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

Keanu sighed.

He understood that part of the situation—but nevertheless the mine would have to shut! Safety had to come first and their small hospital just wasn’t equipped should a major catastrophe like a mine collapse happen.

Caroline’s heart had shuddered at the thought of the miners working in tunnels that might not have been shored up properly, or in water that hadn’t been pumped out of the tunnels, but the best way to find out was to talk to them.

‘Well, if there are people working here, shouldn’t we start the checks?’ She turned to Keanu, and read the concern she was feeling mirrored in his eyes. ‘How do you usually handle it?’

But it was Reuben who answered her.

‘I’ll ring through to the team and they send one man out at a time—we do it in alphabetical order so it’s easier for you with the files. I’m a bit worried about Kalifa Lui—his cough seems much worse.’

‘Should we see him first?’ Caroline asked, but Keanu shook his head.

‘He’ll realise we’ve picked him out and probably cough his lungs up on his way out of the mine so his chest’s clear when he gets here. Better to keep to the order.’

Reuben had placed a well-labelled accident book in front of Caroline and a box of files on the table where Keanu sat.

Index card files?

Caroline looked around the office—no computer.

Ian’s cost-cutting?

She didn’t say anything, not wanting to confirm any more Lockhart inadequacies or bring up Ian’s name unnecessarily.

Keanu was already flipping through the files, and Reuben was on the phone, organising the check-ups, so Caroline opened the book.

But she was easily distracted.

Looking at Keanu, engrossed in his work, making notes on a piece of paper, leafing back through the files to check on things, she sensed the power of this man—as a man—to attract any woman he wanted. It wasn’t simply good looks and a stunning physique, but there was a suggestion of a strong sexuality—maybe more than a suggestion—woven about him like a spider’s web.

And she was caught in it.

The memories of their childhood together were strong and bitter-sweet given how it had ended, but this was something different.

‘Aaron Anapou, ma’am.’

Jerked out of her thoughts by the deep voice, she looked up to see a dust-smeared giant standing in front of her.

‘Ah! Hi! Actually, Keanu’s doing the checks. I’m Caroline—I’m the nurse.’

She stood up and held out her hand, which he took gingerly.

‘You should have gloves on, ma’am,’ he said quietly.

‘But then I might miss a little gold dust sticking to my fingers.’

Aware that she’d already held up things for too long, she waved him along the table towards Keanu, who already had the first card in front of him.

Reuben had helpfully laid out the medical implements between the two of them—a stethoscope, ear thermometer and covers, and a lung capacity machine. So what did she do? Act as welcoming committee? Wait for orders?

Behind her desk Reuben had also opened the doors on what looked like a well-stocked medical cabinet.

Maybe she did the dressings.

But, in the meantime, there was the accident book to go through. She looked at the recent pages, then flipped back, interested to see if there were always so few accidents recorded.

It wasn’t hard to work out when the crushing and extracting operations had closed down as most of the reported accidents had been caused by some chance contact with some piece of the machinery.

In the background she heard Keanu chiding men for working in flip-flops instead of their steel-capped boots, listened to explanations of water not being pumped out, and her heart ached for the days when the mine had been a well-run and productive place.

‘If you’re done, you can give me a hand.’ Had Keanu guessed she’d been dreaming?

The next miner hadn’t tried to hide the fact he’d been working in flip-flops—they were bright green and still on his feet. The skin between his big toe and the second one, where the strap of the sandal rubbed, was raw and inflamed, and a visible cut on his left arm was also infected.

Caroline worked with Keanu now; he cleaned and treated wounds, handing out antibiotics, while she did the lung capacity tests and temperatures.

‘I’m surprised there are any antibiotics to give out,’ she said when there was a gap between the miners.

‘I keep the keys of the chest and no one but me can ever open it,’ Reuben said firmly. ‘I suppose it was too big for Mr Lockhart to take away and he couldn’t break the bolt, although I think he tried.’

Caroline sighed.

Her uncle had left a poisonous legacy behind him on what had once been an island paradise.

