There wasn’t a vestige of colour on the girl’s face. She had a faint smattering of freckles across her nose and they only made her lack of colour look worse.

He had to see what damage there was. But to turn her…

‘Do you think I might move just a bit?’ a voice said cautiously. ‘There’s gravel sticking into my cheek.’

Ryan practically yelped.

Then he grinned, relief washing over him like a tidal wave. No brain damage here, then.

There were other sorts of damage.

‘Wait a bit…’

‘I think my spine’s intact, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ Still with her eyes closed and still motionless, the girl’s voice seemed somehow disembodied. ‘I can feel everything.’

The girl’s voice wasn’t as sure now as it had first sounded. It held a distinct tremble. And Ryan found himself putting medical imperatives aside and moving to touch her face. To comfort her.

‘Hey. It’s OK.’ He stroked the soft, black curls as one might have reassured a frightened child. ‘You’re OK. I’m a doctor. You’ll be fine.’

She opened her eyes at that, and stared straight up at him.

And he knew her.

Ryan Henry would have known those eyes anywhere. They’d taunted him as a child. Haunted him for years.

Abbey Rhodes had been eleven years old when he’d left Sapphire Cove. She was four years younger than he and his mother had hated her. ‘White Trash’ his mother had termed Abbey, and when she’d seen Abbey, trailing home alongside Ryan, she’d let loose with both barrels.

‘Ryan, that child’s mother’s not married. Worse, she never has been married. She’s poor as a church mouse and scrubs floors for a living. If that woman thinks you’re going to waste time talking to her child… Well, that’s why we’re leaving, Ryan. This whole place has no class at all.’

Sapphire Cove didn’t have ‘class’, Ryan acknowledged, and it was one of the things he remembered about Australia with affection. The Abbeys of the town, the poor, the immigrants, the local Koori kids whose parents thought houses were a waste of time-and Celia Henry’s son-were all treated exactly the same by the locals. And, despite what Celia thought, Abbey had definitely regarded herself as the equal of Ryan. Or better.

‘If you’re going to be a world-famous doctor then so am I,’ she’d declared, puffing out her eleven-year-old chest and snapping imaginary braces. ‘I’m just as good as you, Ryan Henry, even if my mum does think your mum’s snooty.’

Abbey’s mother had house-cleaned for Celia Henry and, for a while, Abbey had followed Ryan around like a devoted little shadow. That was, until Celia had put an end to it for ever by moving Ryan away.

And all Ryan remembered of Abbey were her eyes. Her fabulous eyes…

Vivid blue. Direct. Honest. And clear as two big pools of water from the sapphire ocean.

Gorgeous!

They’d changed, though.

Ryan had assessed the slim girl lying on the road as being twenty or so. Well, if his figuring was right Abbey had to be more like twenty-seven or -eight now. And her eyes told him he was right, even if his arithmetic couldn’t. Abbey’s eyes were lined-creased from accustomed laughter. And from something else. Suffering?

‘Well, I never…’ Abbey managed, staring up at the man kneeling over her. ‘It’s Ryan Henry…’

It was a pain-filled whisper and it brought Ryan up with a jolt. She’d recognised him, too-but, damn, he was a doctor and she was injured.

‘Hey, Abbey…’ He touched her curls again and they were warm and soft to touch. ‘Yeah, it’s Ryan. But let’s see what the damage is.’

‘You were driving too fast.’

It was the same voice he remembered from years ago. ‘You are walking too fast, Ryan Henry. Wait for me!’

And he always had.

‘You want to have me arrested?’ Ryan’s stern face quirked into a smile. ‘Hey, Abbey, I’m a doctor and I might just be useful here. Let me examine you before you have me hauled away in handcuffs.’

‘I think…’ Abbey cautiously raised her head a little and winced in distress as Ryan helped her into a sitting position. There was still pain in her voice. ‘I think there’s gravel stuck in my cheek.’

‘There is.’ Ryan looked at her face and he hardly saw the gravel rash. Abbey had had the promise of beauty when she was eleven. The promise had been fulfilled, and more. ‘It’s not too bad, though. It’ll scrub out and shouldn’t scar. What else hurts, Abbey?’

‘My leg. Yikes, my leg…’ Abbey grimaced. Ryan’s arm was around her shoulders now and she found herself putting her face against the soft linen of his shirt. Finding comfort in the solidness of him.

As she’d found comfort in his company all those years ago.

She peered out from the folds of his shirt, along the line of her leg. ‘Ryan, it’s dislocated,’ she whispered. ‘Just look. The patella’s way out of line.’

