The Doctor & the Runaway Heiress

CHAPTER FOUR

RILEY enjoyed Thursdays. He liked the flights to the Outback settlements. Today he was scheduled for a clinic at Dry Gum Creek and Dry Gum was one of his favourites. It was Amy’s home. It was also the home of Sister Joyce, possibly the fiercest senior nurse in the state. He loved her to bits. He pushed open the door to the Flight-Aid office feeling good, and found Harry sitting at his desk, with news.

‘No Cordelia,’ he said morosely. ‘Her head cold’s worse and her German shepherd’s in labour.’

They stared at each other, knowing each was thinking the same thing. Cordelia was a first-rate flight nurse but she was in her sixties, her health wasn’t great and her dogs were growing more important than her work.

‘We can go without her,’ Harry ventured. Working without a third crew member was fine unless there needed to be an evacuation. There wasn’t an evacuation due today-they were simply taking Amy home and doing a routine clinic.

But there was always a chance that a routine clinic would turn into an evacuation. Crews of two were dicey.

They had no choice.

‘There’s a note for you to go see Coral.’ Harry said, shoving himself off the desk. ‘Take-off in ten minutes?’

‘I’ll check what Coral wants first,’ Riley said. Their nurse-administrator was good. She usually let them be-that she’d contacted them today meant trouble.

More trouble than a missing crew member?

‘Are you sure?’ Coral was short and almost as wide as she was tall. She was sitting on the far side of her desk, looking at Pippa’s CV like it was gold. ‘You really want to work here?’

‘I’m not sure if I can get a work visa.’

‘I’ll have you a work visa in the time it takes my secretary to make you a coffee. You’re a midwife?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘But don’t say anything,’ Coral begged. ‘I’m reading this thinking I’m shutting up about two of your post-grad skills. I could have me a war if this gets out. The surgeons will want you. Intensive Care will want you. I want you. When would you like to start?’

‘I need to find somewhere to live. I’d like to find a house but it might take time.’

‘We have a house for med staff. Four bedrooms and a view to die for. You can move in this morning.’

‘My hotel’s paid until Sunday.’

Coral nodded, reflective. ‘You are still getting over your ordeal,’ she conceded. ‘Riley’ll say you should rest.’

‘I’m rested.’

‘Your chest okay?’

‘I’ve been given the all-clear.’

‘Hmm.’ The middle-aged administrator gazed speculatively at Pippa. ‘How about we break you in gently with a training day-give you an overview of what services we offer outside the hospital?’

‘I’d love that.’ She surely would. Her lone honeymoon wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

‘Well,’ Coral said, glancing with approval at Pippa’s jeans and T-shirt, ‘you’re even dressed for it.’

‘I’m not,’ Pippa said, alarmed. ‘I came with resort wear. I bought these jeans yesterday. I’ll need to buy serviceable clothes if I’m to nurse here.’

‘For where you’re going, jeans are great,’ Coral said, beaming. ‘Just wait until I tell Riley.’

Coral’s door was open. She was drinking coffee with someone. That someone had her back to the door but she turned as she heard him approach.

Pippa.

What was there in that to take a man’s breath away? Nothing at all. She’d probably come here to thank them. Something formal.

She rose and she was wearing neat jeans and a T-shirt. She looked almost ordinary.

But this woman would never look ordinary. Yesterday on the beach in her bikini she’d looked extraordinary. Now, in jeans, she still looked…

‘You two know each other,’ Coral said, and he pulled himself together. Coral was intelligent and perceptive, and she was looking at him now with one of her brows hiked-like there were questions happening and she was gathering answers whether he liked it or not.

‘I… Of course. You know Pippa’s the one we pulled from the water? Who helped with Amy’s baby?’

‘I do know that,’ Coral said, her brow still hiked. ‘So you know she’s skilled?’

‘I know she’s skilled.’ He felt wary now and he wasn’t sure why. Pippa’s face wasn’t giving anything away. If anything, she looked wary as well.

‘I have Pippa’s application to work for us on my desk,’ Coral said. ‘Right here. It looks impressive. You’ve worked with her. Any reason I shouldn’t sign her up on the spot?’

Pippa? Work here? There was a concept to think about. But Coral was giving him no time. Answer, he told himself. Now.

‘There’s no reason at all,’ he said, and was aware of a stab of satisfaction as he heard himself say it. Was that dumb? No, because Pippa was an excellent nurse.

Yes, because the satisfaction he was feeling didn’t have a thing to do with her competence. It was everything to do with her looking at him measuringly, those calm green eyes promising a man…

Promising him nothing. Get a grip.

‘For how long?’ he asked.

‘Indefinitely,’ Pippa told him. ‘I don’t want to go back to England.’

‘You’ll change your mind.’

It was Pippa’s turn to hike an eyebrow. She had him disconcerted. Very disconcerted.

But he didn’t have the time-or the inclination-to stand around being disconcerted. He remembered work with relief. Harry was waiting. Amy and her baby would be loaded and ready to go.

‘This is great,’ he said. ‘Pippa, welcome to Whale Cove Hospital. But can we talk about it later? I need to leave.’

