A Child To Heal Them. Louisa Heaton
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had a temperature of nearly one hundred and three degrees, sweats and chills. Drowsy. Flu-like symptoms.
His first concern was malaria. ‘Has she been vomiting?’
The blonde shook her head, curls shimmering. She looked terrified. Almost as if she were afraid to look at the little girl on the bed. As if she was shutting herself down.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Any family history I should know about?’
She shook her head, looking at him in apology, cheeks colouring.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Has she been given anything?’
There was a pained expression in those blue eyes of hers.
‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m just her teacher.’
He listened to her heart. It sounded good, if a little rapid. Her chest was clear at the moment. Checking her eyes and the palms of her hands, he saw she seemed pale, and the possibility of anaemia assured him that malaria was probably the case here.
‘Let’s get her on an intravenous drip and get some blood drawn so we can do a rapid diagnostic test. She’s probably going to need anti-malarials.’
‘You think this is malaria?’ the woman asked, heartbreak in her voice.
‘It looks like it. The bloods will let us know for sure. You’re her teacher?’
She looked frightened. On edge. Her arms were wrapped around herself protectively, making her look smaller.
‘Yes.’
‘Are any of your other students sick?’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t think... I’m sorry. I don’t know.’
It seemed there was a lot she didn’t know. But he didn’t want to get frustrated with her. This wasn’t the first time a patient had turned up at the ship with no one knowing anything about them. Sometimes they’d get dumped there. Abandoned.
‘Can I sit with her?’
‘You’ve taken anti-malaria tablets before coming over here?’
She nodded.
‘Good. Then you can stay.’
There was something about those eyes of hers. Something familiar. Oceanic blue and just as deep. Thick, dark lashes enveloping them. Where had he seen them before?
He held out his hand, determined to find out. ‘Dr Quinn Shapiro.’
Hesitantly she took his hand, as if she’d been asked to touch a live, hissing and spitting cobra. ‘Tasha Kincaid.’
Tasha Kincaid. The name didn’t ring a bell. Perhaps he was mistaken about her being familiar somehow? Some people just had that type of face...
Though she seems to know me...
‘Nice to meet you.’
She looked at him strangely. Questioningly. Surprised. Relieved?
‘Likewise.’
* * *
Nice to meet him? Quinn Shapiro? Here on the Serendipity? Of all the hospital ships in all the world, he had to be on this one? Off the coast of Africa? What were the chances?
She didn’t want to think about what he’d done. What he’d said. About how he’d made her feel. So small. So unimportant. So ugly. Those feelings she’d stamped down on long ago, determined not to let them affect her self-confidence.
It had been a struggle for a while, especially because she’d been at such a vulnerable, impressionable age, but she’d done it. The only way she’d been able to carry on had been to pretend it had never happened.
Tasha sat by Abeje’s bed, holding her student’s hand. Abeje was sleeping now, her face restful in repose, her chapped lips slightly parted. Her skin was hot to the touch—boiling. Her small body was fighting a battle that had no definite outcome. The rapid test, which had given a result within minutes of their arrival, had shown that it was malaria.
‘Don’t you die on me,’ she whispered to her small charge, hoping that her just saying those words would make some higher power hear them and infuse the little girl with a fighting spirit. ‘Do you hear me? You’ve got to pull through this. You’ve got to fight it. You can’t give in.’
‘How’s she doing?’
Quinn’s voice behind her had Tasha leaping to her feet, her heart thundering like galloping horses, her cheeks flushing red. She turned around, stared at him, resisting the urge to start yelling at him. To humiliate him. To embarrass him the way he had once done her.
Trying her best to hold the bitterness back, she said, ‘She’s sleeping.’
‘That’s good. Her body needs rest.’
Yes, it did. So did she. But her own tiredness, her own endless, exhausting fear, was something she had to dismiss right now. Her body was once again thrumming to the presence of Quinn Shapiro, apparently having forgotten that years ago she’d made a decision never to be attracted to him ever again.
Who knew the human body could be so treacherous? It apparently had a mind of its own...was reacting to him in ways she couldn’t control.
He clearly didn’t recognise her. The last time she’d seen him she’d been thirteen years old, chubby and grubby, and he’d been sixteen. Just three years older, but seemingly so worldly-wise, so mature, so stunning. And so handsome. With a dazzling smile that had made her heart go pitter-pat.
Her newly teenaged little heart hadn’t stood a chance when Quinn had first appeared on her radar. Tall and rangy, with a blond quiff, captain of his school’s rugby team, he’d had an easy charm and boy band good-looks. She, on the other hand, had found comfort in food and books, and her wild mass of unconquered curls had earned her the nickname Nit-Nat. Just because she’d once caught nits and spread them to the other kids in the children’s home.
She’d never thought that was fair. It could have happened to any of them. Every time she’d itched and scratched, her fingers buried in the mass of her thick curls, the other kids would run away from her, laughing. She’d spent many hours in front of the matron, painfully enduring the process of the nit comb that kept getting stuck in the knots of her hair. They’d even used a special shampoo, but it had stunk, earning her even more nicknames.
Her misery had been punctuated with happiness at Quinn’s visits. She had been regularly ensnared by Quinn’s smiles and friendly open manner to the other kids at the home when he’d visited to pick up his best mate Dexter.
Her crush on Quinn had been absolute! She’d drawn hearts in her notebooks and put her initials and his inside them with a little arrow. Signed her name with his surname—Natasha Shapiro. It had looked so exotic, so stylish, so grown-up. Everything she had not been, but aspired to be.
She’d try to chat with Dexter, as casually as she could, trying to get information. Quinn wanted to travel the world. To be a doctor. To change people’s lives.
Could he have been any dreamier?
His dreams she had decided to make hers. She’d always enjoyed medical dramas on the television. Always liked to try and guess what was wrong with people and sometimes would get it right. So she had decided that she, too, would go to medical school when she was older. She would travel the world and treat people and make them better and everyone she tended to would be just so grateful to her. Thankful to her for saving their lives. She would be adored. Loved at last. No one would look down on her ever again...
But it hadn’t worked out that way. Following someone else’s dreams had only brought her nightmares.
‘I wonder if you could do me a favour?’ Quinn asked.
Once upon a time she would have jumped to do any favour he’d