The Nurse Who Stole His Heart
It was almost an anticlimax to rush in and find nothing dramatic happening. A group of people were standing quietly beside a table covered with abandoned plates of food. A middle-aged man was sitting on the floor, propped up by a large cushion. Another man was crouched beside him with a hand on his wrist, taking his pulse. The woman standing beside them, directing a breeze from a fan to the patient’s face, was Anahera’s mother, Vailea Kopu, who was the first to spot their arrival.
‘They’re here,’ she said. ‘You’re going to be fine, Dr Ainsley.’
‘I’m fine already,’ the man grumbled. ‘I keep telling you, it’s only indigestion. I ate your wonderful food too fast, that’s all.’
Sam crouched beside the man. ‘Let’s check you out to make sure. I’m Sam Taylor, one of the resident doctors here.’
‘This is Charles Ainsley.’ The man monitoring the condition of their patient turned to look at Sam. ‘He’s sixty-three and has a bit of a cardiac history …’
Anahera wasn’t hearing any of their patient’s history. Her hands were shaking as she opened the pockets of the life pack and pulled out the leads they would need to do a twelve-lead ECG and check whether the heart’s blood supply was compromised.
She couldn’t look up but she didn’t need to.
She would have known that voice anywhere …
How on earth had the possibility of Luke Wilson attending this elite conference not occurred to her?
But it had, hadn’t it? She’d been avoiding any mention of the upcoming event because that thought had been haunting her. Not attending the cocktail party because she didn’t want to hear people talking about research into tropical diseases had been a blanket denial. There was only one person she would really dread listening to. Or meeting. The visiting medical specialists would only be here for a couple of days, she had told herself. It would be easy to stay out of the way.
Much easier not to even know whether Luke was present.
She’d been right to dread this. Even the sound of his voice was overwhelming enough to have her whole body trembling. What would happen if she looked up and made eye contact?
He was still talking to Sam. ‘… Stable angina but he’s due for a coronary angiogram next month.’
‘Let’s get an ECG,’ Sam said. ‘Have you had any aspirin today, Charles? Used your GTN spray?’
‘I took an extra aspirin for the flight. Forgot my spray.’
‘No problem.’ Having unbuttoned the shirt, Sam reached for the leads that Anahera had attached sticky dots to. ‘Grab the GTN, Ana. And let’s get some oxygen on, too.’
Ana …
Her name seemed to hang in the air. Had Luke heard? Or had he recognised her already and was trying to ignore her presence?
Dammit … her hand was still shaking as she pulled the lid from the small spray pump canister.
‘Open your mouth for me,’ she directed. ‘And lift your tongue …’
‘I can do that.’ A hand closed over hers to remove the canister and there was no help for it—she had to look up.
And Luke was looking right back at her.
For a heartbeat nothing else existed as those hazel-green eyes captured her own with even more effect than the touch of his hand had—and that had been disturbing enough.
Her body froze, and she couldn’t breathe. Her mind froze as it was flooded with emotions that she’d thought she would never experience again. The love she had felt for this man. The unbearable pain of his betrayal.
And then something else made those memories evaporate as instantly as they’d appeared.
Fear …
This wasn’t supposed to be happening. It was dangerous. She had to protect more than her own heart and that meant she had to find the strength to deal with this and make sure nothing was allowed to change.
Determination gave her focus and an unexpected but very welcome sense of calm. It was Anahera who broke the eye contact and found that both her voice and her hands had stopped shaking.
‘Fine. I’ll put the oxygen on.’
The moment had mercifully been brief enough for no one else to have noticed. Or maybe it hadn’t. Sam looked up after sticking the final electrode into place.
‘This is Anahera,’ he told Luke. ‘Our specialty nurse.’
‘Yes.’ Luke pressed the button on the canister to direct a second spray under their patient’s tongue. ‘We’ve met before.’
‘Of course …’ Vailea was still standing beside them, providing a cool breeze from the palm-frond fan. ‘I knew I’d seen you before. You came here to work in the hospital a few years ago.’
‘I did.’
‘You had to rush away, though … Your wife was ill?’
Oh … God … There it was again. The pain …
‘Yes.’ The monosyllable was curt. Grudging. Maybe Luke didn’t want to remember the way they’d parted any more than she did.
The only blessing right now was that there were only two people in this room who knew what had happened during the few weeks that Luke had been here and only one who knew what the aftermath had been.
Anahera just had to make sure that it stayed that way.
Ana …
Hearing that name had been a bombshell Luke hadn’t been expecting.
Oh, he’d seen the green uniform that looked a bit like a set of scrubs from the corner of his eye and had realised the attending doctor had brought an assistant to help carry all the medical gear, but he’d been so focussed on relaying all the information he’d gathered about Charles that he hadn’t looked properly.
And then he’d heard her name. Had seen the way her hand had been shaking as she’d struggled to get the cap off the GTN spray pump. It had been an unconscious reaction to take the canister from her hand. Ana had been struggling and he could help. The consequence of touching her hadn’t entered his thoughts at all so no wonder it had been another bombshell.
