‘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.