The Doctor & the Runaway Heiress

CHAPTER THREE

SHE slept all night.

She was still right by the nurses’ station. It was probably noisy, but there was no noise capable of stirring her.

When she woke, even the hospital breakfast tasted good. She must have been very close to the edge, she decided as she tucked into her leathery egg. She must have been very close indeed, if she was now appreciating hospital food.

Just the concept of food felt great. There’d be lunch in a few hours’ time, she thought with a thrill of anticipation. Maybe there’d be a snack in between. Life stretched out before her, resplendent in its possibilities. She lay back on her pillows and thought: This is day two of my honeymoon, what’s on today?

At around nine Jancey bounced in, accompanying an intern, and she was aware of a stab of disappointment. The young doctor was efficient, caring, thorough, all the things he needed to be-but he wasn’t Riley.

‘Dr Chase isn’t usually in the wards,’ Jancey told her as the intern moved off to sign her discharge papers. Pippa hadn’t asked about Riley, but somehow Jancey sensed Pippa wanted to know. ‘He’s in charge of Search and Rescue, and he does clinics for our remote communities. That’s enough to keep any doctor busy.’

‘This is the base for Search and Rescue?’

‘Yep. We have two crews, two planes and one chopper. There’s some coastal work-stuff like rescuing you-but most of our work is clinics and patient retrieval from Outback settlements. It keeps us busy. It keeps Riley very busy.’

‘So I won’t see him again.’

‘Probably not,’ Jancey said, giving her a thoughtful glance. ‘I know; it seems a shame. He’s a bit hot, our Dr Riley.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Of course it is,’ Jancey retorted, grinning. ‘I’m a happily married woman but it’s still what I think. It’s what every hot-blooded woman in this hospital thinks. He walks alone, though, our Dr Chase.’

‘Like the Phantom?’ Pippa queried, a bit nonplussed.

‘In the comics?’ Jancey smiled and nodded. ‘Yeah, though doesn’t Phantom have generations of Dianas, providing generations of little phantoms? As far as we know there’s not a Diana in sight. Coral, our nurse-administrator, reckons he was crossed in love. Whoops,’ she said as the baby-faced intern harrumphed with irritation from the corridor. ‘I know, talking about Dr Chase’s love life with patients is totally unprofessional but what’s life without a bit of spice? And who’s going to sack me with our staff shortage? Okay, I gotta go and minister to the sick, hold the hand of the learning. Will you be okay?’

‘Yes.’ How else was a woman to respond?

‘Are you staying in town for a while?’

‘The hotel’s paid for until Sunday.’

‘Then soak it up,’ Jancey said. ‘Sleep, spas, maybe a massage. But be careful. Our Dr Chase will be very annoyed if he has to rescue you again.’

‘He won’t do that,’ Pippa assured her. ‘It’s taken a lot of trouble to finally be on my own. I’m on my lonesome honeymoon and it feels fantastic. I’m not about to need anyone.’

Some wonderful person had fetched her luggage from the hotel. Pippa dressed and said goodbye to the ward staff. Jancey offered to accompany her to the taxi rank, but first Pippa needed to see Amy.

Amy was in a ward with two other young mums, all getting to know their babies. A lactation consultant was working with her, and there were rumours that Riley Junior was about to have her first bath.

‘You were fab,’ Amy told her as she hugged her goodbye. ‘You and Doc Riley. I wish I could have called her Pippa, too. Hey, maybe I can. Riley Pippa.’

‘Don’t get too carried away,’ Pippa said, grinning. ‘You’re making friends all over the place. By the time you leave here, this young lady might have twelve names.’

‘I won’t be here long. I don’t like being in hospital,’ Amy confessed.

‘You’re not planning to run away?’

‘I won’t do that. I’ve promised Doc Riley I’ll be sensible.’

‘You and me both,’ Pippa said.