‘I’ve sent a message to the ward to hold onto Amy for fifteen minutes,’ Coral said. ‘We have a couple of things to discuss. First, I’ve told Pippa she can move into the medical house. You have four bedrooms. I assume there’s no objection?’

They both stilled at that. He saw Pippa’s face go blank and he thought he hadn’t been part of that equation.

‘You never said I’d be sharing with Riley,’ she said.

‘It’s the hospital’s house,’ Coral said. ‘Riley mostly has it to himself but we occasionally use it for transient staff.’

‘I’m not transient,’ Pippa said.

‘I have a guest coming tomorrow,’ Riley said over the top of her.

‘You have four bedrooms.’ Coral glanced at her watch, clearly impatient. ‘If you have one guest, there are still two bedrooms spare. It should suit Pippa for the short term. I’m not going to knock back a great nurse for want of accommodation. Meanwhile, Pippa would like to work immediately but I don’t want to put her on the wards until I’m sure she’s fully recovered. Cordelia’s not coming in. You need another team member. Pippa needs an overview of the service so I’m sending her out with you. Can you fit her up with a Flight-Aid shirt so she looks official? She can tag along while you can talk her through life here. You’ll be back by late tonight. Pippa, I’ll let you sleep in tomorrow-it’d be a shame to waste that honeymoon suite of yours. You can move into the house at the weekend, you can start here on Monday, and we can all live happily ever after. No objections? Great, let’s go.’

It had happened so fast she felt breathless. She had a job.

She was flying over the Australian Outback in an official Flight-Aid plane. Harry was flying it. ‘Dual qualifications,’ he said smugly when she expressed surprise. ‘Triple if you count me riding a Harley. Riley here doctors and surfs. He has two skills to my three. It’s just lucky I’m modest.’

Harry made her smile.

The whole set-up made her smile.

The back of the plane was set up almost as an ambulance. Harry and Riley were up front. Pippa was in the back with her patients, Amy and baby Riley.

This was the start of her new life.

She was wearing a Flight-Aid shirt. The Flight-Aid emblem was on her sleeve and there was a badge on her breast. She was about to attend a clinic in one of the most remote settlements in the world.

This time last week she’d been planning her wedding. Four days ago she’d been floating in the dark, expecting to die. Now she was employed as a nurse, heading to an Outback community to help Dr Riley Chase.

The man who’d saved her life.

He was a colleague. She had to remind herself of that, over and over. But in his Flight-Aid uniform he looked… he looked…

‘Isn’t Doc Riley fabulous?’ Amy was headed home with her baby, and things were looking great in her world. She was bubbling with happiness. ‘He’s made me see so many things. You reckon one day my baby could be a doctor?’

‘Why not?’

‘I wish I’d gone to school,’ Amy said wistfully. ‘Mum never made me and there were always kids to look after. Then Doc Riley read the Riot Act and now they all go. My littlie’ll go to school from day one.’ She glanced at Amy’s uniform. ‘It’d be so cool to wear that.’

It did feel cool. Wearing this uniform…

Her parents would hate it, Pippa thought. They hated her being a nurse, and for her to be a nurse here…

They still had Roger. They liked Roger.

They didn’t like her.

She was getting morose. Luckily little Riley decided life had been quiet long enough and started to wail. That gave her something to do, a reason not to think of the difficulties back home. She changed the baby and settled her on Amy’s breast. As she worked she marvelled at how neat everything was in the plane’s compact cabin, how easily she could work here-and she also marvelled that she felt fine. She’d had a moment’s qualm when she’d seen how small the plane was. If she was to be airsick…

No such problem. She grinned at mother and baby, feeling smug. Somehow she’d found herself a new life. She’d be good at this.

Flight-Aid nurse. Heir to the Fotheringham millions?

Never the twain shall meet.

‘So do we use her straight away?’

Riley sighed. He was having trouble coming to terms with their new team player, and the fact that Harry was intent on talking about her wasn’t helping.

‘She doesn’t have accreditation,’ he said. ‘She’s an observer only.’

‘But you’ve left her in the back with Amy.’

‘Amy needs company and I’m feeling lousy company.’

‘I can see that,’ Harry said thoughtfully. ‘So is it a problem that we’re saddled with a young, attractive, competent nurse rather than our dog-smelling Cordelia?’

‘Cordelia’s competent,’ he snapped.

‘And Pippa’s not?’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘So you’d rather the devil you know.’ Harry nodded. ‘I can see that.’

No comment.

Riley was feeling incapable of comment. He sat and glowered and Harry had the sense to leave him alone.

So what was the problem?

The problem was that Riley didn’t know what the problem was.

Pippa was a patient. He thought of her as a patient-only he didn’t.

She had the same English accent as Marguerite.

He couldn’t hold an accent over her.

No, but there were so many conflicting emotions.

Lucy was coming. His daughter. She’d have this accent as well.

His hands were hurting. He glanced down and realised he’d clenched his fingers into his palms, tighter than was wise. He needed to lighten up. Before Lucy arrived?