And, given her name, she was part of the poison.

‘We definitely have to close the mine.’ Keanu’s voice interrupted her dream of happier times, and she realised the parade of miners—a short parade—from the mine to the table had ceased. ‘It would be irresponsible not to do it.’

‘And that will damage the Lockhart name even more,’ Caroline muttered as shame for the trouble her uncle had caused made her cringe.

He touched her quickly on the shoulder. ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ he said, pulling the accident book from in front of her and checking the few notes she’d made.

‘Given the state of the mine, there’ve been remarkably few accidents,’ he said. ‘Unless, of course …’ he looked at Reuben ‘… you haven’t been recording them.’

Reuben’s indignant ‘Of course I have,’ was sincere enough to be believed, especially when he added, ‘But remember, not all the men are working. Only this one team at the moment.’

‘But even if there haven’t been many accidents, that doesn’t mean there won’t be more in future,’ Caroline said, seeing the sense in Keanu’s determination that the mine should close.

So what could she do?

Find out whatever she could?

‘Reuben, would you mind if I looked at the accounts and wages books?’

He looked taken aback—upset even.

‘I’m not checking up on you, but it would help if I could work out how much the miners are owed. I know Dad would want them all paid. Do you have the wages records on computer?’

‘It’s all in books, but I keep a copy on my laptop,’ Reuben told her, disappearing into the back of the office and returning with the little laptop, handing it over to her with a degree of reluctance.

‘We do have to close it down,’ she admitted to Keanu as they climbed back up the steep steps to the top of the plateau. She was clutching the laptop to her chest.

‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘but do you think the men will stop working just because we say so? I’ll phone your father—he’s the one to do it, and if he can’t come over, he can send someone from the Mines Department, someone who might carry some weight with the miners. They could come on Friday’s flight.’

Keanu got no answer to his common-sense suggestion. She’s plotting something, he realised as they climbed back up the steep steps to the top of the plateau.

He knew Caroline in this mood and more often than not whatever she was up to would be either rash or downright dangerous.

But he had worries enough of his own. The elders had placed their faith in him to save the livelihood of the island and the continuation of medical facilities.

‘Do we have to go straight back to the hospital or can we sit down with a coffee and work out what to do? I can try to get in touch with Dad,’ Caroline said as she led the way towards the house, as if assuming he would agree.

Keanu followed, but hesitated on the bottom step of the big house, his mind arguing with itself.

Of course he could go in—it was just a house, the place where he’d spent so much of his childhood.

Yet his feet were glued to the step.

Caro turned back.

‘You’re not coming? Do you think we should go back? Bessie would get us some lunch and we could have a talk.’

Then, as if they’d never been apart, she guessed what he was thinking, headed back down to where he stood, took his hand and gently eased him down onto the step, sitting close beside him, her arm around his shoulders.

‘Tell me,’ she said, and although she spoke softly, it was an order, and suddenly he needed to tell, as if talking about that day would help banish the memories.

He looked out over the island, down towards the sea surrounding it, green-blue and beautiful.

Peaceful …

‘I came home on an earlier flight. One kid had measles just before the holidays so they closed a week early. I didn’t tell Mum, wanting to surprise her.’

And hadn’t he surprised her! The memory of that ugly, desperate scene lived on in his nightmares. He concentrated on the view to block it out of his mind even now …

‘I walked up from the plane and into the house. I knew Mum would be in there—dusting or cleaning—she loved the house so much.’

Had Caro heard the break in his voice that her arm tightened around his shoulders?

‘They were in the living room, on the floor, on one of your grandma’s rugs, like animals.’

He turned to Caroline, needing to see her face, needing to see understanding there.

‘I thought he was raping her. I dragged him off, yelling at him, trying to punch him, and …’

‘Go on.’

The words were little more than a gentle whisper but now he’d gone this far he knew he had to finish.