It was great that she’d been able to help yesterday, she decided as she left Amy. It had made the terrors of the night before recede. It had made Roger’s betrayal fade almost to insignificance.

Birth beat death any day, she decided-and it also beat marriage. Now to have her honeymoon…

Half an hour later the porter ushered her into her hotel suite and finally Pippa was alone.

Her honeymoon hotel was truly, madly scrumptious. It had been years since Pippa had spent any time in her parents’ world and she’d almost forgotten what it was like. Or maybe hotels hadn’t been this luxurious back then.

The bed was the size of a small swimming pool. How many pillows could a girl use? There must be a dozen, and walking forward she saw a ‘pillow menu’. An invitation to add more.

Thick white carpet enveloped her toes. Two settees, gold brocade with feather cushions, looked squishy and fabulous. The television set looked more like a movie screen.

Two sets of French windows opened to a balcony that overlooked the sea. Below the balcony was a horizon pool, stretching to the beach beyond.

It was magnificent-but Pippa wasn’t exactly into horizon pools. Or pillow menus.

She gazed around her, and the familiar feeling of distaste surfaced. More than distaste. Loneliness?

That’s what these sorts of surroundings said to her.

She was an only child of wealthy parents. She’d been packed off to boarding school when she was six, but during vacations her parents had done ‘the right thing’. Sort of.

They’d taken her to exotic locations and stayed in hotels like this. Her parents had booked her a separate room, not close enough to bother them. They had employed hotel babysitters from the time they arrived to the time they left.

As she got older she pleaded to be left at home. There she least she knew the staff-and, of course, there was Roger.

Roger was the only friend who was permitted to visit when her parents weren’t around. He was the only kid who wasn’t intimidated by her parents’ wealth and ostentation. More than that, he’d been… kind. Three years older than she was, she’d thought he was her best friend.

But now…

She gazed at her surroundings-at a hotel room Roger had chosen-and once again she felt tired. Tired to the bone.

The intern had told her to take it easy. ‘You’ve had a shock. Let your body sleep it off.’

Good advice. She looked down at her half-acre of bed and thought she’d come to the right place to sleep.

And to think?

She wandered out to the balcony and stared out to sea. This was why she’d swum so late on Sunday night-from here the beach practically called to her. A lone surfer, far out, was catching waves with skill.

She’d love to do that.

On the far side of the headland she could see the cream brick building of the North Coast Health Services Hospital. A busy, bustling hospital, perpetually understaffed. Perpetually doing good.

She’d love to do that, too.

And with that, the sudden thought-could she?

What was she thinking? Nursing? Here?

She was here on her honeymoon, not to find a job. But the thought was suddenly there and it wouldn’t go away.

Nursing. Here.

Because of Riley?

No. That was stupid. Really stupid.

‘You’ve been unengaged for less than a week,’ she told herself. ‘You nearly died. You’ve had a horrid experience and it’s rattled you. Yes, you don’t like fancy hotels but get over it. And don’t think past tomorrow.’

But… to work in a hospital where she was desperately needed, to be part of a small team rather than one moveable staff member in a big, impersonal city hospital. To make a difference…

Would it be running away?

No. She’d run away to go nursing, deciding it was her career despite her family’s appalled objections. Somehow this no longer seemed like running away.

Maybe it’d be finding her own place. Her own home.

‘They won’t take me till my lungs clear,’ she said out loud, and surprised herself by where her thoughts were taking her.

Could she?

She needed to sleep. She needed to gain a bit of perspective. She’d been in the hospital for little more than a day: how could she possibly make a decision yet?

But she already had. Meanwhile… She eyed the ostentatious bed and managed a smile. ‘Suffer,’ she told herself. ‘Unpack one of your gorgeous honeymoon nightgowns and hit that bed.’

Sensible advice. She was a sensible woman.

She did not do things on a whim.

Or not until tomorrow.

She hung a gold-plated ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on her door and fell into bed. To her amazement she was asleep before… well, before she’d even had time to feel amazed.

