Rescued By Her Mr Right

The way Harriet had shut him out.

It still hurt, Jack realised, as they got close enough to where his crewmate, Matt, was leaning out of the chopper door, ready to pull Harriet to safety and unclip the nappy harness. It was almost a relief when he couldn’t feel the shape of her body against his any longer.

He’d wanted to hold her in his arms so much, that day, when he’d gone to see her after the accident, still reeling from the shock of witnessing that rockfall on their team day out in the Blue Mountains with a day of abseiling training underway. He’d seen that rock hit Harriet and the fear that she’d been killed had made it seem like the ground had been opening up beneath him. A world without Harriet Collins could never be quite the same. He’d had to swipe tears of relief from his face when he’d heard that she’d come through the surgery and still had her leg but he’d known the moment he’d walked into her room for that first visit that even getting close enough to touch her wasn’t going to be welcomed.

She’d put up a barrier that might have been transparent but it was impenetrable. And, from what Jack had heard over the last months, he hadn’t been the only person who’d been relegated to the other side of that barrier. Harriet’s life had fallen apart after the accident but it had been deemed none of his business, however much he might have wanted to try and help.

But she had needed his help today.

Welcomed it, in fact.

And it almost felt like that barrier had somehow evaporated—on her side, anyway. Perhaps he’d put up one of his own, to protect himself from having his friendship rejected again. From the reminders of that even more painful rejection of something that he’d believed could have been a whole lot more than simply friendship.

She was watching him now, as he and Matt made sure that Eddie was as comfortable as possible, monitored his vital signs and tried to check him out for any significant injuries that might have been missed. It was only a short flight to the nearest hospital so it was a busy time but Jack’s glance caught Harriet’s on more than one occasion—like when he’d tightened the loop anchoring the nasal cannula for oxygen and moved to attach the end of the tubing to the on-board supply. And when he reached up to change the flow rate on the IV fluids they were administering to stabilise Eddie’s blood pressure.

What was so different about her?

She was a bit thinner, which was hardly surprising given the physical ordeal she’d been through. Her skin was paler. Because she wasn’t outside every free moment she could find—doing fun runs or surfing or something? Her freckles had faded too but the change he was trying to identify wasn’t anything negative. Quite the contrary. It was...a bit of a spark, that’s what it was. As if a glimmer of the woman he’d admired so much had returned. A woman who’d all but vanished within weeks of that terrible accident.

The last time Jack had gone to visit her in hospital, she’d been fighting an infection that had again raised the awful possibility that her lower leg might have to be amputated. She had been feeling very unwell, lying there with intravenous antibiotics dripping into her arm, and the visit had been more than awkward. Jack had felt helpless and hated it.

Harriet had looked...hopeless, which had been even worse.

She hadn’t wanted to see him. She certainly hadn’t wanted to talk about the SDR, which was pretty much the only thing they had in common. And when she’d looked directly at him—just before she’d said it might be better if he left—her eyes had been like nothing he would have ever associated with Harriet. So dark. So flat you wouldn’t know there were little golden flecks in that hazel warmth.

That was it in a nutshell. The sparkle was back. Not the way it had been but it was there in the interest she was showing in the information being recorded on the ECG monitor and the new set of limb baselines Matt was doing to check on the blood supply to Eddie’s leg below the level of the fracture.

It had been there, as part of that smile, when he’d made that lame joke about Lassie.

As they came in to land at one of Sydney’s larger hospitals, a long way from Bondi Bayside, Jack leaned close and raised his voice.

‘Stay on board when we land. I’m off duty once we get back to base and I can take you home.’

‘I left my car,’ Harriet told him. ‘Back at the cliffs.’

‘No worries. We’ll sort it. We can check that Lassie’s been rescued, too.’

Her eyes widened as if she was surprised he was worried about his patient’s pet but then her face softened as if she was remembering that it wasn’t out of character at all. It was the kind of person he’d always been.