‘He laughed!’ The words exploded out of him, his voice rising at remembered—and still lingering—anger. ‘He stood there, pulling up his shorts, buttoning his shirt, and laughed at me. “Do you think she didn’t want it?” he said. “Wasn’t begging for it? Go on, Helen, tell him how desperate you were to keep what was nothing more than an occasional kindness shag going.”’

‘Oh, Keanu! I can only imagine how you felt and your poor mother—’

‘I lost it, Caro! I went at him, fists flying, while Mum was covering herself and gathering clothes and telling me to stop, not that I did much good. At fifteen I was a fair size, but nothing like Ian’s weight. He eventually pushed me to the ground and told me to get out, both of us to get out. He’d ask the plane to wait so we could pack then be out of there.’

‘But it was your home, Keanu. It always had been. Grandma had promised that before I was even born!’ Caro hauled him to his feet and hugged him properly. ‘Anyway, after I arrived Helen was employed by Dad, not Ian.’

Keanu put his hands on her shoulders and eased her far enough apart to look into her face.

‘Ian’s words destroyed Mum. She refused to talk about it except to say she’d always known she wasn’t the only one. I realised then it had been going on for some time. But to humiliate her like that, in front of me—it was more than she could take! When we got back to the house in Cairns she phoned your father to say she wouldn’t be there to look after you during the holidays and that she’d retired. No other explanation no matter how often he phoned, even when he visited. With the admiration she had for your father, there was no way she could have told him about it. She just shut herself away from life, then only a few years later she was gone.’

Caro drew him close again, wrapping her arms around him, holding him tightly.

‘Oh, Keanu,’ she whispered, the words soft and warm against his neck. ‘At least now I understand why you deserted me. How could you have had anything to do with any Lockhart after Ian’s behaviour to your mother?’

Was it the release of telling her the story, of her finally knowing why he’d cut her off that made his arms move to enfold her?

He didn’t know—he only knew that he held her, clung to her, breathing in the very essence that was Caroline—his Caro. And like a sigh—a breath of wind—something shifted between them … an awareness, tension—

Attraction?

You’re married.

Probably.

He didn’t actually leap away from her embrace, but the space between them grew.

They were friends, but whatever this new emotion was, it hadn’t felt like friendship.

Had Caro felt it?

Were warning bells clanging in her head?

For once he had not the slightest idea of what she was thinking, but deep inside he knew that, whatever lay ahead, he couldn’t do anything to hurt her, not again, which meant not getting too involved until he knew he was free.

Something had obviously happened between her and Steve because she was back on the island and he could see she was hurting.

Abandoned again by someone she loved?

Wouldn’t he have to do that if his divorce didn’t go through?

Get out of here and sort it out!

‘You have lunch here,’ he said, aiming for sounding calm and composed—sensible—although his whole body churned with emotion. ‘I’ll go back to the hospital and talk to Sam. He’ll know the best way to close down the mine.’

Caroline nodded. ‘Yes, good idea.’

Perhaps she hadn’t felt what he’d felt when they’d hugged, because she’d never sounded more together—practical, professional—putting the past firmly behind her.

But then, she’d always been a superb actress, having grown adept at hiding her feelings.

Though usually not from him …

CHAPTER SIX

HAD THEY BEEN going to kiss?

Surely not!

But Caroline was very relieved he’d pulled away, and hopefully without seeing her suddenly breathless state.

And if he hadn’t?

Would that surge of attraction have led to a kiss—right there on the front steps of the house?

Her heart ached for him after hearing the story of his return from school, his mother’s humiliation, and imagining the pain the pair must have suffered, leaving the place that had been their only true home.

Her first reaction had been numbness. After Bessie’s chance remark about no woman being safe around Ian, she’d imagined rape, but humiliating Helen as he had done had been emotionally so damaging. How impotent Keanu must have felt in the face of Ian’s callousness.

Of course she’d had to hug him!

But hugging Keanu had never felt like that before!

Hugging Keanu had never produced that kind of mayhem in her body. Not even Steve, who’d never failed to boast about what a great lover he was, had ever managed to evoke something like that.

Or was that unfair to Steve?

