The Flyer (29 page)

H
elen pushed open the door to her apartment. Paul held her from behind, matching his steps to hers while he nuzzled the back of her neck. She hadn’t thought she would ever feel this way again. She still wasn’t entirely certain she deserved it, after all that had happened. But for the first time in nearly a year, certainly in the past three months, she felt like maybe—just maybe—she did.

“You smell so bloody wonderful, love,” Paul mumbled against her skin. “I can’t get enough of you.” The contact sent shivers down her spine, tensing her muscles and making her stomach clench on itself.

“You must be out of your mind,” she retorted while she shifted her shoulders to remove his lips. “I need a bath desperately.”

“Can I watch?” He tightened his hold around her shoulders.

“Oh, you are a bad boy, aren’t you?” she giggled, half-spinning in his arms. It felt wonderful to banter with him; no inhibitions, no cares of what he might think of her. So she hadn’t told him everything. She’d told him everything that mattered. He knew her like no other man had, and he judged her far less.

She could see a future that didn’t include dying miserable and alone. That’s all that mattered now.

“Better yet, why don’t I join you?”

Helen dropped her medical bag on the floor in front of the partially opened door. Spinning around quickly, she pressed her mouth to his. She meant for the kiss to be playful, a continuation of the teasing they’d been engaged in ever since he’d landed the plane an hour ago. Almost at once, it turned into something more.

Deep and longing, she absorbed every part of him. Immediately, he seemed to sense the change in mood, stroking her back with his strong, capable hands. He pressed his body against hers. His legs against her legs. His hard chest against her breasts.

She couldn’t taste him deeply enough. She couldn’t feel him inside of her quickly enough. As though he’d read her mind, he pushed her back against the partially opened door.

The door slid open beneath their combined weight, sending her careening backward into empty space. He nearly toppled on top of her, but the door stopped suddenly, colliding with something heavy on its other side.

Paul took advantage of the reprieve and deepened his kiss, moving his tongue against hers with strong possessive strokes. Heightened desire took root in her lower belly, spreading want and lust to each of her limbs.

“I can see it hasn’t taken you long to insinuate yourself into another man’s life, Helen.”

Paul ripped his lips from hers.

Helen nearly screamed, but caught the sound before it could emerge. She spun around so quickly she almost tripped over her bag. Her mother, as proud and haughty as the last time Helen had seen her, stood in the center of the room. She smoothed the sides of her perfectly coiffed hair, fastened high on the back of her head, before lacing her fingers in front of her waist. She looked regal. She always looked regal. Even after six weeks on an ocean liner and another three days on a steamer from Perth, she embodied sophisticated perfection.

“Mother,” Helen whispered through her suddenly dry throat. “What are you doing here? When did you arrive?”

Her mother’s lips pursed into an impatient line before she answered. “Your father took it upon himself to drag me to this Godforsaken land to bring you home. Pack quickly so we can return to civilization at once.”

“I don’t believe we’ve met, ma’am. I’m Paul Campbell.”

Paul removed his slouch hat and nodded. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Priscilla Stanwood looked at Paul as though he were some sort of bug she couldn’t recognize. The severe lines of her long, aged face were immovable under the best of circumstances, but having just witnessed her only daughter in the act of kissing a man with such abandon…

Helen could only assume her mother’s features were carved from granite. After deigning to touch Paul with only her tight, arrogant gaze, she turned to the window and began to pace, running one gloved finger over the edge of a shelf as she passed.

“What’s wrong with your mum, Doc? She looks like she’s swallowed a bug,” Paul whispered.

Helen frowned. “I was just thinking the same thing. Sort of.”

“Helen, remove this … gentleman … so we can collect your things.”

“I have patients to attend to, and I like it here, Mother.”

“I’m sure you do. Now that you’ve found yourself another man.”

“Paul, maybe you should go. I’ll see you in the morning.” She’d told Paul about Reginald. At least, she’d told him what he needed to know. There were some secrets she couldn’t bear to part with for anyone. Some of the pain was just too horrible to relive in the telling. But her mother knew all of her secrets. What if she told Paul?

What would he think of her then?

“Are you sure?”

She could only nod, her voice trapped somewhere between her heart and her soul.

“All right, then. You know where you can find me if you need anything.”

“At the bottom of a whisky barrel, I imagine,” tossed in her mother from the opposite side of the room. “While your sentiments are admirable, they are most certainly not needed. I doubt if you shall ever see my daughter again, Mr. Campbell. All the better for you, considering—”

“Mother, please!”

“Send him away, Helen.” Her mother glared, her eyes stabbing Helen with the truth.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Paul.”

Bringing Helen’s greatest fears to fruition, her mother continued to speak before he left. “I suppose you’re sleeping with him, too?” The older woman snorted. “Never mind. We can discuss your appalling behavior another time. For now, you will come home with us. I must say, when your father suggested we reclaim you, I thought it a ludicrous idea. I don’t know how I’ll show my face at the garden club once they learn that you’ve come back.” Her mother pulled a handkerchief from the long, too-thick sleeve of her dress and fanned herself. “At least if you live here, no one knows of our shame. Only yours.”

Paul hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. “I can’t leave you alone with her, Doc. She’s a first-class witch, isn’t she?”

“Mmm,” Helen answered. Worse, she was a talkative witch. “I can handle her. You run along, and I’ll see you in the office in the morning.”

Paul glanced over his shoulder at Helen’s mother for longer than a moment, as though he debated whether or not he would go. Finally, he flung open the door and left. Helen moved to close the door behind him.

