The Doctor & the Runaway Heiress

CHAPTER SEVEN

FLIGHT-AID had arrangements in place in Sydney so transferring patients, with any delays that involved, could be achieved in privacy and comfort. Collecting patients who’d needed complex medical care and taking them home-back to Whale Cove but more usually back to their Outback homes-was part of Flight-Aid’s charter. When they reached Sydney, therefore, Riley was able to take Amy and baby-and Pippa-into a reserved medical lounge and leave them there.

Harry was busy with the plane. Pippa was happy to take care of Amy.

Riley was about to meet his daughter and he was feeling like his head didn’t belong to his body.

Pippa. Lucy.

A week ago he didn’t have a complication in the world. He wanted, quite badly, to turn back the clock. To head back to Whale Cove, grab his surfboard and ride some waves.

He’d gone to bed last night planning a dawn start. They’d get back to Whale Cove, drop Pippa off and keep going to Sydney. He’d figure what to say on the way down. How to meet your daughter for the first time?

But he’d figure it. He’d collect Lucy, put her in a hire car and drive her back to Whale Cove. He’d be calm, collected, a guy in charge of his world. A man worthy of being a father?

He’d woken this morning, diagnosed jaundice, knew the early getaway wasn’t possible. Then Pippa was suddenly filling his house with people. Acting as if what she’d offered was reasonable.

Pippa.

She was messing with his head. More than it was already messed.

Pippa.

He didn’t do relationships. He’d learned it as a kid, maybe even earlier. Keep yourself to yourself and you don’t get hurt. For one crazy summer he’d forgotten, and the knife had twisted so hard he’d thought he’d go crazy.

Relationships were for other people. They caused pain.

They’d caused… a daughter.

His eighteen-year-old daughter was about to walk through the arrivals gate.

Three months back, when first contact had been made, he’d written saying he wanted to meet her. If there was any way she wanted him in her life, if there was anything she ever needed, she just had to ask. No reply. That email seemed to have gone through but his next had bounced-the email address had seemingly been cancelled. He’d gone to England to find her, only to be told she’d gone away, she didn’t want anything to do with him. He was her father in name only.

Relationships caused pain.

He couldn’t avoid this one.

She was a tourist, he told himself. Curious about a father she’d never met. Checking out Australia and her unknown biological father as an aside.

The huge metal gates were opening and closing as each passenger cleared customs. Reunions were happening everywhere. Families were clinging, sobbing, laughing.

There was a couple beside him. They were in their seventies, and their anticipation was palpable.

The doors opened and a family emerged, mum and dad and three littlies. The elderly lady gasped and clutched her husband’s hand. The little family reached them and was immersed in joy.

He did not do this.

When Lucy emerged… She’d be a kid on an adventure, nothing more, he told himself as he’d told himself over and over. Though why her grandparents weren’t funding her to luxury…

Like Pippa was funded to luxury?

Pippa.

It was the sight of the elderly couple holding hands. It made him think he wanted…

He didn’t want. He’d spent his life ensuring he didn’t want.

The doors slid open.

Lucy.

He recognised her. Of course he did. How many times had he looked at the photograph she’d sent him in her first email? She was thin, tall and pretty, but not like her mother. She looked… like him?

She stood behind her luggage trolley-searching?-and he saw his eyes, his dark hair. And fear.

There was a boy beside her, seemingly arguing that he should push the trolley. He was long and lanky, a kid of about twenty. Worried. He had dark hair curling wildly and olive skin. Then he pushed the trolley sideways and Lucy stepped out from behind.

She was pregnant.

Very pregnant.

She saw him. His picture was on Flight-Aid’s website-that’s how she’d originally contacted him. He was in his Flight-Aid uniform now so there was no need for red carnations in buttonholes. But there was no wide smile and ecstatic wave like he’d seen from most of the reuniting families. There was a tiny, fleeting smile of recognition. A smile backed with fear.

He thought suddenly of Amy. Same age. Same terror.

The thought settled his nerves. Put things in perspective. This wasn’t about him. The boy took over trolley duty. Lucy walked out from the barricade then stopped a few feet from him. ‘D-Dad?’

