The Man She Could Never Forget

The patient gave a shriek of protest but Keanu was already out of the room.

Slipping automatically into nurse mode, Caroline smiled as she unlocked the cupboard and found all she needed.

‘He’s not going to cut off your foot,’ she reassured the man as she set up a tray on a trolley and rolled it over to the examination table. ‘Hospitals have all manners of saws. We use diamond-tipped ones to cut through plaster when it has to come off, and we use adapted electric saws and drills in knee and hip replacement, though not here, of course. I’d say he’s going to numb your leg from the calf down, then cut through the nail between your flip-flop and the wood. It’s easier to pull a nail out of rubber and flesh than it is out of wood.’

Their patient didn’t seem all that reassured, but Caroline, who’d found where the paperwork was kept, distracted him with questions about his name, age, address, any medication he was on, and, because she couldn’t resist it, what he was doing on the island.

‘Doing up the little places down on the flat,’ was the reply, which came as Keanu returned with a small battery-powered saw and a portable X-ray machine.

‘The research station,’ he said, before Caroline could ask the patient what little places.

‘They’re doing up the research station when there’s not enough money to keep the hospital running properly?’

The indignation in her voice must have been mirrored on her face, for Keanu said a curt, ‘Later,’ and turned his full attention to his patient.

After numbing the lower leg—Caroline being careful not to let her fingers touch Keanu’s as she handed him syringes and phials—he explained to the patient what he intended doing.

‘Nurse already told me that,’ the man replied. ‘Just get on with it.’

Asking Caroline to hold the wood steady, Keanu eased it as far as it would go from the flip-flop then bent closer to see what he was doing, so his head, the back of it, blocked Caroline’s view. Not that she’d have seen much of the work, her eyes focussed on the little scar that ran along his hairline, the result of a long-ago exercise on her part to shave off all his hair with her grandfather’s cut-throat razor.

Fortunately he must have been able to cut straight through the little bar of the nail, for he straightened before she could be further lost in memories.

Caroline dropped the wood into a trash bin and returned to find Keanu setting up a portable X-ray machine.

‘We need to know if the nail’s gone through bone,’ he explained, helping her get back into nurse mode. ‘And the picture should tell us if it’s in a position that would have caused tendon damage.’

‘Why does that make a difference?’ Now he was pain-free—if only temporarily—the patient was becoming impatient.

‘It makes the difference between pulling it out and cutting it out.’

‘No cutting, just yank the damn thing out,’ the patient said, but Keanu ignored him, going quietly on with the job of setting up the head of the unit above the man’s foot.

Intrigued by the procedure—and definitely in nurse mode—Caroline had to ask.

‘I thought the hospital had a designated radiography room,’ she said, remembering protocols at the hospital where she’d worked that suggested wherever possible X-rays be carried out in that area, although the portables had many uses.

Keanu glanced up at her, his face once again unreadable.

‘There is but I doubt you and I could lift him onto the table and with his leg already numb he’s likely to fall if he tries to help us.’

Which puts me neatly back in my place, Caroline thought.

‘Move back!’

Ignoring the peremptory tone, she stepped the obligatory two metres back from the head of the machine, watched Keanu don a lead apron—so protocols were observed here—and take shots from several angles.

That done, he wheeled the machine to the corner of the room, hung his apron over a convenient chair and checked the results on a computer screen.

‘Come and look at this. What do you think?’

Assuming he was talking to her, not the immobile patient, she moved over to stand beside him—beside Keanu, who had been the single most important person in the world for her for the first thirteen years of her life. Important because, unlike her father, or even Christopher, he’d always been there for her—her best friend and constant companion.

Until he’d disappeared.

But this Keanu …

It was beyond weird.

Spooky.

And, oh, so painful …

‘Well?’ he demanded, and she forgot about the way Keanu was affecting her and concentrated on the images.

‘By some miracle it’s slipped between two metatarsals and though it’s probably hit some ligament or tendon, because the bones are intact it shouldn’t impact on the movement of the foot too much.’