She dreamed. Not nightmares, though.

Sensible or not, she dreamed of Riley.

He couldn’t get her out of his head. Pippa.

Tuesday. Three days till his daughter came.

When he wasn’t thinking about Pippa he was thinking about Lucy and the combination was enough to have him wide awake before dawn, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, trying not to think of anything and failing on both counts.

Tuesday. He and Harry had a short run this afternoon, collecting two patients and bringing them back for minor surgery tomorrow. He was due to take a remote clinic on Thursday at the settlement where Amy lived. If she was well enough they might be able to take her home. The rest of the week was quiet-except for emergencies.

He should think of Lucy’s arrival. Plan. Plan what? It was enough to drive him crazy.

And on top of that…

Pippa.

He never should have carried her.

It had seemed right. No, he never carried patients unless in dire emergencies-he wasn’t stupid-but with Pippa… To wait for a trolley when she was clearly dizzy, when she was wearing that ridiculous bathrobe, when she was clearly in trouble…

How many patients made him feel like Pippa did?

Maybe it was the voice, he thought harshly. Upper-crust English. Maybe that was his Achilles’ heel.

Only it wasn’t the voice.

He lay back on his pillows, allowing himself a moment’s indulgence, letting himself remember the feel of the woman in the fluffy pink bathrobe.

A woman who smiled at Amy, who coached her, who cared. A woman who pushed herself past exhaustion because a sixteen-year-old kid needed her. Her skill had stunned him-she had been totally on Amy’s side; she was a midwife any woman would love to have at a birth.

But he also saw her as… a drowning bride at the end of a rope over a dark ocean.

The vision wouldn’t go away.

Phillippa Penelope Fotheringham.

Pippa.

Phillippa, he corrected himself harshly. English. Probably wealthy.

She was a nurse. Why would he think she was wealthy?

There was something about her… some intangible thing… the Roger story?

What did it have to do with him? Forget it, he told himself. Forget her. He did not need complications in his life. He already had a big one. Lucy

He glanced out the window. The sun was finally rising, its soft tangerine rays glimmering on the water.

Out at sea he’d have a chance to think. Or not to think.

Surf. And more surf. And medicine.

What was life other than those two things?

On Tuesday evening Riley went to see Amy. She was out on the hospital balcony, cuddling her baby and looking longingly at the sunset over the distant hills.

‘Hi,’ Riley said from the door, and she beamed a welcome.

‘This is lovely,’ she said. ‘You’re my second visitor tonight.’

‘Second?’

‘Pippa came back to see me, too. Look.’ She held up a stuffed rabbit, small and floppy, with a lopsided grin that made Riley smile.

‘Cute.’

How long ago had Pippa been in? How much had he missed her by?

These were hardly appropriate questions.

‘You missed her by minutes,’ Amy said, and he caught himself and turned his attention back to where it should be. To his patient.

‘I came to see you.’

‘Pippa asked if you’d been in.’

‘Did she?’ He couldn’t help himself. ‘Is she still staying at the same hotel?’

‘She says her lowlife boyfriend’s paid so she’ll use it all. She’s trying to figure if he has to pay the mini-bar bill. If he does then she’s going to turn all those little bottles into a milkshake.’

He grinned. He could see her doing it. The girl had spunk.

More.

Pippa had been his patient. More was not appropriate.

‘When can I go home?’ Amy asked.

‘I’d like you to stay for a week.’

‘But you only go to Dry Gum every two weeks. You’re due there on Thursday. If I don’t go with you then I’m stuck here until next time.’

He hesitated. Four days post-delivery… He’d rather keep her here.

‘I hate hospitals,’ she said.

She didn’t. It was just that she was lonely. And young.

Should he take her home? Medical needs versus emotional needs. It was always a juggling act. There was a medical clinic-of a sort-at Dry Gum. It wasn’t perfect but he looked into Amy’s anxious face and he thought it would have to do.

