‘What can I do, Doc?’ Reid asked.
‘Just keep holding him. I want to get some salt into him first before we move him, then we need to get him back home and keep him cool and hydrated. I might need to get you to help me move him into the bath. It all depends on if this is simply dehydration or if he does have a touch of heat stroke as well.’ Her brow furrowed more deeply as she looked at him and then looked around the site of the fire again.
Nat ran back with the things Prita had asked for. ‘Gees, this is heavier than the last time I had to pick it up.’
‘Yes, I told them to stock some extra first aid essentials,’ Prita said, taking it from her and cracking open the lid. He watched her, the way her ponytail swung along her shoulders, the efficient way she organised everything, the care and worry in her eyes as she looked up at him.
He loved how much she cared for people. Loved how much she cared for him. He just loved her.
Whoa!
He swayed as the thought hit him square in the solar plexus.
‘Flynn?’
Prita quickly pulled out some sachets, tore off the end of one and upended it into a bottle of water, gave it a shake then put it to Flynn’s lips. ‘Here. You need to drink this. Just small sips. Easy. Easy.’
He stared at her, unable to do anything but what she said.
‘He’s worse,’ Reid said.
‘Yeah, we need to get him back home now. If I can’t get this under control, we might need to send for the air ambulance.’
‘No,’ he managed to say. ‘I’m fine.’ There was no way he was going back to the hospital. He wasn’t leaving CoalCliff. Especially not with a madman running around setting fires and endangering Prita. He had to stay here and protect her. There was no way he was going to lose another woman he loved.
And he did. Love her. There was no denying it despite the chasm that had just opened at his feet, threatening to swallow him whole.
He loved Prita.
He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do about it. Didn’t even know if he could do anything about it—he’d been pretty shit to her earlier. Then he’d gone and lost his shit in front of everyone. He was no prize, that was certain. He didn’t even know if he could be a prize. There was his promise to Anna—although, in this moment, he was thinking maybe he’d got that wrong. Maybe he’d done her a disservice. Anna would never have asked him to sacrifice his happiness in memory of her.
Whatever the case, he couldn’t let anything happen to Prita. She was too important.
She was talking to him now, telling him what he needed to do to get better. ‘Okay, Doc,’ he interrupted her, his voice barely above a harsh whisper. ‘Take me home.’
Chapter 26
Prita watched Flynn carefully in the ute on the way back to his house. There was a tightness in her chest—a tightness that was probably due to the fact she’d gone out into a fire zone and breathed in the fresh smoke of a recently extinguished bushfire. As a doctor, she would have chided a patient for doing the same after the injury done to her lungs in the house fire, but she couldn’t ignore the need to help the community she was now a part of, whether some people in the community didn’t want her there or not.
None of that mattered now. All that mattered was Flynn. Taking care of Flynn.
She’d thought she understood, but she’d had no idea the trauma he’d held inside himself all these years. How on earth he managed to keep it at bay while fighting this fire was beyond her. He was strong. So strong. Stronger than he gave himself credit for. Or any of them for that matter.
How had he borne it all these years? Especially during fire season when the hell of what he’d been through, the freshness of his loss, threatened every day to come rushing back at him just like the fires had done that terrible summer. He was traumatised and had never sought help and she’d just made it worse for him by challenging him, throwing his loss in his face, and making him feel he needed to come down here to prove something. He could have killed himself.
Idiot.
She was such an idiot. What kind of doctor did that to a person? No, scratch that. What kind of person did that to a person? Let alone the person you loved more than you loved yourself.
And she did. She loved him so horribly much. More than she ever thought she was capable of loving a person. She loved Carter, but that was different. This was deeper, harder, closer to pain than the love of a parent to a child. It was the kind of love that called to a person and didn’t let go of them until they’d given themselves up to it fully and wholeheartedly. It was a scary kind of love. The kind of love she wanted to grab with both hands and never let go of.
She ran her hand over Flynn’s hair, then, knowing nobody was looking, bent to kiss him on the forehead. His eyes fluttered open and his gaze caught hers. She didn’t look away. Left herself open to him, so he could see what was in her heart. If he didn’t want it, she would deal with that. It would hurt—it would probably break her. She’d let him into the place in her she’d locked away when her mama died and Papa sent her away. But what was done was done and there was no point shying