‘And don’t look at me like that,’ she muttered at him, after he’d shot yet another questioning glance her way. ‘I am a trained nurse, and have been a shift supervisor in the ER at Canterbury Hospital.’

‘I don’t know how you found the time,’ he said as he headed back to the patient.

She was about to demand what the hell he’d meant by that when she realised this was hardly the time or place to be having an argument with this man she didn’t know.

Her friend had been a boy—was that the difference?

It certainly was part of it given the way her body was reacting to the slightest accidental touch …

‘Okay, so now I need you to swab all around the nail then hold his foot while I try to yank the nail out. I’d prefer not to have to cut it out.’

Caroline put on new gloves, cleaned the areas above and beneath the foot, changed gloves again and got a firm grasp of the man’s foot, ready to put all her weight into the task of holding on if the nail proved resistant.

But, no, it slid out easily, and as the wound was bleeding quite freely now, it was possible the risk of infection had been limited.

‘Antibiotics and tetanus injections in the locked cupboard,’ Keanu told her as he examined the wound in the patient’s foot. ‘And bring some saline and a packet of oral antibiotics as well. Everything’s labelled as we get a lot of agency nurses coming out here for short stints. I’ll use the saline to flush the wound before we dress it.’

He worked with quick, neat movements, cleaning the wound, putting the dressings on—usually, in her experience, a job left to a nurse—before administering the antibiotic and a tetanus shot. He even pulled a sleeve over the foot to keep the dressings in place and keep them relatively clean.

‘Now all we have to do is get you back to your accommodation,’ Keanu said. ‘Keep off the foot for a couple of days and find your workboots before you go back on the job. If you don’t have any you can phone the mainland and have some sent out on tomorrow’s plane. Nurse Lockhart and I will help you out to a cart and I’ll run you back down the hill.’

‘I’ve got workboots,’ the man said gruffly. ‘And I’ll phone my mate to come and get me, thanks. The foreman on the job doesn’t like strangers on the site.’

‘Strangers on the site? What site? What’s happening at the research station, Keanu?’

He touched her on the arm.

‘Leave it,’ he said quietly, and the touch, more than his words, stopped her questions.

Since when had her body reacted to a casual touch from Keanu’s hand?

It was being back on the island …

It was seeing him again …

Remembering the hurt …

Caroline closed her eyes, willing the tumult of emotions in her body to settle. She was here to heal, to find herself again, but she was also here to work.

She cleaned up, dropping soiled swabs into a closed bin marked for that purpose and the needles into a sharps box. Their patient was now sitting on the examination table, chatting to Keanu about, she found as she edged closer, fishing.

Well, it wasn’t something she wanted to discuss right now, and as she needed time to sort out her reactions to seeing Keanu again, she slipped away, heading back down the track to the airstrip to collect her suitcase.

She could walk up to the house on the path behind the hospital and so avoid seeing the source of her confusion again. And once she was up at the house—home again—she could sort things out in her head—and possibly in her body—and …

And what?

Make things right between them?

She doubted that could ever happen. He had disappeared without a word, returned her letters unopened.

But now she’d have to work with him. Was she supposed to behave as if the life they’d shared had never happened?

As if his disappearance from it hadn’t hurt her so badly she’d thought she’d never recover?

Impossible.

She’d reached the airstrip and grabbed her case by the time she’d thought this far and as further consideration of the problem seemed just that—impossible—she put it from her mind and started up the track, feeling the moisture in the air, trapped by the heavy rainforest on each side, wrap around her like a security blanket.

She was home, that was the main thing.

The track from the strip to the big house led up the hill behind the hospital and staff villas.

Staff villas?

Keanu.

Forget Keanu!

For her sanity’s sake, she needed to work—she’d already sat around feeling sorry for herself for far too long as a result of another desertion.

And another nurse would always come in handy on the island even if they couldn’t afford to pay her. She had her own place to live and some money Steve hadn’t known about tucked away in the bank.

