The Midwife and the Millionaire (7 page)

He was determined he wasn't going to ask for a rest, but he'd used most of his water, except for a little he kept in case she needed it. Not that he imagined she'd ask. But enough unusual things had happened to them over the past twenty-four hours; he wasn't guaranteeing they wouldn't have more excitement.

‘There looks to be a subtropical pocket ahead, that's promising,' she said, and he could hear the note of weariness in her voice. Strangely, his own tiredness seemed to melt away and he quickened his step. ‘Let me lead for a while—I can see where you mean—and you might catch a little shade from my back.'

‘I'm fine.'

‘I know. You're amazing. Let me do this bit until we stop. Give me your pack.' When she hesitated, he added, ‘For goodness sake, let me feel a little useful.'

‘Fine.' She stopped and he overtook her, glancing at her face as he passed. Her cheeks were pink with the heat, and she didn't meet his eyes, but she looked tired, then he was past and she fell into step behind him.

Within half an hour they'd moved from the grass of the plains to the spiral Pandanas of the semi-rainforest, and not much further on they found larger boulders and finally a small pool of algoid water.

The creek bed sloped up the gully and Sophie pointed to the narrowing gorge higher up. ‘If we climb a little we'll find cleaner water, and it's probably worth the effort. We'll stay here for a couple of hours until the sun is well behind our backs.'

They both needed to rest, which would be hard with the idea of Odette still back at the wreck site, but Sophie was as aware of that as he.

‘No problem,' Levi said. ‘You said you'd find water. This place is amazing.' He looked around at the narrow strip of tropical foliage which seemed so out of place in the arid areas they'd just trekked through. There was a definite line where wet met dry and the rest of the gorge stretched away from them back to the plain of red dirt and spinifex.

He heaved himself up and around a few larger boulders and the subtle sound of running water gurgled more loudly.

‘The flow must have disappeared into an underground creek because there's no flow further down,' she said.

He looked back and all he could see, water wise, was the green pool. She was a cluey little thing.

One last steep-sided boulder, room-size, stood between them and a ring of promising palm trees, but it was too high to step up onto. He wedged himself between the gorge wall and the boulder and crab walked up the gap, and he was quietly pleased he'd mastered the indoor rock climbing he enjoyed in his youth. Crumbly rock grated against his arm as he heaved himself up and it felt good to do something physical apart from walking. When he craned his neck back the sky was decorated with a palm tree on an impossible angle that arched for the sun.

Then he was up. Not easy but worth it. ‘This is great,' he called down to her. The rocky pool lay fringed with ferns. Set deep in the gully under the fuzzy roots of an outstretched palm was a big bath-size rock pool catching the water from above.

‘The water's clean and deep.'

When he turned to offer his hand, he expected her to shimmy up with his support, but she hesitated and turned her head to search for an alternative route, which was crazy when he could see her shoulders droop with weariness. Stubborn little thing.

He felt another spurt of impatience with her reluctance to touch him. His hand fell as he considered her refusal. There was a limit to independence. He'd thought they'd got over that in the walk. Some of his pleasure in the spot dissipated but he tried to keep his voice reasonable.

‘I don't bite.' He held his hand out again. ‘There's a nice pool up here. Why skin your knees when I can help you up?'

She brushed the hair from her face and looked at him, as if measuring the danger, and the skidding of her eyes confirmed it was the idea of contact that had her worried. He didn't get it.

‘You're right,' she said. Finally she took his hand, and he was surprised at how much that meant that she'd decided to trust him. It was a beginning but he wasn't sure of what.

He lifted her easily, which helped his ego no end, and he acknowledged to himself he was a sad case, until she was balanced on the rock beside him and could see the pool and the tiny waterfall at one end.

‘Nice.' A tired smile. ‘Thanks,' and she moved from him to the other side of the pool, well away from his zone.

They both looked at the pool, he from his side and she from hers. Tiny fish flickered at the edge of the water and the gurgle of the water over rocks from the waterfall dominated the sounds of the bush.

