It was all too hard to think about and she’d come down here to relax, so she needed to change the subject. They’d made it down to the dry riverbed, her hand still in his. ‘When the rains come properly, once a year if we’re lucky, or every few years, this whole creek bed is flooded. The water rushes through here like a red torrent and anything caught in it gets washed away too. Even men like you.’ Big. Strong. Mortal. The thought of Zac in a flash flood made her shudder and she acknowledged her lack of faith in his ability to survive in a remote landscape.

She wasn’t a small woman, but he looked down on her from his height and she wanted to hug him. Keep him safe. It was probably the tiredness that had crept up on her since she’d arrived home. She was possibly allowing it to swamp her because she now had some support mechanisms in place.

He must have seen her sizing him up because his voice lowered teasingly. ‘Does it bother you? I seem to tower over all your family like a big lummox. I hope your brother is big.’

She laughed. ‘Big is beautiful. Your size was handy in the emergency department with our stroppy football players.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Was that all?’

She cocked an eyebrow at him. Did he expect her to be all coy and embarrassed because they’d enjoyed each other’s bodies? ‘You are big,’ she teased him. ‘Of course height is fine lying down, but it could be awkward at this angle. You up there, me down here.’ She dared him with her eyes, then said, ‘You could kiss me and I’ll tell you.’ The comment came out of her mouth before she could stop it, and hung in the hot air between them loud and clear.

He paused and surveyed her in a way that made her think it might be time to head back to the house before she said anything else that would make it awkward to spend the next week together.

‘Forget I said that.’ She turned her back on him. ‘Come on. It’s just a walk.’

Unexpectedly, he took her fingers in his big hand again and squeezed them for comfort. A sudden rush of empathy welled inside her and ran through her entire body like a cooling draught. He was so lost without his memories and she was pressuring him. She squeezed his hand back. She needed to console him more than he needed to console her.

She stopped and he stopped with her. There had to be more than this, and she could almost see in his eyes the shadows of the past crowding like cloaked figures around him, and sadly, his inability to pinpoint any of the faces.