Wildfire Island Docs: The Man She Could Never Forget / The Nurse Who Stole His Heart / Saving Maddie's Baby / A Sheikh to Capture Her Heart / The Fling That Changed Everything / A Child to Open Their Hearts

‘It dissolves glass,’ he repeated. ‘And glass is made of sand, which is very degraded quartz, and gold comes in quartz veins. You pop a piece of gold-bearing quartz into a jar of hydrofluoric and, voilà, in a couple of days you have wee nuggets of gold.’

Sam was staring at him in disbelief.

‘You’re saying men steal gold-bearing quartz from the mine?’

He hadn’t really been saying that—hadn’t wanted to mention the matter at all—but they had a patient …

‘Not all of them, and I’d say theft was rare back when the place was properly managed, but those who haven’t been paid for a while probably feel they deserve it. Some of them might pinch it anyway—no one’s perfect.’

He certainly had Sam’s attention now.

‘So, it’s possible our patient had been fooling around with probably his father’s acid and splashed some on his skin. Wouldn’t he know?’

Keanu shook his head.

‘Maybe not straight away, and when it started to hurt—from all accounts it’s extremely painful—he didn’t want to tell anyone about it because I’m sure he’d been forbidden to go near it, let alone open the lid of the container. Sniffing the fumes in close quarters can do horrible things to your lungs. No, he was hardly likely to tell his family what he’d done.’

‘Treatment?’

Again Keanu could only shake his head.

‘I was a child when I heard about it and even if the treatment was discussed it would have gone over my head. Best you get onto the internet or call the poisons centre back in Oz.’

Sam sighed, but before he could say anything a gorgeous and very pregnant young woman with short auburn curls, startling green eyes and a smile that lit up the air around her swept into the hospital.

‘Maddie!’ he and Sam cried in unison, holding out their arms and somehow gathering her in a three-way hug.

Which was when Caroline walked in.

Now was not the time to fill Caro in on his divorce; instead, Keanu made the introductions.

‘Maddie, this is Caroline Lockhart. She filled in for us this week when the FIFO nurse didn’t come.’

‘And has been doing a great job,’ Sam added.

He’d interrupted Keanu’s, ‘Caroline, this is Maddie Haddon, one of our favourite FIFO doctors.’

‘Your only FIFO doctor now you’ve decided you’ll be permanent, Keanu,’ Maddie corrected as she held out her hand towards Caroline.

The introduction was interrupted as Bugsy, obviously hearing his mistress’s voice, came hurtling towards her.

Maddie crouched awkwardly to hug her ecstatic dog.

‘So much for my walking him twice a day,’ Sam complained, ‘but now you’re here, Maddie, do you know anything about hydrofluoric acid?’

Maddie looked a little startled but she accepted Sam’s hand to help her upright again, and shrugged her shoulders.

‘That’s the stuff that melts glass so has to be kept in plastic containers,’ she offered.

‘I think we’ve already established that. Come through to the office and you can tell me all your news—check-up okay?—while I look up how to treat a hydrofluoric burn.’

They disappeared along the corridor, and Caroline followed Keanu into the young lad’s room. He could feel her closeness—aware of her in a way he’d never been before.

‘You think it’s an acid burn?’ she asked him, all business.

Keanu wasn’t sure what to feel. Last night they’d sat together and talked of love and attraction, and his body clamoured to greet her with a kiss—at least a kiss …

But work was work.

Caroline was by the patient’s bed, leaning forward to examine the wound, so Keanu joined her, pushing the swirl of emotions inside him out of his mind with the practicalities of work.

He bent over Raoul and spoke quietly to him.

‘Did you spill something on your leg?’

The slightest of head movements, but definitely a very subdued yes.

‘Can you tell me what it was?’

Another shake of the head, this one just as definitely negative.

‘You’re not going to get into trouble,’ Keanu said gently, ‘at least not from us, but we do need to know so we can treat it before it gets any worse.’

How he was enduring the pain now, Keanu didn’t know, having heard horror stories of hydrofluoric burns.