And wasn’t this what she and Keanu had always planned to do?

He would become a doctor, she a nurse, and they’d return to Wildfire to run a hospital on the island. As children, they’d shared a picture book with a doctor and a nurse that had led to this childhood dream. Had it seemed more important because they had both lost a parent who possibly could have been saved if medical aid had been closer?

Half-orphans, they’d called themselves …

But as she hadn’t existed for Keanu once he and his mother had left the island permanently, seeing him here, and seeing him carrying out his part of their dream, had completely rattled her.

Trudging up the track, she shook her head in disbelief at his sudden reappearance in her life, especially now when all she wanted to do was throw herself into work as an antidote to the pain of Steve’s rejection.

Could she throw herself into work with Keanu around? Even seeing him that one time had memories—images—of their shared childhood flashing through her head.

Helen, his mother, had died not long after leaving the island. Caroline’s father had passed on that information many years ago, but he’d offered no explanation the year Caroline had found out she wouldn’t be going to the island for her holidays as Helen and Keanu had left and there’d been no one to care for her.

And despite her grief at Helen’s loss, she’d felt such anger against Keanu for not letting her know they were leaving, for not keeping in touch, for not telling her of his mother’s death himself, that she’d shut him out of her mind, the hurt too deep to contemplate.

‘I’ll take that.’

Keanu’s voice came from behind her, deep and husky, and sent tremors down her spine, while her fingers, rendered nerveless by his touch, released her hold on the case.

Why had he come back?

And why now?

But it was he who asked the question.

‘Why did you come back?’

Blunt words but something that sounded like anger throbbed through them—anger that fired her own in response.

‘It is my home.’

‘One of your homes,’ he reminded her. ‘You have another perfectly comfortable one in Sydney with your father and your brother—your twin. How is Christopher?’

She spun towards him, sorry she didn’t still have the suitcase to swing at his legs as she turned.

‘How dare you ask that question? As if you care about my brother. People who care for others keep in touch. They don’t just stop all communication. They don’t send back letters unopened. I was twelve, Keanu, and suddenly someone who had been there for me all my life, someone I thought was my friend, was gone.’

Keanu bowed his head in the face of her anger, unable to bear the hurt in her eyes. Oh, he’d been angry at her reappearance, but that had been shock-type anger. He’d returned to Wildfire thinking her safely tucked away in Sydney, enjoying a busy social life.

Then, seeing her appear out of nowhere, so much unresolved anger and bitterness and, yes, regret had churned inside him he’d reacted with anger. But that anger should have been directed at another Lockhart. It was regret at the way he’d treated her—his betrayal of their friendship—that had added fuel to the fire.

Guilt …

And now he knew he’d hurt her again.

He’d learned to read Caro’s hurt early. He’d first read it in a three-year-old looking forward to a visit from her daddy, the visit suddenly cancelled because of one thing or another.

Usually Christopher’s health, he remembered now.

Throughout their childhood, she’d suffered these disappointments, a trip back to her Sydney home put off indefinitely because Christopher had chicken pox and was infectious. Going back to Sydney at ten when her adored grandmother had died, and learning it would be to boarding school because her father worked long hours and Christopher’s carers could not take care of her as well …

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, apologising for all the hurts she’d suffered but knowing two words would never be enough.

‘I don’t want your “sorry” now, Keanu. I’m here, you’re here, and we’ll be working together, so we’ll just both have to make the best of it.’

‘You’re serious about working in the hospital?’

Had he sounded astounded that she glared at him then turned away and stalked off up the path?

He followed her, taking in the shape of Caroline all grown up—long legs lightly tanned, hips curving into a neat waist, and long golden hair swinging from a high ponytail—swinging defiantly, if hair could be defiant.

The realisation that he was attracted to her came slowly. Oh, he’d felt a jolt along his nerves when they’d accidentally touched, and his heart had practically somersaulted when he’d first set eyes on her, but surely that was remnants of the ‘old friends’ stuff.