He hauled out his wallet and glanced at the picture Lucy had sent him when she’d contacted him three months ago. His daughter was beautiful. She was eighteen years old and she was so lovely she took his breath away.

He’d had nothing to do with her life. He’d been a father for a mere three months.

Even then… after that one email, sent from an address that had then been deleted, he’d flown to England and confronted Marguerite. Tracking her down had taken time but he’d found her, married to a financier, living in a mansion just off Sloane Square. She was still beautiful, taking supercilious to a new level, and bored by his anger.

‘Yes, she is your daughter but purely by genes. She doesn’t want you or need you in her life. If she contacted you it’ll be because she’s vaguely interested in past history, nothing more. I imagine that interest has now been sated. Why would she wish to see you? I don’t wish to see you-I can’t imagine why you’ve come. No, I’m not telling you where she is. Go away, Riley, you have no place in our lives.’

So tomorrow he was expecting a teenage daughter, coming to stay. And in the back of the plane was a woman called Pippa who was also coming to stay.

Two women. Identical accents.

Trouble.

‘It must be bad, to look like that,’ Harry said cheerfully, and Riley found his fists clenching again.

‘Women,’ he said. ‘Maybe Cordelia’s right. Maybe dogs are the way to go.’

‘Women are more fun,’ Harry said.

‘You have to be kidding.’

For the last half-hour she’d been gazing down at a landscape so unfamiliar she might well be on a different planet. She was gazing at vast tracts of red, dusty desert, stunted trees growing along dry river beds, weird, wonderful rock formations, sunlight so intense it took her breath away, a barren yet beautiful landscape that went on for ever.

Dry Gum Creek was in the middle of… the Outback? There seemed no other way to describe it. Out back of where? Out back of the known world.

The little plane bumped to a halt. Riley hauled open the passenger door and Pippa gazed around her in wonder.

Red dust. Gnarled trees and windswept buildings. Dogs barking at their little plane like it was an intruder that had to be seen off. A few buildings that looked like portable classrooms. A slightly more solid building with a sign saying ‘General Store’. A big, old house that looked like it might have once been a stately homestead, but that time was long past. Corrugated-iron huts, scattered far out.

A couple of the rangy dogs came rushing to greet them. Harry fended them off while Riley swung himself up into the back to help Amy with the baby.

‘Welcome to Dry Gum Creek,’ Harry told Pippa. ‘I hope you aren’t expecting swimming pools, shopping malls, gourmet eating.’

She smiled, feeling pure excitement. ‘I left my credit card at home.’

A couple of little girls were peering out from the hut nearest the plane. They were eleven or twelve years old, with skins as dark as Amy’s.

‘Did Amy come?’ one of them yelled.

‘She sure did,’ Riley called. ‘Come and meet your new niece.’

The girls came flying, all gangly arms and legs, looking as thrilled as if it was Christmas Day.

Riley handed Riley junior down to Pippa. ‘Don’t let the girls have her unless Amy says so,’ he said in an undertone.

Amy was enveloped in hugs, and Pippa thought this was almost the reaction of kids welcoming their mother.

‘She could just as well be their mother,’ Riley told her, hauling equipment from the plane, and once again she was struck with this man’s ability to read her thoughts. It was entirely disconcerting. ‘They’d be lost without her.’

‘Are you coming home?’ one of the kids asked Amy. Amy shook her head. She disentangled herself from them a little and took her baby from Pippa.

‘Nope. I gotta stay with Sister Joyce for a week. Then I’m gonna have one of the huts by the school. Me and Baby Riley will live there.’

‘Will Jason live with you?’

‘Dunno.’ Pippa saw Amy’s face tense. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s got a job,’ the oldest girl said, sounding awed. ‘He’s out mustering cattle. He said to tell you.’

‘Wow,’ Amy breathed. ‘Wow.’

‘Mum says it’s stupid,’ the little girl said. ‘She says he can live off the pension.’

‘It’s not stupid.’ Amy looked back to Riley for reassurance and Riley was right beside her, his hand under her arm. Amy was sixteen years old. She’d given birth four days ago, and her confidence would be a fragile shell.

‘We’re taking Amy to Sister Joyce now,’ Riley told the little girls. ‘She’ll stay there until she’s strong enough to look after herself.’

‘We’ll look after her,’ the oldest of the little girls said, and squared her shoulders. ‘We’re good at looking after people. Amy’s taught us.’

‘And Jason’ll help,’ Amy told her. ‘I know he will. Like Doc Riley.’ With Riley supporting her, her confidence came surging back and she peeped an impudent, teasing smile at Pippa. ‘My Jason’s got a job. How cool’s that? My Jason’s gorgeous. Even more gorgeous than Doc Riley. Though I bet you don’t think so.’

What?

That was a weird statement, Pippa thought. Totally in appropriate.

So why was she trying really hard not to blush?

Pippa had been expecting a hospital but it wasn’t a hospital at all. It seemed little more than a big, decrepit house with huge bedrooms. The woman in charge was an elderly, dour Scot with a voice like she was permanently attached to a megaphone. Sister Joyce. She introduced her to some of her residents while Riley started his clinic.

