of Pippa sleeping rough.’
‘I’m not nervous,’ Pippa said, feeling nervous. ‘I’m happy to sleep anywhere.’
‘Pippa swims with sharks,’ Riley said, and grinned.
He edged Joyce out of her position at the head of the table and started reversing the anaesthesia. ‘Job well done, team. Thank you.’
‘Nervous or not, you and Pippa will share Amy’s house,’ Joyce said.
Riley glanced at Pippa. His grin faded.
‘I guess we will,’ Riley said.
‘Why not?’ said Pippa.
CHAPTER FIVE
SLEEPING over was a common occurrence. Riley was used to it.
Harry slept in the plane. ‘It’s not half-bad,’ he told Pippa. ‘We have a comfy bed in the back and I always carry some fine emergency literature.’ He grinned and hauled a fat paperback out of his back pocket. A buxom woman with tattoos, a dagger and not much else was pouting her lips provocatively on the cover. ‘I’m happy as a pig in mud.’
Riley wasn’t as happy.
They shared a late dinner with Joyce in the hospital kitchen, then it was time to head over to Amy’s little house-with Pippa.
She seemed fine with it. He had the feeling she was even eyeing him askance because she was sensing he was edgy.
Why was he edgy?
Normally he’d roll his sleeping bag out and sleep under the stars. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d gone to sleep listening to Cordelia snoring, or medical students giggling, or sobbing and telling him their latest love life drama-sleeping under the stars did that for some. He didn’t mind. He could listen to it all and keep his distance.
So tonight he’d much prefer to sleep under the stars, only that would leave Pippa in Amy’s house alone. Or under the stars with him. And something told him…
Pippa wasn’t as tough as she made out, he thought as they walked the short distance to the house. Five days ago she’d nearly drowned. He’d learned a lot about trauma in his years in this service-he’d had victims come back and talk to him about their experiences and he’d talked to psychologists. ‘There’ll be flashbacks,’ he’d been told. ‘You can’t go so close to death without suffering.’ And after eight hours in the water believing she’d drown… She’d been close to an appalling edge.
This trip had been meant to break Pippa in slowly, before sending her back to her luxury hotel tonight. To make her sleep outside… Personally he loved it but the sky was immense, and for someone already fragile… Someone who’d just re-entered the world of emergency medicine after being a casualty herself… Even Joyce had seemed to sense it.
It had to be Amy’s house.
‘I won’t jump you,’ Pippa said.
He stopped short. ‘You won’t…’
‘I thought I should tell you,’ she said. ‘Joyce took me aside and told me you were honourable. You’re looking worried. Maybe I should reassure you that I am, too. In fact I’m feeling exceedingly chaste. I guess that’s what comes from being a jilted bride.’
‘You don’t sound very jilted,’ he said cautiously. He was feeling cautious.
‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘I’m exceedingly pleased to be free, so you needn’t walk three yards away from me as if you’re afraid I might latch on and not let go.’
‘You’re pleased to be free?’ This conversation had him floundering.
‘Yes, I am. I have the rest of my life ahead of me. I’ve had a very exciting afternoon and a very satisfactory day. I’m starting to make all sorts of plans but men aren’t included. And I’m very tired. So show me a bed and then you can do what you want, but you don’t need to look after me and you needn’t think I’ll be needy. I’m independent, Dr Chase, and I’m loving it.’
Only she wasn’t.
He woke at three in the morning and she didn’t sound independent at all.
Pippa was sleeping in the double bed in Amy’s bedroom. Riley was on the fold-out settee in the living room.
It wasn’t sobbing that woke him. It was gasps of fear, then the sounds of panting, breathless terror, muted as if the pillows themselves were drowning her.
If he wasn’t a light sleeper he would have missed it, but Riley was a light sleeper at the best of times and he was awake and at her door before he thought about it.
Moonlight was flooding through the window.
Her bedding was everywhere. She was wearing panties and bra but nothing else. She looked like she was writhing in fear. Her curls were spread out on the pillows, and her eyes were wide and staring, as if she was seeing…
Hell?
It was enough to twist the heart.
‘Pippa.’ He was by her bed, grasping her shoulders, holding her. ‘Pippa, wake up, you’re having a nightmare. Pippa.’
Her eyes widened. She jerked sideways, as if he was the thing that terrified her.
‘Pippa, it’s Riley. Dr Chase. The guy in the helicopter. Pippa, it’s Riley, the guy you’re planning not to jump.’
And somehow the stupidity of that last statement got through. Her body stilled, slumped. Her eyes slowly lost their terror, and the terror was replaced by confusion. She focused. Her gaze found his. Locked.
She shuddered and the shudder ran the length of her body.
She was cold to touch. The temperature in the desert dropped at night to almost freezing. She’d gone to sleep with a pile of quilts, but the quilts were on the floor.
She shuddered again and it was too much. He tugged a quilt from the floor, wrapped it round her and tugged her into his arms. He held her as one might hold a terrified child.
She seemed so shocked she simply let it happen. The shudders went on, dreadful, born of fear and cold and sheer disorientation.
He should never have agreed to her coming here, he thought, swearing under his breath.
When he’d been a kid, tiny, he’d found a budgerigar-or rather one of the feral cats around the dump they’d been living in had found it. He’d managed to get it free, then brought it inside, warmed it and settled it into a box. A couple of hours later he’d checked and it had looked fine.
Delighted, he’d lifted it out. The little bird had been someone’s pet. It was tame, it talked, it clung to his finger, it pecked his ear.
With no adult to advise him, he’d played with it until bedtime. He’d popped it back into its box for the night and the next morning he’d opened the box to discover it was dead.
Years later he’d talked to a mate who was a vet, and he’d told him the sad little story.
‘It’ll still have been running on adrenalin,’ the vet said. ‘You weren’t to know, but you’ll have stressed it more.’
And today… He’d allowed Pippa to come here…
He’ll have stressed her more.
He swore and held her close.
‘It’s okay, Pippa. You’re safe. Yes, you’re in the middle of the Australian desert with people you don’t know, yes, you nearly drowned, yes, your marriage is off, but, hey, the threats are all past. No one and nothing’s doing you harm. We’ll get you warm, and tomorrow we’ll fly you back to the coast. We’re intending to fly via Sydney. You