‘If things are still looking good then we’ll take you,’ he told her. ‘But then I want you to stay with Sister Joyce for a week to make sure you know exactly how to care for your baby.’

‘I know most of it,’ she said. ‘I practically brought Mum’s kids up.’

She had, too. This kid had as much spunk as Pippa.

No. More. Pippa had clung to life for a night. Amy had been clinging to life for sixteen years. He’d known her since she was ten, a bossy little kid who ordered her tribe of brothers and sisters around, who herded them into clinic when she felt they needed it, who, he’d heard from others, had even been known to steal to get food for her siblings.

He’d felt sick when he’d learned she was pregnant. He felt like he’d personally failed her. Letting a sixteen-year-old kid get pregnant…

He couldn’t protect them all.

He could try.

‘There’s still stuff you need to learn,’ he told her.

‘I know there is,’ she said, serious in response. ‘Sister Joyce’ll teach me.’

‘You will stay with Sister Joyce for a week?’

‘Maybe longer,’ she said diffidently. ‘I’m not going home to Mum.’

That was a big step. Huge. Riley mentally rearranged his schedule and hauled up a chair. ‘So Baby Riley’s dad…’ he said. As far as he knew this baby was the result of a relationship that had lasted less than a month. ‘Jason?’

‘He’s gotta pull his socks up.’

‘Yeah?’

‘He wants to live with me,’ Amy said. ‘I asked Sister Joyce before I came here and she reckons she can get us one of the houses the government’s built by the school. Wouldn’t that be cool? I asked her if just me and the kid could go into it and she said yes. So I told Jason if he gets a job and sorts himself out he can come, too. Jason’s okay.’ She smiled then, a smile much wiser than her years. ‘He’ll be nice if I can keep him straight.’

If anyone could do it, it was Amy, Riley thought, in increased bemusement. Her look was suddenly fierce, determined, focused. ‘You know, when you and Pippa were helping me, I thought… That’s what I want to do,’ she said. ‘Be like Pippa. Sister Joyce’ll help me. I’m can learn.’

‘You’re a lot like Pippa already,’ Riley said, absurdly touched. ‘You both have courage in spades.’

‘Yeah, she’s good,’ Amy said. ‘What a waste she has to go back to England.’

She didn’t want to go back to England.

She was floating on her back in the sea. Of course she was going back. When you fall off a horse, get right back on. How many riding instructors had told her that?

It was Wednesday. The morning was gorgeous, the sea was glistening, there were flags showing the beach was patrolled and two burly lifesavers were watching her every move.

She wasn’t stupid. She didn’t go out of her depth. She just floated. Thinking…

What was there to go back to?

Her parents?

No. They wanted her to marry Roger. It had seemed such a neat solution, two sides of business meeting in marriage.

‘Marry Roger now,’ her father had said. ‘You’re wasting time messing about nursing. Get the family an heir.’

What sort of feudal system did he live in?

But Roger had been understanding for years, even when she’d said she wanted to break off their engagement and be free while she trained. He’d enjoyed himself then, too, she thought. They’d even discussed their respective boyfriends and girlfriends. Then, when he’d gently resumed pressure to marry, there had seemed no reason not to.

Looking back, she wondered… Had he been relieved to be given free time before he set about doing what he must to cement the family fortune?

It made her feel ill that she’d been so stupid.

‘I just wanted him to be my friend,’ she said out loud, and heard the neediness of the child within.

But she was no longer a child. She was in Australia. The sun was shining on her face. There were two bronzed surf lifesavers watching over her.

This place was magic, she thought. Whale Cove was two hours’ drive north of Sydney. It was a town rather than a city, clustered between mountains and sea, and it had to be one of the most beautiful places in the world.

‘But you can’t stay in your honeymoon hotel for ever,’ she told herself.

‘Why not? Roger’s paying.’ She rolled lazily over in the shallows, thinking about the pros and cons of Roger. She’d made some enquiries before she’d come-enquiries that maybe she would have been wise to have made before she’d got so close to the wedding.

