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

‘Which means?’ Caroline asked, pleased she hadn’t heard the missing beat of the engine.

‘I’ll drain the tank—get an empty drum from the store to put it into—and refill the chopper tank here. We keep a small tanker of Avgas here because we often need to refuel, and it’s useful if we’re doing search-and-rescue work, which is co-ordinated from here.’

‘How long?’ Keanu asked.

‘Three hours tops,’ Jack replied cheerfully.

Three hours! They wouldn’t be rushing the pregnant woman back to Wildfire.

Keanu introduced the local nurse, Nori, the name reminding Caroline they’d been at school together. They hugged and exchanged greetings, although Keanu broke up the very brief reunion with a reminder that they had a patient.

Their patient was standing in a corner of an examination room, bent over and clinging to the table. A large woman, it was hard to tell she was actually pregnant.

‘Baby’s coming,’ she said as they came in. ‘Soon.’

‘Are you able to get up on the table so I can examine you?’ Keanu asked in his deep, caring voice.

‘No way! I’m not getting up there. The baby’s coming now.’

Nori was plugging in the crib to warm the mattress in it, and fitting an oxygen tube to the inlet, so Caroline grabbed a small stool that seemed to have no apparent purpose and pulled it over so Keanu could squat on it while he felt the woman’s stomach for the strength of the contractions.

Nori had laid out clean towels, gloves and various instruments on a trolley beside the table. Caroline put on gloves, took a towel, just in case the baby did come unexpectedly, and checked that suction tubes and scissors were among the instruments.

If the baby popped out limp, they would have to resuscitate it, but at least they had the humidicrib to keep it pink and warm on the way back to Wildfire.

Keanu was talking quietly to the woman in their own language, and Caroline knew enough of it to know it was mainly reassurance, although he slipped in a question from time to time. Apparently this was her sixth child, so she probably knew more about childbirth than either she or Keanu.

She was thinking this when the woman gave a loud cry and squatted lower, Caroline getting her hands down quickly enough as a watery mix of fluid rushed out.

The baby followed, straight into Caroline’s waiting hands—sure and steady hands, although inside she was a mix of trepidation and elation.

The little one cried out, protesting her abrupt entry into the world but with her little fat hands clutching the umbilical cord as if she was ready to take on whatever it had to offer her.

Certainly not a thirty-week baby, more like thirty-six, perhaps even full term.

Keanu reached out a hand to help Caroline and her precious bundle up from the floor, then took the child and passed her to her mother.

The look of love and joy on the woman’s face as the baby nuzzled at her breast brought tears to Caroline’s eyes.

Keanu was clamping the cord, ready to cut it, but the woman took the scissors out of his hand.

‘I do this for my babies,’ she told him, cutting cleanly between the clamps.

She passed the baby back to Caroline, who put her down gently on the table on a warm sheet Nori had taken from the crib. Carefully, she wiped the tiny baby clean, suctioned her nostrils and mouth, Keanu taking over for the Apgar score, then Nori produced another warm sheet and Caroline swaddled the little girl, whose rosebud lips were pursing and opening like a goldfish’s, instinct telling her she should be attached to her mother’s breast.

Yet Caroline’s arms felt reluctant as she passed the baby back, which was ridiculous.

As if arms even knew what reluctance was …

Nori led the woman to a comfortable armchair and said she’d take care of things from now.

Caroline made to argue but Keanu shook his head, just slightly, and led her out of the clinic.

‘The islanders have their own rituals for disposing of the placenta,’ he explained as they stood in the sun, feeling it warm on their skin after the cool of the air-conditioning inside. ‘Before the hospital the islanders had their own midwife—sometimes two—who cared for all the pregnant women. When you and Christopher were born, your father called for one of these women but it was beyond her ability to save either Christopher from injury, or your mother. Your father then decided that all women should have their babies on the mainland and when young women went to the mainland for training as nurses, the midwives stopped passing on their skills.’

‘But now?’ Caroline asked. ‘Seems to me someone having their sixth baby wouldn’t have got the dates wrong—and then there’s the baby who was in hospital when I arrived.’

