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‘Piper?’

Her name on his lips jarred her out of her frozen state. ‘Emmett. What the hell are you doing here?’

‘I could ask you the same thing.’

‘Let’s focus, people.’ Cara’s voice was stern.

Piper quickly jumped in next to Maddie and gripped the bottom of the sheet to move the little girl over to the bed.

‘On my count …’ said Cara.

‘I thought you said you didn’t know anyone in Rush Creek?’ Maddie whispered.

‘One … two …’

‘I didn’t know he was here.’

‘Three.’

They lifted the girl from the stretcher as a woman burst through from the waiting room, her daughter’s name on her lips.

Piper glanced back to Emmett. Holy crap. Emmett Coleman was here in Rush Creek. Memories of doodling his name in the back of her high school notebook swamped her. Heat rushed to her cheeks as she recalled what else she’d written.Piper Coleman.

Chapter 2

Emmett relied on memory to get him out of the emergency room and to the ambulance—he wasn’t seeing the rig past the illusion of Piper in nurse’s scrubs. Only it wasn’t an illusion. If he turned around, he’d see her. Right here. In Rush Creek. The town he’d called home for two years. What the hell?

‘Dude, are you good?’ Stef, his paramedic partner, called out as she jogged to catch up with him. ‘You look like someone took your legs off but you’re still walking.’

He screwed his nose up to look at her. It wasn’t the first time her oddly fitting statements made sense. ‘Seeing her was the last thing I expected when we walked in there.’

‘Ex-flame?’ Stef asked, hovering at the back door as he pushed the stretcher inside.

‘No.’ Shit, did he say that too quickly? Stef’s raised brow said that he did. ‘She’s my childhood best friend’s little sister.’

Checking everything was in its place and they didn’t need to source any more supplies, Emmett secured the stretcher and backed out, closing the door closest to him.

Stef leaned on hers wearing a thoughtful look. ‘She’s your … what?’

Emmett sighed. ‘I grew up in a town called Euronga in New South Wales with my mum. It was just us and we lived in a small two-bedroom house on the Hendrix family’s property. My best friend, Carter Hendrix, lived in the main house with his sister, Piper.’

‘Piper who was just in the hospital?’

‘The very one.’ Emmett headed for the driver’s seat, hearing the slam of the back door to confirm that Stef would soon be climbing into the passenger seat.

‘Hang on,’ she said, holding a hand up. ‘Carter Hendrix? As in the Sydney Scorpions’ halfback?’

Emmett nodded. ‘He’s a bit younger than me, but it didn’t matter. We’d spend every afternoon after school and weekends running through paddocks, playing in the dams and building forts. Riding motorbikes when we were older. Until the family moved to Sydney when he was accepted into the Scorpions junior program.’

‘Wow. We’ve been working together for what? Ten months? And you never mentioned that you were best friends with the nation’s leading halfback.’

Emmett shrugged. ‘We haven’t really seen each other in years. We went in different directions and last I heard, Piper was living and working in the city. At least that’s what her Instagram said.’ He clipped his seatbelt in and turned on the ignition. ‘It doesn’t make sense that she’s here.’

‘Maybe she got sick of the rat race,’ Stef said as they headed down the hill. ‘Bloody big coincidence that she turns up here, of all places.’

Emmett couldn’t agree more, even if he didn’t say it. He swept his gaze over the staff car park. Surprise whacked him in the face again when the only car he didn’t recognise was a Kombi. Surely that wasn’t Piper’s? A Kombi?

‘Hey,’ Stef said suddenly. ‘I’ve seen that Kombi camping down at the creek for the last couple of nights. Is it your girl Piper’s?’