But both of those shocks—hearing her name and touching her skin—were nothing compared to looking into her eyes for the first time in nearly five years.
How could that be so powerful?
They were just a pair of brown eyes and he must have met hundreds of people with that eye colour over those years. How could a single glance into this particular pair make him feel like the ground beneath him had just opened into a yawning chasm?
It was like the difference between putting a plug into an electrical socket and somehow sticking your finger in to access the current directly.
And Ana had felt it, too. He’d seen the shock in her eyes but then he’d seen something he’d never expected to see. Something that squeezed the air out of his chest to leave a vacuum that felt physically painful.
He’d seen fear, he was sure of it.
‘It’s gone.’ The voice of their patient sounded absurdly cheerful. ‘The pain’s completely gone.’
No. Luke rocked back on his heels, his gaze seeking Ana’s again.
Charles might well be feeling fine but Luke had the horrible feeling that, for himself, the pain had only just begun.
CHAPTER TWO
ANAHERA WASN’T LOOKING back at Luke and it felt like deliberate avoidance.
She had the nasal cannula hanging from her hands, one end attached to the oxygen cylinder, the other end ready to loop around their patient’s ears, and she was looking at Sam.
‘Keep really still for a tick, mate. I’m going to get a twelve-lead ECG printed out and then we’ll see what’s what.’
There were a few seconds’ silence as the life pack captured a snapshot of the electrical activity of the heart and then printed out the graph. Luke looked around, as if he needed to remind himself of why he’d come here when he’d known about the risk. Okay, he’d thought that the worst he would face would be the memories but there’d always been the possibility that Ana might have come home again, hadn’t there? He’d pushed it aside. He was only going to be on the island for a couple of days, in the company of his professional colleagues and a good friend. He wouldn’t be facing anything he couldn’t handle.
But here he was. Facing something he had no idea how to handle.
Anahera was afraid of him?
He’d hurt her that badly?
An unpleasant crawling sensation began to fill that space in his chest. He felt like a jerk. A complete bastard.
His gaze had tracked the other conference attendees standing in a sombre group waiting to hear the verdict on Charles Ainsley’s chest pain but he ended up looking at Anahera again. This time her head was bent close to Sam’s as they both studied the ECG. He could hear her voice.
‘There’s no sign of any ST segment elevation. I can’t see any depression that might show myocardial ischaemia either, can you?’
She was speaking softly, her tone measured. He hadn’t even remembered hearing her speak like this, maybe because the memory of the last time he had spoken to her had been so very different.
She’d been so angry that he’d finally tracked her down and called her while she’d been on shift at that hospital in Brisbane.
‘What’s the problem, Luke? Is London a bit boring? You feel like cheating on your wife again?’
She hadn’t been about to let him say any of the things he’d wanted to say.
‘I don’t want to hear it. I never want to hear from you again. Ever …’
The anger had been contagious in the end. She’d hated him. How could love turn to hate as decisively as if a coin had been flipped?
It couldn’t. That had been the conclusion Luke had come to. It couldn’t happen if the love had been real. Yes, you could throw the coin in the air but there was magic in real love and the coin would always land the right side up.
He could never hate Anahera. Not in a million years. He would have given her the chance to explain. He would have listened.
And forgiven her anything.
Even now, he could forgive the way she was deliberately avoiding his gaze. How could he not when he’d seen that fear in her eyes?
‘It’s looking good, isn’t it?’ Charles was smiling. ‘I told you it was only indigestion.’
‘It’s more likely it was angina, given how quickly it’s gone with the GTN.’
‘In any case, I’m fine.’ Charles began to peel off the electrodes. ‘I’m sorry to have given everyone a fright. It’s my fault for forgetting my spray.’
‘Keep this one,’ Sam said. ‘I’d still like to run some more tests. I’ve got a bench top assay for cardiac biomarkers. If I take a blood sample, I can pop into the laboratory here and have a result in no time.’
‘Have a drink instead,’ Charles said. ‘And some of the amazing food.’ He waved at his colleagues. ‘Please carry on with your dinners,’ he directed. ‘Another life saved, here.’
A relieved buzz of conversation broke out and there were smiles all round. Anahera was still looking serious, however, as she coiled wires to tuck them into a pocket of the life-pack case.
He had to say something.
‘It’s good to see you, Ana. I … I wasn’t expecting to.’
‘No.’ The wires had tangled a little and she shook them. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you either.’ Her soft huff of breath was an embryonic laugh. ‘Silly, I guess. This is your field.’ The wires were being coiled more tightly than necessary. ‘It’s a long way to come, though, and I wouldn’t have thought you’d …’
What? She wouldn’t have thought he’d want to come anywhere near this place again? The brief glance in his direction as her sentence trailed off made him feel like he was a stranger to her. Not someone to be afraid of now but someone to be ignored?
‘I thought you were living in Brisbane.’ Luke could have kicked himself the moment the words came out. It made it sound like the only reason he’d come back here was because he’d thought she was safely a very long way away.
