The Doctor & the Runaway Heiress

‘My arms …’

‘Harness,’ he said ruefully. ‘We try and pad ’em.’

‘We?’

‘New South Wales North Coast Flight-Aid.’

There was an echo—the way he said the name. Some time last night those words had been said—maybe even on the way up into the helicopter.

‘New South Wales North Coast Flight-Aid, ma’am, at your service.’

Same voice. Same man?

‘Were you the one who pulled me up?’ she asked, astounded.

‘I was,’ he said, modestly. ‘You were wet.’

‘Wet?’ She felt … disconcerted to say the least.

‘Six years in med school,’ he said proudly. ‘Then four years of emergency medicine training, plus more training courses than you can imagine to get the rescue stuff right. Put it all together and I can definitely state that you were wet.’ He took her wrist as he talked, feeling her pulse. Watching her intently. ‘So, arms and chest are sore. Toes?’

‘They’re fine. Though I was a bit worried about them last night,’ she admitted.

‘You were very cold.’ He turned his attention to the end of the bed, tugged up the coverlet from the bottom and exposed them. Her toes were painted pink, with silver stars. Her pre-bridal gift from one of her bridesmaids.

Not the bridesmaid she’d caught with Roger. One of the other five.

‘Wiggle ’em,’ Riley said, and she hauled her thoughts back to toes. She’d much rather think of toes than Roger. Or bridesmaids.

So she wiggled then and she admired them wiggling. Last night she’d decided sharks had taken them, and she hadn’t much cared.

Today … ‘Boy, am I pleased to see you guys again,’ she confessed.

‘And I bet they’re pleased to see you. Don’t take them nighttime swimming again. Ever. Can I hear your chest?’

‘Yes, Doctor,’ she said, deciding submission was a good way to go. She pushed herself up on her pillows—or she tried. Her body was amazingly heavy.

She got about six inches up and Riley was right by her, supporting her, adjusting the pillows behind her.

He felt …

Well, that was an inappropriate thing to think. He didn’t feel anything. He was a doctor.

But, doctor or not, he was very male, and very close. And still gorgeous. He was … mid-thirties? Hard to be sure. He was a bit weathered. He hadn’t spent his life behind a desk.

He wouldn’t have, she decided, if he was a rescue doctor.

If it wasn’t for this man she’d be very, very dead.

What do you say to a man who saved your life?

‘I need to thank you,’ she said in a small voice, but he finished what he had to do before he replied.

‘Cough,’ he ordered.

She coughed.

‘And again? Good,’ he said at last, and she repeated her thank you.

‘My pleasure,’ he said, and she expected him to head for the door but instead he went back to his first position. Perched on the backward chair. Seemingly ready to chat.

‘Aren’t you needed somewhere else?’ she asked, starting to feel uneasy.

‘I’m always needed,’ he said, with a mock modesty that had her wanting to smile. ‘Dr Indispensable.’

‘So you save maidens all night and save everyone else during the day.’

‘I’m not normally a duty doctor but we’re having staffing issues. Plus I haven’t finished saving this maiden yet. You want to tell me why Roger and Mum told us you were suiciding?’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘I get the feeling you weren’t. Or at least that you changed your mind.’

‘I got caught in an undertow,’ she snapped, and then winced. She sagged back onto her pillows, feeling heavy and tired and very, very stupid. ‘I’m sorry. I accept it looks like suicide, but I just went for a swim.’

‘After dark, on an unpatrolled beach.’

‘It wasn’t completely dark. I’d been in a plane for twenty-four hours. The sea looked gorgeous, even if it was dusk. There were people everywhere, having picnics, playing cricket, splashing around in the shallows. It was lovely. I’m a strong swimmer and I swam and swam. It felt great, and I guess I let my thoughts drift. Then I realised the current had changed and I couldn’t get back.’

‘You must be a strong swimmer,’ he said, ‘to stay afloat for eight hours.’

‘Is that how long I was there?’

‘At least. We pulled you up at four-thirty. The sea wasn’t exactly calm. I figure you must badly want to live.’

‘I do,’ she said, and she met his gaze, unflinching. It suddenly seemed incredibly important that his man believe her. ‘I want to live more than anything in the world. You see, I don’t have to marry Roger.’

Fifteen minutes later Riley headed back to Intensive Care to check on Olive Matchens and he found himself smiling. It was a good story, told with courage and humour.