It seemed her bridesmaid hadn’t been the only one. He’d gambled on her not finding out.

She had to face it-he’d wanted her money, not her.

Ugh.

Suddenly she found herself thinking of Riley instead, and it was a relief when his image superimposed itself over her ex-fiancé’s.

Riley gambled, too, she conceded. She remembered him holding her in that black-as-pitch sea.

You’re safe. You don’t need to hold on, I have you.

He gambled with his own life to save others.

Melodramatic?

No.

What was he doing now? Off saving more lives?

She rolled onto her back again, watching the lone surfer she’d seen before. He was seriously good.

The waves were forming far out, building and curving and finally breaking, twelve feet high or so at their peak, then falling away to nothing, running themselves out as the water became deep again. There must be a channel between those waves and the beach, because in close the water was calm. Where she was the surf built again to about eight inches. Just enough to float on. Up and down. Watching the surfer. Thinking of nothing.

The surfer caught a huge swell. He was sweeping in on its face then disappearing underneath as the wave curled.

She caught her breath. She’d seen this on videos; being in the green room, they called it, totally enclosed in a tube of water. She watched on, entranced, wondering where he was. Was he still upright?

The wave curled right over, smashing to nothing at the end where he’d entered, collapsing in on itself all the way along, slowly, slowly for its full length.

And out he came at the other end. Still upright.

Riley?

She was suddenly standing chest deep, her hands up to shield her eyes from the sun. Was she imagining things?

Maybe not.

It was time to get out. The sensation that Riley might be sharing her water-space was somehow disturbing. She caught the next tiny wave in, then wandered up to the lifesavers.

She motioned-casually, she hoped-toward the surfer.

‘He’s good.’

‘He is,’ the older lifesaver said. ‘Bit driven, that one. Surfs no matter what the weather.’

‘Who is he?’ Though she already knew.

‘That’s our Doc Riley,’ the other guy said. ‘Puts himself out there, our doc. Great doc. Great surfer. Not bad with a billiard cue either.’

‘Crap at darts, though,’ the other guy retorted, happy to chat on a quiet morning. ‘The missus says I should let him win because he hauled her brother off his fishing boat when it went down. Doc’d hate that, though. Letting him win.’ He gazed out at Riley who’d caught his next wave. ‘I sometimes wish he’d come off out there and let someone else save him. Balance things up, like.’

‘Like that’s going to happen,’ the other guy said, and then he turned back to Pippa. ‘You’re English. Tourist?’

‘I’m here for my honeymoon,’ she said. It felt absurd to say it. But good. Honeymoons were great if they didn’t involve Roger.

‘So where’s the husband?’

‘He never got past fiancé and I left him in England.’ The casual conversation was starting to feel like fun. ‘Isn’t that the best place for fiancés?’

‘If you say so.’ The younger lifesaver was checking her out from the toes up, and she thought she deserved that. She’d practically thrown him a come-on line. ‘Hey, he’s coming out. Doc, I mean,’ he said, motioning to the surf. ‘That’s early.’

And Riley was right… there. One minute Riley had been far out at sea, the next he’d surfed across the channel, caught one of the tiddler waves, then reached the beach before she’d figured whether she wanted to see him.

Why wouldn’t she want to see him? She tried to think about it while he hauled his surfboard onto dry sand and strolled up to meet them.

The lifeguards greeted him like an old friend. She should greet him as well but she was too busy getting her breath back.

He looked… Awesome.

Weren’t surfers supposed to wear wetsuits?

He was only in board shorts. He’d be a lot easier to handle in a wetsuit, she decided.

Handle?

Handle as in come to terms with. Handle as in greet like a casual acquaintance.

Not handle in any other way.

But the look of him… He was every inch a surfer, tall, tanned and ripped. He didn’t look like a doctor. He looked like he should be… should be…

Maybe she should just stop thinking. Her silence was starting to be marked.

