‘So now…’
‘We’ll probably take her home tomorrow.’
‘There’s no father?’
‘That comes within patient confidentiality.’
‘Of course.’ She hesitated. ‘Will you personally take her home?’
‘That’s what Flight-Aid does-when we’re not pulling maidens out of the water after eight-hour swims.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered.
‘Don’t mention it. If you know how good it felt to haul you up alive…’
‘If you knew how good it felt to be pulled up alive.’ She stared out to sea and thought of where she’d be if this man hadn’t found her. She shuddered.
Riley’s hand was suddenly on her shoulder, warm and strong and infinitely reassuring.
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Yes, we hauled you up, but you did most of it yourself. In a couple of hours you’d probably have drifted into the next bay and been washed up on the beach. You’d have faced a long hike home but you would have lived happily ever after.’
‘We both know…’
‘No one knows anything for sure,’ he said. ‘I could have been hit by lightning right now, while I was surfing. Do I have nightmares because I almost was?’
‘There’s not a cloud.’
‘That’s the scariest thing,’ he said gravely. ‘There’s nothing else to pull lightning to except me. I feel all trembly thinking about how close a call I’ve just had.’
He looked… anything but trembly, she decided.
He also made her heart twist. There was enough gravity behind his laughter to make her think this guy really did care. He really did worry that she might have nightmares.
‘There’s a psychologist at the hospital,’ Riley said gently, and she knew she was right. ‘Peter’s great with post traumatic stress. Make an appointment to see him. This week.’
She didn’t need…
‘Do it, Pippa,’ he said. ‘I should have made the appointment for you but it’s…’
‘Not your job?’
‘I just scrape people off,’ he said. ‘It’s other’s work to dust them down. I was only in the ward on Monday because we’re permanently short-staffed.’
‘So now you’re surfing.’
‘Who’s not on my side now?’ he demanded, sounded wounded. ‘Our team picked up two car-crash victims north of Dubbo in the wee hours. I’m off duty.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said, switching back to caring almost immediately. ‘It doesn’t suit you. You know…’ He hesitated. Looked out to sea for a bit. Decided to say what he wanted to say. ‘The world’s your oyster,’ he said at last. ‘You’re back in the water. You have a honeymoon suite in the most beautiful place in the world. I get the feeling you’ve been drifting. Maybe you could use this time to figure what you want. What’s good for you.’
‘Standing here’s good.’
‘It’s a great spot to be,’ he said softly. ‘And the surf’s waiting.’
Then, before she guessed what he intended, he lifted his hand and brushed her cheek with his forefinger. It was a feather touch. It was a touch of caring, or maybe a salute of farewell-and why it had the power to send a shudder through the length of her body she had no idea.
She stepped back, startled, and his smile grew rueful.
‘Pippa, I’m not a shark,’ he said. ‘I’m just me, the guy at the end of the rope. Just me saying goodbye, good luck, God speed.’
And with that he raised his hand in a gesture that seemed almost mocking-and turned and headed back to his surf, back to a life she had no part in.
If he’d stayed on the beach one moment longer he would have kissed her.
He’d wanted, quite desperately, to kiss her. She’d looked lost.
No matter how strong she’d been-walking away from the appalling Roger, managing not to drown, helping with Amy, all of those things required strength-he still had the impression she was flailing.
She was nothing to do with him. She was a woman he’d pulled out of the water.
Like Marguerite?
He’d met Marguerite on a beach in the South of France. Of course. She had been there as it seemed she was always there, working on her tan. Wealthy, English, idle.
On a scholarship at university in London, he’d been on summer break, the first he’d ever had where he hadn’t needed to work to pay for next term’s living. His roommate had known someone who wouldn’t mind putting them up. The South of France had sounded fantastic to a kid who’d once lived rough on the streets of Sydney.
He’d bumped into Marguerite on the second day in the water, literally bumped when she’d deliberately swum into his surfboard. She’d faked being hurt, and giggled when he’d carried her from the water. She’d watched him surf, admired, flirted, asked him where he came from, asked her to teach her to surf-and suddenly things had seemed serious. On her side as well as his.
The first time he met her parents he knew he was hopelessly out of his class, but he didn’t care. For Marguerite didn’t care either, openly scorning her parents’ disapproval. For five weeks she lay in his arms, she held him and she told him he was her idea of heaven. For a boy who’d never been held the sensation was insidious in its sweetness. She melted against him, and the rest of the world disappeared.
Then reality. The end of summer. He returned to university and the relationship was over. For weeks he phoned her every day, but a maid always took his calls. Marguerite was ‘unavailable’.
Finally her mother answered, annoyed his calls were interfering with her maid’s work.
‘You were my daughter’s summer plaything,’ she drawled. ‘A surfer. Australian. Amusing. She has other things to focus on now.’
He thought she was lying, but when he insisted she finally put Marguerite on. Her mother was right. It was over.
‘Oh, Riley, leave it. How boring. You were fun for summer, nothing more. You helped me drive Mummy and Daddy crazy, and it’s worked. They still want to send me to finishing school. Can you imagine?’ She chuckled then, but there was no warmth in her laughter. There was even a touch of cruelty. ‘I do believe they’re about to be even more annoyed with me, but they won’t know until it’s too late, and I’ll enjoy that very much. So thank you and goodbye. But don’t ring again, there’s a lamb. It’s over.’
She’d become pregnant to rebel? To prove some crazy point over her parents?
And Pippa?
Pippa was rebelling against her family as well-like Marguerite?
Don’t judge a woman by Marguerite.
No, he told himself harshly. Don’t judge at all and don’t get close. He’d seen enough of his attempts at family, his attempts at love, to know it wasn’t for him.
So why did he want to kiss Pippa?
He didn’t. A man’d be a fool.
A man needed to surf instead, or find someone else to rescue.
Someone who wasn’t Pippa.
She wandered back to the hotel, lay on the sun lounger on the balcony, and gazed out to sea.
Thinking.
‘
And…
‘
The idea of staying had taken seed and was growing.
To be part of a hospital community doing such good…
‘It’s romantic nonsense,’ she told herself. ‘Yes, you should go back to nursing but you know your old hospital will give you your job back.’