He hadn’t really boasted of his prowess, it was just the impression she’d got from his confidence, and the fact that other women had envied her the man who had wooed her with flowers, and gifts and promises of undying love.

Actually, now the hurt was gone and she could look back rationally, it had been the undying love thing that had got her in the end; the fact that this person had come into her life, vowing to be there for ever—to never let her down or abandon her. That last had been the clincher.

How stupid had she been?

A practised lover, he’d sniffed out the silly issues she had with abandonment—with the loss of so many people in her life and the distraction of others—and had worked on it!

Jilly had been right, she was well out of that relationship, and as the days had turned into months Caroline had realised that as well, glad the man she’d thought she loved had turned out to have not only feet of clay but whole legs of it!

And Keanu?

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply then decided she wouldn’t think about that right now. She had more important things to consider, the first being to find some way to pay the miners what they were owed.

She didn’t think it would go all the way to restoring the Lockhart name but those people had worked for her family—they deserved to be paid.

And they would be.

She’d phone Dad, talk to him about the mine closure and the problems Ian had left behind him on the island—the damage he had done to the Lockhart name.

Although could she add that much more worry to his already over-burdened shoulders?

An image of her twin rose up in front of her—Christopher’s crippled, twisted body, his lovely blue eyes gazing blankly towards her as she talked to him, the pigeon chest battling for every breath …

No, she couldn’t pull Dad away from Christopher, especially right now when he had been hospitalised again …

So it was up to her.

Or was she fooling herself?

‘Nurse Hettie phoned to say she expected you back at the hospital.’ Bessie appeared at the front door. ‘I told her you’re having a late lunch and will be down soon.’

Bother!

‘Thanks, Bessie, I’ll go right now.’

‘You’ll do no such thing. You come into the kitchen and have lunch.’

‘But Reuben gave Keanu and I fruit salad and cold juice. I don’t need lunch.’

‘You do need lunch!’

Realising it was futile to argue, she went into the kitchen to eat the gargantuan sandwich Bessie had prepared for her.

Footsteps on the veranda sent Bessie scurrying from the kitchen, and Caroline carefully wrapped the remainder of the sandwich and popped it into the fridge.

The deep voice she heard was definitely Keanu’s.

Her heart made a squiggly feeling in her chest as she hurried to the front veranda.

‘There was no need for you to come up, I just had to wash and put on a clean top—it was dusty down there.’

Keanu nodded, just that, a nod, the story he’d shared with her like a glass wall between them.

Or had it been the hug?

Whatever, he’d turned away and started back towards the hospital, pausing only to explain, ‘Hettie’s done two trips the last two days so she’s taking a break, but the patient with the Buruli ulcer needs the skin around it debrided and the wound cleaned, and Anahera has her hands full with the other patients.’

Other patients?

Caroline realised with a start how little she knew about the hospital and what was going on there. She was a nurse, and the patients should be her first concern, not worrying how to pay the money owed to the miners.

She followed Keanu down the path, ignoring the hitch in her breathing at the breadth of his shoulders and the way his hair curled against the nape of his neck, catching up with him to ask, ‘Do we use the treatment room where I first saw him or the operating theatre?

‘He doesn’t need a full anaesthetic, just locals around the wound, but the theatre is more sterile so we’ll do it there.’

Caught up in what lay ahead, Caroline set aside the disturbances Keanu’s presence was causing and concentrated on the case.

‘Are we using the theatre because the ulcer bacteria are easily transmitted?’

Keanu shook his head.

‘We’ve no idea how it’s transmitted, although the World Health Organization has teams of people in various places working on it. Using the theatre is a safeguard, nothing more.’

‘And debriding tissue?’

He turned to look at her as they reached the hospital.

‘Are you asking questions to prove your worth as a nurse or because you’re genuinely interested?’

The deliberate dig took her breath away but before she could get into a fierce, and probably very loud, argument with him, he added, ‘I’m sorry, that was unfair. I’m so damned mixed up right now.’