‘Lucy.’ Despite his wish to stay calm, neutral, all the worry in the world was in the way he said her name, all the things he felt about this frail slip of a kid. And she must have heard it because suddenly she sobbed and stepped forward. Somehow he had her in his arms. She was sobbing on his chest, sobbing her heart out, while the kid beside her looked on with worry.

Lucy. His daughter.

He held her close, waiting for the sobs to subside, wondering what a man was to do. Then he glanced over her head-and suddenly Pippa was there, in the background. She caught his gaze and smiled, fleetingly.

Problem? No. She gave a silent shake of her head, waved slightly, backed away.

And it settled him. For some reason it made him feel that he wasn’t alone, with a pregnant daughter and who knew what other issues? Pippa would help.

He didn’t need help.

He might, he conceded. His daughter was pregnant.

Lucy was drawing back now, sniffing, and the boy beside her was handing her tissues. He looked like he was accustomed to doing it. There’d been lots of crying?

‘It’s great to meet you,’ he said softly, looking down into the face of this half-recognised daughter. A part of him? ‘You don’t know how much.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘But I’m… I’m pregnant,’ Lucy said, half scared, half defiant.

‘I noticed that.’ He managed a smile. ‘How pregnant?’

‘Eight and a half months.’

What the…? He gazed at his daughter in stupefaction. She didn’t look so far gone, he thought, but, then, some women didn’t show as much as others. ‘You can’t fly at eight and a half months.’

‘Mum paid a doctor to say I’m only seven and a half months. I have a medical certificate.’

‘Your mother bribed…’

‘She wants to get rid of me,’ Lucy whispered. ‘Because of Adam. This… this is Adam.’ She clutched the hand of the boy beside her.

‘H-Hi,’ the boy said.

‘Good to meet you,’ Riley said, and held out his hand.

The kid was Eurasian, he thought. And with that, he had it figured.

He thought of the way Lucy’s grandparents had reacted to him, an illegitimate scholarship kid from Australia. White trash. Marguerite’s father had called him that to his face. And now… for Lucy to bring Adam home, as the father of her baby…

‘I’m starting to see,’ he said.

‘They tried to break us up,’ Lucy whispered. ‘They even bribed someone at Adam’s university to kick him out. They accused him of cheating. They rang Immigration; said he was illegal. We can’t fight them over there. Mum says if I keep the baby she washes her hands of me. Grandpa says he’s raised one kid he didn’t want, and he’s not helping with another. So we thought… maybe we could start again here. We were hoping… I was hoping that you’ll help us. You said in your email…’

He glanced behind his daughter again, and discovered he was searching for Pippa in the crowd. She’d gone.

He was alone with his unknown daughter. And her boyfriend. And their baby?

Their baby. His grandchild?

‘Of course I will,’ he said manfully, and he took his daughter’s trolley and summoned the most reassuring smile he was capable of. Which didn’t feel to him like it was all that reassuring. ‘We need to find a car-or maybe a small bus-and head back to Whale Cove. That’s where I live. But first there’s someone I’d like you to meet. I have a feeling you’re going to like her.’ He paused and thought about it. ‘I have a feeling we’re all going to need her.’

Pippa had headed out to the airport pharmacy to replenish her nappy supply. She needed to get her head around supplying an air ambulance; this was an oversight unworthy of a trained midwife but two days’ worth of nappies had slipped from her radar. Maybe she’d been thinking of other things.

Like Riley.

So she’d slipped out to buy nappies, she’d passed the arrivals hall and she’d seen Riley meet his daughter. His pregnant daughter.

He looked like he was drowning.

Riley was a man who walked alone-she knew that. You couldn’t be near the man without sensing his reserve. And now… he’d been thrown in at the deep end.

He’d be a grandfather.

She almost chuckled, but she didn’t.

She bought what she needed, then hesitated before returning to Amy, taking a moment to try and get her thoughts in order.

Riley.

Last night she’d needed him. She’d clung and he’d held. He’d made love to her and she’d lost herself in his body. He’d lifted her out of her nightmare, and in doing so he’d settled her world. She’d woken this morning feeling that all was right with her world, that she was on a path for life.

With Riley?

No. That was dumb. One night of love-making could never make a permanent relationship. But he’d made her feel wonderful, alive, young, free.

All the things he no longer was. His face just then… He had a pregnant daughter and her heart twisted for him.

