Читать книгу The Midwife and the Millionaire - Fiona McArthur - Страница 8

LEVI stopped as he entered the room for breakfast on the veranda next morning. It seemed he’d interrupted an amusing show.

His sister, with much eye batting and smiles, was trying to convince cowboy William to do the scenic tourist fly in the chopper. Apparently they should fly to the Bungle Bungles, a massive prehistoric range of striped domes at the edge of the Tanami Desert, with a picnic basket, an idea which left a horrified expression on Sophie the orchid’s face. Intriguing situation.

He could see a ride in the helicopter was the last thing Sophie wanted to do, make that second last. If he read her expression right when she glanced at him, the last thing she wanted was to stay behind at Xanadu, alone, with him.

Levi could tell. That was amusing too. Sort of. Though he’d never had someone blatantly avoid his company before.

He sat down next to Sophie at breakfast, maybe too deliberately close, so his thigh touched hers when he turned, and he could actually feel her thrum with awareness. The fresh herby stuff she’d washed her hair with teased his nose and some psycho inside wanted to sniff her head. Now that would go over well as a space invasion.

Even her skin glowed golden in the morning light, like the honey on the crumpet she nibbled at, and reminded him he’d spent more than a few hours in bed last night trying not to remember those lush little hips and lips. He must be having a crisis.

‘Good morning, Sophie.’

‘Morning.’ Her answer was accompanied by a darting look that came and went as she shrank her shoulders to avoid contact.

He had to bite back a smile. Becoming a habit those smiles. Very strange. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Fine, thanks.’ Another flick of her eyes and he relented and shifted his chair a few inches away to give her some space. Her delightful shoulders actually sank with relief and he wondered why he was playing with her. He wasn’t normally pushy.

‘Did you sleep?’ It seemed she could talk easier too.

Now how reluctantly had she asked that? He bit his lip. ‘No, not really. The symphony of the night seemed especially loud.’

She raised those stern brows of hers. ‘Kept awake by nature? Poor you. Well, it is a wilderness park.’ She tossed her head. ‘Sure beats the heck out of traffic noise.’

Maybe she didn’t need sympathy. She could stand up for herself. So they ate their meal in silence as Odette continued to flirt with William.

Levi rubbed his chin as they all stood to leave because, funnily enough, her lack of enthusiasm for the flight made his skin itch.

‘Odette?’ he said, and his sister turned back.

‘Look after Sophie. Remember, she’s not comfortable, so no stunts.’

Odette raised her eyebrows at him and saluted. ‘Yes, sir.’

Sophie sent him a semi-grateful look over her shoulder as she dragged her feet to follow the other two to the helipad.

Levi frowned to himself as he went the other way. He needed to concentrate on the paperwork he had to get through before they returned to Sydney, but the ridiculously blue Kimberley sky outside the window invited sacrifice. Odette was too pregnant to be pilot. And Sophie looked unhappy.

Unhappy was too mild a word. Sophie didn’t know how she’d agreed to this.

Now Steve, the resort manager, had shooed Odette away from pre-flight checks. ‘I can’t let a pregnant lady do that,’ he said with that tilted smile that prickled right up Sophie’s nose. There was something about him that reminded her of someone but she couldn’t connect the impression.

She’d never had much to do with the people from Xanadu and apparently he’d been here for a few years and very close to the late owner. She wished he’d mind his own business though.

To make matters worse, just before take-off, Levi appeared and decreed he’d pilot instead of Odette. Suddenly Sophie could have stayed behind. Talk about bad luck.

Everyone was looking out for Odette. Which was a good thing, but Sophie wondered if it was too late to look out for herself. Now the new seating arrangements meant she’d be up front next to Levi. This kept getting better and better. Not.

The front helicopter seat was as bad as she’d imagined. She shrank back into the stiff leather, semi-frozen, not quite believing she’d agreed to this, when Levi reached in from the outside to click her belt into place. His hands pulled the belt firmly across her and snapped it shut. Talk about space invasion. This whole expedition was crazy and way out of her comfort zone. How the heck had she found herself next to him in a doorless chopper with only the seat belt between her and certain death?

And on that note, surely there should have been more seat belts or harnesses or something? One belt didn’t seem enough.

Odette and Smiley chatted happily, ensconced in the rear out of sight and out of earshot. Once they got going, she thought bitterly, they’d be safe in their own little world.

Levi climbed in and she squashed herself back against the seat. He pointed to the bulky headphones hooked on the central support in front of her, and indicated she put them on.

‘Can you hear me?’ His metallic voice made her jump, and she looked across at him and glared. He nodded and she nodded facetiously back. He frowned, then went on. ‘It’s automatically switched to receive, so for you to be heard by everyone else just press this button to speak.’

He withdrew his attention from her and glanced in the back. ‘You guys all buckled up?’

Odette’s voice crackled. ‘Roger.’

Levi glanced around the deserted helipad and began the pre-flight sequence. ‘All clear,’ he said to no one in particular and started the rotors.

The next few minutes Sophie missed as her eyes were tightly shut. The distant noise through the headphones grew louder and she felt the shudder from the flimsy craft right through the backs of her knees, then the first sideways swish of movement through the air and then back the other way.

She opened one eye. It was too hard not to look. They swayed a little from side to side as they edged higher and she could see the downdraught from the rotors beating the bushes below.

