The Midwife and the Millionaire (10 page)

‘Aye. But you weren't. So no use worryin' about the ones that go good like they're supposed to.' He pulled his hand antiseptic from his pocket and offered it to Sophie and she lathered herself. Unimaginable luxury.

Dr Jock inclined his head towards the tree. ‘So who's this big fella and how're you two here?'

She shook her head. She didn't want to talk about it. ‘He'll fill you in. Have you room for us?'

He looked at the plane. ‘Och, no, not for two, but we can contact the Bungles and they'll fly in and get him. We'll have to take the mother and bairn or she'll have no care if either get sick.' He gave her a searching look. ‘I'm thinkin' you need to come with us.' Then he crossed to where Levi was talking to the pilot under the tree with a map spread between them.

Fifteen minutes later, Sophie joined Pearl and her
baby in the RFDS plane with Dr Jock, while the nurse rode up front with the pilot.

Levi had been in contact with a helicopter service at the Bungles who were en route to pick him up. Another had flown to the crash site. More red tape would follow at a later date, but for the moment Odette and Smiley were on their way back to the hospital at Kununurra and Sophie could drop the last of her responsibilities.

An hour later she finally stepped out of the plane at the airport in Kununurra too. But it wasn't where she wanted to be. She ached to go home, back to her own space, a place to hide and lick her wounds and take stock of the new disaster she'd brought on herself, but she'd have to wait for the hospital to release her brother.

The nurse from the flight lent her flat keys and spare clothes, and Sophie spent an hour soaking red dust from her legs and her hair in a long bath that should have relaxed her but didn't.

She could hear the sound of helicopters taking off and landing at the airfield across the road and the sound grated across her ears like gravel over her skin. No doubt one of them held
him
. All the time she wished she'd never let her guard down—couldn't believe she'd done it again, fallen for the words and caresses of a smooth-talking liar. But never again.

 

Levi watched the entrance to the hospital as cars with lights drove up and deposited people. Watched every
taxi, truck and bus that pulled up. He watched families walking and couples talking and single women who didn't matter, but nowhere did he see a ponytail in an Akubra hat that quickened his heart.

It was night now but this day never seemed to end. He'd spent an hour at the police station. The aircraft crash investigation team were coming from Perth and until then nothing could be proved, but they were on alert. He wasn't having his sister put at risk again. He'd arranged a light aircraft flight to get them all home, and told the men at Xanadu to put the lights out on the strip, as well as the men at the station township to put another set out, and he'd seen Odette and William. Neither had spotted Sophie but William had heard her on the phone.

She'd been on the ground for two hours now; he'd checked. She should be here soon.

He still didn't know what to say. She hadn't allowed him a word since he'd told her, hadn't looked at him before she left, but the hurt in her eyes had bitten harder than he'd expected. He just hoped she'd cool down and then he could explain before he had to take Odette back to Sydney.

The digital clock in the hospital foyer flashed ten past nine and a taxi pulled up. There she was. Strangely smaller than he remembered, in a pair of long trousers that didn't suit her as much as her shorts. The toss of her head when she saw him gave a pretty accurate picture of what she thought. Not a good omen for explanations.

Fair enough. Maybe he deserved it.

There was too much happening to do anything about it now but later he'd try to explain. It seemed his sister had come through the ordeal unscathed. He wasn't sure Sophie had—and it was his fault.

She lifted her hat off and held it in her hand as if to ward him off. The way she walked past him with her head down made him want to kick himself. He fell in behind her as she headed for the casualty room until he caught up. ‘You OK?'

Sophie gritted her teeth. She was fine! Was this guy for real? ‘Yes.' She didn't look at him.

‘Sophie. Let me explain.'

‘I'd prefer you didn't.' She stopped. ‘Look. Levi. Dr Whatever-your-name-is.' That was when she realised how deep the perfidy went. ‘I don't even know your last name.'

‘Pearson.'

The name rang a bell. Pearson? Pearson? But she couldn't place it. She shrugged it off with a tiny shake of her head. Was it really Pearson? Who could tell with this guy?

Levi stared down at her. ‘Don't you think you're being a little harsh, considering what we've been through together?'

‘I really don't care if you think I'm harsh. I'm tired. I'm over this. I have to see you for the next hour but I don't have to listen. I'd appreciate it if you'd respect that.'

So they sat in the waiting room, not speaking. To start with, Sophie flicked through a magazine but every page of upmarket advertisement she turned to she imagined Levi driving that car. Eating at that restaurant. Dancing with that girl. Wearing that suit.