“I knew you were a whore, but even I held out some hope you might mend your wickedness after all that you put us through. I can see now, you’ve simply relocated your miscreant behavior halfway around the world.”

Paul froze. It seemed that every sinewy muscle in his body tensed at once. He turned around slowly and directed the full brunt of the now-raging storm behind his normally placid blue eyes at Priscilla. “Lady, I don’t know exactly what your problem is, but you have no call to speak to Helen like that. What kind of mother are you?”

Priscilla bristled like a vicious animal defending its territory from some great, wild beast. Only her territory included Helen and every wrong decision she’d ever made. She was good at taking other people’s problems and twisting them so she was the victim. A born martyr. That’s what her mother was.

“What kind of mother? I’ll tell you what kind of mother I am. A good mother. A mother who is concerned over her daughter’s horrible choices, regardless of how ungrateful she is. How long has she been here? A few short weeks, and already you’ve discovered her for the easy trollop she is.”

“Mother! Please, stop,” Helen pleaded. Demanded.

“I will not stop. This is for your own good, child. Did you tell him about Reginald?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.” Most of it, anyway. She bit back the burning sensation of tears that built slowly in the back of her throat.

“I see. And he has no qualms about—”

“No, he doesn’t.” Paul tossed his hat on the back of the chair, indicating that he had no intentions of leaving anytime soon. That could be disastrous for Helen, and him. He’d never done battle with anything as ferocious as Priscilla Stanwood. Not man-eating spiders, not crocodiles. Nothing he’d faced in the war could match the diabolically hurtful machinations of her mother on a rampage.

At the moment, Priscilla focused the brunt of her attack in his direction. A part of Helen was relieved she no longer glared at her. The other part wanted to step between Paul and her mother to protect him from the venom Priscilla was so adept at spewing.

“And I suppose she’s told you all of the details. How she shamed her entire family, practically ruined her father’s professional reputation, and slept with a highly respected anatomy professor, more than twenty years her senior. Not to mention how many others she destroyed in the meantime.”

“She told me she’d been in love before. She told me she’d made a mistake. Not that I care much,” he shrugged. “Your daughter and I have an understanding. We’re friends.”

Helen wished the floor would open and swallow her. She willed the roof to cave in, or a flood to sweep through the town, complete with an ark and every known species lined up, two by two. Anything to prevent her mother’s rant from continuing. “Please, Mother. Don’t.”

“Don’t what, my dear? Don’t tell your new lover about your old one? Don’t mention the fact that you took it upon yourself to seduce an otherwise respectable professor of medicine, and nearly destroy the man’s wife in the process?”

The room swirled, tilting on its side and threatening to send her to her knees. “How could you?” she murmured.

“The truth is always best, dear,” her mother crooned in a voice so falsely sweet it turned Helen’s stomach.

“You don’t know the truth, Mother. You’ve never believed me, or listened to me. You never should have come here!” She’d never spoken to her mother in such a tone before in her life. She’d always tried to be a good daughter. Of course, she’d failed. Like she had with everything she’d ever tried.

It was too late now. Her mother would tell Paul all of her secrets. She would tell everyone who would listen. Her reputation, her medical practice, everything she’d worked so hard for over the past months would be gone.

Paul.

Paul would hate her. No question.

She forced herself to look at him. He was such a good man, and he really did deserve better than her. He should find himself an unblemished woman who could give him a home and a family. Not some used-up old spinster who could barely take care of herself.

She should have known better than to become comfortable. She should have known better than to give her heart away. All of the memories accosted her at once. Reginald casting her aside. Her mother’s scorn.

With a sob she could no longer hold back, she ran out of her apartment and into the street.

She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t care, as long as it was away from her mother. Away from Paul. She kept her eyes forward, not seeing the people she passed, ignoring them when they called her name or asked where the emergency was.

She simply ran away. She had become rather good at it. When Reginald hadn’t wanted her anymore, she’d run home. To her old room in her parents’ house. When she’d been unable to withstand her mother’s constant scrutiny, she’d run to Australia under the misguided notion that she could create a whole new life for herself. Who cared if it would have been a lie?

What a fool she’d been. Her mother was right. Helen couldn’t be trusted to do the right thing. Ever. She’d allowed herself to fall in love again.

A cramp formed beneath her ribcage on the left side. She slowed her pace from a dead run to a painful jog, gripping her side with one hand. Between the exertion and the raw burn of her tears, she couldn’t breathe.

Finally, she stopped. She was alone. She closed her eyes, trying desperately to catch her breath. Tilting her head back, she allowed the sun to beat on her cheeks. The warmth soothed her, calming nerves that should have shattered long before now.

She opened her eyes slowly. The bright blue sky, cloudless and perfect, seemed to go on for infinity. She could lose herself there. If only she could fly Paul’s plane, she could escape into the endless heavens and never come back. She could take her sorrow and the ghosts of her past and bury them in the soft, endless blue.

Paul shoved his car into gear and sped away from the front of Doc’s clinic. She could have gone anywhere. If he’d followed Helen immediately, instead of giving her mother a piece of his mind, he might have caught up with her straightaway. At the very least, he would have seen which direction she’d run.

He sped through the streets, dodging wagons and pedestrians with practiced ease. He’d try Annie’s first.

Helen was one of the most sensitive and feisty women he’d ever met. It was part of the charm that drew him in. Why would she allow her mother to brutalize her? Although, if her mother’s behavior in the flat represented how she’d been treating Helen all along … it explained quite a bit.

Damn. He wanted to find Helen and kiss the pain out of her eyes. He needed to hold her close, to protect her, until she felt safe. Until she knew she could tell him anything.