Harry, it seemed, was needed elsewhere. The water pump was playing up. While Harry was here, Joyce decreed, he might as well be useful, and Pippa got the feeling Joyce would be as bossy as she needed to get what she wanted for her residents.

Maybe she needed to be bossy. It seemed Joyce took care of sixteen patients on her own, and even though the place wasn’t a hospital, the residents were certainly in need of care.

‘We’re not defined as a hospital,’ Joyce told her. ‘We’re not even a nursing home because we can’t meet the staffing ratio. A lot of our population is nomadic. Every time we try and take a census so I can get funding, everyone seems to go walkabout, so this is a sort of a boarding house with hospital facilities.’

‘With you on duty all the time?’

Joyce gave a wintry smile. ‘Don’t look at me like that, girl. I’m no saint. This place suits me. I can’t stand bureaucracy. I train our local girls to help me and I do very well. Amy’s been the best. I have hopes she’ll come back to work, baby or not. And we have Doc Riley. The man’s a godsend. Sensible. Intelligent. He doesn’t shove medical platitudes down people’s throats. We’ve had medical professionals come out here with their lectures and charts of the five food groups, holding up pictures of lettuce. Lettuce! Our kids get two apples a day at school, they take home more, but even apples cost a fortune by the time we fly them in. Lettuce!’ She snorted her disgust. ‘You want to see what Riley’s doing?’

‘I… Yes, please.’ They’d moved out on the veranda where half a dozen old men were sitting in the sun, gazing at the horizon. ‘Are these guys patients?’

‘Diabetics,’ Joyce said. ‘You look closely at their feet and you’ll see. And half of them are blind. Diabetes is a curse out here. An appalling diet when they were young, a bit of alcohol thrown in for good measure, eye infections untreated, you name it. Most of these guys are in their fifties or sixties but they look much older. Riley’s doing his best to see this doesn’t happen to the next generation.’

He was. Joyce ushered her into a room at the end of the veranda. Riley was seated beside a desk. A dark, buxom woman who Joyce introduced as the local school teacher was shepherding a queue of kids past him.

‘He’s doing ear and eye checks,’ Joyce told her. ‘I do them but I miss things. There’s seven steps to go through for each child to make sure they have healthy eyes. He also checks ears. These people are tough and self-sufficient-they have to be-but that causes problems, too. Many of these kids don’t even tell their mums when their ears hurt. Infections go unnoticed. In this environment risks are everywhere. So we back each other up. Riley swears he won’t let a kid go blind or deaf on his watch.’

‘How long’s he been doing this?’

‘Six years now. He came to do an occasional clinic, then helped me set this place up. There was such a need.’

‘How can you operate a hospital without a doctor?’

‘We can’t,’ Joyce said bluntly, while they watched Riley joke with a smart-mouthed small boy. ‘But we don’t have a choice. We’re three hundred miles from the next settlement and most of the older people won’t go to the city for treatment even if it’s the difference between life and death. I do what I can and Doc Riley is a plane ride away.’

‘Always?’

‘He’s nearly as stupid as me,’ Joyce said dryly. ‘I need him, he comes. So… You’re a qualified nurse. English?’

‘Yes.’

‘I won’t hold that against you. Coral said you’re here to watch. Sounds boring. Want to help?’

‘Please.’

‘You can speed things up,’ Joyce said. ‘Tell her, Riley,’ she said, raising her voice so Riley could hear. He had a little girl on his knee, inspecting her ear. ‘I need to settle Amy in and help Harry with the pump. Is it okay with you to let the girl work?’

‘Are you up to it?’ Riley asked.

‘You’re not asking me to do brain surgery, right?’

He grinned. ‘No brain surgery. We’re doing ears and eyes and hair and an overall check. You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for. Joyce and I take every inch of help we can get.’

‘I’d love to help,’ Pippa said simply, and she meant it.

So Riley kept on checking ears, checking eyes, and Pippa took over the rest. She listened to small, sturdy chests. She ran a quick hair check-it seemed lice were endemic but she didn’t find any. She did a fast visual check of each child, checking for things that might go unnoticed and blow up into something major.

The kids were good for Riley but they were like a line of spooked calves as they approached Pippa, ready for flight.

‘Sam Kemenjarra, if you don’t stand still for Nurse Pippa I’ll tell her to put the stethoscope in the ice box before she puts it on your back,’ Riley growled to one small boy. The little boy giggled and subsided and let himself be inspected.

But the line still fidgeted. Pippa was a stranger. These kids didn’t like strangers-she could feel it.

‘Nurse Pippa’s been sick herself,’ Riley said conversationally, to the room in general. He was looking at a small boy’s eyes, taking all the time in the world. No matter how long the line was, she had the feeling this man never rushed. He might rush between patients but not with them. Every patient was special.

He was good, she thought. He was really good.

But then… ‘She went swimming in the dark and nearly drowned,’ Riley said. ‘We had to pull her out of the water with a rope hanging from a helicopter.’

There was a collective gasp. Hey, Pippa thought, astonished. What about patient confidentiality?

But Riley wasn’t thinking about patient confidentiality. He was intent on telling her story-or making her tell it.