She threw the magazine down and leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. She hadn't lost her heart to another city slicker. She hadn't.

Finally, after another torturous half hour, the patients were released. Odette hugged her and Smiley nodded and even put his hand on Sophie's shoulder and squeezed it.

‘Thanks, Sis.'

‘We were lucky,' she mumbled, and reached up and gave him a kiss. She needed to dwell on the fact that all of them were alive and that it had been pretty close. Maybe that was why she was weepy.

Sophie avoided Levi's attempt to catch her eye and she only then wondered how they were getting home. Not a helicopter, she hoped.

‘I've hired a plane to get us back,' he said, as if she'd asked the question.

She risked a glance at him and he was looking at her. ‘Thank you,' she mumbled but that was all.

Apparently Smiley would fly on to Xanadu to collect his vehicle and Sophie would be dropped home to sleep. First stop: Jabiru Station Township. Yes, please. Sophie couldn't wait.

The flight was short and when she finally closed her
front door behind her she leaned against it with a sigh. The wood was hard and scratchy from peeling paint and she rubbed her head against it as if to rub some sense into her brain. What had she done?

Sleep proved impossible after the events of the past two days and ridiculously the most disturbing factor was Levi's decision to keep her unaware of his profession. Maybe that was a concept which was totally ridiculous in the scheme of things but she couldn't help it.

She needed to get back to work and forget her adventures, her weakness and the high-flying people at Xanadu.

W
HEN
Sophie opened the front door the next morning she glanced across the street and Levi leant on the veranda rail of the clinic as if he owned it.

There he was. Designer jeans and Rolex flashing in the sunlight, and there she was, clutching her throat like a wimp.

She would have pulled back, hidden inside, if he hadn't straightened when he saw her, but it was too late. Too darn late.

Her hand shook as she pulled the door shut behind her and when she crossed the veranda it felt like a creek full of crocodiles were shifting underfoot. What could he possibly want? She hated that it mattered so much it made her tremble.

The dusty road, usually wide in the sunlight, seemed narrow today, and in far too little time she stood beside him. Just a drift of some expensive aftershave letting her know he was still way out of her league. ‘How can I help you, Doctor?'

His eyes narrowed and when he spoke his voice was very low. ‘Don't call me doctor and don't talk to me as if you don't know me.'

She blinked. Was he trying for best defence is attack? Well, she could do a little attacking of her own.

‘I thought you'd be long gone.'

He sighed. ‘I can see the thought of that upsets you no end.'

‘Hmm.' The deserted street didn't produce any distractions so she had to look at him. ‘Perhaps not.' She shrugged. Self-preservation's like that, she thought. ‘Nothing personal. How can I help you?'

‘I have to stay for the crash investigation team. It looks as if the chopper was definitely tampered with and there's a police investigation. I thought you should know.'

What? Ice trickled down her neck despite the heat. Deliberate sabotage? With a pregnant Odette on board? ‘Tampered with? That's horrible. Who'd want to do that?' She'd no idea but it seemed the concept wasn't new to him. How surprising he hadn't shared that with her earlier.

‘There's some suspicion on Steve, the resort manager. He's disappeared.'

‘Steve?' She shook her head at the crazy notion. ‘I don't understand.'

He ran his hand through his hair. ‘It's a long story.'

Long stories take time. That meant he'd stay longer and she didn't think she could take that. ‘No problem.'
She couldn't help the tiny bitterness that laced her words. She forced herself to hold out her hand and braced for that frisson she felt every time he touched her. ‘All the best, then.'

He looked down at her fingers but made no move to take her hand. ‘I was hoping we could part as more than friends.'

She shrugged, not without a little relief, and tucked her hand away safely by her side. She didn't want to be his special friend. They came from different worlds. Had different morals. ‘I don't think so.' Blowed if she'd hold her hand out again. ‘So when do you go?'

‘It's taken a day to get the team in from Perth. The preliminary reports will be through late this afternoon and we leave tomorrow. I tried to send Odette back today but she refused to go without me.'

She could understand that. Especially when she'd just found out someone tried to kill her. The idea was almost too far-fetched to believe. ‘She's been through a lot. I guess it would make anyone nervous to travel on their own, let alone in her circumstances.' Unconsciously she scrunched her hands inside her short pockets. Already her heart rate was palpable and she could feel the moisture on her skin—and still he hadn't come to the reason he was here.

He paused, waiting for her to ask him something, and when she didn't he went on, as if searching for a topic. So he wasn't comfortable either, she thought. Good.

