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  Always catching her.

  Dillon didn't ask Kelsey what she had meant. He had spent years in the States, but he had never gotten used to the ease with which people there delved into each other's souls. For all their hearty, matey-good-cheer, Australians were more reticent when it came to talking about their pasts. It wasn't a difficult attitude to understand in a nation that had once been a convict colony.

  He wasn't sure which was better or worse; he was only sure that though he was curious, asking Kelsey Donovan to tell him about her relationship with her father would be as foreign as lying on a bed of nails.

  Kelsey saved him the trouble. Now that reality was beginning to intrude again, she felt the first tingling of fear. She rarely chattered, but now she couldn't avoid it. She had to talk or explode. "I haven't seen my father for twenty-one years."

  His answer was safely innocuous. "A long time."

  "What's he like?"

  What was Jake Donovan like? Or rather, what could Dillon tell the brown-eyed, butterscotch-blond beauty sitting beside him? Jake was a dinkum partner and mate, a man who would stand up for you in a pub brawl and suffer the consequences. But he was also a boozer, a storyteller who often didn't know the truth from a lie, and a hopelessly restless dreamer. He would be the worst kind of father. Dillon had to shove down the desire to tell Kelsey to run for her life. There was nothing waiting for her down the hall except sorrow and disappointment. "I don't know how to answer that," he said at last. "Exactly what did you want to know?"

  Everything. She wanted to know everything. How Jake looked, how he dressed. What he ate for breakfast and drank with his dinner. Did he have a new wife? Were there other children bearing the Donovan name, sisters and brothers with Australian accents?

  Kelsey stifled the barrage of questions, recognizing a thread of hysteria among them. This was no time to be crushed by emotions she had carefully suppressed most of her life. She forced herself to go slowly. "Tell me how long you've known my father."

  "Four years."

  She nodded as if the answer were a pearl of great price. "And have you been partners that long?"

  "I'd say we have."

  "Here?"

  "On and off."

  Kelsey controlled her frustration. "What does that mean?"

  "Mining opals takes money. If you're not on opal, you've got to make money somewhere else. At one time or another Jake or I have had to go off and make enough to continue here."

  "What does...Jake—" she momentarily pondered how strange the name sounded sliding off her tongue "—do when he goes off?"

  "Anything he can. He's tried his hand at shearing sheep on some properties east of here, fishing up near Darwin."

  She nodded, her brow wrinkling as she began to slowly picture the Jake Donovan in her photographs doing those things. "And then he comes back here?"

  "When he has the cash."

  Kelsey turned to get a better look at Dillon. Under a deep, dirt-streaked tan, he was pale with exhaustion—if such a thing were possible. "None of that matters, though, does it? He's lying in there hurt, maybe dying."

  "It won't help Jake any for you to be thinking like that," he warned her.

  "Tell me what happened."

  Dillon had been waiting for this question, but he still wasn't prepared to answer it. How could he explain what he didn't understand? "Jake's as sure-footed as a goat. I've seen him walk a rail fence when he was a stubbie away from being embalmed. Then two nights ago he fell down a fifty-foot mine shaft that he'd dug himself."

  "Were you with him?"

  "Not blooming likely. He was supposed to be with me. We were going to drive up to Mintabie in my ute to see an old mate of his. When Jake didn't show, I went looking for him. Found him this morning."

  Kelsey felt her head spin. Her father had lain helpless and alone for more than a day in the bottom of an opal mine. "Why did it take so long?"

  Dillon had asked himself the same question repeatedly since he had come across Jake's chilled body wedged in the dead-end mine drive. "Because we looked in the wrong places," he said, tipping his hat back, then thinking better of it. He grabbed it by the brim and slammed it to the floor. "We looked in the wrong places like a mob of bloody drongos!"

  "Nobody thought to look in the mine?" Kelsey's head no longer spun. It buzzed with the beginnings of anger. "He's a miner. Wouldn't that make sense?"

  Dillon heard steel replacing the soft music of her voice. He admired the sound at the same time that he felt a jolt of irritation at the words. "Make sense? What sense was there for Jake to be at the mine, down a shaft and wedged in a drive we abandoned six months ago?"