‘It was really scary, wasn’t it, Pippa?’

‘I… Yes,’ she conceded. The line of children was suddenly silent, riveted.

‘If I hadn’t swung down on my rope to save you, what would have happened?’

She sighed. What price pride? Why not just go along with it? ‘I would have drowned,’ she conceded. So much for floating into the next bay…

‘And that would have been terrible,’ Riley said, and he wasn’t speaking to her; he was speaking to the kids. ‘Pippa was all alone in the dark. Floating and floating, all by herself, far, far from the land. There was no one to hear her calling for help. That’s what happens when you go swimming in the dark, or even when it’s nearly dark. Waterholes and rivers are really dangerous places after sunset.’

She got it. She was being used as a lesson. Her indignation faded. It seemed this was a great opportunity to give these kids a lesson.

It was also settling them.

‘I thought something might eat my toes,’ she conceded, figuring she might as well add corroborating colour. ‘At night you can’t see what’s under the surface. All sorts of things feed in the water at night.’

‘Crocodiles?’ one little girl asked, breathless.

‘You never know,’ Riley told her. ‘We don’t have crocodiles here,’ he told Pippa, ‘so it’s safe to swim in the waterholes during the day. But at night there’s no saying what sneaks into the water looking for juicy little legs to snack on. And I wouldn’t be here with my rope. It takes two hours for Harry and I to fly here.’

‘But you’d come,’ a little boy said, sounding defiant. ‘If I went swimming at night you’d come with your rope.’

‘It’d take me too long,’ Riley said. ‘Like Pippa, you’d be floating for a long, long time, getting more and more scared. You were really scared, weren’t you, Pippa?’

‘I was more scared than I’ve ever been in my life,’ she conceded. ‘I was all alone and I thought I was going to die. It was the scariest thing I can imagine. I know now. To swim at night is stupid.’

There was a moment’s hesitation-a general hush while everyone thought about it. Then: ‘I wouldn’t do it,’ the little boy declared. ‘Only girls would be that stupid.’

‘We would not,’ the girl next to him declared, and punched him, and the thing was settled. Night swimming was off the agenda.

‘And while we’re at it, we should warn Nurse Pippa about bunyips,’ Riley said, still serious, and there was a moment’s pause.

‘Ooh, yes,’ one little girl ventured, casting a cautious glance at Riley. A glance with just a trace of mischief. ‘Bunyips are scary.’

‘Bunyips?’ Pippa said.

‘They’re really, really scary,’ a little boy added. ‘They’re humongous. Bigger’n the helicopter.’

‘And they have yellow eyes.’

‘They sneak around corners.’

‘They come up from holes in the ground.’

‘They eat people.’ It was practically a chorus as the whole line got into the act. ‘Their teeth are bigger’n me.’

‘You couldn’t go night swimming here ’cos you’d get eaten by a bunyip first.’

‘Or dragged down a hole for the little bunyips to eat,’ the child on Riley’s knee said, with ghoulish relish.

‘You… you’re kidding me,’ Pippa said, blanching appropriately.

‘Why, yes,’ Riley said, grinning. ‘Yes, we are.’

The whole room burst out laughing. Pippa got her colour back and giggled with them.

The room settled down to ears and eyes and hair and chests.

Pippa kept chuckling. She worked on beside Riley and it felt fantastic.

She was good. She was seriously good.

Cordelia was dour and taciturn. The kids respected her. They did what she asked but they were a bit frightened of her.

They weren’t frightened of Pippa. They were enjoying her, showing off to her, waiting impatiently for Riley to finish with them so they could speed onto their check with Nurse Pippa.

Pippa. They liked the name. He heard the kids whisper it among themselves. Pippa, Pippa, Pippa. Nurse Pippa, who’d almost drowned.

He’d had no right to tell them the story of Pippa’s near drowning, but the opportunity had been too great to resist. Drownings in the local waterhole were all too common, and nearly all of them happened after dusk. Kids getting into trouble, bigger kids not being able to see. Pippa’s story had made them rethink. He’d told the story to fifteen or so kids, but it’d be spread throughout the community within the hour. Pippa’s ordeal might well save lives.

And it had had another, unexpected advantage. Somehow it had made Pippa seem one of them. She’d been given a story.

He’d brought many medics out here-there was genuine interest within the medical community-but mostly the visitors stood apart, watched, or if he asked them to help, the kids would shy away, frightened of strangers. But Pippa was now the nurse who Doc Riley had saved on a rope.

If Pippa was serious about staying…

She wouldn’t be. She’d stay until she either made it up with her fiancé or she had her pride together enough to go home. It wasn’t worth thinking of her long term.

But even if she was only here for a month or two… she’d make a difference.

He watched her as he worked, as she worked, and he was impressed. She was settled into a routine now, tugging up T-shirts, listening to chests, tickling under arms as she finished so the kids were giggling, and the kids waiting in line were waiting for their turn to giggle. She was running her hand through hair, saying, ‘Ooh, I love these curls-you know, if you washed these with shampoo they’d shine and shine. Does Sister Joyce give you shampoo? See how my curls shine? Let’s have a competition: next time I come let’s see who has the shiniest curls. Every time you wash with shampoo they get shinier. No, Elizabeth, oil does not make curls shinier, it makes them slippery, and the dust sticks to it. Ugh.’