‘Calcium glucanate gel,’ Sam announced, coming in to join them by the bed. ‘We don’t have it but I can make it up. In the meantime, Caroline, would you take a blood sample so can we check if it’s affected his electrolytes and, Keanu, can you flush the wound again to remove the cream we’ve been using?’

He turned to Raoul.

‘If you’d told us—’ he began, but Keanu held up his hand.

‘We’ve had that conversation and he’s very sorry.’

Sam nodded and disappeared again, no doubt to mix the solution he needed.

Caroline tightened a ligature around Raoul’s upper arm then tapped a vein inside his elbow. She was so aware of Keanu’s presence she could feel her skin growing hot and tight.

While Keanu was doing nothing more than flush a wound?

Concentrating, remembering all her training, she slid the needle into the vein, released the ligature and drew out blood for testing, telling herself all the time that a strange conversation during one night on a swing didn’t mean anything.

Or did it?

He said they’d talk.

She asked Raoul to hold the cotton-wool ball to the tiny wound while she set aside the phial and found some tape.

Professional, she could do it, for all her nerves were skittering with the … promise, maybe, that had been last night.

Pleased to escape Keanu’s presence, she took the blood through to Sam.

‘And?’ Maddie prompted.

Caroline wondered if she looked as puzzled as she felt.

‘And what?’

Maddie smiled at her.

‘Just because I’ve been off the island doesn’t mean I haven’t been keeping up with the gossip. And that tells me that you and Keanu have renewed your old childhood friendship, though possibly the word friendship isn’t quite enough to describe your relationship.’

‘For heaven’s sake, we’ve barely spent ten hours alone with each other and the gossip mill has us …’

She didn’t have the words she needed.

‘Practically married?’ Maddie kindly put in.

Caroline sighed. Well, Keanu was married, just to somebody else, so no matter what island gossip suggested a real marriage between herself and Keanu wasn’t even an outside possibility for the near future.

‘Things haven’t got quite that far,’ she muttered, unwilling to share more with a virtual stranger.

‘Well, there’s still time,’ Maddie said. ‘Now, didn’t Sam say you could take a break? Go home.’

Home.

The island was home to her and she’d been so happy here since her return. Disturbed by the problems, of course, and confused by her attraction to Keanu, but none of that had spoiled the feeling that she was back where she belonged.

Home.

Keanu.

What was he thinking?

Caroline sighed and headed up to the house, using the track past the lagoon, thinking a swim might clear her head.

But up at the house the bookwork beckoned. She hadn’t got the maintenance and other day-to-day working figures of the mine from Reuben. Hoping he’d still be in the office there, organising the fencing off of the mine, she headed down the steep steps once again.

Keeping busy to keep her mind off Keanu.

But he was already there, sitting with Reuben in the shed.

Why wouldn’t he be?

No reason, but something about the way the pair of them looked at her made her feel uneasy.

Keanu was the first to speak.

‘We’re just sorting out something here, Caro,’ he said, and for some reason his voice sounded tight.

As if they’d been discussing her?

Of course they wouldn’t have been …

‘I’ll see you later at the house,’ he added, and knowing a dismissal when she heard it, she turned and headed back up the steps.

But halfway up she saw the faint marking of an old track, grassy now, and grown over with enthusiastic tropical vines and plants.

Had she been thinking of the grotto that she noticed it?

She certainly hadn’t the last time she’d climbed the steps.

But her feet were already on the barely there track, picking their way through the tangled regrowth, quickening her pace where the track was clear but taking her time to find a way around where thorn bushes formed a barrier.

Hot and sticky, not to mention covered in burrs, she finally reached the pool where the water cascading down from the lagoon came to rest before trickling on past the village to the sea.

She breathed in the humid air, catching scents she couldn’t quite identify, resting for a moment before turning towards the waterfall.

‘You’re being silly,’ she told herself, speaking the words aloud in the hope they might stop this trek back into the past.

Didn’t work, and she kept going, arriving eventually at the hidden space behind the waterfall, the water making music all around her, the thick fern growth giving the space a special magic.

He’d married someone else.

