Gum. Pippa would move out.

  The ripples in his calm existence would roll to the edges and disappear.

  He glanced again at the lit windows and thought he could be in there.

  Pippa. Child of money. A siren song.

  Stay outside, for as long as it takes.

  She knew he was out there but there wasn’t anything she could do. He didn’t want to be a part of this house.

  If it wasn’t for Riley, she’d be loving it.

  Pippa had gone from general nursing training to Surgical, and then to Intensive Care. Then a case one night had touched her more deeply than she cared to admit. A woman had come in to have her fifth child. During second stage her uterus had ruptured.

  Emergency Caesarean. They’d lost the baby and the mother had come so close to death it didn’t bear thinking about. Pippa had cared for her in Intensive Care. She’d watched the little family’s terror, and their grief for the little life lost.

  Five children and each one the most precious thing in the world.

  The following day she’d put in her application for Midwifery, she loved it and here was the perfect midwife job. She was caring for Amy with her newborn baby, and at the same time she was preparing Lucy for birth.

  Lucy was like a sponge, listening to everything Pippa told her, reading, reading, reading about childbirth, and Adam was almost as eager. But what was more wonderful was that Amy was teaching Lucy. In Amy Lucy had a teenaged ally who’d gone through birth only a week before, who scorned her fears as garbage.

  ‘It’s like a teenage antenatal clinic,’ Pippa t
old Riley six days after Lucy arrived, and then winced as Riley grunted a sharp response and went on to do what he had to do.

  He was doing exactly that-what he had to do. He was organising life for Lucy and Adam. He was watching Baby Riley’s progress. He was making sure Lucy had all her checks; that everything was done that had to be done.

  There were enough practical tasks necessary for Riley to deflect emotion.

  He’d get his life back soon enough, Pippa thought as the end of the first week neared. In one more week they’d take Amy home and Pippa would have no reason to stay. Then all Riley had to do was sort out a relationship with his daughter, and that had nothing to do with her.

  His solitary life suited him.

  She had to respect that.

  So she’d move out and she’d be more professional than… than… Who did she know who was strictly professional? Who did she know who had no emotional attachment at all?

  Riley?

  Not Riley. Or not the Riley she knew.

  But the Riley he almost certainly wanted to be.

  Saturday afternoon. Riley was in the Flight-Aid headquarters, not because he needed to be but because three women and two men and one baby were sun-baking on his veranda. There was no way he was joining them. It wasn’t a trap but it felt like it.

  They’d be talking babies, he told himself, quashing guilt. There was no need for him to be there.

  But there was no need for him to be here either-he could be on call at home-so when a call came he grabbed the radio with relief.

  ‘All stops.’ Harry sounded frightened, which, for Harry, was amazing. ‘Kid stuck in a crevice off the rocks south of McCarthy’s Sound. Tide’s coming in, water’s rising and he’s at risk of drowning. I’m calling Pippa. Take off in two minutes whether you’re on board or not.’

  They had six minutes in the chopper to take in the information being relayed to them. Harry had met them looking as grim as death and he had reason.

  ‘The kid slipped off a ledge while his dad was fishing. The cliff’s not sheer but it’s crumbling sandstone, so he slid and bumped, which is why he wasn’t killed outright. Just before water level there’s a bunch of rocks. He’s gone straight down a crevice. He can’t get up. In breaks between waves they’ve heard him screaming. His dad tried to get down and fell-probable broken ankle. He only just managed to get up himself. The local abseiling club’s trying to get their members there but no one’s available and the tide’s coming in. The report was hysterical-seems he’s below the high-tide mark.’

  It was enough to make them all shut up.

  Pippa and Riley sat in the back-this was where they’d operate from if they needed to lower someone to the scene.

  Pippa felt ill. Was she ready?

  With Cordelia remaining off work she’d been catapulted into the team with little training, but even with the emotional undercurrents, Riley had worked at getting her professional. It had been a quiet week, which was just as well.

  She’d learned to operate the winch as Riley was lowered. She’d been lowered herself. She knew the right way to make physical contact with a patient for retrieval. She knew how to operate harnesses. She knew, in theory, all she needed to make her a viable member of the rescue outfit.

  But for a call such as this…

  They should have called Mardi, she thought, or another of the members of the second crew. But there’d been no time. Mardi was five minutes away. In the doctor’s house, she was right there.

  ‘We’re almost there,’ Riley said, watching her face, knowing what she was thinking. ‘You can do this, Pippa.’

  Of course she could. There was no choice-but what was before them took her breath away.

  People were clustered on the cliff top. A police car. An ambulance. Half a dozen people.

  Even from here she could pick out the father. Someone was holding him back from the edge. He was kneeling, screaming, sobbing.

  Another car was pulling up. A woman. Kids.

  She couldn’t hear the screaming, but she felt it. She watched the woman run to the cliff edge, the policeman hold her back. She watched her crumple.