It seemed Pippa had been engaged for years to her childhood sweetheart. Her fiancé was the son of Daddy’s partner, financial whiz, almost part of the family. Only boring, boring, boring. But what could she do? She’d told him she’d marry him when she’d been seventeen. He’d been twenty and gorgeous and she had been smitten to the eyeballs. Then he was lovely and patient while she’d done her own thing. She’d even broken off the engagement for a while, gone out with other guys, but all the time Roger was waiting in the wings, constantly telling her he loved her. He was a nice guy. Daddy and Mummy thought he was wonderful. There was no one else. She’d turned thirty. She’d really like a family. Her voice had faltered a little when she said that, but then she’d gone back to feisty. Why not marry him?

Reason? Two days before the wedding she’d found him in bed with a bridesmaid.

Bomb blast didn’t begin to describe the fallout from cancelling the wedding, she’d told him. She’d figured the best thing to do was escape, leave for her honeymoon alone.

She’d arrived in Australia, she’d walked into the luxury honeymoon suite Roger had booked, in one of Australian’s most beautiful hotels, she’d looked out at the sea, and she’d thought she had her whole honeymoon ahead of her—and she didn’t have to marry Roger.

Riley grinned as he headed for Intensive Care. If there was one thing Riley loved it was a happy ending.

He thought of what would have happened if they hadn’t found her. She was alive because of his service. She was a woman who’d been given a second chance because of the skills his team offered.

And she’d use it, he thought, feeling exultant. Right now she was exhausted. She lay in bed, her face wan from strain and shock, her auburn curls matted from the seawater, her body battered and sore, and still he saw pure spirit.

It felt fantastic. Helping people survive, the adrenalin rush of search and rescue, this was his happy ending. Solitude and work and the satisfaction of making a difference.

Solitude …

The morning’s satisfaction faded a little as the nuances of the word hit home. The fact that his solitude was about to take a hit.

His daughter would be here on Friday. Lucy.

What to do with a daughter he hardly knew? Whose existence had been kept from him because he was deemed inconsequential—not important in the moneyed world Lucy must have been raised in.

There was money in the background of the woman he’d just treated, he thought. He could hear it in Pippa’s voice. English class and old money. The combination brought back enough memories to make him shudder.

But the way the woman he’d just left spoke shouldn’t make him judge her. And why was he thinking of Pippa? He now needed to focus on Lucy.

His daughter.

She was probably just coming for a fleeting visit, he decided. Her email had been curt to say the least. Flight details—arrival at Sydney airport Friday morning. An almost flippant line at the end—‘If it’s a bother don’t worry, I’ll manage.’

If it’s a bother … To have a daughter.

Family.

He didn’t do family. He never had.

He didn’t know how.

But he could give her a place to stay. That had to be a start. He lived in a huge old house right by the hospital. Once upon a time the house had been nurses’ quarters, but nurses no longer lived on site. Big and rambling and right by the sea, it was comfortable and close and why would he want to live anywhere else?

Last year the hospital had offered to sell it to him. For a while he’d thought about it—but owning a house … That meant putting down roots and the idea made him nervous. He was fine as he was.

He could see the sea when he woke up. He had a job he loved, surf at his back door, a hospital housekeeper making sure the rest of the house didn’t fall apart … He had the perfect life.

His daughter wasn’t part of it. She was an eighteen-year-old he’d never met—a kid on an adventure to Australia, meeting a father she didn’t know. Had she always known who he was? Why had she searched for him? Had she been defying Mummy?

And at the thought of her mother he felt anger almost overwhelm him. To not tell him that they’d had a child …

Anger was not useful. Put it aside, he told himself. He’d meet Lucy and see if she wanted him to be a part of her life, no matter how tiny.

She’d probably only stay a day or two. That thought made him feel more empty than before he’d known of her existence. It was like a tiny piece of family was being offered, but he already knew it’d be snatched away again.

Story of his life.

He shook his head, managed a mocking smile and shook off his dumb self-pity. Olive Matchens was waiting. Work was waiting.

He’d saved Phillippa Penelope Fotheringham. Pippa.

He did have the perfect, solitary life.

Once Riley left, an efficient little nurse called Jancey swept into Pippa’s cubicle to tidy up the edges. Someone was collecting her toiletries from the hotel, she told Pippa, and she bounced off to set up a call to Pippa’s mother. ‘Dr Chase’s instructions. He says if you don’t talk to her she’ll be on a plane before you know it.’

It was sensible advice. Jancey put the call through and Pippa managed to talk to her. Trying not to cough.