‘At least Odette didn't have her baby in the bush. My biggest fear. She should never have travelled so far in her pregnancy. I can't believe I didn't stop her.'

To be fair, not that she really felt like it, Sophie didn't see that. Odette was pretty much her own woman and well past the age of consent. But it was none of her business. Right?

She couldn't take much more of this. ‘Why are you here?'

He stepped forward and she stepped back until her spine was against the unopened door. He cupped his fingers under her chin and gently lifted her head so that he could see straight into her face.

She wanted to shake him off but with the feel of his hand on her she lost all power. His hand was cool and firm against the heat in her skin, and his gaze captured hers as easily as when—was it only a week ago?—she'd first seen him. Despite the need to do so she couldn't look away.

Now, after the time they'd spent together, she knew his irises were rings of blue, his lashes were dark brown, not black. Memories of that time she'd felt his skin against her cheek and his mouth against hers made her shoulders droop with comfort, as if he'd done it again.

Why did he have to touch her?

Those times in Levi's arms were a whole different world—one she wasn't going to get used to—and unfortunately those few touches had been indelible. How
much more proof did she need to get out? Imagine if he could read now how much she wanted to be back in his arms.

Step sideways, move away—the litany in her head drowned out his words. But her body didn't obey. Then she tried to concentrate on what he said to block out his eyes and the feel of his hand. ‘I'm sorry you've been involved in this, Sophie. I'd like the chance to sit and talk before I go.'

Finally her body responded and she pulled her chin away and walked to the rail with her back to him. She couldn't sit and talk! No way. ‘Was there something you wanted to ask about your sister's pregnancy?'

He came to stand beside her. ‘It's nothing to do with Odette,' he said with a skyward glance of frustration. ‘It's about the way we parted after extreme circumstances and I don't like that I've upset you.'

She'd have to make a good show of it. There'd be no other way to get rid of him. She held up her hands. ‘Look. I don't want to talk about it. I'm over it.'

He searched her face. ‘I'm not.' His scrutiny seemed almost abrasive to her skin but she blocked it out. He went on. ‘What's happened to you in the past is not me. Can't you forgive me for not being more open with you?'

Nope. She was too darn scared it was the tip of the iceberg of deceit she hadn't discovered yet. Too terrified if she trusted him he would break a part of her that would never heal. She shook her head and looked back
in time to a hurt that was nothing to this. ‘I can't help how the past has shaped me. Men who can't tell the truth seem drawn to me. I've even a family history of being scammed by liars.'

She risked a glance at his face. ‘I'm a simple girl, Levi. I say what I mean. I want you to go.'

He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘What do you want me to say, Sophie? I'm sorry I misled you but there are things going on here you don't know about, and if I tell you, then you could be in danger.'

She shook her head. Not good enough. ‘There's nothing more to say, then.'

He frowned at her. ‘You're not giving me a chance.'

‘Tough.' She shrugged her shoulders at him but they felt as heavy as if she carried a yoke with two loaded buckets. When he raised his brows at her, as though she was the one being childish, she actually felt like a child. A small one. Who'd discovered the world wasn't magical any more.

He'd tricked her just when she'd started to believe she might have found a man she could trust her heart to.

A man who warmed her when he looked at her and listened when she was off on her tangent, who stretched her mind and made her laugh and had a strong hand she could hold when she needed, and arms that comforted… All gone.

She'd thought she'd seen things in Levi that she hadn't seen in any man she'd been drawn to. But he'd
dashed her fledgling hopes when he lied—the one thing she could never forgive—and she didn't have any reserves left. ‘Please go.'

His face shut down until he looked like the stranger she'd seen the first day. Aloof, arrogant, then finally dismissive. ‘I'm sorry you feel that way.' He turned but before he left he said, ‘Where's William?'

Confusion held her answer. Smiley? ‘Work. Why?' Would he never go? Her eyes stung and her throat bulged so thick with tears she could barely breathe.

‘Something's come out about the family that used to own Xanadu. Do you know what their name was?'

She didn't have the energy to talk about her foolish, gullible grandfather. It was easier to say, ‘No. Why?'

‘Nothing important.' He took a step towards her and she panicked that she'd throw herself into his arms. She stepped back as though he'd raised his hand and her panic must have shown on her face. That stopped him.

‘Goodbye, Sophie.'

He stepped off the veranda into the dust and as he walked away she realised she'd done what she'd blamed him for. She'd lied to him. And not just about her grandfather.