She’d seen him holding a daughter he’d never met before. A teenager, bearing his grandchild.

He wouldn’t walk away. She knew that about him, truly and surely. He was a man of honour, Riley Chase.

And with that… another twist.

He was so different from Roger. So different from any man she’d ever met. She felt… she felt…

She wasn’t allowed to feel. Riley had so many complications, the last thing he needed was her throwing her heart into the ring.

She couldn’t. She didn’t.

Nappies.

She headed back to Amy, her arms full of nappies, her head full of resolutions. Keep cool and professional. Never be needy again. Support him from the sidelines.

So why was the look on his face as he’d held his daughter etched onto her heart?

Why did her heart still twist?

He hired a family wagon. A seven-seater. Three rows of seats.

The luggage filled the trunk to overflowing. Lucy and Adam didn’t travel light. Neither did Amy-babies needed stuff.

Amy was in the back seat, with Baby Riley strapped in beside her.

Adam and Lucy were in the middle seat, holding each other like they were glued.

Pippa was in the front passenger seat next to Riley.

Mum and Dad in the front seat, kids in the back.

Riley was looking… cornered.

She thought back to the evening before, to this same man calmly attempting surgery that was complex and risky. He’d worked through challenges single-mindedly. There was no one she’d rather have around her in a crisis than Riley Chase and that wasn’t just because he’d hauled her out of the water. It wasn’t just that he’d saved her life.

She’d slept with him last night. It had shifted their relationship to a different level. It could never return again.

Forget last night. She told herself that harshly, but she knew she never could. Somehow she had to move past it, though, to immediate need.

From living on his own, Riley was now faced with living with her, with Amy and her baby, and with his daughter and boyfriend. She thought of his lovely quiet existence and tried to think how she’d feel landed with what he’d been landed with.

Hey. She actually had been landed with it. She, too, was a loner. An only child. A kid who’d learned to like her own company. A woman who’d been independent, whose engagement to Roger had probably lasted as long as it had because she was so independent.

She, too, would be in Riley’s house. She was part of Riley’s problem-but he was part of hers.

He’d have a bedroom close by hers. That might be a problem all by itself. She needed to put a lid on her hormones.

So what to do?

She was stuck in Riley’s house. She’d promised Amy she’d be there.

Riley was stuck as well. Amy needed him to be there.

Riley needed space.

Maybe…

She swivelled. Lucy and Adam could scarcely be any closer. They truly were scared kids.

They had a whole lot facing them, she thought. A baby within weeks. A new country. A future to work out.

A relationship to forge with Riley.

They all needed space.

‘Is the house set up for Lucy and Adam?’ she asked, loud enough to talk to the car in general.

‘Sorry?’ Riley seemed a hundred miles away.

‘The house,’ she said patiently. ‘The housekeeper’s expecting me on Sunday. She’s expecting Lucy today but as far as I can figure, she’s expecting a lone Lucy. And she’s not expecting Amy. So apart from your room, do we have three more bedrooms-with a single bed apiece?’

‘Yes,’ Riley said cautiously, not sure where she was going. ‘But we can move in a stretcher bed for Adam.’

‘A stretcher,’ she said disparagingly. ‘Lucy, Adam, you guys look really tired.’

‘We didn’t sleep on the plane,’ Lucy admitted.

‘So all you want to do is sleep, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I have a suggestion,’ Pippa told her. ‘For reasons too complicated to go into right now, we also have one luxurious honeymoon suite in a swish hotel ten minutes’ walk away from our house. The suite’s paid for until Sunday. Would it make sense if you, Lucy and Adam, had the honeymoon suite until we can set the house up with more beds?’

Silence.

She’d interfered in something that was none of her business, she thought, but this could give Riley space to come to terms with what was happening. And it obviously had its attractions for the scared kids.

‘A honeymoon suite,’ Lucy breathed.

‘King-sized bed. Room service. A bath so big you can swim in it.’

‘Compared to a single bed?’

‘Hey, it’s a pink single bed,’ Riley said, sounding affronted.

There was a moment’s stunned silence-and then everyone laughed.

It was a good moment. The tension dissipated. Riley’s hands unclenched on the steering-wheel and the thing was settled.

Lucy and Adam were to have the honeymoon suite. Riley only had Amy and baby Riley to contend with.

And Pippa.