‘Exactly,’ Keanu replied with a grin that made her stupid heart race. ‘Now they have the hospital and helicopter as back-up, I think they’ve decided with a little cheating they can have an island birth. In fact, one of the local nurses is over in Sydney, doing some advanced midwifery training. It might not be traditional midwifery but at least, when she returns, the island women will have the option of staying here.’

‘Which is wonderful,’ Caroline declared, smiling herself at the remembered feel of the little baby dropping into her hands. ‘So now?’ she added, feeling that standing in the sun smiling inanely was probably making her look like an idiot. ‘Can we go for a walk? It is so long since I was on Atangi, I need to get the feel and smell of the place back into my blood.’

Keanu swallowed a huge sigh.

He could hardly say no. The baby was fine and whatever was going on inside the clinic was islander business—and women’s business at that.

The problem was that the look on Caro’s face as she’d stared in wonder at the baby she’d caught had stirred all kinds of uncomfortable thoughts in his mind, and unease in his body.

He’d felt tension from Caro’s closeness the whole time they had been in the room and although he was professional enough to not let it affect him, now he wasn’t fully focussed on something else, the awareness had grown.

It was because of the notebook, and something to do with sitting on the rock and feeling her hurt when he’d pointed out the flaws in her idea—feeling her disappointment, although she was smart enough to know it would never have worked. Up until then, he’d been able to explain away his physical reactions to her by the fact she was an attractive woman—nothing more than normal physical reactions.

But this was Caro …

‘I can go for a walk by myself,’ she said, obviously sensing his hesitation.

Get over it, he told himself.

‘No, it’ll be an hour before Jack finishes his refuelling,’ he said to her. ‘Why don’t you wander down to the harbour while I go and see a couple of the elders about Alkiri’s funeral?’

She hesitated, and he wondered if she was feeling the same awkwardness that was humming through his nerves.

‘Come with me or I’ll come with you,’ she said quietly. ‘Let’s be friends again.’

He heard the plea in her voice and a faint tremor in the words caused a pain in his chest.

‘Can we just be friends?’ he asked.

Fire sparked in her eyes.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Keanu, I don’t know that any more than you do. But there’s stuff that needs to be done, things we can do to help the situation here, so surely we can get over all that’s happened between us in the past and this inconvenient attraction business that’s happening now and work together to make things better.’

She paused, then added in a quieter voice, ‘Our friendship was special to me and, I think, to you. Maybe the reward for our efforts would be finding that again.’

He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close although every functioning brain cell was yelling at him to keep his distance.

The lovely eyes he knew so well looked into his—wary and questioning.

‘Our friendship was the most important thing in my life, Caro,’ he admitted. ‘That will never change.’

She half smiled and shifted so her body wasn’t touching his—apart from his arm, which still rested on her shoulders.

‘Thanks,’ she said, and moved away completely, then in a tone that told him any emotional talk between them was done she added, ‘Let’s go and see the school first.’

But that was a mistake.

The first thing they noticed—everyone noticed—in the schoolyard was the huge old curtain fig tree, so called because air roots grew down from the branches, forming a thick curtain around the trunk.

And behind that curtain, like hundreds of children who’d attended the school over the years, they’d once shared a very chaste kiss. Her grandma had died and Caroline had known they’d both be off to mainland schools the following year, and for some reason—playing hide and seek most probably—they’d both ended up beneath the fig.

Not that an innocent kiss between a ten-year-old girl and a twelve-year-old boy meant much, but the memory sent a tingle up her spine.

‘All the kids are in school,’ Keanu murmured. ‘Should we?’

Of course they shouldn’t but she was ducking between the trailing roots right behind him, letting him take her in his arms, turn her towards him, and lift her head to his, to relive that first kiss.

In actual fact, it was nothing like that first kiss, more like a first kiss between two people attracted to each other and early on in the courtship.

Tentative, exploring, tasting and then tempting, Keanu felt heat rise in his body, and strained to keep things—well, not exactly casual, more noncommittal, if such a thing was possible.

