The Flyer (5 page)

He continued to strain his memory. Something had happened … Bessie.

He’d nailed it. Last night, he’d killed the croc and nearly died doing it. That’s why he’d come to Doc’s place.

Then it hit him. Like a bullet right between the bloody eyes. The woman was a doctor. She’d treated him. And then …

He’d made a pass.

Blasted
.

He forced himself to stand and did his best to ignore the increased pounding in the back of his head. Tried to steady himself. He hadn’t been that drunk in years, not since before the Great War when his youth had been responsible for … well, for his irresponsibility.

Crikey, he’d been stupid to slide into the billabong last night. He hid a sigh by wiping one hand over his mouth and scratching the full day’s growth of beard on his chin.

Helen Stanwood, if he remembered her name correctly, faced him. The accusing expression on her face hadn’t changed. The eyebrow still cocked at him like a loaded Enfield. “You’re hardly presentable. But I’m afraid you’ll need to have your friends disperse just the same. This is a medical clinic, after all. Not a circus.”

“Too right,” he answered, somehow mesmerized by the chastising glare she sent him. Even censure couldn’t hide the fact she was more than beautiful. More than sensual.

He pushed away the image. She had no idea who he was, and with any luck, she’d forget the advance he’d made the night before.

When he reached the door, he pulled it open gently, already fearing the increase in the noise level would send him straight to his knees.

He braced himself, holding to the door with a tight grip.

The moderately sized crowd of local citizens cheered when they saw him. Shrilling, loud, and with an enthusiasm that turned his already-sour stomach.

Tim O’Leary hung off to one side. He approached Paul, his hat tilted back slightly, and whistled. “They wouldn’t leave, mate. They all heard about what you did last night.”

Paul frowned while he glared at Tim. “I wonder how that happened.” He raised his free hand, signaling the crowd to settle down. When the roar faded to a rippling murmur, he smiled. “Now, folks, I didn’t do anything to warrant such attention, did I? I appreciate your sentiments, but I’m as pleased as the rest of you that the De Grey’s shores will be a might safer for the next little bit. Go on home, and I’ll be happy to regale you with the adventure some other time.”

Several groans of disappointment grew from the crowd. He waved them away and slowly, the group thinned.

A shock of white, neatly combed hair bobbed through the mass of people. Doc reached the steps and paused. “You’re cracked, you know that?”

Paul smiled. “Aye. So you’ve told me before.”

“He’s been cracked since he was born, Doc,” Tim added, before tipping his hat and escaping in the direction of Grogg’s Pub. To embellish last night’s activities while the men bought him countless drinks, no doubt.

Doc climbed the remaining steps and pulled Paul’s bloodstained shirtfront to the side. “Helen did a fine job putting you back together, I’d wager. I’d like to have a look at the stitches, mind you, just to be sure.”

He proceeded into the office while Paul followed. “Where did you find an American doc in the bush?”

“Her father is an old friend of mine. She wanted to practice somewhere adventurous, apparently, so he wrote to me and here she is.”

“I assume you’re talking about me?” Helen strode into the room, the narrow line of her skirt swaying with the movement of her wide, lush hips.

“Correct as always, dear Helen,” replied Doc, while he washed his hands in the same basin the woman had used the night before. “Paul, climb up on that table so I can take a look at her work, will you?”

Paul complied, the ache in his head giving way to an equally painful ache in his groin.

Helen tried to concentrate on anything other than Paul’s half-naked form sitting easily on the table. Something about the way he held himself made her think he’d be at ease anywhere, doing anything. She’d watched him sleeping in the parlor for longer than she should have, as well. She’d told herself it had been to gauge his breathing. To make certain he was all right. He was her patient, after all. But she knew differently. In that part of her that she’d been unable to control in her old life, she found something erotically fascinating about him.

And now he leveled an appreciative stare in her direction. She felt his eyes move over her from the tips of her bobbed hair to the soles of her shoes. Everywhere his eyes touched, she burned.