‘I’m fine, Mum. I have a bit of water on my chest—that’s why I sound breathless—but, honestly, there’s nothing wrong with me apart from feeling stupid. The hospital’s excellent. I’m only here for observation. I imagine I’ll be out of here tomorrow.’

And then the hardest bit.

‘No, I was not trying to kill myself. You need to believe that because it’s true. I was just stupid. I was distracted and I was tired. I went swimming at dusk because the water looked lovely. I was caught in the undertow and swept out. That’s all. I would never …’

Then …

‘No, I don’t wish to talk to Roger. I understand he’s sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Tell him it’s over, final, there’s no way we’re getting married. If Roger comes I won’t see him. I’m sorry, Mum, but I need to go to sleep now. I’ll ring you back tomorrow. You. Not Roger.’

Done. Jancey took back the phone and smiled down at her, sensing she’d just done something momentous. Pippa smiled back at the cheery little nurse and suddenly Jancey offered her a high-five. ‘You go, girl,’ she said, and grinned.

She managed a wobbly smile, high-fived in return and slipped back onto her pillows feeling … fantastic.

She slept again, and the nightmare of last night was replaced by Jancey’s high-five—and by the smile of Dr Riley Chase.

Two lovely people in her bright new world.

Olive seemed stable. Riley was well overdue for a sleep but problems were everywhere.

School holidays. Accidents. Flu. It seemed half the hospital staff was on leave or ill. And now they had a kid in labour. Amy. Sixteen years old. Alone.

She should not be here.

How could they send her away?’

‘We need someone to stay with Amy,’ Riley decreed. ‘She’s terrified.’

‘I know.’ Coral, the hospital’s nurse-administrator, was sounding harassed. ‘But we can’t special her. I have no midwives on duty. Rachel’s on leave and I’ve just sent Maryanne home with a temp of thirty-nine. I know she shouldn’t be alone but it was her choice to come here. She knows she should be in Sydney. Meanwhile, I’m doing the best I can. I’ve put her in with your patient, Pippa.’

Coral sounded as weary as Riley felt. ‘That’s why I could free up a nurse for Olive,’ she said. ‘I’m juggling too many balls here, Riley, so cut me some slack. Putting Amy in the labour ward now will scare her and she’ll be alone most of the time. Putting her in with mums who already have their babies isn’t going to work either. The obs cubicle is close to the nurses’ station, and I’m hoping your lady will be nice to her. I’ve put them both on fifteen-minute obs and that’s the best I can do. Meanwhile, we have Troy Haddon in Emergency—he’s been playing with those Styrofoam balls you put in beanbags. He and his mate were squirting them out their noses to see who could make them go furthest, and one’s gone up instead of out. Can you deal with it?’

‘Sure,’ Riley said, resigned. So much for sleep.

Pippa woke and someone was sobbing in the next bed. Really sobbing. Fear, loneliness and hopelessness were wrapped in the one heart-rending sound.

She turned, cautiously, to see. Right now caution seemed the way to go. The world still seemed vaguely dangerous.

When she’d gone to sleep the bed next to her had been empty. Now she had a neighbour.

The girl was young. Very young. Sixteen, maybe? She was so dark her eyes practically disappeared in her face. Her face was swollen; desperate. Terrified.

Last night’s drama disappeared. Pippa was out of bed in an instant.

‘Hey.’ She touched the girl on the hand, and then on the face as she didn’t react. ‘What’s wrong? Can I call the nurse for you?’

The girl turned to her with a look of such despair that Pippa’s heart twisted.

‘It hurts,’ the girl whispered. ‘Oh, it hurts. I want to go home.’ She sobbed and rolled onto her back.

She was very pregnant.

Very pregnant.

As Pippa watched she saw the girl’s belly tighten in a contraction. Instinctively she took the girl’s hand and held, hard. The girl moaned, a long, low moan that contained despair as well as pain, and she clutched Pippa’s hand like it was a lifeline.

Pippa hit the bell. This kid needed help. A midwife. A support team. She looked more closely at the girl’s tear-drenched face and thought she was sixteen, seventeen at most.

She needed her mum.

The nurses’ station seemed deserted. Pippa, however, knew the drill.

Hospital bells were designed to only ring once, and light a signal at the nurses’ station, so pushing it again would achieve nothing. Unless …

She checked behind the bed, found the master switch, flicked it off and on again—and pushed the bell again.

Another satisfactory peal.

And another.