  "How do you know he fell?"

  "From his injuries. It looks like he fell, then started to crawl in a daze. Maybe he thought he could get out."

  "Why shouldn't he have been at the mine?"

  "We'd knocked off work an hour before. I took him into town in my ute. He was going to nip in for something to eat and then meet me at the Opal Showcase to have some stones looked at. Nothing more than potch with a little color, but Jake was hopeful they'd bring a few dollars. He was running low."

  She ignored the unfamiliar terms. "And when he didn't show?"

  He heard the steel harden into a razor-edged weapon. "I didn't think much about it. I waited at the pub to give him a ride to Mintabie, another town up the road. Going there was his idea, so I knew he'd come. But he didn't."

  "And that's when you started to look for him."

  "That's right. Only we wasted time looking everywhere we shouldn't have. We even searched the mine at dawn the next morning, but we didn't search the parts that were closed off. There wasn't any reason for Jake to be there."

  Kelsey was too upset to probe Dillon's voice for emotion. Other than one display of temper, he sounded like a dead man. And he probably was dead on his feet, if he had been searching for her father since Friday night. "Who's the 'we' you keep referring to? Were the police looking for him, too?"

  He exhaled forcefully, blowing a brown curl off his forehead. "This is Coober Pedy, not Sydney. We settle most of our problems ourselves. I found a couple of miners to help me search." He paused, then decided to tell her the truth. "Everyone else thought Jake was sleeping off a bender somewhere. It's happened before."

  "But he'd only been missing an hour or two when you began to worry. How could he have drunk enough?"

  "It doesn't take Jake that long to tie one on when he's trying hard. Especially on a Friday night."

  Kelsey had been prepared to meet a hard-drinking, hard-living man. That description and many less flattering ones had been thrown up to her for twenty-one years. Apparently the assorted relatives who had tried to convince her that her father was worse than no good had been right about his drinking. And apparently he hadn't changed.

  But lots of people drank. Lots of working men tied one on after a hard week. She would have been more surprised if Jake had been different.

  Carefully she assembled the details of Dillon's story in a brain still numb from near heatstroke and shock. Her father had failed to show up for an appointment. She wondered what most men would have done if they'd been waiting for Jake Donovan to appear and he hadn't. Obviously Dillon and her father had a special relationship. Although he wasn't blowing his own horn, Dillon's explanation made it clear that he had saved her father's life. Through her shock and sadness she felt a surge of warmth for the man beside her.

  "It sounds like my father was lucky you cared enough about him to worry." Kelsey hesitantly leaned over and reached out to touch Dillon's arm. His bare flesh was as hard as the gem he mined.

  Dillon felt the delicate brush of her fingertips and smelled the enticing scent of lavender. He didn't want to respond to Kelsey Donovan. He was too weary to respond. He responded anyway. "Your father's my mate. He would have done the same for me." He shifted his head so that their eyes were level. "Now we just have to help him pull through his stay in the hospital."

  Kelsey noted the deep se
a-green of Dillon's eyes. They were absolutely sincere, but there was a spark igniting in them that had nothing to do with sincerity. She lifted her hand, then dropped it back in her lap. Dillon was a stranger, and she was a long way from home.

  "Dillon?" A short, round man in a white coat approached. Kelsey noted the universal symbols of silver chart and stethoscope. She stood as Dillon did.

  "Is my father going to be all right?" she asked before either man could speak.

  Dillon exchanged looks with the physician, who was an old friend. He knew immediately that the news wasn't going to be good. He moved closer to Kelsey, and his arm brushed her side for support. "This is Dr. Munvelt," he said in introduction. "He's been with your father since we brought him in."

  "We'll be transferring Jake to the hospital in Adelaide as soon as a plane arrives." Dr. Munvelt looked at his shoe, as if he might catch something from meeting the eyes of a healthy person. "He regained consciousness briefly, but he wasn't alert. We'll know more after tests."

