Now he just had to stay upright as he fought his way back. He was limping and he stumbled twice, his bare foot slipping on rocks, but he didn’t fall and, as he reached the shallows, Ellie was there beside him.
‘Don’t argue, Joe. Just give me your arm.’
He was happy to let her help him to the bank.
At last...
‘Thanks,’ he said. And then, with difficulty, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah, well, thank God it’s over.’ Ellie seemed to be suddenly self-conscious. She quickly let go of him and stepped away. Her hair was sleek and straight from the rain and her clothes were plastered to her slender body. And, now that they were safe, Joe probably looked at her for longer than he should have as they stood on the muddy bank, catching their breath.
‘You’re bleeding!’ Ellie cried suddenly, her eyes widening with horror as she pointed to his injured leg.
Joe looked down. Blood was running from beneath his ripped jeans and spreading in bright red rivulets over his bare foot.
‘I think it’s just a cut,’ he said.
‘But we need to attend to it. I hope it won’t need stitches.’
‘I’m sure it’s not urgent. Go to Jacko.’
As if backing up Joe’s suggestion, a tiny voice in the distance screamed, ‘Mama!’ The poor little kid was wailing.
‘He needs you,’ Joe said, shuddering at the imagined scenario of poor Jacko abandoned in the car while both his parents were swept away.
At least Ellie was already on her way to him. ‘You’d better come too,’ she called over her shoulder.
* * *
There was only one option. While Ellie comforted Jacko, Joe found a towel to wrap around his bleeding leg and, after that, they drove their respective vehicles back to the homestead.
‘Nuisance, I know,’ Joe said as he set his luggage on the veranda again. ‘This totally stuffs up your plans.’
Ellie shrugged. She’d morphed from the bravely stubborn warrior woman who’d rescued him from the river back to a tight-faced, wary hostess.
‘We should take a closer look at your leg,’ was all she said.
‘I don’t want to bleed all over the house.’ Joe’s leg was stinging like crazy and he’d already left bloody footprints on the veranda.
‘Let me take a look at it.’ Ellie dropped to her knees beside him, frowning as she carefully parted the torn denim to examine his leg more closely.
This was the first time Ellie had touched him in years, and now she was kneeling at his feet and looking so worried. He felt momentarily deprived of air, as if he was back in the river.
* * *
Ellie felt incredibly flustered about patching up Joe’s leg.
She’d been hoping for distance from her ex, and here she was instead, tending to his wounds. And the task felt impossibly, disturbingly intimate. She knew she had to get a grip. It was only a matter of swabbing Joe’s leg, for heaven’s sake. What was wrong with her?
Of course, she was still shaken from the shock of seeing him almost drown in front of her. She kept reliving that horrifying moment when his dark head had disappeared beneath the swirling flood water.
She’d believed it was the end—Joe was gone for ever—and she’d been swamped by an agonising sense of loss. A slug of the darkest possible despair.
Even now, after they were both safely home and showered and changed, she felt shaky as she gathered bottles of antiseptic, tubes of cream and cotton wool swabs and bandages and anything else she thought she might need.
Now she could see the contrariness of their situation. She and Joe had made every attempt to split, finally and for ever, and yet fate had a strange sense of humour and had deemed it necessary to push them together again.
Here was Joe in her kitchen, dressed in shorts, with his long brown leg propped on a chair.
It wasn’t fair, Ellie decided, that despite an angry red gash, a single limb could look so spectacularly masculine, so strongly muscled and large.
‘Blood,’ little Jacko announced solemnly, stepping closer to inspect the bright wound on Joe’s calf.
‘Jacko’s always seriously impressed by blood,’ she explained.
Jacko looked up at Joe with round worried eyes, blue gaze meeting blue. ‘Band-Aid,’ he pronounced solemnly.
‘Thanks, mate.’ Joe smiled at the boy. ‘Your mum’s looking after me, so I know I’m in good hands.’
To Ellie’s dismay, she felt a bright blush heat her face. ‘I’m afraid Joe will need more than a Band-Aid,’ she said tightly as she drew a chair close. ‘Jacko, why don’t you go and find Teddy? I’ll give him a Band-Aid, too.’ With luck, she would get most of this task done while the boy was away, looking for his favourite stuffed toy.
But, to her annoyance, she couldn’t quite meet Joe’s eyes as she bent forward to examine his torn flesh. ‘It looks like a very bad graze—and it’s right down your shin.’ She couldn’t help wincing in sympathy. ‘It must have hurt.’
‘It’s not too bad. I don’t think it’s too deep, do you?’
‘Perhaps not, but it’s had all that filthy river mud in it. I’d hate you to get infected.’ Gently, conscientiously, Ellie washed the wound with warm water and antiseptic, then dabbed at the ragged edges with a cotton wool swab and extra antiseptic. ‘I hope this doesn’t sting too much.’
‘Just slosh it on. I’ll be fine.’
Of course. He was a tough guy.
Ellie wished she was tougher. She most definitely wished that being around her ex-husband didn’t make her feel so breathless and trembling. And overheated.
She forced herself to be businesslike. ‘Are you up-to-date with your tetanus shots?’
‘No worries there. The Army made sure of it.’
‘Of course. OK. I think I should put sterile dressings on these deeper patches.’
‘I’m damn lucky you have such a well stocked first aid kit.’
‘The Flying Doctors provided it. There are antibiotics, too, if you need them.’
‘You’re an angel, Ellie.’
Joe said this with such apparent sincerity she was terrified to look him in the eye, too worried he’d read her emotions, that he’d guess how upset she’d been by his accident, that he’d sense how his proximity set her pulses hammering.
Carefully, she tore the protective packaging from a dressing patch and placed it on his leg, gently pressing the adhesive edges to seal it to his skin. Then, without looking up, she dressed another section, working as swiftly and efficiently, and as gently, as she could.
‘The Florence Nightingale touch suits you.’
Ellie’s head snapped up and suddenly she was looking straight into Joe’s eyes. His bright blue gorgeous eyes that had robbed her of common sense and stolen her heart at their very first meeting.
Joe responded with a slow shimmering smile, as if he liked looking at her, too. Her face flamed brightly. Dismayed, she clambered to her feet.
‘Teddy!’ hollered Jacko, suddenly running