She told herself this was okay, only to be expected—of course he would have married, and it was only the small child she’d once been that was bleating But he’s mine deep inside her head.

She sat on a rock, her clothes damp from spray, and tried to make sense of her life as it was—not as she’d once imagined it would be.

‘Caro, are you in there?’

Keanu’s voice.

How had he guessed?

And of course it wasn’t anything to do with linked thoughts.

‘Caro,’ he called again, and this time she knew she’d have to answer.

‘I’m in the grotto,’ she called, and within minutes he was there beside her, sitting on what had always been ‘his’ rock.

‘How did you know?’ she asked.

‘It was obvious that someone had been along the old track and as you were the only one stupid enough to be coming down here on your own, I just followed your trail.’

‘Stupid enough?’ she demanded, angry but not sure whether it was because her thinking time had been interrupted or because his presence always caused her tension.

‘There could have been a landslip or a bit of the track washed away.’

‘Well, there wasn’t, and I’m quite safe, so you can go off and do whatever you were planning to do with Reuben.’

‘Which was to come and see you,’ Keanu told her, not as excited now as he’d been earlier, not quite as sure she was going to like the idea. And he’d already decided that now was not the time to mention his divorce. Other matters were more urgent after all.

‘I was talking to Reuben about the mine. I talked to the elders about it yesterday, and spoke to your father this morning. Something you’d said about finding someone to invest in it—once we knew how much we needed—sparked a kind of shadow of an idea in my head, and it wasn’t until yesterday at the funeral that I worked out what it was.’

He paused, waiting for a comment, perhaps a little excitement, or even a cool ‘And?’

But there was no response so, feeling even more uncertain, he ploughed on.

‘Reuben isn’t the only islander with a son making good money on the mainland, so it seemed to me that the islanders themselves might like to invest in the mine, form a company of some sort, a co-op perhaps—and take it over.’

‘Take it over?’

Caro’s voice was scratchy.

‘Completely?’

‘That’s why I had to talk to Max. I knew he’d know which way to go, the company or whatever, and of course he’d have to agree to the idea.’

‘And he did? He’s happy for the islanders to take over the mine?’

Keanu was worried now. He’d really expected excitement that he’d sorted out the problem, perhaps a little hesitation as Caro considered it. But not this flat, unemotional questioning.

Unable to work it out, he went with answering.

‘Yes, of course. He was annoyed he hadn’t thought of it himself. Of course, it can’t happen overnight, but within maybe six months we could have the mine up and running again and money going into the hospital—that would still be part of the arrangement—with the shareholders benefiting as well.’

‘And you never thought to talk to me about this?’

Not flat and unemotional now—no, now she was upset, although he couldn’t fathom why.

‘There’s been no time,’ he said, hoping to sooth whatever was bothering her. ‘As you can imagine there’s still so much to do. It’s mainly been just contacting people.’

It was hard to see her expression in the gloom, but he saw the way she stood up, and knew from the way she held her body that she’d be glaring down at him.

‘Contacting everyone but me!’ she said. ‘Do I not count? Wasn’t I part of this save-the-mine project from the beginning? Wasn’t I the one who got the books and put the figures together? Then suddenly it’s all “Don’t worry your little head about it, the men will fix it” and you don’t even mention it to me?’

He stood too, and put a hand on her shoulder—a hand that was quickly shrugged off.

‘Caro—’ he began.

But she was already walking away, pausing only to say, ‘You could have mentioned it as we sat on the swing, as we talked about love and what love was. I thought it was sharing, doing things together—not everything, that would be silly—but this was a joint project at the beginning, then suddenly it was all yours. I don’t know how to feel, Keanu. I don’t even know why I feel the way I do, when obviously it’s the ideal solution for the mine, but right now I just have to get away by myself and try to work out what I really want from love.’

And with that she disappeared from the grotto, not going back along the track but climbing the rocks at the side of the waterfall.

She was as sure-footed as a cat, so he didn’t worry about her going that way, and he knew it would be pointless trying to argue with her in the mood she was in, so he sat on his rock in the place where they’d practised getting married, and wondered just how things had gone so wrong.