When Caro began kissing him back as if her life depended on the joining of their lips, the contact of their tongues …

Or was it he who’d intensified things—he couldn’t think straight, could barely think at all, except that there was no way he should be kissing Caro like this when his life was such a mess.

It was a silly, sentimental thing to do, but there was nothing silly or sentimental about the way their lips met, the teasing invasion of Keanu’s tongue, her own tangling with it, the heat in his body as her hands pushed up his shirt to touch his skin, no doubt matched by the heat in hers as his hand slid down her neck towards her breast.

A hundred questions jumbled in her head. Was this just attraction? Or perhaps leftover love from their youth? And hadn’t attraction led her into trouble with Steve? No, she could answer that one honestly—it had been his attention to her that had made her lose her head with Steve.

But this kiss—this kiss was different. This kiss was amazing—

So why was she so bamboozled?

‘Damn it all!’

The explosive words broke the spell.

‘I thought we were trying to be friends,’ he muttered, taking her hand and almost dragging her out from under the tree. ‘Do you realise I could have made love to you right there under the tree with half of Atangi walking by? Why on earth would you kiss me back like that?’

‘Oh, so it’s all my fault?’ Caroline retorted. ‘Anyway, we’re both adults and if we feel like it, why shouldn’t we kiss?’

She could feel the heat in her cheeks, the disappointment and relief battling for supremacy in her body.

Not that he’d know it because she was stalking away from him, throwing back over her shoulder, ‘Anyway, it was your fault—you started it!’

But hearing the words they’d flung at each other so often in childhood fights, she felt a deep sorrow for all they’d lost …

Or had they?

What about the friendship they’d decided to rediscover? ‘Nice walk?’ Nori asked brightly when they returned to the clinic, any further exploration totally forgotten.

‘It had its moments,’ Caroline replied, then proceeded to ask Nori about her family, marital status and children, a conversation that lasted until Jack returned to tell them they could head back to Wildfire.

Not interested in the brilliance Nori’s three-year-olds were already showing, Keanu had moved into the theatre to check their patient. She was dozing in the big chair, the baby sleeping against her breast.

The sight brought unexpected emotion welling up inside him, bringing a thickness to his throat.

Time he was out of there …

‘Coming back with us?’ Keanu said to Caro, who was still deep in a conversation about Nori’s children.

Which made him wonder as she said, ‘Yes, sir!’ and followed him out of the clinic, why she’d never married the Steve guy and had children of her own.

Apart from their medical ambitions, if he remembered rightly they had been going to get married and have ten children.

Ten?

‘Did you know Nori has six children—three sets of twins?’

Keanu shook his head. She’d been talking to Nori—talking about children—so it was a fairly innocuous thing for Caro to have said. But coming right on top of the thick throat and his memory of the past, it shook him. There were far too many things going on his head that he didn’t want her picking up on, although he wouldn’t have minded having a few clues about her thoughts.

Fortunately, by the time they arrived back on Wildfire he had an excuse to escape. He had to concentrate on the arrangements for Alkiri’s funeral and the first thing on the list was to try entry to the research station via the gate, and get permission from whoever was in charge.

Should he ask Caroline to accompany him?

She’d been anxious to know what was happening at the station but walking with her through the scented tropical dusk with her was too much to contemplate.

He went in to see Sam, inevitably battling paperwork in his office, to check he wasn’t needed at the hospital.

‘You’re free to go, mate,’ Sam told him, ‘and I’ve already got their okay. In fact, the bloke who’s the foreman down there actually contacted me to see if I’d like to come down and see the laboratories, and I asked him about the longhouse. But if you want to check it out, just explain who you are to the gate people. Sounded to me that, now they’ve finished, they’re happy to have people see what they’ve achieved.’

Sam’s eyes slid away from his, and Keanu turned to see Caroline standing there.

‘You want to go with Keanu and see the renovations down the road?’

‘We’re allowed in?’ She sounded so delighted Keanu could hardly say he didn’t want her with him.