She closed her eyes. When she reopened them, she focused all of her attention on Dr. Mallory—the man who had been gracious enough to save her from herself when she’d so desperately needed it. That’s what she should be concentrating on. Making Dr. Mallory proud of her. Being the best doctor she could possibly be. Bringing medicine to those who needed it.

The last thing
she
needed was to concern herself with the gentle slope of a man’s pectoral muscles, or the way the light danced in his hair through the window. She’d been right. His hair was dark blond, with tiny golden highlights that winked at her.

Enough!

“This looks splendid, Helen. You’ve done a magnificent job. Nice, clean stitches, evenly spaced. Your knots are very well done, indeed. I would have suggested a running suture given the length of the wound, and a few of the stitches appear a mite rushed, but all in all, I say a job well done. You’ll improve with practice, I’m sure.”

“Th-thank you, Dr. Mallory.”

“Your father said you were an excellent doctor, and he’d know, wouldn’t he?”

“He did?”

“Oh yes. Many times. He is ever proud of his only daughter.”

Helen’s chest tightened. She could think of any number of adjectives to describe how her father felt about her.
Proud
hadn’t been one of them for quite some time.

Dr. Mallory replaced the bandages on Paul’s shoulder and chest. “You did a fine job on that old croc, I’ll tell you. I’m late this morning because I wanted to see for myself. Your mates have her skinned and drying already. Croc boots for everyone, I’d say.”

“Thanks, Doc. But I reckon my ego played more of a role than I would have liked. I wanted to shoot her, but then Tim and the boys started laying off odds on a sticking match, and well…”

“You mean to say you risked your life fighting that crocodile on purpose?” Helen gasped.

“Of course. A man can’t shy away from a challenge, now can he?”

“That’s ridiculous! You could have been killed.”

“I wasn’t.”

“But you could have been,” she argued. “I have spent the greater part of my life fighting to save lives, Mr.

Campbell. I began helping my father when I was twelve years old, for heaven’s sake. I can’t understand why anyone would arbitrarily put oneself at risk.”

The lines above Paul’s mesmerizing blue eyes crinkled in a frown. No, not a frown, exactly. Confusion. Ignorance, perhaps. “The way I see it,” he began slowly, “we have a finite amount of time to spend on this earth. How we play it is entirely up to us. That croc had already stolen two children and any number of sheep and cattle up and down the river. Now, we don’t own anything around these parts. She had as much right, or more, as we do to live and just be a crocodile, doing what crocodiles do. In my estimation, she deserved a chance to defend her territory, same as me. Same as you. Same as all of us.”

“But you could have simply shot her from a distance and saved yourself a lot of pain.”

“Aye, I could have. But where would lie the fun in that?” He winked.

He winked at her! All of the charm and brash ego he’d fully admitted to landed with a giant fist in her heart.

“I suppose it’s a good thing the two of you have met, in any case,” Dr. Mallory broke in. “You can get dressed now, son.”

Paul shrugged his shirt back into place.

Helen broke free, finally, of the enchanting haze Paul’s voice had trapped her in. Doc’s comment broke through the fog. “Why is it good?”

A sudden flutter of something Helen couldn’t recognize floated through her stomach. It wasn’t dread, exactly. But whatever it was, it was profound—as if something was going to happen that would change … everything.

Dr. Mallory shuffled past the examination table and exited the room. His hulking frame disappeared into the hallway in the direction of his private office.

Helen glanced at Paul, who studied her as though she were some kind of oddity. “Is something wrong? Anything I can do?”

“Why would you ask me that?” She squared her shoulders and stomped out of the room. “Why would Doc say that?” she mumbled to herself.

Heavy footsteps followed her. She didn’t need to hear the steps to know Paul was directly behind her. He released a masculine scent, an aura, or something that announced him wherever he went. It hugged her like a warm lover’s caress.