She climbed the rocks to the top, skipped over the flat rocks where she’d sat with Keanu—had it been only a few days ago?

Keanu.

He’d sorted out the problem at the mine—or would eventually—and he’d spoken to her father.

But not to her.

Did he really know her so little he’d thought she wouldn’t want to know?

After all the work she’d done on the figures, of course he had to know. Had to realise the responsibility—family responsibility—she felt towards it.

And didn’t he even consider just how hard this might be—hearing that a chunk of her life, her heritage, had been taken from her without any discussion?

It wasn’t that she wanted the blasted mine. As long as it continued to support the hospital, she couldn’t have cared less what happened to it.

Somewhere deep inside she knew she was being silly, that it was just a mine. And she knew full well that without it the hospital couldn’t keep going.

She made her way along the track to the house, still feeling wounded no matter how she tried to rationalise it.

Had Keanu talked to her about his idea, made her part of it right from the start, she knew she’d probably feel differently about it.

Probably even be as excited as he was about it.

She’d reached the hospital and was about to climb the hill to the house when Sam caught up with her, his face so serious she knew something was wrong.

Very wrong!

‘You father phoned,’ he said gently. ‘Christopher has taken a turn for the worse. He’d like you home.’

Panic flooded her body. She’d always known this day would come. Known, too, that it was getting closer.

But now …

‘He’s sending a plane for you. You’ve got two hours. You father will send a car to meet the plane at Sydney airport.’

Caroline supposed she’d heard the words, but her total focus was on her brother, willing him to stay alive until she got there.

She’d been selfish, thinking only of her own unhappiness when she’d fled to the island, and now—

Shutting off that thought, she hurried up to the house.

Keanu left the grotto. He’d told Reuben he’d go over to Atangi to talk to the elders again—tell them he’d spoken to Max. Reuben was phoning them and they’d be waiting for him, no doubt filled with excitement and ideas about how they’d manage the mine.

He went down to the village where he kept a boat he’d bought from one of the locals almost as soon as he’d arrived back on Wildfire, half thinking he should have let Caro know where he was going, but he was already running late.

Plus, he needed to consider her reaction before he talked to her again. Out on the water he could think straight. Right now he felt there was a lot of thinking that needed straightening. Not only was the issue of the mine hanging between them but the knowledge that he had to tell Caroline that he was free, that his divorce was final worried at him too. Just how would she react to that news? Given the sour response to his plans for the mines and his ill thought-out decision to get the ball rolling without first consulting her, he imagined that trusting him with her heart was furthest from her mind right now …

He headed towards Atangi, easing the boat over the shallow part of the reef.

The little engine pushed them through the water and the tension he’d been feeling eased.

So was it love he felt for her?

Adult love?

Enough to build a future on? Now that he finally had a future?

It was hard to tell because he’d always loved her and even when he’d cut her out of his life rarely a day had gone by without something reminding him of her.

And now she was here, back on Wildfire where it had all begun, and he couldn’t begin to work out …

What couldn’t he work out?

Whether or not he loved her?

No, that part was settled, but there were so many different kinds of love.

No, he was playing with words.

He loved Caroline, and he was pretty sure that Caroline loved him. And if that was the case they could sort out the rest.

Hadn’t they talked of love on the swing?

But had he told Caro that he loved her?

Had he actually said the words?

He tried to think but his mind went blank with shock at his own stupidity. That he, who knew Caro probably better than anyone else did, hadn’t told her how he felt.

Her whole life had been filled with the uncertainty of love. Not that she spoke of it, or wallowed in self-pity. No, his Caro just got on with things. Like being left with her grandma for a start, then boarding school, and all the times her father hadn’t come. Even Christopher kept his best smiles for his father.

So of course she’d be uncertain about his love, then taking the decisions about the mine away from her—that was how she’d have seen it—would have been the last straw.

He had to see her, tell her he loved her, that more importantly he was now free to love her. He’d start with that then sort out the mine business. He’d see the elders, go back to Wildfire.

