Page 23 of Strictly Business

‘We made it, that’s the main thing.’ Liam nodded towards Joe and Alice who was kneeling beside him. ‘I’m worried about the pilot.’

‘I think he’s collapsed again,’ said Alice. ‘He needs urgent attention.’

‘Flying Doc’s on his way, love,’ said Noreen. ‘We’re in luck. He was holding a clinic not far away, but actually –’ She walked over to Joe and he opened his eyes and gave a weak smile. ‘It looks like you’ve done a major part of the doctor’s job for him.’

Now that the worst was over, Alice realised that her headache was pounding, but she managed a smile. And then she looked at Liam and felt a savage little twist in her chest when she saw that his hands were trembling.

But he quickly stuffed them into his jeans pockets and flashed her another reassuring smile.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HE’D ALMOST killed them. If the nose of the plane had tipped a fraction lower...

He’d almost killed Alice. He’d forced her, against her will, to come on this trip to the outback and then he’d almost killed her.

A blind, suffocating horror had hit Liam almost as soon as his feet touched the ground. He’d felt his knees give way, but somehow he’d managed to shove the horror aside and stay upright.

It was later that the enormity of their near death experience really took him by the throat – after the Flying Doctor left with the sick pilot,en routefor Mt. Isa hospital.

Bob and Noreen King plied Alice and Liam with hot, sweet tea and thick corned beef and tomato sandwiches and showed them to their guest accommodation – cute log cabins, separate as requested, down by a billabong.

It was there, once Liam was alone in his cabin – and he thanked God that he was alone – that he broke down, shaking violently, almost weeping with the shock of knowing how close they’d come. So close to death.

Again.

He knew from guilty experience how very fragile life is, had learned firsthand the heartless ease with which a life can be lost in one moment of recklessness.

All the images he’d tried to suppress came flooding back – the lifeless body and twisted metal. One careless split-second. That was all it took to measure the distance between existence and death. He’d learned that dreadful lesson years ago, when he was twenty-one, but still the guilt lived on.

So close. Today they’d come so terribly close.

The black horror of it crowded in, dragging him down, as it had so many times before.

Hauling off his clothes, he stumbled into the shower, and let the warm water pour over him, let the familiar pinprick of fine needles heat his skin. He wasn’t sure how long he was there, sagging against the tiled wall of the recess, but at some point the voice of reason finally began to make itself heard.

The thought gradually sank in that on this occasion no lives had been lost. Today he’d actually saved lives.

He clung to that knowledge. But it still wasn’t enough to reassure him.

A knock sounded on the door of his cabin.

‘Be with you in a moment,’ he called as he shut off the water and reached for a towel. Hastily he thrust his legs into jeans and roughly towelled his damp hair as he crossed the room.

Alice stood on his door step, showered and changed into khaki shorts and a cute white top. Her eyes were huge in her pale face, and he realised with a slam of guilt, that he’d been too self-absorbed to check how she was coping with the aftershock of their ordeal.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, eyeing his state of undress, his ruffled damp hair. ‘I’ve interrupted you.’

‘Nothing important’s happening here.’ He flipped the towel over one shoulder.

Just the same, she looked uncomfortable. She lowered her gaze, as if his bare chest bothered her and he tried to ignore the way the tiny shoe-string straps on her top revealed the exquisiteperfection of her collar bones, the way the stretch material hugged her breasts.

She waved a vague hand at the billabong. Their cabins were set on its banks giving them a pretty view of silky, tea-coloured water almost completely covered by pink waterlilies. It was encircled by towering, shady paperbark trees and lush pandanus palms.

‘So what do you think of the guest accommodation on Redhead Downs?’ she asked him.

‘Fabulous setting.’ He watched a solitary white heron fish the opposite bank, its long beak probing beneath the lily pads. Then he stepped back, pushing his door wider open. ‘And the cabins are adequate. Why don’t you come in?’

She looked uncertain. ‘I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.’

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