She had the capacity to glance at the child’s medical file and take in what was important straight away.

‘Can I see your toe? Doc Riley stitched it last month. Did he do a lovely neat job of it?’

Riley didn’t have time to check the details Pippa was checking. Cordelia would have decreed it a waste of time. Cordelia followed orders.

Pippa was… great.

The day flew. He was having fun, he decided in some amazement. There was something about Pippa that lightened the room, that made the kids happy and jokey. Harry came in to check on their progress and stayed to watch and help a bit, just because it was a fun place to be.

How could one woman make such a difference?

Finally they were finished. They’d seen every school child, which was a miracle all by itself.

‘Half an hour?’ Harry said. ‘That’ll get us back to Whale Cove by dark.’

‘I need to do a quick round of Joyce’s old guys before I go,’ Riley said. ‘Plus I need to say goodbye to Amy. You want to come, Pippa?’

‘Of course.’

‘It’s been a long day. I hadn’t planned on you working.’

‘I’ve had fun,’ she said simply, and smiled, and he thought…

That maybe he needed to concentrate on the job at hand. He did not need to think of any woman like he was thinking of Pippa.

Why not?

The question had him unsettled.

Unlike Harry, who fell in love on average four times a year, he steered clear of even transitory commitment, but he did date women; he did enjoy their company. When he’d told Pippa on the beach that he’d like to invite her to dinner, it had been the truth.

But the more he got to know her the more he thought it’d be a mistake.

Why?

She was fascinating. She’d thrown herself into today with enthusiasm and passion. She’d made him laugh-she’d made the kids laugh. She loved what she was doing. She was… amazing.

And there was the problem. He looked at her and knew with Pippa he might be tempted to take things further.

He never had. Not since Marguerite. One appalling relationship when he’d been little more than a kid…

Except it was more than that. A shrink would have a field day with his dysfunctional family. He’d known three ‘fathers’, none of them his real one. He’d had stepbrothers and stepsisters, they’d always been moving home to escape debts, stupid stuff.

He’d escaped as best he could, physically at first, running away, sleeping rough. Then he got lucky, welfare had moved in and he got some decent foster-parents. There he learned an alternative escape-his brains. The library at school. A scholarship to study medicine, at Melbourne, then England. He’d earned the reputation of a loner and that was the way he liked it.

Only living at university he’d finally discovered the power of friendship. It had sucked him right in-and then he’d met Marguerite.

After Marguerite he’d tried to settle, only how did you learn to have a home? It didn’t sit with him; it wasn’t his thing.

When he’d come back from England he’d gone to see his foster-parents. They’d been the only real family he knew. They’d written to him while he was away.

They were caring for two new kids who were taking all their energy. They were delighted that his studies were going well. They’d given him tea and listened to his news. His foster-mother had kissed him goodbye, his foster-father had shaken his hand, but they’d been distracted.

He wasn’t their child. They’d done the best they could for him-it was time he moved on.

He did move on. His six years in Whale Cove was as long as he’d ever stayed anywhere. He took pleasure in the challenges the job threw at him, but still his restlessness remained.

He had no roots. A surfboard and enough clothes to fit in a bag-what more did a man need?

But as he walked along the veranda with Pippa, he thought, for the first time in years, a man could need something else. But a man could be stupid for thinking it. Exposing himself yet again.

‘Riley?’

Joyce’s voice cut across his thoughts. That was good. His thoughts were complicated, and Pippa’s body was brushing his. That was complicating them more.

‘Yes?’ His reply was brusque and Joyce frowned.

‘Is there a problem?’

‘Not with me there isn’t,’ he said, pulling himself up. ‘I need to see Amy and then we’ll go.’

‘I’m sorry but I need you to wait,’ Joyce told him. ‘I’ve just got a message to say Gerry Onjingi’s in trouble. They’re bringing him in now. He was climbing the windmill at one of the bores and he fell off. They had pickets stacked up underneath. Gerry fell on one and it’s gone right through his leg.’

They weren’t going to leave before dark. Bundling Gerry into the plane and taking him back to the coast wasn’t an option. Not with half a fence post in his leg.

For the men had brought Gerry in, picket attached. He lay in the back of an ancient truck and groaned, and Pippa looked at the length of rough timber slicing through his calf and thought she’d groan, too. Gerry was elderly, maybe in his seventies, though in this climate she was having trouble telling.

‘Crikey!’ Riley swung himself up into the tray the instant the truck stopped. ‘You believe in making life exciting. This is like a nose bone, only different.’

‘Funny, ha-ha,’ Gerry muttered, and Riley knelt and put his hand on his shoulder.

‘We’ll get you out of pain in no time,’ he told him. Joyce was already handing up his bag. ‘Let’s get some pain killers on board before we shift you inside.’

‘Will I have to go to Sydney?’

And the way he said it… No matter how much pain he was in, Pippa realised, the thought of the city was worse.