‘The patella’s way out of line… ’

That wasn’t what a non-medical person would say. They’d have said the leg was broken or that it looked funny, with the kneecap sitting out of line with the rest of the leg.

Had Abbey done nursing, then? Ryan wondered briefly. The Abbey he remembered would have made a good nurse. Cheerful and bouncy and never one to let life’s knocks get her down.

‘Let me see.’

Making sure she was able to sit unaided, Ryan shifted so he could examine her leg. One look told him it was out of position. Ryan’s hands moved gently down over the injured limb and he knew she was right. It was at least dislocated. She’d be lucky if there wasn’t a break as well.

He looked up at her face again and swore as he saw the deep pain in her eyes.

‘You need morphine,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Abbey, but I don’t have anything with me. We’re just going to have to get you to the hospital as fast as we can.’

‘Let me be,’ she said weakly, and tried to bend over to put her hands on her leg. ‘I’ll try and get it back in… ’

‘You!’ Ryan caught her hands and held them. ‘Abbey, you can’t…’

Abbey bit her lip, closed her eyes and curled her fingers into fists within Ryan’s hold. For all her strength, the pain in her leg was building to the stage where she couldn’t bear it. ‘Ryan, let me try. I must…’

‘But… I don’t understand.’ Ryan’s grip on her hands tightened. ‘Are you the district nurse? Doing house calls on your bicycle?’

‘Close enough.’ Abbey opened her eyes again then and met his look with a touch of defiance. ‘I knew you didn’t believe me all those years ago, Ryan Henry. I told you what I was going to be. I’m the local doctor.’

‘You’re the…’

‘Look, I hate to be rude,’ Abbey said wearily, ‘but let’s get my leg back to a straight line and catch up on career paths later, shall we?’

Abbey couldn’t. Ryan didn’t let her make the attempt, but a comprehensive examination of Abbey’s leg told him he couldn’t do it either. Not without a really hefty dose of morphine and sedative to relax her. The patella had twisted way out of position. She’d been incredibly lucky that the leg hadn’t snapped.

‘There’s morphine in my bag,’ Abbey told him. Abbey’s bag, by some miracle, was hardly damaged. Ryan retrieved it by simply reversing the car off the bicycle. At least there was something he could do then. Ryan injected subcutaneous morphine into Abbey’s thigh, considered trying to manipulate the leg then and there and decided against it. He wanted an X-ray first To try and manipulate it and then discover that there was a break…

He splinted the leg as best he could with crepe bandages and newspapers he had in the car, and then gathered her carefully into his arms.

Abbey hardly spoke as he worked. All the energy seemed to have gone out of her, and Ryan found himself growing increasingly worried about just how hard she’d hit her head.

‘Thank you, Ryan,’ she whispered. She put her arms unselfconsciously around his neck to help him lift her, and the feel of her made Ryan feel distinctly strange.

‘My pleasure.’ Ryan winced as he heard himself say it. lnane. That was how he felt. Young and gauche. Looking down at this slip of a girl was like looking at his childhood all over again.

It made him remember with a vengeance the things he had once loved. Memories came flooding back. The things and the people his mother had torn him front

Abbey…

‘Come on,’ he said in a voice rougher than he’d intended. ‘Let’s get you to the hospital. I assume there’s a hospital in this place now. Do you have another doctor who can patch you up?’

‘We do have a hospital, but I’m afraid it’s a case of “Physician, heal thyself ‘,’ she quoted wryly.

Ryan didn’t respond. He steadied himself, made sure his grip was sure and the splint was supported by his arm and then lifted her into his arms and across to the car. She was a featherweight. She put her arms around his neck in a subconscious gesture of trust that made him feel even more odd.

‘It’s me, me or me,’ Abbey added shakily as he set her down. ‘Or-alternatively-me.’

Ryan gave himself a mental shake. What was it about this girl that was making emotions and memories he’d forgotten flood right back?

‘Well, you can’t put your own leg back into place,’ he said brusquely.

‘I probably can,’ Abbey said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think anything’s broken. Let’s get me X-rayed and then we’ll see.’

‘You have to be joking.’

‘No.’ Abbey perched on the car’s back seat as Ryan lowered her. Then, as Ryan held her leg steady, she hauled herself backwards so that her leg was stretched out straight on the seat. Her voice still wobbled but there was a trace of defiance in the tone. Like-‘Don’t mess with me. I can handle myself!’

‘I stitched up my gashed arm last year,’ she told him. ‘Ten stitches, all by myself. I don’t see that this is any worse. Look, would you mind if we made a house call on the way to the hospital?’ She took a deep breath. The morphine was beginning to cut in and the agony was receding.