well done, mate,’ Bob said to Liam. ‘Civil Aviation called to warn us and said you’d never flown a plane before.’
‘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 fainted 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 the doctor’s job for him.’
Now that it 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 a reassuring smile.
Chapter Five
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 hit Liam almost as soon as his feet touched the ground. He felt his knees give way, but somehow he 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 route for Mount Isa Hospital.
Bob and Noreen King plied them 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 was, had learned first-hand the heartless ease with which a life could 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 doorstep, 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 after-shock 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 shoestring straps on her top revealed the exquisite perfection 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 water lilies. 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 OK.’
‘I’m fine. Come on, come on in.’
It was only when she hesitated again that he remembered. ‘Whoa! Almost forgot. All the drama must have fused my brain. We’re keeping our distance, aren’t we?’
Whose idea had that been? His?
She looked up at him again and this time her gorgeous grey eyes were shiny with tears. ‘I haven’t thanked you properly,’ she said. ‘You were so amazing. I—I don’t know how you landed that plane. It was a very brave thing to do.’
‘That wasn’t bravery. I was working on pure adrenaline. Anyway, what about your first aid? You saved the pilot’s life. The flying doctor said as much.’
She shrugged. ‘My contribution wouldn’t have been much use if the plane had crashed.’ A tear trembled on the end of an eyelash, slipped down her cheek.
Liam reached over and caught it with the tip of his forefinger.
‘Sorry,’ she said, blinking hard and releasing more tears.
‘Don’t be. It’s natural to be upset after a shock like that.’ What a hypocrite he was, pretending to be the cool, nerveless hero.
Alice wiped her cheeks with her fingers and gave a little shiver, and then she hugged herself, rubbing her hands over her bare arms.
Watching her hands, he couldn’t resist asking, ‘You want me to do that?’
She stared at him, her mouth parted, her eyes damp, her lashes spiky and wet. ‘What?’ But then she looked down at her arms wrapped across her front. ‘Yes,’ she whispered so softly he only just caught it. ‘I—I need a hug.’
His breathing snagged.
Once more her eyes lifted, met his and signalled a silent message. Blood throbbed in his veins, pounded in his ears. There it was; the insane chemistry they’d felt on the night they met. The urge he’d been fighting ever since. Now it triggered a violent wanting in him, an echoing tremble in her.
‘Alice, come here.’
She