He crouched down and rinsed his water bottle before he drank deeply, then refilled the one in his bag as well. She did the same and he looked across the small expanse of water at her bent head. He didn't get why she was so quiet. ‘Is there something you're worried about or not telling me?'

She jumped. He saw it. ‘What?' Her voice faltered
and then strengthened. ‘You mean apart from falling out of the sky? Or having to trek in the sun through a desert to get help?' She raised her eyebrows. ‘No. Why should I be worried?'

She had a point but the answer was too glib. He guessed her issues weren't for sharing, then. ‘Fine.' He should leave her be, stop trying to get her attention. The woman could make him edgy and awkward like a pimply teenager and he didn't like the sensation. He undid his laces and slipped off his boots and socks. Then he pulled his shirt off. When he reached for his shorts she squeaked and he looked across.

Her eyes had widened. ‘What are you doing?'

He stopped and looked around for a reason he shouldn't. ‘Bathing. I'm hot and bothered and it looks good.' He raised his eyebrows. ‘Is there a problem?'

‘Only if you take much more off.' She looked away. ‘I'm not used to men stripping in front of me.'

No one had ever complained about his body before. He slid his shorts down and stepped out of them. His boxers were black and perfectly discreet. ‘I'll keep that in mind,' he said as he balanced precariously on the uneven stones at the edge of the pool. He realised he had his belly sucked in and almost blew it by laughing out loud. She wouldn't be looking anyway.

He'd turned into a peacock but reality was bringing him down. ‘These rocks are nasty on bare feet.' In fact, they hurt like hell as he tried to ease into the water with
out damage to his toes. The rocks shifted and poked him, as if they were intent on unbalancing him.

He'd have to describe the smile she gave him as evil. ‘Yes, aren't they?' She sat without making any move to undress.

She had to be as hot as he was. ‘You coming in?'

‘I'll see if anything bites you first.' Her voice was deadpan and he had no idea if she was serious or not.

Nice. ‘What happened to the lady who said I did a good job of landing the chopper?'

Sophie didn't know. All of a sudden she was fighting to keep distance from him and it was getting harder and harder. She wasn't sure when it happened. Just little moments from after the crash when he'd given her that extra bit of support. An embrace, held her shirt.

Or this morning when she knew he'd be as hot as she was, and never complained once so that she had to keep reminding herself that he was from the city and wasn't used to their headlong scramble over the plains and gorges. He probably worked out on some treadmill in a swanky gym for hours like Brad had.

But she thought the big moment had been when he'd suggested she walk behind him to shade her from the sun and offered to carry her bag. The idea was sweet, and thoughtful, useless because the sun had been overhead, but still… Then that was followed by the constant view of sinewy ripples of muscle in his shoulders through his shirt and strong, determined thighs in his jeans as he walked ahead of her. Not fair.

How was a girl supposed to keep her head when he looked so darn strong and confident? She was tired and starting to doubt that she would be able to find the tribe and shouldn't have agreed to leave Odette in case she birthed with just Smiley there.

And just now, when he'd reached down with those big, capable hands, when he was supposed to be city soft and reliant on her, she knew if she let him she'd just sail to the top of the rock with no effort. That was when she'd got scared. When she'd started to realise he was occupying too much of her mind space.

In fact, nearly all of her mind, as she blanked out the horror of the past twenty-four hours and the fear that she'd made some dangerously bad decisions.

That sort of thing would make you think of mortality, with the good things in life she'd like to taste before the end.

But this wasn't the end. This was just a scary interlude and they would get help, and Odette would be fine. Levi and his sister would fly back to Sydney in a few days and everyone in the Kimberleys would forget them. Even Sophie Sullivan. And they would forget her.

Levi's voice broke into her thoughts. ‘I said, nothing bit me, are you coming in?'

She wouldn't mind but it was a very small pool. ‘It looks cold.'

L
EVI
floated on his back which gave her too good a view of his chest and shoulders. She swallowed. She'd known it. Levi without his shirt was a bad thing. ‘Deliciously cool and I feel one hundred percent better than I did before I got in,' he said lazily.