‘Hi,’ she managed at last, and he smiled, and that smile… He had no right to look like that. It threw her right off balance.

‘I thought it was you,’ he said. ‘Have you been looking after her?’ he asked the lifeguards. ‘This is Pippa, our floater from Sunday night.’

Whoa. How to embarrass a girl. But neither of the lifeguards looked judgmental. Instead they looked impressed.

‘You managed to stay out there for eight hours?’

‘Not by choice.’

‘I’d guess not,’ the older lifesaver said. ‘And not because of the fiancé left in England?’

‘Um… no.’

‘I thought you’d stick to the hotel pool,’ Riley said, and then a mum yelled from the end of the beach that her kid had his toe stuck between two rocks and the lifeguards left them to go and see.

‘More toe trouble?’ Pippa said, striving for casual. ‘You guys could start a collection.’

‘We try to keep them attached,’ Riley said. ‘There’s something a bit offputting about toes in specimen bottles. Even ones painted pink with stars. Are you okay?’

‘I… Yes.’ What else was a girl to say?

‘Nightmares?’ he asked, suddenly gentle. In doctor mode. Only he didn’t look anything like any doctor she’d ever met. Standing in the sun with water dripping across his eyes, his wet hair sort of flopping, his chest glistening…

Do not go there.

‘No,’ she managed, and was absurdly pleased that she’d got the word out.

‘How’s the cough? Mary says you’re booked at Outpatients this afternoon for a full check.’

‘Cough’s settled. I’m all better.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ he said. ‘How’s the heart?’

She knew what he meant. Cardiovascular concerns didn’t come into this. He was enquiring about Roger. ‘Happy,’ she said, a trifle defiantly.

‘Sure?’

‘I’m sure. I’m a bit humiliated but the honeymoon’s helping. Especially as Roger’s paying.’

‘Good ole Roger. Bride living it up at his expense. Is he back at the coal face, paying for it?’

‘Don’t you dare feel sorry for him,’ she snapped, and he grinned.

‘I never would. I’m on your side.’

‘Guys stick together.’

‘Not me. I stick with my patients.’

‘I’m not your patient,’ she said, and he nodded, thoughtful. ‘No. But you were.’

‘Meaning you have to be loyal.’

‘Meaning I can’t ask you out to dinner.’

That was one to take her breath away. She fought for a little composure. It took a while. The way he was making her feel… Maybe it was a good thing she couldn’t be asked out to dinner.

‘So tell me about Amy,’ she said, because he didn’t seem to be making any move to leave, to walk away.

‘Patient confidentiality.’

‘You just told these guys I was the… what did you call me? Sunday night’s floater?’

‘That was a non-specific impression.’

‘So give me a non-specific impression of Amy.’

He hesitated. He shaded his eyes and watched the surf for a bit and she wondered if he’d gone too far already. She was, after all, his patient.

But he didn’t leave, and when he spoke his voice was low and lazy and she thought she was exaggerating her importance to him. He was simply settling into his morning on the beach and wouldn’t be hurried.

‘Amy’s amazing,’ he said at last. ‘She deserves everything we can do for her and more. She’s the oldest of ten kids and she cares for them all. She’s bossy and smart and tough-she’ll fight for what she needs and I’ve seen her bloodied by it. Only we let her down. We thought of her as a kid. The nursing sister out where she comes from at Dry Gum Creek was gutted when she found out she was pregnant. Her mother would never have told her the facts and Riley junior is the result.’

‘So why is she here?’

‘We can’t deliver babies at Dry Gum-there’s no resident doctor. Normally we bring the mums here two weeks before their babies are due but Louise, our obstetrician, was concerned at Amy’s age. She thought she’d be better at the teen centre in Sydney. So we took her there but she ran away, here, where she knows me. Sensible or not, she trusts me and she made it here before the baby arrived. We can only be grateful she didn’t hitch a ride all the way back to Dry Gum.’