‘No promises, mate,’ Riley said. ‘We need to figure what the damage is. We’ll get you out of pain and then we’ll talk about it.’

It was amazing how such a diverse group of professionals could instantly make an elite surgical team.

Even Harry took part. By the time the morphine took effect, Harry had organised an electric buzz saw, with an extension cord running from the veranda. ‘Electric’s better,’ he said briefly. ‘Less pressure and this fitting’s got fine teeth. It’ll take seconds rather than minutes by hand.’

The picket had pierced one side of Gerry’s calf and come out the other. Pippa helped Joyce cover Gerry with canvas to stop splinters flying. Riley and Pippa supported Gerry’s leg while Harry neatly sliced the picket above and below.

‘Closest I can get without doing more damage,’ Harry muttered, and put the saw down and disappeared fast.

‘Turns green, our Harry,’ Riley said, grinning at his departing friend. ‘Still, if you asked me to pilot a chopper in weather Harry’s faced, I’d turn green too.’ He was slicing away the remains of Gerry’s pants, assessing the wound underneath. It looked less appalling now there was less wood, but it still looked dreadful. ‘Pippa, what’s your experience in getting bits of wood out of legs?’

‘I’ve done shifts in City Emergency. We coped with a chair leg once.’ She made her voice neutral and businesslike, guessing what Gerry needed was reassurance that this was almost normal. Riley’s question had been matter-of-fact, like bits of wood in legs were so common they were nothing to worry about.

‘You got it out?’

‘We did. When he came out of the anaesthetic the publican was there, demanding he pay for the chair.’

‘So this little picket…’

‘Piece of cake,’ she said, smiling down at Gerry. Thinking it wasn’t. The wood had splintered. The wound looked messy and how did they know what had been hit and not hit?

‘Then let’s organise X-rays,’ Riley said. ‘And an ultrasound.’

‘You can do an ultrasound here?’

‘Portable kit,’ Riley said, sounding smug. ‘Eat your heart out, Sydney. Okay, Gerry, let’s get you inside. Boys, slide that stretcher in beside him. Pippa, shoulders, Joyce hips, I’ve got the legs. And picket. Count of three. One, two, three…’

They moved him almost seamlessly and in less than a minute Gerry was in what looked to Pippa to be a perfect miniature theatre.

‘I thought this place wasn’t a real hospital?’ she said, astounded.

‘It’s not.’ Riley was manoeuvring the X-ray equipment into place. ‘Dry Gum’s too small for much government funding. Joyce is funded for a remote medical clinic, nothing more, but we have lots more. This place is run on the smell of an oily rag. Joyce and I do a lot of begging.’

‘And blackmail,’ Joyce said. ‘Any company who wants to mine out here, who makes money off these people’s land, can expect a call from me.’

‘Joyce even buys shares,’ Riley said in admiration. ‘She’s been known to get up in shareholder meetings and yell.’

‘She’s a ripper,’ Gerry said faintly. ‘Hell, if she had some money… imagine what our Joyce could do.’

‘She’s doing a fantastic job anyway,’ Riley said. ‘Okay, Gerry, that leg’s positioned, everyone else behind the screen. Let’s take some pictures.’

The leg wasn’t broken. There was a communal sigh of relief.

The wood had splintered. Surgery would be messy.

The ultrasound came next and Pippa watched in awe. Reading an X-ray was one thing, but operating an ultrasound…

She could pick out a baby. Babies were big. Even then, when the radiographer said look at a close-up she was never sure she was looking at the right appendage.

But that Riley was competent was unquestionable. He was checking for damage that’d mean Gerry had to go to Sydney regardless. He was looking at flow in the main blood vessels-evidence that the artery was obstructed; blockage to blood supply that might turn to disaster when splinters were dislodged.

Despite the trauma Gerry seemed relaxed. As long as he didn’t need to go to Sydney, whatever Doc Riley did was fine by him.

‘I reckon we can do this,’ Riley said at last. He cast a thoughtful look at Pippa. ‘How tired are you?’

She was tired but she wasn’t missing this for the world. ‘Not tired at all,’ she lied, and he grinned.

‘Right. We have one doctor, two nurses and an orderly. That’s Harry. Green or not, he gets to keep the rest of the place running while we work. Pippa, you’ll assist me. Joyce, are you happy to anaesthetise?’

‘Sure,’ Joyce said.

‘You can anaesthetise?’ Here was something else to astound. A nurse acting as anaesthetist…

‘Joyce is a RAN, a remote area nurse,’ Riley said. ‘RANs are like gold. Sometimes she’s forced to do things a doctor would blanch at, because there’s no choice. We both do. Like now. I’m not a surgeon and Joyce isn’t an anaesthetist but we save lives. If you end up working with us…’

‘You’ll get to do everything as well,’ Joyce said briskly. ‘Out here we do what comes next. Okay, Riley, let’s not mess around. I have work to do after this, even if you don’t.’

She had to ask. This was tricky surgery and to attempt it here… ‘I know he’s scared,’ she ventured. ‘But surely it’d be safer to take him to the city.’

‘I can do it.’ She and Riley were scrubbing fast, while Joyce was booming orders outside.