Marching forward, she tried to shake it off. This was the very last thing she needed. She had to be strong. She couldn’t allow herself to lose track of her goals. Whatever the insistent probative feeling was, she would be best served to ignore it. She’d made that mistake once in her life. The mistake of following her instincts. As far as she was concerned, she didn’t have any worth listening to. She hadn’t been the only one to suffer for it. A sharp twinge brushed her heart.

She glared at Paul over her shoulder. He tossed her another damnable wink and a grin that sent a warm flush cascading over her heated flesh, almost—but not quite—eradicating her guilt.

There was no mistaking it. The feeling was there. That incessant, unwanted attraction.

Damn
.

When she reached Dr. Mallory’s private office, she knocked twice. Paul approached, then leaned over her with his uninjured arm resting on the thick, dark wood that framed the door. “Nobody home,” he quipped. “Doc is getting pretty old, you know. He might not have heard you.”

“He has the ears of an eagle, Mr. Campbell. Even I know that.” Still, she rapped harder on the door, three times.

No answer.

Paul leaned his back against the wall by the door and carefully folded his arms. He raked that irascible, knowing glance over her again.

“What?” she huffed. Then she closed her eyes and drew a steadying breath. She hated it when she lost her patience, but something about Paul wore her patience very, very thin.

“Not a thing.”

Soft humming came from the rear of the building. Helen lunged at the sound, and threw open the back door. Dr. Mallory tended to a row of herbs planted in boxes along a tall wooden fence. In one hand, he held a tin watering can decorated with engraved daisies, and in the other, a rusted spade.

“Doc?”

“Yes, Helen. Please, join me for a moment, would you?”

She scurried down a set of four rickety steps that led to a manicured lawn. In the dry landscape, such lush greenery must have taken the doctor years to perfect. Along the edges of the lawn, a narrow garden was filled with hydrangeas, azaleas, and even a series of rosebushes. Some of the blooms had begun to fade, but most were full open to the sun with droplets of water shimmering on the yellow and red petals.

Paul appeared at her side, bringing her thoughts away from the unexpected garden and back to her immediate concerns.

“What did you mean, it’s good we met?” she repeated, circling a small iron bench.

Doc finished watering a mint bush, picking one of the tiny leaves and placing it between his teeth. He bit into the leaf and inhaled a sharp breath. “Lovely, isn’t it?”

Exasperated, Helen tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. “Yes, Doc. It’s quite lovely. Now, please tell me what you meant.”

“Oh, that. I only meant that the two of you will be spending a great deal of time together, of course. That is, when Paul heals enough to get back to work.”

“Oh, don’t you worry yourself about me, Doc. I’m jake.” Paul stood at the back door, his arms crossed despite how the position must have hurt. Leaning against the doorjamb, he stared at her. His gaze never faltered. He didn’t even blink.

Helen broke through the strength of whatever it was that held her fast and forced herself to once again focus on Doc.

The old doctor’s brow creased in Paul’s direction. “You can fly with that shoulder?”

“Sure, I can. No worries.”

“Fly?”

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“Tell me what, exactly?”

“Paul is your bush pilot. He’ll be flying you to treat the Aborigines and the settlers out on the stations. Oh, you’ll be spending a great deal of time together, indeed.”

Paul continuted to stare at her with those crystalline eyes that made her entire body shiver and sweat at the same time. It was like she had a high fever suddenly. Complete with a stomach that turned dizzy somersaults.

She knew that feeling. And she hated it.

“You’re my pilot?”

“At your service.” Paul’s full lips formed a wide smile, and he brought the hand of his good arm to his forehead in a lazy salute. “I told you we’d be seeing more of each other.” When he winked, Helen’s cheeks flamed.

She pushed aside the flutter in her belly. The slight tremor in her joints made it difficult, but she managed to straighten her posture and raise her chin in an arrogant attempt at superiority before she replied. “I find that rather surprising.”