  A part of the cliff seemed to have fallen away, making a rough ledge of rocks at the base, huge boulders scattered randomly. There’d been strong winds for the last two days and the sea was stirred up crazily. The wind had eased now, but the sea was still vicious. It was crashing into the boulders at the foot of the cliff.

  Somewhere amongst those boulders was a child.

  ‘He’s eight years old,’ Harry said over the radio. ‘Name’s Mickey.’

  ‘If I go down, can we get directions to exactly where he is?’ Riley demanded. ‘Get the father on the radio. Have someone hold him while he watches but if he saw his kid go he’ll be the only person who can pinpoint exactly where he is. Pippa, you’re in charge up here. Total control. You know you can do it.’

  Did she know? Of course she did. She gulped.

  How long did normal paramedics have to train? Not six days.

  ‘’Course she can,’ Harry said, injecting forced lightness into his voice. ‘Or you can come up front and pilot the chopper while I do it. Piece of cake. Just hover and don’t hit anything.’

  ‘I think maybe I ought to hold Riley’s winch,’ Pippa said faintly. ‘I’m not all that good at hovering.’

  ‘You never know what you can do until you try,’ Riley said, and he caught her gaze and held. ‘We accepted you into this crew because you’re good, Pippa. Now’s the time to prove it.’

  It was the longest five minutes of her life.

  She operated the winch while Riley was lowered carefully down to the rocks. Despite what Harry said about ‘just hover and don’t hit anything’, she knew it took huge skill to hold the chopper steady. They were so close to the cliff. The people on the cliff top were forced to move back as Harry took the chopper almost to ground level to give Riley minimum swing as he lowered himself down.

  The father’s voice crackled over the radio, thick with sobs.

  ‘The big rock to the north of where he is. A couple more yards. Yeah, down there, between that one and the flat one to its side. Oh, God, there’s a wave…’

  Riley had reached ground level. He was on the flat rock, no longer swinging from the harness. He was on his stomach, peering down. Waves were breaking over the rocks, not much, intermittently, but Pippa thought, How far had the child slipped? How far was the water going in?

  ‘Mickey.’ They heard Riley through his headset. He was bracing himself against the wash, trying to see. He’d taken his flashlight down with him and Pippa could imagine him peering down into the void.

  ‘H-help.’ It was a child’s whisper, choking off, and through the radio system they heard it clearly.

  Dear God…

  ‘Can you catch a rope, mate, if I throw it down to you? It’s a harness. You can loop it under your arms.’

  ‘My hands… I can’t… One of them’s behind me. It won’t… I can’t get it out. The other doesn’t… I can’t…’ There was a muffled sob and then a gasp.

  Riley was pushing himself down into the chasm, reaching as far as he could. Swearing. ‘Hold on, mate. Hold on.’

  Another wave. A scream cut short.

  ‘Dear God…’

  He had no choice. He was as far into the chasm as he could reach. The water was swirling round his face, sucking back out of the chasm. There’d be more waves coming.

  He couldn’t reach.

  He couldn’t reach!

  He was wasting time. There was no way he could haul the child free. If he pushed himself any further, they’d both drown.

  There was one choice and one choice only.

  It nearly killed him. To ask her…

  He had no choice.

  ‘Pippa?’ It was Riley, using a voice she didn’t recognise. She’d seen the sea wash over him. She’d thought… She’d thought…

  ‘I’m here.’ Of course she was. Every sense was tuned to the drama below. She felt like r
etching.

  This was no time for retching.

  ‘He’s more than a metre out of reach,’ Riley said, and she could feel his anguish. But still his words were clipped and decisive.

  ‘I can’t get in-the chasm’s too narrow and my chest’s too wide. The sea’s rising-that last wave went over his head and I damn near stuck. There’s only one way we can do this. I’m unfastening the harness. Harry, get onto the cliff and pick up one of the cops-they’ll know how to operate the winch. Then, Pippa, I need you to get down here. You’re half my size across the shoulders. Do you have the courage to be lowered feet first to grab him? We wait five minutes and we lose him. Even now… Can you do this?’

  ‘Yes.’ No hesitation.

  ‘Of course she can,’ Harry said. ‘Get that harness off, Chase, so we can get it onto Pippa. We’re moving.’

  To ask her to do this…

  He had no choice. Not if the child was to live.

  But to ask it of Pippa… To ask it of anyone…

  Watch the sea.

  ‘We’re coming,’ he called to the child below, not knowing if he was still capable of hearing. ‘Hold on, mate. Pippa’s coming.’

  Riley was on the ledge with no harness. A wave could wash in at any time. Below him was a child, trapped where the sea washed in and out.

  Pippa’s fear for them both didn’t leave room for any fear for herself.

  Besides, there were things to do. Fear was for later. She had the winch up and was wearing the harness by the time they landed on the cliff top. A burly sergeant ran forward, was in the chopper, was demanding instructions as the chopper lifted off. Harry had forewarned him.