‘As of today,’ Sam was assuring her.

At least she wouldn’t be wearing a wet shift, Keanu told himself, but somehow that wasn’t comforting at all. She’d been in the same mid-calf pants and uniform shirt when they’d kissed under the tree …

The foreman’s name was Bill and he was at the gate talking to the guard there when Keanu and Caroline arrived.

‘Sorry about the fence, but the boss wanted the place secure—or as secure as anything can be with so much beach frontage. It was mainly to keep out adventurous kids during the building process, and the fences and guard will remain because the laboratories will have some evil chemicals in them. Not that they won’t be locked as well, and I imagine there’d be more kids coming by boat than down from the hospital, but what he says goes.’

‘Who is he?’ Caroline asked, so excited to be ‘invited’ to the station that she was barely registering Keanu by her side.

Well, almost barely.

‘Some fellow from the Middle East apparently. I get my orders from his—what do they call him?—Australasian manager. He’s from the Middle East as well, but speaks English the same way the Queen does.’

Caroline smiled. Children from all over the world were educated in top English public schools so undoubtedly all of them spoke ‘like the Queen does’.

Keanu was talking to Bill, so Caroline dawdled behind them, trying to identify all the different scents. She saw the jasmine creeping up the fence—soon it would be smothered—and the broad leaves of the ginger plant, their drooping white bulb-like flowers giving out what was probably her favourite perfume. Or did she prefer the frangipani that was dominant now—?

‘You with us?’ Keanu asked, and she realised how far she’d fallen back. He and Bill were at the door of the newly renovated and freshly painted laboratory block.

She caught up as Bill unlocked the door, and she gasped at the difference. Admittedly, it had been thirteen years since she’d been in the lab—back when she’d had her last holiday here with Keanu and Helen.

After they left it had never been the same and she’d used the excuse of spending more time with Christopher to avoid island holidays.

‘It’s been completely redone,’ Keanu was saying. ‘No wonder Sam’s so excited about it. But do you know if there are people booking to come here to use it?’

Bill shook his head.

‘Not my department, but we have been hurrying to finish everything and be out of the way because the boss—the big boss—is planning some kind of exclusive, very clever scientists’ get-together some time soon.’

They went to check the longhouse next, and once again Caroline could only gape in amazement. Rebuilt in the style of the island meeting places, thatched roof—probably with something underneath the palm thatching to stop it leaking—and open on all sides, it was finished with the best of materials, with cedar benches polished to a glowing shine, weavings hanging from the rafters, mats and cushions strewn around the floor. It was an island longhouse for today and for the future.

‘It’s totally awesome,’ she said, shaking her head because it was hard to take it all in.

‘And we can use it for Alkiri’s funeral feast?’ Keanu asked, as if he already knew this had been agreed.

‘Sure thing,’ Bill said. ‘It will be a good test of the fire pits.’

‘It’s even got fire pits?’

She sounded so incredulous both men smiled, but she followed them beyond the building where, sure enough, a deep pit had been dug with a more shallow one beside it, big stones, firewood and white sand stored neatly in the bottom of open wooden cupboard-like structures beside it.

‘We’ve had some of the local community here, doing the mats and cushions, and they told us about the fire pits. A big one for the fire that heats the stones, then a shallower one for the stones to go into when they’re hot, baskets for the food and bags and sand to cover it all up. Have we got it right?’

He was obviously anxious, but Keanu clapped him on the back and said, ‘Fantastic, mate, it’s just fantastic.’

Caroline had opened one of the top cupboards and found the baskets for the food stacked inside it. The next one held the sacks that would be wet and placed across the food before the lot was covered with sand to keep the heat in and help the meal steam-cook.

The thought that she’d actually be here and celebrating with a hangi made her turn to Keanu in delight.

‘Won’t it be great? It’s so long since we’ve been to a hangi!’

‘Great if we don’t have to cook it,’ Keanu reminded her, but Bill assured them both that local staff had already been employed for the station and they were bringing in more people for the celebration of Alkiri’s life the following day.