 

Levi drove back to Xanadu, too fast, which involved concentration on the road but he was grimly thankful about that. He didn't want to think. Didn't want to relive the distress he'd recognised in Sophie's eyes.

In fact, it was probably safer she wasn't seen with
him. Safer for her because he could feel the danger closing in. If the results came back as he expected it upped the ante for Steve. They were all in danger.

 

Two hours later Smiley burst into the clinic as Sophie sutured a nasty gash from a poorly wielded chainsaw.

The young jackaroo had been lucky he'd only touched his leg on the way through the log and had opened the skin in one thick stripe. Sophie looked up. People burst in often, but never Smiley.

She took one look at his face. ‘Odette?'

‘She rang me on the satellite phone. Her waters broke, and the contractions are coming every three minutes. She's refusing to move and they're at the Pentecost crossing. Then the phone died.'

That didn't make sense. ‘The same spot I saw Levi the first day? Why would they go there?'

Smiley shook his head at the delay. ‘It's where her father was taken.'

Her father? Taken? It all came back. Crocodiles. ‘Pearson.' Levi telling her his name at Kununurra and it had rung a bell then. She couldn't believe she'd forgotten it. Such was the state Levi had her in. The name of the people her grandfather had lost the family station to. Levi hadn't been a guest; he'd been the owner. Hence, the question about her family.

Liar. No wonder they could use the choppers, drive the vehicles, do whatever they wished. Levi had lied again. She yanked the final suture through and the un
fortunate young cowboy yelped in protest. Sophie bit her lip and looked at the jackaroo. ‘Oops, sorry.' She tied off, snipped the ends of the suture and put a see-through dressing over the top in minimal time. ‘Keep it dry. Come back in a week and I'll take the stitches out.'

The young bloke glanced at her once as if to say,
I'll take 'em out myself
, then scurried out of the room. Sophie sighed. She'd never have done that before Levi had disrupted her life.

‘Xanadu.' She looked at her brother. ‘They own it.' So many lies. Smiley didn't look surprised. More unpalatable truth. ‘You knew?' That hurt more than anything else.

Impatiently he answered, ‘Odette asked me not to say because she wasn't even supposed to tell me.'

‘For goodness sake, why not?' Now these people were infecting Smiley with their subterfuge.

Smiley shook his head. ‘Come on.' He gestured to the room as if to ask what do you need. ‘It's not important and I really don't care. Let's go.'

Smiley drove as if driving the Dakar Rally—a man who never drove fast—and they made the crossing in an hour. A Kimberley record that Sophie never wanted to break. Her teeth rattled in her head and the dust stung her eyes but she didn't say anything. Smiley's words repeated in her head. ‘It's not important and I really don't care.'

So why did she care so much when she'd been led
astray by Levi? Why did it matter in the big scheme of things? Had she overreacted? Been precious about semantics? She didn't even want to think what she could have risked if Levi really wanted to see her again.

Smiley was right. Now wasn't the time. It didn't matter. She needed to put any emotion over Levi's deceit aside and think about Odette.

She squeezed the emergency delivery pack on her lap and ran over a few scenarios. At least when she'd felt Odette's uterus the baby had palped head first and not breech, and she had medical backup in Levi, she thought bitterly.

Why wouldn't Levi just pick his sister up and move her? Surely he didn't agree with her having a baby out in the wilderness? She'd never understand these people.

When they arrived she saw why they were still there.

Levi's vehicle sat low to the ground, four flat tyres, a very reasonable excuse not to leave. The local police vehicle had pulled up next to them and the two officers were talking on the two-way.

Smiley pulled up in a shower of gravel and threw himself out of the car towards Odette, who sat with her back against a boab in her trousers and bra, and burst into tears when she saw him. Sophie blinked. That was different.

Levi sat next to her with his arm around her until Smiley took his place.

Sophie glanced back at the river, which wasn't far enough away from them, and scanned the bank. Two
large saltwater crocodiles sat patiently at the edge in the shade and watched them with unblinking yellow eyes. Yikes.

Antipathy forgotten she glanced at Odette, who was lost in Smiley's arms, and turned to Levi. Her brows creased. ‘You OK?'

‘Will be,' he said grimly. ‘Satellite phone went flat after we'd got through to the police and William.'

She frowned. He didn't look right. ‘Are you hurt?'

‘Stray bullet nicked me. It's nothing.' He lifted his arm from his chest and showed a wad of heavily bloodstained material tied around his left arm; she guessed it was Odette's shirt.