The Flyer (28 page)

She couldn’t find the source of the strange sound, however.

Then Paul lifted a long object to his mouth. He wrapped his lips around a protruding element at one end, and blew. The sound resumed. Clicking and chirping, the broken music soon grew to a delightful and mysterious calling, as though he didn’t play the notes for anyone who could actually hear them. No, he played for the gods, or the clouds, or the trees. His body, swaying ever so slightly with his efforts, absorbed the music, and it was as though he became one with the very trees who listened.

Helen shook her head. The landscape and mystery of Australia had obviously worked its way into her mind and driven her a bit batty.

Trees couldn’t listen to music, no matter how ancient that music might be. She almost laughed at herself, but turned away from the obviously private gathering instead.

The music stopped, and she turned back to the fire circle. Paul was gone. Where could he have vanished to so quickly?

She was tired. Her mind was playing tricks on her, that’s all. Still…

“Would you like to see something?” Paul asked.

Helen nearly leapt out of her boots. “Where did you come from?” She laughed.

“I saw you peeking through the trees. How’s Dju?”

“He’ll be fine once we get him back to Port Hedland.”

“That’s good. The elders are praying for him.” Paul nodded at the men around the fire. “They’ve asked the Ancestors to guide the woman doctor.”

“Have they?” She smiled. At least someone had faith in her. “What did you want to show me?”

“It’s this way. Come on.”

Paul took her hand, leading her through the trees that bordered the river until they left the forest and climbed a tall rock outcropping.

“There isn’t a cliff on the other side of this one, is there?”

Paul smiled down at her, the moonlight shifting over his features and adding an ethereal quality to his expression. “Promise. No cliffs.”

When they reached the top, Helen’s breath caught. It was like standing on the edge of the world. Black desert stretched as far as she could see until it met with the edge of the stars. The night sky rose above her, a million stars all winking at once. “This is amazing.”

“There’s no other place like it in the world. No place that makes me feel as safe as this one.”

“Safe,” she repeated in a whisper.

“You are safe here, Doc. I want you to know that. No matter what brought you here, and I’m finished asking you about that, by the way, you will always be safe here.”

“I know.” With effort, she pulled her attention from the enormous view and looked at Paul. “But it isn’t this place, or whatever magic it has for you, that makes me feel safe, Paul. It’s you.”

“Good,” he quipped, wrapping his arms around her and dragging her back against his chest.

“Why are you finished asking me about why I came here?” she asked, suddenly curious.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve got you now, Doc. And I’m not letting you go, so what difference does it make?”

“Are you afraid you won’t want me anymore if you know the whole story?”

“Not a chance, love.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“I had to leave San Francisco because I couldn’t live any longer around the man who broke my heart.” She closed her eyes, expecting Paul to pull away at any moment.

He didn’t. Instead, he held her closer. “I figured as much. Crikey, what a stupid bugger he must have been.”

She opened her eyes again, staring straight ahead. She was too frightened to twist around and face him. “That’s it? ‘Stupid bugger’?”

“We’re not children, Doc. I don’t have any preconceived notions about who you are, any more than I have preconceived notions about who I am. After last night, we both know you weren’t a virgin. I’m not the jealous type.”

“I was so scared you’d hate me.”

“Never.”

“The thing is, I thought I was in love.”

“Then you probably were.”

“No, now that I look back, I don’t think I was. I didn’t know what love was. I knew what fun was,” she laughed. “I could stay out dancing all night and still attend classes in the morning, and pass them. Gads, how did I ever do it?” A sigh formed in her chest. She had grown even more tired just thinking about her life back then. “He was older than me. Much older. I think he wanted to feel young again and saw me as the stupid little girl I was.”

Paul’s chest muscles tensed behind her back.

He was angry. He could say he didn’t care one way or another, but in the end, he was like all men. Jealous and angry and petty. She couldn’t blame him, really. Hadn’t this been what she feared would happen? As soon as she decided to give herself to him, to divulge her secrets, he would shut her out and break her heart.

“That’s all in the past, though, like you said.” She shrugged. “We have each other now, and that’s all that matters.”

The night grew silent around them, as though the stars held their breath. Finally, Paul relaxed. “Too right, love. That’s all that matters now.”

Stupid mistakes.

How many times had he emphasized to his students the importance of being careful? One must continually pay attention to one’s surroundings. Awareness was key. Don’t wander into town without an escort, and pay attention to the laws of the land, both natural and man-made, or something terrible could happen.
Don’t allow anyone to make you feel inferior. Always listen to your instincts. Stupid mistakes can get you killed
.

Ironically, these were the lessons Djuru had learned from his father. That, and how to climb down the side of a cliff to gather eagles’ eggs. If he’d checked the direction of the wind gusts … if he’d verified that the mother eagle hadn’t been anywhere near the nest…

He might not be lying in a bed, practically tied to the headboard.

Djuru stared at the ceiling of old Doc’s clinic. His leg, broken in three places, had been set and wrapped in a hard, plaster cast. Currently it rested on a stack of soft feather pillows and hurt like the bloody blazes. He’d been lectured to within an inch of his life.

If one more person told him he’d been a fool, he’d bloody well put his fist through a wall. He laughed. He couldn’t even reach the wall.

The door opened, and Nanara strode into the room, carrying a basin. She looked different. Her hair was piled neatly at the back of her head. She was wearing a dress…

He raised his eyebrows and released a slow whistle. “You clean up right nicely, don’t you?”

“I suppose that would be the laudanum talking, wouldn’t it, Dju?”