His hair was plastered to his head and droplets ran down his strong chin and dripped onto his chest, and she couldn't help comparing him to Brad. Poor Brad.

Levi had corded bulk, not just smooth skin, and the ripples and dips of his six-pack made even Smiley look like a kid. Her stomach knotted and she looked away. She'd never seen such a discreetly muscular man in her life and no matter how much she tried to lie to herself she couldn't help but find him powerfully attractive.

If she got in she could float with her face away from him, whereas it would look silly for her to turn her back now, and he'd already seen her bra.

‘Turn around, then.' She waited until his water-speckled back teased her again and then hurriedly
stripped off her shoes and socks and trousers, and draped her shirt close to the edge where she could get it as soon as she left the water.

She eased herself down on her bottom. She'd been bruised before by the piled rocks getting into pools, and local knowledge suggested sliding in from a low height.

The bottom of the pool would only be waist height if she were to stand but deep enough to hide under, and oh so cool and wonderful after the distance they'd walked in the heat this morning.

The water eddied up her legs and thighs with delicious coolness. Her breath sucked in as the water passed her stomach and breasts, and then came the final shiver as she submerged her shoulders until only her nose and eyes were showing. Not much for him to look at.

She surfaced her mouth again, enough to say, ‘I'm in,' and then sank back to nose level.

‘You sure you can breathe?' His eyes laughed at her and his mouth curved in that killer smile she'd known would be lethal. Now he had to pull that one out of his arsenal. Darn him.

‘What happens if I make a wave?' He crossed his hands and threatened to ripple the water and sink her.

She tried to imagine him as a scrubby toddler, as Odette's teasing brother, as anything but the hunk across from her. She pulled her mouth out of the water. ‘Some boys never grow up. Once a bully, always a bully. I bet you were the head of the pack at school. One of those boys who tell everyone else what to do.'

They'd floated quite close now—she on her front using her hands along the bottom in the shallow places to drift around the pool. The brilliant idea of maintaining distance and turning her back had been forgotten as she waited, surprisingly intrigued, for him to answer.

A shadow passed his face. ‘Being at the top of the pile is much more comfortable than being on the bottom. But I'm not a bully.'

She sniffed and paddled some more. ‘That's what all bullies say.'

He shook his head. ‘My father bullied my mother, even into another baby when she wasn't well enough to have one—Odette—until it killed her, and I swore I'd never condone it. Apparently my grandfather, a very rich man who didn't need to be grasping, was not a nice person either, so maybe he got it from there.'

A tantalising glimpse at the life of Levi the child was not something she'd expected and it touched a maternal instinct bone she didn't know she had. And didn't need. Please don't tell me more. She didn't want to know. Really she didn't.

A wild budgerigar, bright green and busy, hopped with his mate and chattered in a tree above their heads and she gazed up at it, trying to form the sentence to change the subject. ‘Did he make life hard for you?' Not the words she intended.

‘Not me. While I was young and vulnerable I wasn't there enough to be harmed by my father. I had an older brother who bore the brunt in holidays. Kyle was one
of life's gentle men who shielded me. He made sure I knew the difference between good and bad behaviour and what was right. I'm eternally grateful to him for that.'

‘You said “had”?'

He looked through her. ‘He died, when I was thirteen. He had macular degeneration, went blind, then stepped out in front of a truck. My father said Kyle knew the truck was coming. I called him a liar.' He fingered the scar on his chin.

Sophie wanted to reach out and comfort him. ‘What do
you
say?'

He focused on her face. ‘Never. Kyle hated being blind but he loved us too much to think of leaving us alone.'

She could easily imagine how awful it would be for a young boy losing his big brother, after losing his mother.

‘I took over the protector role and made sure Odette was never worried by him.' He rubbed the scar again and she wondered if that was how he got it. No wonder he worried about Odette. He'd feel he had to do for her what Kyle had done for him.