‘Apparently people will come from all the islands, and as we’re leaving soon, it will be kind of a reward for our workers to be here for the party.’

Bill hesitated then added, ‘Although that sounds a bit rough, partying when someone’s dead.’

‘Not here,’ Keanu assured him. ‘Here we celebrate a life that enriched all who knew him—or her if it’s a woman’s funeral.’

Bill seemed content, but Caroline considered what he’d said.

Had she enriched anyone’s life?

She rather doubted it.

Christopher’s maybe.

He’d certainly enriched hers, getting through each day of pain and illness with a smile always ready on his face for her or their father. During the ‘Steve years’ as she was starting to think of them, she’d seen less of her brother and really regretted it. Love, or what she’d thought was love, had made her selfish.

They were walking back up to the hospital while these thoughts coursed through her head.

‘You okay?’ Keanu asked, and she realised she’d dropped behind again, drifting through the past.

Which, considering the confusion she was feeling in his presence, might have been a safer place.

‘Fine,’ she lied, and hurried to catch up with him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WAS A day without end, or so it seemed to Caroline when they returned to the hospital.

‘Would you mind keeping an eye on things while Keanu, Hettie and I have some dinner?’ Sam greeted her. ‘Hettie’s cooking because Vailea’s already preparing for the funeral feast and there’s stuff the three of us have to go over, including juggling the roster for the funeral tomorrow.’

‘No worries,’ Caroline assured him, ‘though you’d better tell me what to do in an emergency. Do I go to the back door and yell?’

‘Oh, you don’t know the system? Of course not, you’ve barely arrived and we haven’t stopped working you. See the panel by the door? It was an ingenious idea worked out by your father. You hit the blue button for me—it rings in my room—the green for Hettie—and the red that will clang all through the villas for all hands on deck.’

‘No fire alarm?’ Caroline teased, and Sam pointed to the regulation fire alarm box set beside the panel.

‘Open that one and press the button and they’ll hear you over on Atangi! And the village will have men here almost as fast as the staff can get here. The hospital’s very important to all the islanders—and they’ve your father to thank for that.’

Caroline thought the conversation was over, until Sam added, almost under his breath, ‘Although we’d prefer to be thanking him in person.’

‘My father loves the island. All M’Langi. I can hear it in his voice when he talks about it, asks questions. But my mother’s death, and Christopher … It seems he blamed himself, and now he says both the hospital and Christopher need him more on the mainland. Over there he can keep a watch on Christopher’s care and also make money and lobby for money to keep this place going.’

Sam sighed and departed, but the conversation had brought Caroline’s mind back to the problems at the mine. Of course mortgaging half a house had been a stupid idea, but Keanu hadn’t come up with anything better.

Keanu …

The kiss …

Setting the past and the future firmly out of her mind, she went into the big ward, where she discovered that the boys with the coral cuts had been released. The woman with unstable diabetes was sleeping once again, as was their patient with the Biruli ulcer. The woman with the baby had also gone, so all she had to do was hang around in case she was needed.

And use the time to try to sort out the mess inside her head.

Start with the mine—there had to be some way …

But how could she think when she was hungry? She headed for the kitchen, where she found several salads made up in the main refrigerator.

‘Staff salads,’ the note attached to the shelf said, so she took one, went back into the desk in the ward to keep an eye on her patients and ate it there.

Thinking, almost subconsciously, of the grandparents she’d barely known.

How terrible for them to have lost their daughter—their only child—so far away from home. Max had flown his wife’s body back to Sydney to be buried there, and had taken first his babies, and later his toddlers—well, Christopher had never actually toddled—to visit their grandparents.

But both of them had been dead before Caroline was six so it was difficult for her to summon up more than an image of a defeated-looking old man and woman.

Defeated by grief, she’d realised, much later.

‘Are you okay? You must be tired. I can take over here if you like.’

Keanu’s arrival interrupted her unhappy thoughts.

‘No way. I have a feeling if I handed over, or even had you standing by, it would reinforce everyone’s opinion of the worthlessness of all Lockharts.’