The Flyer (35 page)

Dale swallowed hard, the muscles in his neck flexing with unspoken acknowledgment.

The pain came hard and sudden. Emily squeezed her eyes closed, her face contorting into a mask of rage, agony, and determination.

Helen prayed. A moment later, she saw the first hints of a child appear. With a few desperate maneuvers, a little luck, and the grace of God, a tiny baby slid into her hands.

Relief swelled her throat closed, and tears spilled over her cheeks. She immediately wrapped the baby in a blanket she pulled from Emily’s belongings, wiping the infant’s face clean while the baby howled its disapproval. She tore her gaze away from the tiny features, wrinkled and beautiful, to look at the new parents. Emily sobbed while Dale held her against his chest, tears streaming down his face in tandem with his wife.

“It’s a boy,” she finally managed. “Dale? Come here and take him. We have one more to contend with.”

A second boy delivered within a couple of short, exciting minutes. In the normal position, he came easily. Helen cleaned the babies, wrapped them, and settled them with their mother. When she finished, she left the infants and their parents alone.

A happy ending.

Emily would still be in pain, but by the time Doc arrived with the wagon, she should be ready to travel. Dale sat with his wife while Tim slept in the back of the buckboard, exhausted from his long journey to and from Port Hedland.

Helen should sleep, too. The sun had already set, and the night loomed dark and long around her. But she wasn’t tired, at least not physically. Her entire body thrummed with the excitement of the past hour. Two perfect little boys, with lungs that already matched their siblings.

She tried not to think of her own child. She didn’t even know if it had been a boy or a girl, and the doctor onboard the ship had refused to tell her, stating that it would only make her grieving that much more difficult. What would he know? He was a man, unable to conceive of the loss a woman went through.

Suddenly she was more tired than she’d ever been. Not because of the past few hours. It went deeper than that. She was tired of trying so hard to live. She was tired of wishing and wanting and never having.

She made a bed beside the low fire, resting her head on a borrowed pillow. The stars filled the sky with winking lights that mocked her. In a few weeks, she’d be home. Paul would be able to go on with his life as though she’d never been a part of it. She wouldn’t. She would keep every second of their time together inside her heart. Wishing. Wanting. And never having.

Paul circled the road twice before making the decision to land. The road itself was smooth enough, but it wasn’t very long. Still, he had to see Helen. He had to tell her everything he’d decided the night before, sitting alone in a hotel in Perth, watching the water and missing her like he’d missed his own heart.

He couldn’t let her leave. Not now. Not ever.

By the time he’d landed, Dale and Tim had come from the campsite to meet him. Dale greeted him with a hearty handshake, beaming with obvious pride and happiness that couldn’t be measured in words.

“It’s good news, then?” Paul asked, tucking his cap beneath his arm and clapping his oldest friend on the back. Like he had each time Dale had become a father.

Damn it, Paul wanted that. He wanted to be a husband and a father and know that every time he walked through the front door, Helen would be waiting for him. Wearing a smile and very little else.

He wanted a daughter who looked exactly like her, with golden strands mixed in with her dark hair, alabaster skin that turned pink in the sun, and eyes that could see into his soul. He wanted strong sons who would inherit their mother’s inherent ability to heal and love. He wanted it all. And he wanted it with Helen, regardless of where she might think she belonged.

She belonged with him. He simply had to convince her of it before she could return to Port Hedland and board that damnable ship with her parents.

When he’d flown back from Perth a day early, he’d done so to find Helen before she sailed. He’d planned a completely romantic moment, sweeping her off her feet like the actors in the picture show he’d seen in Perth last year. What woman could resist that? He’d tell her how much she meant to him, how impossible his life would be without her.

If she couldn’t bring herself to stay with him, he’d offer to move to America with her. He could live in the big smoke if he had to, right? Wrestling crocs and drinking a belly full of piss had its good side, but it was nothing compared to Helen. He could live without Doc, and Blue, and Dale, and Tim, and the others. He could live without the falls and the river. He’d carry the old billabong in his heart. He’d carry the memories of Australia in his back pocket, but he couldn’t live without Helen.

Once Dale led the way into the campsite, Paul looked for Helen. For a moment, his heart stopped. She wasn’t there. Not by the fire, and not by the wagon.

He was about to ask Dale where she’d gone when she ducked through the tent flap with a tiny bundle in her arms. She cradled it next to her breast, and all of the dreams and desires he’d been experiencing since the day she walked into his life came rushing out. His legs were weak. His mind was a jumble of words that he couldn’t form into sound.

“Is that my son?” laughed Dale. “Which one?”

Helen’s eyes met his, wide with surprise. She held his gaze for longer than a blink before she took a sudden breath. “N-no,” she stammered. “Sorry, Dale. This is only bedding in need of washing. The babies are still too young to come out of the tent. We’ll … we’ll have to bundle them up for the trip into town, but for now, I’d like to keep them away from the dust for a little while longer.”