‘That's a terrible tragedy for your family to go through.'

He shrugged. ‘Even the strongest of us are shaped by events in our childhood.' He shook the droplets of water from his hair as if to shake off the past. ‘What about you? There's just you and William?'

She sank back further in the water, loosening her neck as she realised she'd tensed her shoulders while he'd shared his past. ‘Just Smiley and me. Our parents died four years ago—truck accident—so I guess we were lucky we weren't children. Smiley's easy to live with and we both have work we love.'

‘Smiley. Great name.'

A vision of her brother, tall and serious, with just a twinkle in his eye to let her know he found something she'd said amusing, was the one solid thing in her life. The one person she could trust. But she couldn't quiet that voice that said there were facets in Levi that appealed to her, and not just the external ones, and maybe she could learn to trust him too.

He floated to the edge of the pool and rested his back against a flat rock while he considered her. ‘So who let you down and broke your heart?'

Just when she thought she might trust him. ‘What makes you think my heart's been broken?'

He shrugged. ‘OK. So who let you down?'

She never talked about it. Smiley hadn't asked. Her friend, Kate, had a new baby on the way and was immersed in her new husband. Kate didn't need Sophie's baggage. She'd come back from Perth and buried the lot.

Suddenly it was easy to talk. ‘Some guy I worked with.' Was he really interested in this? She glanced across at him and then away. Something in his face told her he hadn't asked her lightly. That he genuinely
wanted to understand and she guessed it would help explain why she was the way she was.

The picture of Brad in her mind wasn't quite as sharp as it had been. One good thing. ‘He was the head of Obstetrics, in my training hospital actually. Born in Australia but his parents were wealthy immigrants. He never talked about where their money came from. I guess he grew up with different values than I did.'

‘In what way?' He asked the question quietly, not demanding. If she didn't want to answer she didn't have to, but maybe she needed to clarify what went wrong in her own mind.

‘The way he treated people.' Yep, that was what she'd disliked the most. ‘Like they were servants under his feet. He wanted old money joined with his new wealth. I kept telling him I had no money, but he was so impressed that my great-great-grandfather was one of the first settlers in Western Australia. Kept telling people when he introduced me. That I had a history his family didn't have. Had this funny idea that because two generations ago my great-grandfather opened up the Kimberleys it made me almost outback royalty.'

‘Princess Sophie,' he teased.

‘Yeah, right. Not a lot of call for a crown out here in the heat and the dust.'

He shredded a leaf while he listened. ‘So what attracted you to him?'

She looked past Levi into the fronds behind him. ‘The usual, I guess. Not that I'd actually fallen for any
one like him before. He was good-looking, quite powerful, and in the beginning he wanted to do the things I really enjoyed.' She shrugged. ‘He courted me—the old-fashioned way—and I liked that.' She avoided his eyes. ‘I'm not a person who is easy with casual sex.'

She looked up to see him slap his own hand. ‘I'd never have guessed.' She'd swear he was laughing at her but it was strangely liberating to say the things she hadn't said out loud before.

She pulled a face. ‘And you're a smart alec.'

He held his hands up. ‘I'm sorry. Couldn't resist. So what happened?'

She couldn't believe she was talking about this. ‘He changed. Oh, he started off doing the things I wanted to do. Walks, sailing, museums, but really he wanted great restaurants, opening-night shows, to be seen. To show me off on his arm. Don't get me wrong, that was nice too, but when I agreed to marry him it was as if he lost respect for me. I became his property.' And he demanded the sex I hadn't felt ready for, but she didn't say that. ‘I had to wear the clothes he bought me. Sign the prenuptial agreement. He'd check my jewellery and shoes and handbag and make sure I had it all coordinated. Had to attend the chosen beauty salon once a week, and he began to talk about me giving up my job.'

Levi whistled. ‘That's a few rules.'

‘Tell me about it.'

Then Levi asked, ‘Did you ever love him?' She
really didn't know. She'd thought she had, would have sworn it when they became engaged, but she could see now the unease that had grown enormous had always been there from the beginning.