“What was that?”

“You’ve taken something for the pain in your leg. It can sometimes affect how you see things,” she replied, setting the basin on the dresser and dipping a rag into what looked like water when she wrung it out.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I see things just fine.”

“Well, good. I’m happy to hear it.” She placed the rag on the dresser and faced him squarely. Hands on hips … rather nice hips. How had he never noticed them before now? Her dress was dark gray with a wide black belt. The bodice was severe, too severe for one so pretty.

Much like the men’s clothing she usually wore at the sheep station. Still, he’d never seen her in a dress before.

“Time to get started. You can’t sit around looking like you do if you’re going to be spending time here.”

“Started with what?” He smiled. She had nice eyes. He’d never taken the time to look at them before. He’d been too busy avoiding her. To think, they should be married by now.

It had mattered not a whit when they’d been children. Climbing rocks and idolizing his father as though the old bastard were an Ancestor come to life. In those days, the thought of leaving the old ways never entered his mind. Life had been simple. Nanara had been his friend. That all changed the day his father had told him they would marry before the next moon. As though he would marry a Jillaroo when he’d had a perfectly fine woman, a real woman who wore skirts and fanned herself when it was too hot and put ribbons in her hair…

Of course, he’d never really had her. No, she’d liked the idea of rolling about in the bush with him, but when it had come time to grow up? She’d wanted no part of him.

My father would kill me … he’d kill you, Djuru … if he knew I was with a blackfella. You know that as well as I do.

She’d been right, of course. But it hadn’t made it hurt any less.

“I can see you’ll be no help at all, will you?” Nanara sighed. “Sit up if you can manage it.”

He obeyed, though he wasn’t quite sure why. The room spun slightly but whatever drug they’d given him hadn’t affected his vision. Or his ability to shudder as the clean scent of soap and roses washed over him when Nanara came closer to stack pillows behind his head. She stripped the oversized, open-backed garment Helen had forced him to wear when he’d arrived this morning. That left him naked with nothing but a thin sheet to cover his privates.

Reclining to his pillow, he opened his arms. “Do with me what you will, lady.” He laughed again. Crikey. The drugs must be more powerful than he’d thought.

Nanara shook her head. “I don’t think you want me to do that, Djuru. Honestly.”

“You’re not still sore at me because I ran away, are you?” He leaned awkwardly on one elbow, and the room spun again.

Her answer came in the form of her hand shoving him back to the pillow. Not gently, either.

“Aye. You’re still sore.”

She brought the basin to the bed and picked up the cloth.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s bathtime.”

She began scrubbing the ceremonial mud from his chest, taking no heed of the fact that some of it had become stuck to the hairs on his chest. She had the bedside manner of a brown snake and the demeanor of a wild dingo. “Bloody hell, woman! Do you plan to leave any flesh behind?”

“This is a hospital, of sorts. The closest thing we have to one, anyway, and we need to make sure you’re nice and clean while you’re here.”

“I am clean. Crikey, I took a bath yesterday, not ten bloody years ago. Ouch!”

Nanara had turned her attention to his arms, scraping more than washing. The set of her mouth, and the tiny muscle that leapt in her jaw, told him she was far from finished. With stiff movements, tense and barely in check, she dipped the cloth into the water and resumed the torture.

His eyes fell to the sheet over his waist a second before she reached for it. He yanked the edge of the sheet higher and fisted his hands around it. “Not on your bloody life,” he growled.

“Don’t be a child. I’m a nurse.”

“Three weeks ago, you were a bloody Jillaroo, and you’re not coming anywhere near my willy!”

“Stop shouting!”

“I’m not shouting. I’m panicking!”

Nanara sighed. “All right. I promise to be gentle.”

“I’m capable of washing myself, if you don’t mind.”

“What are you so afraid of, Dju? Do you think I won’t be sufficiently impressed?” One of her eyebrows rose above the other while she pinned him with an accusing glare.

He narrowed his gaze and released the sheet. The last time she’d seen him naked, they’d been little more than ankle biters swimming in the river, unaware of the ways of men and women. “Behave yourself, Nanara. I mean it.”

With a look of pure satisfaction, as though she’d won some major battle, she pulled the sheet away.

She tried to hide it, but her eyes grew slightly wider. Nice little ego boost, that, he mused.

“Happy?”

“Don’t be a goose, Djuru. I’m a nurse.”

Hesitating for a moment, she continued his bath. Maybe it was whatever concoction Doc had given him for the pain, or maybe it was because he hadn’t actually had a woman in more months than he cared to remember, but something changed. The tension in the room dissipated beneath her touch.

He shifted on the bed, blood rushing through his veins with more urgency than a few minutes before.

Crikey. This shouldn’t be happening. It was a bath. Not a…

“Are you about done there, love?” he grunted.

“Nearly,” she replied in a singsong voice that told him she knew exactly what effect she was having on him. Bloody hell.

His gaze fell on the sway of her skirt as she worked. From there, it was only natural to follow the folds to her hip, rounded and full. She’d left the clan and started working at Castle-Winters when she was a young girl, barely a woman. That was before she’d filled out. Before she’d grown breasts that suddenly teased him.

She was a beautiful woman. She had a fire and ambition he’d never noticed before.

She looked bloody good in a dress.

What would she look like without the dress?

Crikey! “We’re done now,” he announced, forcing himself to sit up enough to catch the sheet and pull it to his waist.

“I wasn’t finished.”

“No worries. I won’t tell anyone,” he quipped.

He wasn’t worried about her finishing. He was worried about himself.

13