Wildfire Island Docs. Alison Roberts
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in her head.
Or perhaps tomorrow when she’d worked on a strategy to handle working with him …
He had to go up to the house and make peace with Caro, Keanu decided, not skulk around down here at the hospital.
Sam and Hettie would employ her, that much was certain, so he would be working with her. But doctor-nurse relationships needed trust on both sides and although all his instincts told him to run for his life, he knew he wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
M’Langi was more important than these new and distinctly uncomfortable reactions to Caro. Finding out what had been happening and trying to put things right—that was what the elders expected of him.
So he was here, and she was here, and …
He sighed, then began to wonder just why she was here. He’d never totally lost touch with what Caro was up to, being in contact with her father all through his student years, asking, oh, so casually, how she was doing.
And friends from the islands, staying at the Lockharts’ Sydney house on a visit or while studying, would pass on information. So now he thought about it, he’d known she’d studied nursing, because he’d smiled at the time to think both of them were fulfilling at least the beginning of that childhood promise.
But he’d never expected her to return to Wildfire to actually finish the job, especially as he’d known a little of the life she’d been leading. Known from the Sydney papers he would buy up in Cairns, for the sole purpose, he realised, of torturing himself.
He might pretend he’d bought them for the business section, which was always more comprehensive than the one in the local paper, but, if so, why did he turn to the social pages first, hoping for a glimpse of Caro—a grown-up, beautiful Caro—usually on the arm of a too-smooth-looking bloke called Steve, to whom she was, apparently, ‘almost’ engaged.
What the hell did ‘almost’ mean?
It couldn’t have been jealousy that had made him feel so bad—after all, he’d been the one who’d not almost but definitely married someone else. Someone he’d thought he’d loved because she’d brought him out of the lingering misery of his mother’s death, his loneliness and his homesickness for the island.
So kind of, in a way, he’d betrayed Caro not once—in disappearing from her life—but twice, although that wasn’t really true as trysts made between twelve-and fourteen-year-olds didn’t really count.
Did they?
It was all this confusion—the unresolved issues inside him—that was making him angry, and somehow the anger had made her its target.
Which was probably unfair.
No, it was definitely unfair.
Especially as she was obviously unhappy. He’d put that down to her seeing him again, which would be natural after the way he’d behaved towards her.
So maybe he should stay well out of her way.
Except he’d always hated it when Caro was unhappy. And if he’d caused or even contributed to that unhappiness, which he must have, cutting her off the way he had so long ago, then shouldn’t he do something about it?
At least see if they could regain a little of their old friendship.
Friendship?
When one glimpse of the grown-up Caro had sent his pulses racing, his entire body stirring in a most un-friend-like manner?
Not good for a man who was probably still married …
On top of which, he was torn between two edicts of his mother. The childhood one, always spoken when the two of them as children had left the house, plainly spoken and always understood: take care of Caroline.
Then, as his mother had been dying from pancreatic cancer that had appeared from nowhere and killed her within six weeks, while he, a doctor could do nothing to save her. Then she had cursed the Lockharts …
Well, Ian Lockhart anyway.
Anyway, wasn’t he beyond superstitions like curses?
He shook his head to clear the memories and useless speculation, checked the few patients they had in the hospital, then let out a huge sigh of relief when he heard the helicopter returning.
He almost let himself hope it was bringing in a difficult case, something to distract him from the endlessly circling thoughts in his head.
Hettie and Sam had left the hospital’s makeshift ambulance down near the helicopter pad so Keanu walked down to the airstrip, not really wishing for a patient but ready to help unpack anything they might have brought back. And it would be best to break the news about the FIFO nurse and Maddie not coming now, rather than leaving it until the morning.
Would he tell them about Caroline’s arrival?
He’d have to at least mention it.
Sam would be only too delighted to have an available nurse.
And he would be doomed to work with the woman he didn’t really know but had been instantly attracted to in a way he’d never felt before.
It was because of the old friendship. The attraction thing. It had to be, but with any luck, after the way he’d treated her, she’d want to have as little to do with him as possible.
He was almost at the helicopter now, and could see Sam and Jack Richards, the pilot, lifting out a stretcher.
Good! That means work to do, Keanu thought, then realised how unkind it was to be wishing someone ill. But it was only when he saw the patient that he felt a flush of shame at his thoughts. It was old Alkiri, from the island of Atangi, the elder who had been one of his and Caro’s favourite people and true mentor when they had been young.
He moved closer and greeted the elder in his native language, touching the old man’s shoulder in a gesture of respect.
Even through the oxygen mask, Keanu could see the blue tinge on their patient’s lips and he wondered just how old Alkiri might be.
‘He had a fall, perhaps a TIA as apparently he’d been falling quite a lot recently.’
TIA—transient ischemic attack—often a precursor to a full-blown stroke. Had Alkiri been putting these falls down to old age? He was a private man, unlikely to seek help unless he really needed it. Yet, as Caroline’s grandfather’s boatman, he had not only lived here at Wildfire but had taken two small children under his wing. It was he who had taken them and the village children to and from the school on Atangi, teaching them things about the islands, and life itself, that to Keanu were as important as the learning he’d had at school.
He should tell Caro Alkiri was—
He stopped the thought before it went any further. It had been automatic for he knew she’d loved the old man as much as he had—and probably still would …
But he was no longer the boy who’d run through the house, calling for his friend to pass on a bit of news.
And she was no longer the girl he’d always wanted to find so he could tell—
They strapped the stretcher into the converted jeep, especially modified for just that reason, then Jack and Hettie rode back to the hospital, Sam walking with Keanu to check on any news and pass on information from the clinics on the other islands.
The scent of a nearby frangipani hung in the air, but today such a reminder that he was home didn’t soothe Keanu as it had on other days, on other such walks with Sam, or Hettie or whoever had done the clinic run.
He gave Sam the news that neither Maddie nor the FIFO nurse would be arriving the next day, assured Sam he was happy to work full time, then hesitated.
‘More?’ Sam asked quietly.
‘There is a nurse,’ Keanu answered, and something in his voice must have