Three minutes later someone finally appeared. Dr Riley Chase. Looking harassed.

‘She needs help,’ Pippa said before Riley could get a word in, and Riley looked at the kid in the bed and looked at Pippa. Assessing them both before answering.

‘You should be in bed.’

‘She needs a midwife,’ Pippa snapped. ‘A support person. She shouldn’t be alone.’

‘I know.’ He raked long fingers though his already rumpled hair, took a deep breath and focused. He glanced down the corridor as if he was hoping someone else would appear.

No one did.

He stepped into the cubicle.

Once again, as soon as he entered, she had the impression that he had all the time in the world. He’d crossed over from the outside world, and now he was totally in this one—only this time he was focused solely on the girl in labour.

The contraction was over. The girl was burrowed into the pillows, whimpering.

‘Hey, Amy, I’m so sorry we’ve had to leave you alone,’ he told her, touching her tear-drenched face with gentle fingers. ‘It’s hard to do this and it’s even harder to do it alone. I did warn you. This is why I wanted you to stay in Sydney. But now you’re here, we just have to get through it. And we will.’

Pippa backed away as he took both Amy’s hands in his and held. It was like he was imparting strength—and Pippa remembered how he’d felt holding her last night and thought there was no one she’d rather have hold her. The guy exuded strength.

But maybe strength was the wrong word. Trust? More. It was a combination so powerful that she wasn’t the least bit surprised that Amy stopped whimpering and met his gaze directly. Amy trusted him, she thought. For a teenager in such trouble …

‘I want to go home,’ Amy whimpered.

‘I know you do. If I were you, I’d be on the first bus out of here,’ Riley told her. ‘But there’s the little problem of your baby. He wants out.’

‘It hurts. I want my mum.’

‘I wish your mum could be here,’ he said.

‘Mum thought it was stupid to come.’

‘So she did.’ Riley’s face set a little and Pippa guessed there’d been conflict. ‘So now you’re doing this on your own. But you can do it, Amy.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Can I check and see how your baby’s doing?’

Pippa didn’t need prompting to leave them to it. She scooted back to her bed and Riley gave her a smile of thanks as he hauled the dividing curtain closed.

‘You’ve been getting to know your neighbour,’ he said to Amy. ‘Have you two been introduced?’

Pippa was back in bed with the covers up, a curtain between them.

‘No,’ Amy whispered.

‘Pippa, your neighbour is Amy. Amy, your neighbour is Pippa. Pippa went for a swim after dark last night and came close to being shark meat.’

‘Why’d you go for a swim at dark?’ Despite her pain, Amy’s attention was caught—maybe that’s what Riley intended.

‘I was getting over guy problems,’ Pippa confessed. She was speaking to a closed curtain, and it didn’t seem to matter what she admitted now. And she might be able to help, she thought. If admitting stupidity could keep Amy’s attention from fear, from loneliness, from pain, then pride was a small price to pay.

‘You got guy problems?’ Amy’s voice was a bit muffled.

‘I was about to be married. I caught him sleeping with one of my bridesmaids.’

‘Yikes.’ Amy was having a reasonable break from contractions now, settling as the pain eased and she wasn’t alone any more. ‘You clobber him?’

‘I should have,’ Pippa said. ‘Instead I went swimming, got caught in the undertow and got saved by Dr Chase.’

‘That’s me,’ Riley said modestly. ‘Saving maidens is what I do. Amy, you’re doing really well. You’re almost four centimetres dilated, which means the baby’s really pushing. I can give you something for the pain if you like …’

‘I don’t want injections.’ It was a terrified gasp.

‘Then you need to practise the breathing we taught you. Can you—?’

But he couldn’t finish. Jancey’s head appeared round the door, looking close to panic.

‘Hubert Trotter’s just come in,’ she said. ‘He’s almost chopped his big toe off with an axe and he’s bleeding like a stuck pig. Riley, you need to come.’

‘Give me strength,’ Riley said, and rose. ‘Can you stay with Amy?’

‘Dotty Simond’s asthma …’ she said.

Riley closed his eyes. The gesture was fleeting, though, and when he opened them again he looked calm and in control and like nothing was bothering him at all.

‘Amy, I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said, but Amy was clutching his hand like a lifeline.

‘No. Please.’

‘Pippa’s in the next bed,’ he started. ‘You’re not by yourself.’

But suddenly Pippa wasn’t in the next bed. Enough. She was out of bed, pushing the curtains apart and meeting Riley’s gaze full on.

