Marion Lennox - The Doctor & the Runaway Heiress

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.

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 told 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.’