And the attraction would have to be hidden as, apart from the fact that he was obviously at the very top of her least favourite people list, he was, as far as he knew, still married.

Not that he could blame Caro—for the least favourite people thing, not his marriage.

They’d both been sent to boarding school while still young, she to a school in Sydney, he to one in North Queensland, but the correspondence between them had been regular and intimate in the sense that they’d shared their thoughts and feelings about everything going on in their lives.

Then he and his mother had been forced to leave the island and there had been no way he could cause his mother further hurt by keeping in touch with Caroline.

She was a Lockhart after all.

A Lockhart!

He caught up with her.

‘Look, no matter how you feel about me, there are things you should know.’

She turned her head and raised an eyebrow, so, taking that as an invitation, he ventured to speak.

‘There’s your uncle, Ian, for a start.’

Another quick glance.

‘You must have known he came here, that your father had left him in overall charge of the mine after the hospital was finished and he, your father, that is, was doing more study and couldn’t get over as often.’

She stopped suddenly, so he had to turn back, and standing this close, seeing the blue-green of her eyes, the dark eyebrows and lashes that drew attention to them, the curve of pink lips, the straight, dainty nose, his breath caught in his chest and left him wondering why no one had ever come up with an antidote for attraction.

Cold blue-green eyes—waiting, watchful …

‘So?’

Demanding …

Keanu shifted uneasily. As a clan the Lockharts had always been extraordinarily close to each other and even though Ian was the noted black sheep, Caroline’s father had still given him a job.

‘Ian apparently had gambling debts before he came—a gambling addiction—but unfortunately even on a South Sea island online gambling is available. From all I heard he never stopped gambling but he wasn’t very good at it. Eventually he sacked Peter Blake, the mine manager your father had employed, and took whatever he could from the mine—that’s why it’s been struggling lately and your father’s having to foot a lot of the hospital bills. Ian stopped paying the mine workers, closed down the crushers and extractors and brought it to all but a standstill.’

He paused, although he knew he had to finish.

‘Then he ran away. No one knows for certain when he went but it was very recently. One day his yacht was in the harbour at the mine and the next day it was gone.’

Blue-green eyes met his—worried but also wary.

‘Grandma always said he was no good,’ she admitted sadly. ‘“In spite of the fact he’s my son, he’s a bad seed,” she used to say, which, as a child, always puzzled me, the bad-seed bit.’

He heard sadness in Caroline’s words but she seemed slightly more relaxed now, he could tell, so he took a deep breath and finished the woeful tale.

‘The trouble is, Ian’s damaged the Lockhart name. I don’t know how people will view your return.’

‘What do you mean, view my return?’

Her confusion was so obvious he wanted to give her a hug.

Bad idea.

He put out his hand and touched her arm, wanting her calm enough to understand what he was trying to tell her. Though touching her was a mistake. Not only did fire flood his being, but she pulled away so suddenly she’d have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed her.

And let her go very swiftly.

‘Lockharts have been part of M’Langi history since they first settled on Wildfire,’ he said gently. ‘Your grandfather and father helped bring prosperity and health facilities to the islands and were admired for all they did. But Ian’s behaviour has really tainted the name.’

He could see her confusion turning to anger and guessed she wanted to lash out at him—well, not at him particularly … or perhaps it was at him particularly, but she definitely wanted to lash out.

She turned away instead and trudged on up the slope, spinning back when she’d covered less than three feet to reach out and say, ‘I’ll take my bag now, thank you.’

Cool, calm and collected again—to outward appearances.

But he knew her too well not to know how deeply she’d been affected by his words. She’d never been a snob, never seen herself as different from the other island children with whom they’d attended the little primary school on Atangi, but she’d felt pride in the achievements of her family, justifiably so. To hear what he was telling her would be shattering for her.

But all he said was, ‘I’ll carry the bag, Caroline, and maybe, one day soon, we can sit down and talk—maybe find our friendship again.’