‘Amy needs a midwife.’

‘I know she does,’ Riley said. ‘We’re short-staffed. There isn’t one.’

‘Then someone else.’

‘Believe me, if I could then I’d find someone. I’d stay here myself. I can’t.’

She believed him. She thought, fast.

This guy had saved her life. This hospital had been here for her. And more … Amy was a child.

‘Then use me,’ she said.

‘You …’

‘I know there’s still water on my lungs,’ she said. ‘And I know I need to stay here until it clears. But my breathing’s okay. I’m here for observation more than care, and if you can find me something more respectable than this appalling hospital gown, I’ll sit by Amy until she needs to push. Then I’ll call you.’

He looked at her like she’d grown two heads. ‘There’s no need—’

‘Yes, there is,’ Jancey said, looking panicked. ‘Hubert needs help now.’

‘We can’t ask—’

‘Then don’t ask,’ Pippa said. ‘And don’t worry. You can go back to your toes and asthma. I’ll call for help when I need it, either for myself or for Amy. And I do know enough to call. I may be a twit when it comes to night swimming, but in my other life I’m a qualified nurse. Good basic qualifications, plus theatre training, plus intensive care, and guess what? Midwifery. You want to phone my old hospital and check?’

She grabbed the clipboard and pen Jancey was carrying and wrote the name of her hospital and her boss’s name. ‘Hospitals work round the clock. Checking my references is easy. Ring them fast, or trust me to take care of Amy while you two save the world. Or at least Hubert’s toe. Off you go, and Amy and I will get on with delivering Amy’s baby. We can do this, Amy. You and me … women are awesome. Together there’s nothing we can’t do.’

‘You want me to ring and check she’s who she says she is?’ Jancey asked, dubious. He and Jancey needed to head in different directions, fast. Neither of them liked leaving Pippa and Amy together.

‘When you’ve got time.’

‘I don’t have time,’ Jancey said. ‘Do we trust her?’

‘She’s a warm body and she’s offered,’ Riley said. ‘Do we have a choice?’

‘Hey!’ They were about to head around the bend in the corridor but Pippa’s voice made them turn. She’d stepped out the door to call after them.

She looked …

Amazing, Riley thought, and, stressed or not, he almost smiled. She had brilliant red curls that hadn’t seen a hairbrush since her big swim. She was slight—really slight—barely tall enough to reach his chin. Her pale skin had been made more pale by the night’s horror. Her green eyes had been made even larger.

From the neck up she was eye-catchingly lovely. But from the neck down …

Her hospital gown was flopping loosely around her. She was clutching it behind. She had nothing else on.

‘The deal is clothes,’ she said with asperity. ‘Bleeding to death takes precedence but next is my dignity. I need at least another gown so I can have one on backwards, one on forwards.’

Riley chuckled. It was the first time for twelve hours he’d felt like laughing and it felt great.

‘Can you fix it?’ he asked Jancey.

‘Mrs Rogers in Surgical left her pink fluffy dressing gown behind when she went home this morning,’ Jancey said, smiling herself. ‘I don’t think she’d mind …’

‘Does it have buttons?’ Pippa demanded.

‘Yes,’ Jancey said. ‘And a bow at the neck. The bow glitters.’

‘That’ll cheer us up,’ Pippa said. ‘And heaven knows Amy and I both need it.’

Assisting at a birth settled her as nothing else could.

Amy needed someone she knew, a partner, a mother, a friend, but there seemed to be no one. Her labour was progressing slowly, and left to herself she would have given in to terror.

What sort of hospital was this that provided no support?

To be fair, though, Pippa decided as the afternoon wore on, most hospitals checked labouring mothers only every fifteen minutes or so, making sure things were progressing smoothly.

The mother’s support person was supposed to provide company.

‘So where’s your family?’ she asked. They were listening to music—some of Amy’s favourites. Pippa had needed to do some seriously fast organisation there.

‘Home,’ Amy said unhelpfully. ‘They made me come.’

‘Who made you come?’

‘Doc Riley. There’s not a doctor at Dry Gum Creek, and they don’t have babies there if Doc Riley can help it. Mostly the mums come here but Doc Riley said I needed … young mum stuff. So they took me to Sydney Central, only it was really scary. And lonely. I stayed a week and I’d had enough. There was no way I could get home but I knew Doc Riley was here so I got the bus. But the pains started just as I reached here. And I’m not going back to Sydney Central.’