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