In reply, she stepped closer, grabbed her bag and stormed away, marching now, striding, hurrying away from him as fast as she could.

And was it his imagination, or did he hear her mutter, ‘As if!’?

CHAPTER TWO

KEANU RUSSELL WALKED swiftly back down the track. He probably wasn’t needed but the hospital was so short-staffed someone had to be there. The situation at the hospital was worse than he’d imagined when, alerted by the elders on Atangi, the main island of the group, he’d come back.

He touched the tribal tattoo that encircled the muscle of his upper arm, the symbol of M’Langi—of his belonging.

‘Come home, we need you.’

That had been the extent of the elders’ message, and as the islanders—with help from Max Lockhart—had paid for his high school and university education, he’d known he owed it to them to come.

He’d tried to contact Max before he’d left Australia but had been unable to get on to him. Apparently, Max’s son, Christopher, had had a serious lung infection and Max had been with him in the ICU.

Trying the hospital here instead, Vailea, the hospital’s housekeeper, had answered the phone and told him the islands—and the hospital in particular—were in big trouble.

‘That Ian Lockhart, he’s no good to anyone,’ Vailea had told him. ‘Max has been paying for the hospital out of his own money, because the mine is run-down and any money it does make, that rotten Ian takes.’

There was a silence as Keanu digested this, then Vailea added, ‘We need you here, Keanu.’

‘Why didn’t you call me? Tell me this? Why leave it to the elders?’

There was another long pause before Vailea said, ‘You’ve been gone too long, Keanu. I did not know how to tell you. I thought with me asking, you might not come, but with the elders—’

She broke the connection but not before he’d heard the tears in her voice, and he sat, staring at the phone in his hand, guilt flooding his entire being.

M’Langi was his home, the islanders his people, and he had stayed away because of his anger, and his mother’s inner torment—caused by a Lockhart …

But if he was truly honest, he’d stayed away because he didn’t want to face the memories of his happy childhood, or his betrayal of his childhood friend.

But home he was, and so aghast at the situation that memories had had no time to plague him. Although sometimes when he walked through the small hospital late at night he remembered a little boy and even smaller girl holding hands on about the same spot, talking about the future when he would be a doctor and she would be a nurse and they would come back to the island and work in the hospital her father had, even then, been planning to build.

Okay, so the ghost of Caroline did bother him—had bothered him even as he’d married someone else—but there was enough work to do to block her out most of the time.

Or had been until she’d arrived in person. Not only arrived but apparently intended to work here.

Not that she wasn’t needed …

The nurse they had been expecting to come in on the next day’s flight had phoned to say her mother was ill and she didn’t know when she might make it. Then Maddie Haddon, one of their Fly-In-Fly-Out, or FIFO doctors, had phoned to say she wouldn’t be on the flight either—some mix-up with her antenatal appointments.

Sam Taylor, the only permanent doctor, was doing a clinic flight to the other islands, with Hettie, their head nurse—another permanent. They didn’t know of the latest developments but as Keanu himself had come as a FIFO and intended staying permanently whether he was paid or not, he could cover for Maddie.

And, presumably, Caroline could cover for the nurse.

Caroline.

Caro.

He had known how hurt she would have been when he’d cut her out of his life, but his anger had been stronger than his concern—his anger and his determination to do nothing more to hurt his already shattered mother.

Caroline discovered why Harold hadn’t met the plane. He was in the front garden of the house, arguing volubly with his wife, Bessie. It had been Caroline’s great-grandfather, autocratic old sod that he must have been, who’d insisted that all the employees working in the house and grounds take on English names.

‘You come inside and help me clean,’ Bessie was saying.

‘No, I have to do the yard. Ian will raise hell if the yard’s not done, not that I believe he’s coming back.’

Watching them, Caroline felt a stirring of alarm that they had grown old, although age didn’t seem to be affecting their legendary squabbles.

‘Nor do I but someone is coming. Some other visitor. We saw the plane on a day when planes don’t usually come, and anyway it was too small to be one of our planes.’