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?
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.’