‘Without a trained anaesthetist? To risk…?’

Riley paused then turned to her.

‘Think about it,’ he said harshly. ‘Gerry’s seventy years old and he’s lived here all his life. No, that’s not true. He’s lived near here. For him Dry Gum is a big settlement. Even here is a bit scary. If I send him to Sydney I’ll be throwing him into an environment that terrifies him. I’ll do it if I have to, but it’s a risk all by itself. I’ve had one of my old guys go into cardiac arrest in the plane and I’d swear it was from terror. With three of us… I’ve weighed the risks and they’re far less if he stays here. Accept it or not,’ he said grimly. ‘We’re doing it.’

By the time it was over Pippa had an even greater breadth of understanding of this man’s skill. Quite simply, it took her breath away.

He took her breath away.

Joyce was competent but she wasn’t trained in anaesthesia. That meant that Riley needed to keep an eye on what she was doing, checking monitors, assessing dosages, at the same time as he was performing a complex piece of surgery that frankly she thought should have been done in Sydney. By surgeons who’d had experience in such trauma, who had skilled back-up…

She was the back-up. She worked with an intensity she’d seldom felt. She was Riley’s spare pair of hands and he needed her, clamping, clearing blood, holding flesh back while he eased, eased, eased wood out of the wound. The splinters first of all and then the main shaft…

He had all the patience in the world.

It was a skill that awed her-this ability to block out the world and see only what was important right now.

Few people had it. A psychologist once told her it usually came from backgrounds where the skill was necessary to survive.

What was Riley’s background? She didn’t have a clue. All she knew was that there was no one she’d rather have in this room, right now, doing what he had to do in order to save Gerry’s leg.

They worked on, mostly in silence except for Riley’s clipped instructions. That fierce intensity left no room for theatre gossip, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

And finally, finally, Riley was stitching both entry and exit wounds closed. The stockman had been incredibly lucky. To have not severed an artery and bled to death in minutes… To have not even have fractured his leg…

‘He’ll stay with you for a week, though, Joyce,’ Riley said in a seeming follow-on from Pippa’s thoughts. ‘There’s a huge chance of infection. I’ll put a brace on and tell him if it comes off in less than a week he’ll have permanent nerve damage. It’s a lie but it’s justified. If he heads off back to camp, we’ll have him dead of infection in days.’

‘Won’t antibiotics…?’ Pippa started.

‘He won’t take them,’ Riley said wearily. ‘None of the older men will, unless we force-feed them. They see medicine as a sign of weakness. The women accept them now; they see how the kids respond and they believe. We’re educating the kids, but Gerry missed out. So he’ll wear an immobilising cast for a week. And I’m sorry, Pippa, but we need to stay here tonight until Gerry’s fully recovered from the anaesthetic.’

She’d already figured that out. She’d been horrified that he’d attempt such surgery here, but having done it… he couldn’t walk away with Gerry recovering from anaesthesia and no doctor on call.

‘I can manage,’ Joyce said, but Riley shook his head.

‘I’ll be the one who tells Gerry the rules in the morning. Can you put Pippa up here?’

‘It’s a full house,’ Joyce said.

‘Your sitting room?’

‘Glenda Anorrjirri’s in it,’ Joyce said, apologetically. ‘Her Luke’s asthma’s bad and she’s frightened. They’re staying with me until it’s settled.’

‘I told you-’

‘To keep myself professional? I do,’ Joyce said, flaring. ‘I keep my bedroom to myself.’

‘Which is a miracle all by itself,’ Riley growled. ‘Joyce has a one-bedroom apartment attached to the hospital,’ he explained. ‘She has a sitting room and a bedroom, which she’s supposed to keep private.’

‘I don’t mind sharing with Pippa.’

‘You’re having your bedroom to yourself.’ He was dressing Gerry’s leg, and Pippa watched as he added a few artistic touches. Scaffolding from toe to thigh. A dressing around the lot.

‘He’ll think his leg’s about to fall off,’ Joyce said.

‘That’s what he’s meant to think. You said you have a full house. Do you have room for him?’

‘I was counting Gerry. He can have the last bed in Men’s Room Two. But you and Pippa and Harry…’

‘You know Harry sleeps on the plane. He doesn’t trust the kids,’ Riley explained to Pippa. ‘Neither do I. Would you trust kids with a shiny aeroplane parked in their back yard?’

‘You two could use Amy’s place,’ Joyce said, looking thoughtfully at Pippa. ‘I have a little house ready for when she leaves here. There’s a bed and a sofa in the living room. I know you have sleeping bags but I don’t like the idea of Pippa sleeping rough.’

‘I’m not nervous,’ Pippa said, feeling nervous. ‘I’m happy to sleep anywhere.’

‘Pippa swims with sharks,’ Riley said, and grinned.

He edged Joyce out of her position at the head of the table and started reversing the anaesthesia. ‘Job well done, team. Thank you.’

‘Nervous or not, you and Pippa will share Amy’s house,’ Joyce said.

Riley glanced at Pippa. His grin faded.

‘I guess we will,’ Riley said.

‘Why not?’ said Pippa.