“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.”
“Why is that?”
“Flying takes control and discipline, and from what I’ve seen so far, you lack both in spades.”
In contrast to
her strong words, the young, beautiful Dr. Stanwood seemed anything but uppity. Like it was an act—a cloak that belonged to someone else. She clasped her fingers together in front of her waist as if to keep from fidgeting.
Paul couldn’t help himself. He enjoyed the nervous play of light in her deep, dark eyes. Instead of looking at him, she obviously tried to look through him, at the wall to his left, or at the old wooden steps. “Don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel about me,” he chuckled. Not that she needed to reiterate. He pushed off the doorjamb and joined her in the garden. Surrounded by Doc’s prized roses, she was still the most beautiful thing in sight.
“I’m not sure I like the idea of flying all over Australia with a man who drinks and wrestles crocodiles on a whim. It’s hardly responsible behavior.”
“Responsible?” He brushed a strand of shortened, black hair away from her high cheekbone. “Responsibility has its merits, I suppose. But sometimes, one must simply grasp the moment, mustn’t they?”
She was completely flustered. If her hair could panic, the neatly cropped strands would be bursting into flames and leaping to the ground like little fiery raindrops. Cute didn’t come close to describing her.
Still, the look in her eyes told him he’d hit a nerve. Everything about her screamed that she was as big a risk taker as he was. Even he could tell she didn’t think he was irresponsible. No, Helen was a modern woman with her own mind, her own set of rules. From the significantly modern clothing she wore, to the bobbed hairstyle that obviously refused to give up its curl, she was a woman of means and dedication. She dressed in the masculine-cut dresses more popular in the big smokes of Sydney or Perth, and even bound her breasts, considering she’d been much … fuller last night. Shameful practice, that. He much preferred the curves she’d displayed in her nightdress.
Yes, there was an adventurous side to Dr. Stanwood. It was there, in her eyes, for as brief a moment as it takes a raindrop to land on the river.
Then it all disappeared behind a storm cloud of self-doubt. She frowned, and the light vanished. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” She brushed past him and hurried up the steps into the back hall, her delectable rear bouncing from one side to the other.
For a moment, after she’d disappeared into the building, Paul leaned against the railing. Had he said something wrong? One second, she’d been scolding him like a mother tigress, and the next, she’d looked as if she’d just lost her best friend. There was more to her than met the eye. Of that he was certain. And he couldn’t wait to find out what it was.
There was no better place to begin than the man who’d invited the little hellcat into his life. He pushed away from the stairs and slid next to Doc, making a mental note to return later with a hammer and nails to repair the loose boards.
The old man concentrated on his herbs, not looking up until Paul had reached his side and leaned on the workbench. “So, Doc. ‘Fess up.”
“About what?” Doc left the workbench and headed to the far side of his prized sanctuary.
Paul followed. “What do you mean, ‘About what’? About her, you cheeky bastard.”
“Who? Helen?”
“Aye. Helen.”
“I told you. She’s the daughter of an old colleague of mine. I attended a series of lectures in the United States … oh, it must be twenty years ago now. Helen was little more than baby then. Her father and I shared a passion for herbology, among other things, and we’ve kept in touch over the years.”
“She’s a right nice piece of work, isn’t she?”
Doc smiled, glancing at the back of the house. “She looks very much like her mother.” He collected the watering can and returned it to the crate Paul had built the previous summer to house the old physician’s tools.
Paul used his good arm to heave a canvas bag of potting soil to his shoulder and followed. “There’s a story behind her, isn’t there?” he asked.
“Oh, you won’t find me carrying tales,” Doc replied, lifting his hands in a motion of absolute surrender. When he saw the bag, his composure stiffened. “Put that down. You’ll tear open all of Helen’s stitches.”
“No worries. I’m still whole. Now, tell me more about the girl.”
“Oh, no. If you want to find out more about Helen, I’m afraid you’ll have to ask her.”
Gazing at the back of the house as though he could see through the planked walls, Paul made the decision to do exactly that. Right after he’d made riotous love to her.
3
Church was something Paul usually avoided. Not from any dislike or even disrespect for the beliefs that went along with attending services every Sunday at ten in the morning. Neither did he avoid it like many of the men in the community—because they’d had too much to drink at the boozer on Saturday night and couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed quite so early on Sunday.