  "Is he going to be all right?" Kelsey had to restrain the urge to cradle Dr. Munvelt's chin in the palm of her hand to align his eyes with hers.

  "Is he going to live? I think so. Yes, I think so. But he's going to be crook for some time yet. The brain is a funny thing." He continued to examine his shoe. "A funny, funny thing."

  She was horrified by all the things he didn't say. She knew Dillon sensed her feelings, because he moved closer. "Will he make a complete recovery?" she asked.

  "I'm not certain what you mean, but if you want to know if he'll be able to walk and talk and—"

  "Of course that's what I mean."

  "I truly don't know. Time will tell."

  Dillon felt Kelsey's slight body crumple. His arm moved to her shoulder to steady her. "Miss Donovan is understandably concerned," he told the doctor. "She hasn't seen her father in years, and she's traveled a long way."

  "How long?"

  For a moment Kelsey wondered if he was asking for a mileage count. Then she realized he wanted to know how long since she had seen Jake. "Twenty-one years." She watched his head snap up. "May I see him now?"

  "Did he know you were coming?" the doctor asked.

  Kelsey realized she had both men's rapt attention. "No. I didn’t hear from him during those years, either." She was surprised that it still hurt to admit her father's abandonment. There had been times as a child when she had written long, tearful letters to her absent father, then written her own replies in the most masculine script she could manage. Back then she had needed to pretend that his reasons for leaving her were good ones. But those days were long gone. She was an adult now, with an adult's understanding of human frailties. She straightened her shoulders and cast the hurt away.

  "You must be very disappointed to find things in such a state," Dr. Munvelt murmured.

  "I'll be going to Adelaide with him," Kelsey said, taking charge of the conversation and her feelings again. "I'll stay with him while he recovers. But I'd like to see him now, if you don't mind."

  "I'm afraid I do." Dr. Munvelt's eyes were troubled. "How old are you, Miss Donovan?"

  She couldn't imagine why it mattered, but she humored him. "Twenty-four."

  "Then you haven't seen or heard from Jake since you were a child of three?"

  She shook her head, stiffening at the sympathy she saw. "He had his reasons."

  "I'm sure you're right. But can you guess the impact seeing you now might have on him?"

  "I don't know what you mean. He'll be glad—"

  "The brain is a funny thing," he said, repeating his earlier statement. "After a trauma like the one your father has suffered, more trauma, emotional trauma, is frightfully unwise. If your father regains consciousness to be told that the young lady sitting beside the bed is his daughter, a daughter who was a baby the last time he saw her, I don't know what might happen."

  She stiffened more, drawing away from Dillon's supportive hand. "What are you saying?"

  "Simply that if you're going to wait for your father to recover, it will have to be somewhere other than at his side. He'll be monitored and told about you when it's appropriate."

  "But I'm his daughter."

  "Precisely."

  Dillon wanted two things. The first was twenty-four hours of sleep, the second, a good hot meal, preferably fed to him intravenously. He did not want anything to do with the confrontation before him. But even though he was exhausted and famished, he couldn't ignore Kelsey's plight any more than he'd been able to ignore the softness of her breasts pressed against his side. He was discovering that even under the worst of circumstances, Kelsey was hard to ignore, period.

  He spoke before the argument could continue. "Look, Ed, Jake's not conscious now, is he?"

  Dr. Munvelt shook his head sadly.

  "Then let her go in and see him while he's still unconscious. She can't traumatize him if he doesn't know she's there. She's come a few miles for the privilege, wouldn't you say?"

  The doctor looked relieved. "Would that be satisfactory?" he asked Kelsey.

  She would puzzle out the doctor's logic later. Now she grasped at the chance to realize the dream that had fueled her childhood. "For now."

  Dr. Munvelt started down the hall. Kelsey realized she was supposed to follow him, but after several steps she turned back to look at Dillon. His eyes were heavy-lidded, as if he were about to fall asleep standing up. "Thanks," she said, just loudly enough for her voice to carry. "Go home and get some sleep. I'll handle it from here."