‘So now…’

‘We’ll probably take her home tomorrow.’

‘There’s no father?’

‘That comes within patient confidentiality.’

‘Of course.’ She hesitated. ‘Will you personally take her home?’

‘That’s what Flight-Aid does-when we’re not pulling maidens out of the water after eight-hour swims.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered.

‘Don’t mention it. If you know how good it felt to haul you up alive…’

‘If you knew how good it felt to be pulled up alive.’ She stared out to sea and thought of where she’d be if this man hadn’t found her. She shuddered.

Riley’s hand was suddenly on her shoulder, warm and strong and infinitely reassuring.

‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Yes, we hauled you up, but you did most of it yourself. In a couple of hours you’d probably have drifted into the next bay and been washed up on the beach. You’d have faced a long hike home but you would have lived happily ever after.’

‘We both know…’

‘No one knows anything for sure,’ he said. ‘I could have been hit by lightning right now, while I was surfing. Do I have nightmares because I almost was?’

‘There’s not a cloud.’

‘That’s the scariest thing,’ he said gravely. ‘There’s nothing else to pull lightning to except me. I feel all trembly thinking about how close a call I’ve just had.’

He looked… anything but trembly, she decided.

He also made her heart twist. There was enough gravity behind his laughter to make her think this guy really did care. He really did worry that she might have nightmares.

‘There’s a psychologist at the hospital,’ Riley said gently, and she knew she was right. ‘Peter’s great with post traumatic stress. Make an appointment to see him. This week.’

She didn’t need…

‘Do it, Pippa,’ he said. ‘I should have made the appointment for you but it’s…’

‘Not your job?’

‘I just scrape people off,’ he said. ‘It’s other’s work to dust them down. I was only in the ward on Monday because we’re permanently short-staffed.’

‘So now you’re surfing.’

‘Who’s not on my side now?’ he demanded, sounded wounded. ‘Our team picked up two car-crash victims north of Dubbo in the wee hours. I’m off duty.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said, switching back to caring almost immediately. ‘It doesn’t suit you. You know…’ He hesitated. Looked out to sea for a bit. Decided to say what he wanted to say. ‘The world’s your oyster,’ he said at last. ‘You’re back in the water. You have a honeymoon suite in the most beautiful place in the world. I get the feeling you’ve been drifting. Maybe you could use this time to figure what you want. What’s good for you.’

‘Standing here’s good.’

‘It’s a great spot to be,’ he said softly. ‘And the surf’s waiting.’

Then, before she guessed what he intended, he lifted his hand and brushed her cheek with his forefinger. It was a feather touch. It was a touch of caring, or maybe a salute of farewell-and why it had the power to send a shudder through the length of her body she had no idea.

She stepped back, startled, and his smile grew rueful.

‘Pippa, I’m not a shark,’ he said. ‘I’m just me, the guy at the end of the rope. Just me saying goodbye, good luck, God speed.’

And with that he raised his hand in a gesture that seemed almost mocking-and turned and headed back to his surf, back to a life she had no part in.

If he’d stayed on the beach one moment longer he would have kissed her.

He’d wanted, quite desperately, to kiss her. She’d looked lost.

No matter how strong she’d been-walking away from the appalling Roger, managing not to drown, helping with Amy, all of those things required strength-he still had the impression she was flailing.

She was nothing to do with him. She was a woman he’d pulled out of the water.

Like Marguerite?

He’d met Marguerite on a beach in the South of France. Of course. She had been there as it seemed she was always there, working on her tan. Wealthy, English, idle.

On a scholarship at university in London, he’d been on summer break, the first he’d ever had where he hadn’t needed to work to pay for next term’s living. His roommate had known someone who wouldn’t mind putting them up. The South of France had sounded fantastic to a kid who’d once lived rough on the streets of Sydney.

