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. Marion Lennox
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was more than a breeze coming in from the garden at the moment, though. An older woman who was carrying a small child could be seen ahead of them.
And, again, Anahera froze.
‘Bessie … what are you doing here? What’s happened?’
Luke could see that the child—a tiny girl—had been crying. Her hand was wrapped in what looked like a bloodstained tea towel.
‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ the woman said. ‘Just a little cut but it took a while to stop the bleeding and Hana got upset. I said we’d come and find Dr Sam and Mummy.’
Mummy? One of the other nurses here, perhaps? Luke, like everyone else, had stopped walking. Now the island woman stopped, too, as the child in her arms wriggled free. As soon as the girl’s feet touched the floor, she was running. The tea towel unwound itself and fell to the floor as she threw her arms up in the air.
‘Mumma …’ The word was a sob.
Anahera was crouching, arms out, ready to catch the little girl. She scooped her up and held her close, pressing her cheek to a fluffy cloud of pale curls as she murmured reassurance.
And then she looked up and her gaze met Luke’s.
He knew he must look like an idiot, with his jaw still hanging open, but this was the biggest shock yet since he’d set foot on Wildfire Island again.
There could be no mistaking the relationship between these two with the way this child had her arms wound so tightly around Anahera’s neck and the palpable comfort she was clearly receiving from having found the person she needed most.
Anahera was a mother?
He had to swallow his shock. At least no one else seemed to have noticed. Jack was behind him and Sam was focussed on the child.
‘Have you got a sore finger, sweetheart? Can you show Dr Sam?’
‘It’s all right, darling,’ Anahera said. ‘It’s not going to hurt. We just want to see.’
A tiny hand appeared from behind her mother’s neck and then a forefinger uncurled itself. The cut was quite deep but small.
‘She found a piece of broken glass,’ Bessie said unhappily. ‘She was helping me clean out a cupboard.’
‘You know what?’ Sam asked cheerfully.
The small head moved slowly from side to side.
‘I think I’ve got a plaster that’s just the right size for a finger like that. And it’s got a picture on it. Do you know what that picture might be?’
Big dark eyes widened. ‘A flutterby?’
Sam grinned. ‘Sorry, not a butterfly this time, button. Would a princess do instead? A Cinderella plaster?’
The smile was tentative.
‘Didn’t Cinderella have butterflies on her dress?’ Anahera said. ‘I’m sure she did. We’ve got the book at home, haven’t we, Hana?’
Hana. So this exquisite child had a name that sounded like an echo of her mother’s shortened name. She had her mother’s gorgeous dark eyes, too, but her skin was much lighter and her hair very different from Anahera’s midnight black.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Luke heard himself saying aloud. ‘How old is she?’
The moment the words left his mouth he realised, with what felt like a body blow, that it was possible he was looking at his own daughter here.
For a long moment there was a silence so complete it felt like everyone else here knew the significance of what the answer to his query could be. In the end, it was Hana who spoke.
‘I’m free,’ she told him.
‘Three,’ Anahera corrected her. ‘Three and a half, even.’
The mental calculations were so easy to make, it took only a few seconds. Add on nine months for a pregnancy. Count up the years and months since he and Anahera had had that last, incredible night on Sunset Beach.
The difference was six months. There was no way that Hana was his child.
It should have been a huge relief.
So why was he left feeling so crushed?
Maybe because it was the final proof that Anahera hadn’t cared enough. She’d moved on so fast she’d found someone else and become pregnant in the short space of a few months. For all Luke knew, Hana’s father was also here on Wildfire Island. He might come through the same door any moment now.
Luke swallowed hard as he checked his watch. ‘I might head back, Sam,’ he said. ‘We’ll have plenty of time for this tour in the next few days, and, as you reminded me, I don’t want to miss the last session of the conference.’
He didn’t look back as he fired his parting words. ‘It’s what I actually came here for, after all.’
‘WHAT’S UP, ANA?’
‘Nothing.’ Anahera didn’t look up from her task of packing the large plastic bin that was on the bench, surrounded by a wide array of supplies.
‘You don’t seem yourself, that’s all.’ Sam was leaning against the doorframe of this storage room in the hospital’s theatre annexe, having delivered the chilli bin with the lunch that Vailea had packed for the team doing the clinic run to French Island today.
Anahera turned away from him to stare at a shelf. ‘Don’t tell me we’re out of urine dipsticks … I know we’ve got people who aren’t managing their type two diabetes very well on French Island.’
Sam took a step into the room, reached past her shoulder and picked up the jar that had been right in front of her.
‘Thanks.’ Anahera cringed inwardly. ‘Guess I was having a “man” look.’
‘If you’re worried about blood-glucose levels, a blood test is far more sensitive.’
‘I know that.’ The words came out as an unintentional snap and she hurriedly modified her tone. ‘If the level’s high enough to show up in urine then we’ll know treatment is urgent. I’ve found that the occasional patient is more likely to agree to give a sample of urine than get stuck with a needle, even if it is just in a finger. I’ve already packed the BGL kit. I need the dipsticks for the antenatal checks, too.’
‘Okay …’
She could feel Sam watching her. Maybe she hadn’t undone the damage that that uncharacteristic snap had done.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I didn’t sleep that well last night and I guess I’m a bit put out, having to take someone else with us today. It’ll put us under pressure to get through the clinic cases so I have time to take him into the village to talk to people and get samples of the leaves or bark or whatever it is they use off the hibiscus plants.’
‘Hmm …’ Sam still hadn’t left the room. ‘Why is it that I get the impression you don’t like Luke? I’m going to be working with the guy and he seems great. Is there something about him I should know?’
‘No.’
‘But you’ve met him before. You know him better than I do.’
Anahera almost laughed at the understatement. She could only hope that her smile wasn’t wry.
‘He’s an awesome doctor. Hard-working and very, very smart. And he cares a lot about his patients.’ She was keeping her hands busy, packing syringes and swabs into the plastic bin. Then she reached for the pregnancy test kits and had to close her eyes for a heartbeat. Sam was