He preferred to spend his spirituality elsewhere, that’s all. In the sky, flying over the Great Sandy Desert where there was nothing but pure, clean sunlight, or at night flying along the coastline to Perth for supplies. At night, the silence was so formidable, he sometimes felt like he could touch it. Hiking along the Coongan River, playing with the small children of his closest friends, Dale and Emily Winters, giving his mother a kiss on the cheek before she retired for the evening—those were the places he found his spirit, his God. Meeting on Sunday to brag to others about how religious and pious one was had little to do with God or spirituality or anything common to his way of thinking.
But he sat in the meeting this morning. He tugged at his shirt collar and craned his neck. It was hot. Stuffy. The choir sang “Amazing Grace,” off-key, and Reverend Taylor, towering above the congregation, not only because his pulpit stood a good five feet off the floor, but because he stood six-and-a-half feet tall himself, delivered a sermon meant to frighten every man, woman, and child present to immediately repent.
Paul listened for a while, but he wasn’t there for the lecture or the music. Three pews in front of him, next to Doc Mallory and his elderly sister, sat the reason he’d risen, shaved, dusted off his suit coat and patent leather shoes, and hauled himself to the First Church of Christ of Port Hedland.
When Reverend Taylor finally offered the benediction, the choir sang one more hymn, leading the congregation outside. Paul waited in his pew until Helen and her companions had passed, then slid into the exiting flow directly behind her. Close enough to inhale the sweet, floral scent of her perfume. Outside, the sun beat down on the garden where groups of five and six people had formed. Helen stood slightly apart from Doc and his sister, who had already engrossed herself into a recitation of the sermon with two of her lady friends.
“Look who decided to come to services,” one of the ladies announced, her old, misty eyes wide with obvious shock.
Mary Mallory smiled. “And I should say it’s about time, too.”
He used their embarrassing display as an excuse to approach the small group. “I figured after last week’s brush with death, perhaps I’d better make my peace with the Almighty before it’s too late. And did you notice, the ceiling only cracked a little.” From the corner of his eye, he caught a slight movement. Helen had moved farther away, but her eyes were trained on him.
“You needn’t worry about that, young man,” Mary answered. “The doors are always open, aren’t they?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He turned his full attention to Helen. “It’s nice to see you again, Dr. Stanwood.”
“Mr. Campbell. I hope you’re taking care of yourself.”
“I am, thanks. You did fine work the other day.”
Mary and her friends whispered to each other, their smiles wide and friendly. “Why don’t you two young people go have some fun? There’s no need for you to stay here with a bunch of oldies.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I have work to do back—”
“It’s Sunday,” interrupted Doc. “You should go for a drive with Paul.”
Paul hid a smile. He’d always like
d the old doc, and now he knew precisely why.
“A drive?” Helen’s eyes brightened for a moment, then shuttered again just as quickly. “As much as I’d like to, I really can’t.”
“I’m harmless. I promise,” he prodded, winking. “I almost never bite.”
“Thank you, but no. I should get home. I have—”
“Work to do. Aye, you’ve said.” He rubbed his chin. This wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d planned. He’d hoped to take Helen out of the city and perhaps talk her into a swim at the old billabong, or at the very least, a walk along the shoreline.
“It was nice to see you again, but I must be going.” She turned around brusquely and hurried across the short, neat grass of the church’s front garden, looking more like a frightened bird than the independent woman he suspected her to be.
“Did I say something wrong?” Paul frowned. She was about the most skittish creature he’d encountered in quite a long while.
“Hurry, Paul. Catch up with her. She shouldn’t walk all that way alone,” Doc urged. “I’m going to take these ladies home and talk them out of a piece of lemon pie, I think.”
“Something tells me you’ll be having more fun than I will.”
It took only a few short moments to catch up with
Helen. She hurried along the street, clutching her bag, wearing that cute little hat that covered all of her hair except for small upward curls at the ends. What would she do if he stroked one of them again, without severe injury or too much to drink as an excuse?
She gave him no chance to find out, increasing her pace along the street.
“You walk pretty fast for a little thing. What’s your rush?”
“Why are you following me?” She didn’t look at him, keeping her stern gaze focused directly in front of her.
“Doc told me to. He didn’t want you walking home alone.”
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Mr. Campbell.”
“Paul.
“What?”
“My name is Paul.”
“Of course. Paul. You can go collect your motorcar, now.”
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