She hadn’t moved. She still stood in front of the tent as though her feet were rooted to the earth, like some willowy tree born a part of the world around her.

She belonged here. With him. She had to know that.

“I thought you’d left for Perth,” she finally said. Her bottom lip trembled slightly, but she squared her shoulders and finally stepped away from the tent.

He caught up with her halfway to the river’s edge. “I did.”

“You didn’t stay long.”

“I thought you were sailing for America today.”

“I was. But I couldn’t very well ignore a cry for help, could I?”

He was crying for help. Would she answer him, too?

“That’s my girl,” he quipped.

“Why did you come back, Paul?” She walked around him and continued to the river. When she reached it, she knelt beside the water and dunked the sheets beneath the surface.

“Why do you think I came back?”

She shrugged. “Any number of reasons. They have a new delivery of Swan’s beer at Grogg’s. Or there’s a wild croc in need of taming …”

“All good reasons, but not the right ones,” he replied, hoping he sounded more confident and friendly than he thought he did.

He knelt beside her, taking one of the sheets and helping her wash them.

“You do realize these sheets are covered in blood, afterbirth, and amniotic fluids from last night’s delivery.”

He dropped the sheet. He deserved that, he supposed. He’d left her with her parents. He hadn’t defended her, he hadn’t tried to convince her to stay with him. He’d abandoned her, and he should count himself lucky she was even speaking to him.

“I have some things I’d like to say to you, Helen, and I ask only that you listen.” For now. If she didn’t give him what he wanted, he’d have to think of something else, but he would not let her leave him. He couldn’t bear the thought.

“I’m listening.” She scrubbed the sheets harder, her knuckles white, and the hem of her new, longer dress splattered with water.

“I had a lot of time to think on the way to Perth. And I decided that you and I—”

She stood abruptly and started back to the camp. Paul followed her hurried steps. “I was thinking that you and I should make some—”

“Dale? Do you have anything I can hang these sheets from to dry?”

Tim shouted from the wagon. “I can run a line for you, Doc. I’ll be there in a second.”

“Thanks, Tim.” She tossed the soaking wet sheets over a low hanging branch, then made a beeline for the tent.

Paul ran a hand through his hair, groaning his frustration at her incessant desire to make him suffer. “Will you please be still for one bloody moment?!”

Her back ramrod straight, she froze at the entrance to the tent. Turning slowly, she glared at him. “Would you please keep your voice down? The babies are sleeping.”

She turned so quickly the hem of her skirt flew outward before she disappeared into the tent.

“I’m not leaving until you talk to me, Helen.”

She reappeared, her mouth drawn into a disapproving line. “You made your feelings quite clear before you left, Paul. And besides, you were right. My father’s offer is generous and makes a lot more sense than staying here where one person can’t make much of a difference.”

“That’s rubbish.” Paul approached her warily, like he would a frightened koala.

Still, she scooted away from him. She stopped at the fire, lifting a spoon and stirring the stew hanging in a pot over the flames.

“It’s pure rubbish,” he repeated. “And you know it.”

“I don’t know it. It makes perfect sense. I never belonged here, Paul. I was running away. Everyone knows that we can’t run away from our problems. We have to face them and conquer them. I can’t do that here.”

“But you are running away. You’re running away from me, and I can’t understand why.”

“Because you don’t want me anymore!” The last word broke on a strangled sigh.

From behind him, the sound of a buckboard rumbled and crashed into the clearing. Helen glanced over Paul’s shoulder and breathed what seemed to be a sign of relief. “Bully’s here with the wagon. Thank heaven.” She ran to the wagon, leaving Paul alone. Alone and more determined than ever to make her listen.

“What’s the matter with you, mate?” Dale asked, suddenly appearing at his side.

“What makes you think anything’s wrong?”

“You look like a man who’s just swallowed a whole lemon, that’s why.”

“Not a whole lemon. Just my pride, my sanity. Hell, she won’t even talk to me, Dale. Are all women this bull-headed?”

Dale glanced back to the tent. “I can’t speak about all women. But Emily is about the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met.” His smile spoke of a trust and love that spanned any amount of stubbornness. “What is it Helen’s being so disagreeable about?”

“I’m trying to apologize. I thought women liked it when we lowered ourselves to groveling.”

“So apologize. What’s stopping you?”

He pointed. “She is. She won’t stand still long enough for me say three words.”

“So get her attention and make her listen.”

“Make her listen. Easier said than done, mate.”

“Oh, I don’t know. When Emily refuses to hear my piece, and she’s been known to show me a deaf ear a time or two, I take her someplace she can’t ignore me. If she has nothing to do but listen,” he shrugged, “she listens.”

Nothing to do but listen.

Paul smiled, hopeful for the first time since he’d arrived that he might actually succeed.

He knew exactly where to take her.

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