He’d bumped into Marguerite on the second day in the water, literally bumped when she’d deliberately swum into his surfboard. She’d faked being hurt, and giggled when he’d carried her from the water. She’d watched him surf, admired, flirted, asked him where he came from, asked her to teach her to surf-and suddenly things had seemed serious. On her side as well as his.

The first time he met her parents he knew he was hopelessly out of his class, but he didn’t care. For Marguerite didn’t care either, openly scorning her parents’ disapproval. For five weeks she lay in his arms, she held him and she told him he was her idea of heaven. For a boy who’d never been held the sensation was insidious in its sweetness. She melted against him, and the rest of the world disappeared.

Then reality. The end of summer. He returned to university and the relationship was over. For weeks he phoned her every day, but a maid always took his calls. Marguerite was ‘unavailable’.

Finally her mother answered, annoyed his calls were interfering with her maid’s work.

‘You were my daughter’s summer plaything,’ she drawled. ‘A surfer. Australian. Amusing. She has other things to focus on now.’

He thought she was lying, but when he insisted she finally put Marguerite on. Her mother was right. It was over.

‘Oh, Riley, leave it. How boring. You were fun for summer, nothing more. You helped me drive Mummy and Daddy crazy, and it’s worked. They still want to send me to finishing school. Can you imagine?’ She chuckled then, but there was no warmth in her laughter. There was even a touch of cruelty. ‘I do believe they’re about to be even more annoyed with me, but they won’t know until it’s too late, and I’ll enjoy that very much. So thank you and goodbye. But don’t ring again, there’s a lamb. It’s over.’

She’d become pregnant to rebel? To prove some crazy point over her parents?

And Pippa?

Pippa was rebelling against her family as well-like Marguerite?

Don’t judge a woman by Marguerite.

No, he told himself harshly. Don’t judge at all and don’t get close. He’d seen enough of his attempts at family, his attempts at love, to know it wasn’t for him.

So why did he want to kiss Pippa?

He didn’t. A man’d be a fool.

A man needed to surf instead, or find someone else to rescue.

Someone who wasn’t Pippa.

She wandered back to the hotel, lay on the sun lounger on the balcony, and gazed out to sea.

Thinking.

‘I get the feeling you’ve been drifting. Maybe you could use this time to figure what you want. What’s good for you.’

And…

‘We’re permanently short-staffed.’

The idea of staying had taken seed and was growing.

To be part of a hospital community doing such good…

‘It’s romantic nonsense,’ she told herself. ‘Yes, you should go back to nursing but you know your old hospital will give you your job back.’

But to live here…

She could make herself a permanent home. A home without the ties, the guilt, the associations of a family who disapproved of her, who’d never cease expecting her to be something she wasn’t.

She could buy a house. Something small overlooking the sea.

Home. It was a concept so amazing she couldn’t believe it had taken her until now to think of it. Maybe she’d never been in a place where the call had been this great until now. Like a siren song. Home.

She could put up wallpaper. Plant tomatoes. Do… whatever people did with homes.

Do it, she told herself. Now, before you change your mind.

And then she forced herself to repeat the question that had been hovering… well, maybe from the time she’d been hauled out of the sea.

Am I doing it because of Riley?

Don’t be ridiculous. Her sensible self was ready with all the justification in the world. You’re doing it because of you. It’s time you settled, got yourself somewhere permanent. And Riley’s hardly in the hospital.

He is sometimes.

There was a reason doctor/patient relationships were banned, she thought. Was she suffering a bad case of hero worship?

How could she be friends with Riley? The relationship would be skewed from the start.

‘So what?’ she muttered. ‘I can avoid him. Is hero worship enough to stop me applying for a job, making a home in the best place in the world?’

Yes. Sleep a bit more. Think about it.

I can’t drift, she told herself.

Give yourself another day.

Yes, but that’s all, she decided. One more day of drifting and then…

Then move forward.

Toward Riley?

No, she told herself harshly. Toward a home. Nothing more.