Her smile—and her nod—told him that she liked that.

‘Sounds great.’ Harriet leaned close to Eddie as they were unhooking the stretcher ready to wheel him towards the waiting staff members on the far side of the helipad. ‘I’ll come and see you as soon as I can. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure Harry’s okay.’

She would, too, Jack thought as he bent to move under the still moving rotors of the helicopter that would take them back to base very soon. She was that kind of person as well.

And he’d always loved that about her.

* * *

It felt like the old days.

The time when life had been full of excitement and promise. Before it had all come crashing down around her in such spectacular fashion.

The climb down that cliff face. Treating someone with traumatic injuries. Being winched into a helicopter and then flying over the city she loved so much. Somehow, in recent months she’d forgotten how gorgeous it was.

Being with Jack was another link to her past life and, oddly, she didn’t have a compelling urge to push it away in order not to add weight to the miserable shroud of what she’d lost. Today, it didn’t feel quite so lost and the reminder of what it had been like was poignant but also precious.

Jack’s car was parked at the back of the air rescue base, far enough away from where they’d landed to make Harriet very aware of how far she’d pushed her new boundaries today.

‘You okay?’ Jack’s sideways glance was casual. ‘You could wait here while I get the car.’

Harriet didn’t meet his gaze. ‘I’m good. This is what I do now, Jack. I limp.’

The silence made her realise that she’d slipped back into that defensive mode that made her tone too sharp and pushed people away.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘But I think I can make it. I need to try.’

‘I’m sure you can make it. You climbed down a cliff today, didn’t you? And you don’t need to apologise. I understand...’

People said that a lot, with the best intentions, but it was never true, was it? You couldn’t really understand unless it had happened to you.

But it felt like maybe Jack did understand. More than others, anyway.

‘It will get better,’ she told him. ‘It’s just that I’ve only been out of my brace for a week or so. And I probably did more today than I should have, even before I climbed down the cliff.’

‘What were you doing up there? Testing yourself? Might be a good idea not to do stuff like that by yourself, you know.’ His smile was crooked. ‘Just sayin’...’

‘Yeah, yeah... It was a bit of a test, I guess, but the real reason was to try out my new zoom lens. I wanted some shots of surf crashing on rocks, preferably as it got close to sunset when the light gets awesome.’

‘You’ve really got into photography, haven’t you? I saw you taking all the photos at Kate and Angus’s wedding.’

She’d noticed him there as well. Not that she’d made any attempt to go and talk to him. She’d stayed behind that camera the whole time and had left as early as she could without being rude. It had been hard, being there but not being one of the team any longer.

‘I really have.’ It was a relief to reach the car and take the weight off her leg. A quick glance at her watch told Harriet that she could take some more painkillers soon. As soon as Jack wasn’t around to notice because those sharp of eyes of his didn’t miss much. Had he been aware that she’d avoided talking to him at the wedding?

‘It started because I was taking photos of my leg, actually,’ she found herself saying quietly as the car pulled out onto the road. ‘I wanted a record so that, on bad days, I could remind myself that things were improving. And then I started taking photos of other stuff and I got hooked. Not only did I have a topic of conversation that had nothing to do with my leg but I could kind of hide behind the camera when I was out with other people. Win-win.’

She’d never admitted that to anyone. She’d kept people at a distance by being distant herself with a forced cheerfulness or, shamefully more often, a bad-tempered snappiness. Jack hadn’t seen the worst of it but she knew she’d hurt him by rejecting his support early on. Opening up, just a little, was a kind of peace offering and, judging by the intensity of the swift glance he gave her, he realised that it was a big thing.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘I can only imagine how rough it’s been for you.’

‘Actually, I think it’s me that should be apologising.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘I was horrible to you. When you came to visit. You didn’t deserve that.’

Jack shrugged. He seemed to be concentrating on the road ahead. ‘It was no big deal. You had your friends around.’