He sighed, dark eyes troubled, then touched her lightly on the shoulder.

‘The thing about Buruli is that it produces a toxin called mycolactone that destroys tissue. We have the patient on antibiotics but they are taking time to work, so we’re going to clean it up in the hope that we’ll kill off any myolactone spores.’

Caroline’s mind switched immediately to nurse mode. They’d need local anaesthesia, scalpels, dressings, dishes to take the affected skin to be disposed of in the incinerator.

And she had no idea where that was or, in fact, where any of the other things were kept. Instead of prowling around in the dark with Keanu last night, she should have been checking out the hospital.

She must have sighed, for Keanu said, ‘It’s okay, Mina will have everything set out for us.’

He was still reading her mind!

And, given some of the thoughts flashing through it, that could prove very dangerous—and downright embarrassing.

The ulcer was inflamed and looked incredibly painful, but the young man was stoic about it.

Keanu injected local anaesthetic into the tissue around the wound, then checked the equipment while he waited for it to take effect.

‘I want to keep as much of the skin intact as I can,’ Keanu said, speaking directly to her for the first time. ‘I’ll trim the edges and try to clean beneath it. I’ll need you to swab and use tweezers to clear the damaged bits as I cut.’

Caroline picked up a pair of forceps. The wound was long but reasonably narrow, and she could see what Keanu hoped to do. If he could clean out the wound he might be able to stretch the healthy skin enough to stitch it together.

‘If you stitch it up, would you leave a small drain in place?’

He glanced up from his delicate task of scraping and cutting and nodded. Seeing his eyes above the mask he was wearing made her heart jittery again.

This was ridiculous. She was a professional and any interaction between them, at least at the hospital, had to be just that—professional!

She selected another pair of forceps and lifted the skin towards which he was working.

He continued to cut, dropping some bits in one dish and some in a separate one.

Intrigued, she had to ask.

‘Why the two dishes?’

He glanced up at her with smiling eyes and any last remnants of hope about professionalism flew out the window—well, there was no window, but they disappeared. That smile re-awoke all the manifestations of attraction that she’d felt earlier, teasing along her nerves and activating all her senses.

‘I think I mentioned Sam’s a keen bacteriologist,’ Keanu was explaining while she told herself she was being ridiculous. ‘He’s never made Buruli a particular study but he’ll be interested to look at it under a microscope. The more people around the world peering at it the better chance we have of developing a defence against it. It’s not so bad here in the West Pacific but in some African and Asian nations when it’s not treated early it attacks the bone and causes deformities or even loss of limbs.’

‘I don’t want to lose my leg,’ their patient said firmly, and Keanu assured him that no such thing would happen.

‘We’ve got you onto the drugs early enough and once we clean it up you should be fine.’

Keanu was being professional—purely professional.

Until he looked up, caught her eye, and winked.

‘I think that’s it,’ he said, much to her relief. It had been an ‘I’m finished’ wink, nothing more.

Yet her reaction suggested that keeping things purely professional between herself and Keanu would prove impossible—from her side at least.

No way! She was stronger than that. And she had plenty to occupy her mind. The sooner she could get the back payments for the miners sorted out, and get the mine closed until it could be made safe, the better it would be for the hospital, and if she concentrated on that—

‘Okay, I’ll get Mina to do the dressing. I think we deserve a coffee.’

She glanced at the clock—they’d been standing over their patient for more than two hours and probably did deserve a coffee.

Well, she could do coffee …

Except he was smiling.

Possibly not.

‘What I need more than coffee is a tour of the hospital so I know where everything is and what patient is where. I’ll do the dressing then maybe Mina can show me around.’

Keanu could hardly argue, although he could alter the plan slightly.

‘Let’s stick with Mina doing the dressing and I’ll show you around instead.’

Caroline’s reaction wasn’t what you’d call ecstatic.

More resigned, if anything, but after being distracted by the telling of his mother’s distress and their departure from the island earlier, he was hoping to have a chat about the situation at the mine—to find out what she was thinking.