‘I must have because I put up with my reservations by thinking he knew better. Then he began to phone me any time day or night on my mobile. Keeping track. Started this campaign of speak when spoken to.'

‘That must have been hard.' Levi tried to keep the smile hidden but he could feel his lips twitch.

She frowned and then reluctantly smiled. He guessed she hadn't succeeded. ‘My word it was.'

Not a nice man for Sophie. No wonder she jumped half the time. Levi knew those kinds of men. Image was all-important. And the women had to be aware of the rules. Rules that didn't apply to the men.

He asked the hard one. ‘And was he faithful?'

‘I thought so.' She looked away. ‘I was a fool.'

Levi saw the flash of hurt. The fact that she went on said a lot for her strength and honesty and he had a sudden desire to meet and deal with the jerk for her. And comfort Sophie.

‘He'd been sleeping with his secretary the whole time. So everyone knew. He'd told more lies than rocks in this pool.' She glanced at the pebble-lined bath they lay in. ‘Apparently it'd been going on for years but he'd never offered to marry her.' Sophie shook her head. ‘What offended me the most was his girlfriend wasn't good enough to marry—only to sleep with. Creep.'

Maybe Sophie had given him what he deserved anyway. He wouldn't put it past her. ‘What did you do?'

‘I sold his ring and gave the money to the homeless. I told him and then I came back home. To Smiley. Got on with my life in a place where people say what they mean and don't cheat. And with a chip on my shoulder about wealthy doctors who lie.'

Levi looked away and winced. Well, he was screwed.

She should shut up. What on earth had she told him all that for and made herself vulnerable again? It had been a dismal time. Best to change the subject.

‘Home was good. My brother never said a thing. Except “shortest engagement in history.” He's so deadpan most of the time, you never know what's going on in his head, though apparently your sister can read him. I've never seen him as animated as the other night at Xanadu.'

Levi shrugged but there was a tiny frown between his eyes. ‘Odette likes him a lot.'

‘I don't think you could get two people more dissimilar in upbringing.' Her forehead wrinkled despite the effort not to. So Levi recognised her misgivings and maybe had a few of his own. Good. It would never work.

Levi shook his head. ‘Before she met the father of her baby I'd agree with you. That's my greatest regret so far, that I didn't keep her safe from men like him. Tom was a dangerous and malicious clown and no loss
to his unborn child, I'm afraid. I think your brother is restoring Odette's faith in chivalrous men.' He grinned. ‘And she's pregnant. No harm can be done.'

Chivalrous. Such an old-fashioned word but, in this context, perfect. The description of Smiley. ‘Are you chivalrous?' It popped out like froth from the waterfall and subtly the mood in the pool changed.

‘Sometimes. Before I became tired and jaded.'

She let his words flow over her to think about later. Suddenly she was thinking about the way his mouth moved and that curve to his lips that she was finally seeing more of. He'd been expressionless most of the time since that first day.

Originally she'd thought him moody but apparently he'd been worry worn. Well, he was pretty focused right now. She could feel the brush of his perusal as he tilted his head and smiled with that devilish curve to his dangerous mouth.

Time to break back to the previous mood, she thought with a little spurt of panic. ‘So what made you tired and jaded?'

The smile straightened and disappeared. ‘Someone died two years ago. In a way that affected how I thought about my achievements. I've been running on the treadmill since. But I won't bore you with it.'

Boring me might be safer, she thought but she didn't say it. Couldn't make the effort to turn the tide of awareness she'd begun to drift in.

He floated across the pool and closed in on her. His
eyes seemed darker and his lips parted as if he might whisper something—or do something else…

‘I must admit I feel more alive than I have in a long time,' he said, and she felt the pricks of gooseflesh along her shoulders and arms.

She tried to move away but her body felt so heavy in the water she barely moved. Sound had receded and even the water temperature faded. ‘Might be something to do with the fact we nearly died yesterday.' Now her voice sounded breathy and unsure.