Full of resolve, Keanu pulled into the harbour at Atangi, thinking not of the meeting but of the night ahead.

If only Keanu was here, Caroline thought as she flew over the Pacific. With him beside her she could face anything.

Was that what love was about?

Having someone to lean on, someone there to help you through the rough times as well as celebrate the good ones? She’d been stupid, reacting as she had to Keanu’s suggestion about the mine co-op. She wasn’t even sure why she’d reacted as she had.

And blaming Keanu …

Though if he really loved her, the way she now realised she loved him, wouldn’t she be the first person to discuss it with?

Even before he knew it might actually work?

Of course not, that was a petty and stupid way to think.

She’d been unfair, but the calm way he’d announced he’d sorted out the mine problem, leaving her out completely, had temporarily blocked all rational thought and she’d struck out at him.

And now, heading further and further away from him, she couldn’t tell him—couldn’t say she was sorry and agree it was an ideal answer to the problem, even if she felt that a little bit of herself had been cut off.

In her head, the mine had been as much a part of Wildfire as the house she knew was home.

But stuff had gone from it and the house had still been home.

She’d phone Keanu as soon as she was in the car on the way to the hospital and tell him she was sorry.

Tell him she loved him.

Tell him she needed him?

Was it too soon for that?

CHAPTER TWELVE

RETURNING TO WILDFIRE, and heading straight to the house to tell Caro he loved her—this mission becoming more urgent by the moment—Keanu was disconcerted to hear she’d gone.

Because she was upset with him?

But Bessie was still explaining and he forced himself to listen.

Christopher … Sydney … charter flight …

He thanked Bessie and headed for his villa. Thankfully, he could get the regular flight out of here the next day. He sat at his computer, booking a flight from Cairns to Sydney, and arranging a hire car to be waiting at the airport.

Praying all the while—for Christopher, for Caro and for himself a little—hoping he hadn’t left all he wanted to say until it was too late.

Mrs Phipps, the housekeeper, older now and somehow smaller, opened the front door of the Lockharts’ Sydney house and squinted uncertainly up at him.

‘Do I know you?’

‘It’s Keanu, Mrs Phipps. I used to come here sometimes during the holidays to play with Caroline and talk to Christopher.’

‘Keanu?’

Her voice was slightly disbelieving.

‘But you’re much bigger now. You’ve grown. Of course you’ve grown! But welcome. You’ve come to be with Caroline, I suppose. They’re up at the hospital—she and Dr Lockhart. Christopher’s very poorly again.’

He didn’t need to ask what hospital. There was an excellent private hospital just a few blocks away and the professional staff there all knew and loved Christopher, treating him with special care.

‘Thank you, Mrs Phipps,’ he said and turned away.

‘But don’t you want to leave your bag? You’ll stay here surely?’

He looked down at the bag he was carrying, having decided a taxi was easier than a hire car in a city he didn’t know well.

Would he stay here?

Would he be wanted?

He wished he were as certain as Mrs Phipps seemed to be.

‘Best not,’ he said, ‘but thanks.’

And with that he headed down the ramp, out onto the street and up the road to where the hospital was built to look out over a part of Sydney’s magnificent harbour.

With the money the twins’ maternal grandparents had left in trust for Christopher, he would always have twenty-four-hour care, private hospitals and the best of doctors and specialists. So this hospital was a special place, and he would be getting the best possible treatment here.

But Keanu’s heart quaked at the thought of Caro losing her brother. They might not have been physically close but there’d always been a special bond between them. Even as a child, if she woke with a nightmare in the night his mother would be sure to get a call the next morning to say Christopher wasn’t well.

Poor Caro.

Would she let him comfort her? Take whatever support he could offer her?

Or had he hurt her too badly for that?

Once at the hospital, he asked a friendly receptionist if he could leave his bag behind her counter, then enquired about Christopher’s whereabouts.

‘He’s in Room 22 on the second floor, but I think it might be family only. Dr Lockhart and his sister are in with him right now. He’s very frail.’

The woman blinked back tears, and Keanu realised just how special Christopher was to all those who’d come in contact with him.