Then she could see the river at the bottom of the gorge, the roof of the homestead, the tops of the trees, and it was all a little intriguing, though she still pushed herself deep into her seat. She tried to relax her shoulders but the fear she’d fall out kept her rigid in the chair.

They climbed higher, and despite the lack of doors, she was protected from the wind by the bubble of the front windshield, and actually it didn’t feel too bad.

She opened the other eye. There was a Perspex floor in front of her feet. What sort of sick person designed a helicopter with a see-through floor? If she’d had eyes in the bottom of her soles she’d be able to look through the Perspex to the ground.

Basically she was standing on a thin edge above certain death. Her eyes closed at the vertigo of that thought, then opened again to risk a glance towards Levi as he concentrated on the dials at the front of the cockpit. What was he looking at? Was everything OK? She studied the instrument panel herself for something familiar. Maybe she’d even find a reassuring needle. Shame the guy wasn’t more into smiling but at least he was taking the danger of the situation seriously.

Knots—they were doing eighty knots, and that was faster than miles per hour, so fairly fast. Fuel—there were seventy gallons of fuel; tank was full anyway. Guess that meant if they crashed she’d die in a ball of flame.

She looked away. Maybe don’t read the dials. They’d climbed higher while she’d been contemplating the manner of their deaths, and she could look down on the escarpment now.

This was pretty amazing. And when she looked back, carefully, towards the homestead and the serpentine river, it made her appreciate how remote the properties were out here.

She’d flown on jets from Perth to Kununurra but they’d been much higher and she’d never really noticed individual stations, though mostly because she’d chosen the aisle seat and not the window.

‘We’ll fly up and over the waterfall on the property.’ Levi’s voice crackled through the headphones. ‘Odette likes that and then over to Lake Argyle. We’ll pass over a couple of stations William asked to see, then in over the Bungles and back out over the Kimberley diamond mine and home.’

He was telling her this because…? Her stomach sank. She pushed the button to speak. ‘Sounds like a long flight. Do we land anywhere?’

His teeth flashed. He couldn’t possibly be concentrating enough on his job if he could smile about it, she thought sourly. ‘Anywhere you want,’ he said.

She resisted saying, Here, but not by much, and just nodded and turned away to glance at her watch. They’d be home in a few hours. She hoped.

Actually, the next hour passed fairly quickly. The waterfall looked surreal from above with sparkling drops at the side of the main body of water shimmering on the breeze to the gorge below.

Lake Argyle loomed indigo blue and stretched for ever, apparently seven times the size of Sydney Harbour, so that must be why it seemed to take seven times longer than she expected to cross.

When they flew over the isolation of the two cattle stations, Smiley asked Levi to circle again, so he could point out how they corralled their cattle using the land formations to form a natural bottleneck and arena. These were the stations Smiley had his eye on.

Sophie tried to concentrate on the implications of a station with no contact with the world for at least four months during the wet season, but all she could feel were the g-forces pulling her towards the open doorway. Her whole body seemed to be straining against the seat belt as they circled, and she had this horrible feeling that maybe Levi hadn’t fastened her buckle properly and she’d just pop out of it into spiralling space.

Now that was a dilemma. She hadn’t checked the belt herself but if she touched it now she might press the eject button.

Come on. Their aircraft was circling thousands of feet above the hard earth and Smiley was going on about the logistical difficulties of cattle to market.

It was no good. ‘Can we land soon?’ Sophie’s voice cut across Smiley’s, squeaky with distress, and she felt Levi glance at her.

The helicopter levelled out. ‘Bungles in fifteen minutes, you right with that?’ Levi’s voice was still tinny, but the strange thing was the lack of humour, just genuine understanding and concern in his voice and the reassurance she gained from that. His hand came across and rested on her upper arm as if to transfer calmness. From a man she didn’t trust it shouldn’t have helped that much. But it did. Like a lifeline.

Funny how she’d never felt that mixture of empathy and support from Brad’s touch and she’d been engaged to him.

Inexplicably steadied, she nodded, and allowed herself to sag more into the seat and close her eyes. Think calm thoughts. Take deep breaths. Everything will be fine.

That was when the engine spluttered, coughed and died. Her eyes flew open. Slow motion from that moment on.

Suddenly there was no background noise except the wind and the rotors turning without an engine. She watched in horror as Levi kept his hands glued to the controls, correcting the cabin’s inclination to yaw. Levi’s voice travelled down the tunnel of her frozen mind. ‘Have to land fast.’ His voice was much louder without the sound of the engine, then she couldn’t hear him at all because he’d switched the radio from the cabin to transmit the distress call. But she could watch his lips move, grimly, as he enunciated their position.

Unwilling to stare frozenly out of the Perspex beneath her feet she kept her eyes on Levi.

Glide. Helicopters can glide like planes but not as far. She remembered him saying that. She believed him. But he did lie. Had he lied then too? Surely not about this?

They weren’t falling like a stone at the moment, still going forward, but the altimeter was unwinding like a top, much, much faster than it had wound up. Then she remembered that Odette and Smiley were in the back but she couldn’t turn her neck to look. They’d all die. Odette’s baby too? No. They had to survive. That thought steadied her. She was the midwife. The only medical person. They’d need her. Odette’s baby needed her. She’d better survive in one piece.

She stared at Levi, who looked as if his face was hewn from the same stone as the escarpment they hurtled towards as he wrestled with the controls. No panic, just fierce, implacable determination to win. Thank God he’d decided to be the pilot. Even now he inspired confidence.