  As tired as he was, he was strangely reluctant to do that. Who would be there for Kelsey when she emerged from Jake's room, heartsick and wounded? The answer was inescapable. "I'll wait and drive you to the motel."

  Kelsey didn't trust easily. She didn't allow herself to be drawn to people, because from experience she knew how disappointing it could be. But despite the training of a lifetime she was filled with warmth for the man who had come to her aid and her father's. Dillon Ward. A most unusual man. "You don't have to," she said.

  "I'll be here."

  Kelsey took in the weary lines of his face, the pale hue of exhaustion beneath his tan, the tired slope of his shoulders. Dillon was offering support to a stranger when he was drained himself. If a man could be judged by the friends he chose, then her father was the man she believed him to be. She tried to smile, unaware of the effect on Dillon. "I don't know how long they'll let me stay."

  "I'll be here."

  She nodded and turned back to follow the doctor.

  When they were out of sight Dillon turned, too, but it wasn't his comfortable chair he found behind him. "Sergeant Newberry," he said without surprise, nodding at the Coober Pedy police officer. "Spreading the usual cheer?"

  Sergeant Newberry's expression didn't change. "I've got some questions for you, Ward."

  "I thought we'd already strained your resources."

  The man didn't blink. "I've come up with something new to think about."

  Dillon was too exhausted to stand a moment longer. He pushed past the policeman and draped his body across the chair. "Thinking at all's unique for you, wouldn't you say?"

  "Tired, Ward?"

  "A bit," Dillon said, closing his eyes.

  "Don't let me keep you awake." Sergeant Newberry paused. "Just tell me why you tried to kill Jake Donovan, then I'll let you sleep as long as you like."

  Chapter 2

  THE MAN IN the hospital bed was her father. Kelsey said the words over and over to herself while another part of her screamed that it had all been a mistake. This could not be Jake Donovan, the man she had dreamed about for twenty-one years.

  Dr. Munvelt eyed her cautiously, as if he were afraid that in a moment he might have two patients. "I know he looks bad," he began.

  "Bad?" Kelsey turned wild eyes on him. "He looks dead."

  "Most of us would be dead if we'd been through what he has."

  Kelsey stepped a little closer. If Jake had been lying in an urban hospital he would be hooked u
p to every high-tech machine that would fit beside his bed. Here he was receiving oxygen, fluids and the ministrations of one nurse. "Isn't there anything else you can do for him?"

  "We can fly him to Adelaide, which we'll be doing shortly. He's stable for now, Miss Donovan. The equipment in Adelaide might be more sophisticated, but the care's no better."

  "Tell me the truth. What are his chances of recovery?"

  He twisted his fingers together and kept his eyes on them. "I'm not a fortune-teller. I can't make a guess that would mean anything. Jake's a fighter, I know that. He'll give it what he's got, and so will we. With the good Lord's help, maybe it will be enough."

  Kelsey stepped closer. The man in the bed looked nothing like the pictures she had always treasured. That man had been auburn-haired and laughing, with a clean-shaven face and a twinkle in his eyes. This man's head was covered with bandages. Most of the hair she could see was on his chin in a long, grizzled beard, and what little peeked from beneath the gauze wrappings was no longer auburn but the color of bones bleached by the sun. His skin was tanned in patches, but it hadn't taken years in the Coober Pedy sun without a fight. His face was a mass of wrinkles; his nose had the fine network of prominent veins that testified to countless hours at the pub.

  Kelsey wished she could see Jake standing up. She wished she could see him with his eyes open, fondly gazing at the daughter he had wondered about for twenty-one years. "He was sixty in March," she said, taking the final steps to his bedside. "On St. Patrick's day."

  She had spent that evening alone, toasting the man she had never expected to see again. And then the phone had rung, and her life had changed, along with Jake's. "I've been looking for him since I was old enough to write letters. On his birthday I found out he was in Australia. I found out he was here two weeks ago."

  "And you didn't ring him?"

  "What could I say in a phone call?"

  The doctor cleared his throat, as if that much sentiment was too awkward to handle. "I should think that if Jake recovers steadily, it won't be too long before he can be told about you."