But that was the truth, wasn’t it?
‘Sorry to disappoint you.’ The pockets on the life pack were snapped shut, and Anahera got to her feet. ‘I moved back home a couple of years ago.’
‘I’m not disappointed.’ He attempted a smile. ‘And it is good to see you again.’
A lot of time had passed. Surely they could find a way to connect on some level? He wanted that, he realised. More than was probably good for him.
He wanted to see her eyes the way he remembered them, not full of fear that he might hurt her again. Or so distant he wasn’t even being acknowledged for who he was. Or who he had been.
What he really wanted was to see Anahera smile, but it wasn’t going to happen, was it?
And then it struck him. She wouldn’t be afraid of him if she knew the truth. She wouldn’t feel that avoiding him was the best way to cope either.
Something else crept into the odd mix of his feelings.
A glimmer of hope, perhaps?
Maybe this was an opportunity for both of them to lay some ghosts to rest. So that they could both move on with their lives without being haunted by what had happened between them.
‘You stay.’ Anahera zipped up the resus kit after Sam had taken the blood sample Charles had finally agreed was a good idea. ‘You were coming here anyway. I can take all the gear back to the hospital.’
‘Are you sure?’ Sam was watching their patient rejoin the gathering. ‘I would quite like to keep an eye on him for a while. It’s only going to take a few minutes to run the assay.’
‘I’d like to see the laboratory again.’ Much to Anahera’s discomfort, Luke hadn’t followed Charles to the other side of the meeting hall. ‘It sounds like you’ve got more gear in there than there was when I was last here.’
‘I’ll bet. You should come and see the hospital, too. You wouldn’t have had the CT scanner when you were here. Or the ventilator we’ve got for intensive care either.’
‘You’ve got a CT scanner? Wow …’
‘And Anahera, here, is a qualified intensive care nurse. She could pretty much do my job, to tell the truth. She did paramedic training in Brisbane, too. She’s the best at intubating if you’ve got a difficult airway.’ Sam laughed. ‘But you probably know that. You guys must have kept in touch since you were here?’
‘No.’ Luke and Anahera spoke at the same time but their tones were very different. Luke’s held regret. Anahera’s was firm enough to sound like a reprimand. No wonder Sam gave her such a surprised glance.
She shrugged, her smile wry as she tried to excuse her tone. ‘You know how many FIFOs we get. If we kept in touch with them all we’d never have time to do our jobs.’
Slipping the straps of the resus kit over her shoulders, Anahera bent to pick up the life pack in one hand and the oxygen cylinder in the other. She managed a brief glance at Luke. Another smile even, albeit a tight one. ‘Enjoy your visit,’ she said. ‘I hope the conference is worthwhile.’
‘Let me carry some of that for you.’
She avoided his gaze. ‘I’m fine.’
Surely Luke could see that she needed to get away from him? Someone certainly could. Anahera could feel her mother’s curious gaze all the way from where she was serving food again.
Had she been wrong in assuming that only she and Luke knew what had happened when he’d been on the island that first time? How close they had become?
If Vailea was busy putting two and two together, it could make things a whole heap more difficult.
‘No, you’re not.’ Sam took the heavy life pack from her hand. ‘Don’t be such a heroine, Ana. You make us look bad.’
Sure enough, another man was coming towards them, clearly intent on helping.
Anahera smiled at Sam. ‘Go on, then. Just to make you feel better.’
It would make her feel better, too, to have company as she walked away from Luke. She straightened her back. She had friends here. She used her now free hand to wave at her mother, who smiled back. She had family here, too. Luke was the outsider. If he presented a threat, she had plenty of people on her side.
And maybe he would retire gracefully. Sam had paused as Luke introduced him to the man who’d joined them.
‘This is Harry. Sheikh Rahman al-Taraq. He’s the person who’s responsible for all of this. The man who’s making it his mission to find a way to beat encephalitis, amongst other tropical nasties.’
A sheikh? Anahera blinked. This was all getting a little surreal.
Sam shook the sheikh’s hand. ‘I can’t wait to talk to you,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a few minutes to spend in the laboratory and then I’ll be back.’
‘Mind if I come with you? I’d like to see how the labs are shaping up. We’ve put quite a lot of new equipment in there. Luke, you should come, too.’
‘Oh?’
‘I might have another job for you—after you’ve given your keynote address tomorrow. We’ve got a bit of research to set up, here. A clinical trial, I’m hoping.’
‘I’m only here for a couple of days, Harry.’ Luke’s laugh sounded a bit forced. Nervous even?
If that was the case, he wasn’t the only one feeling like that. Anahera started walking towards the golf cart again. This was getting rapidly worse. She needed a safe place to try and get her head around it all. She couldn’t wait to get back to the hospital.
No … maybe she’d ask Hettie to stay on to start her night shift early. The safe place Anahera really needed was at home.
With her daughter.
Bessie, the housekeeper at the Lockhart mansion who looked after Hana when Anahera was at work, had been happy to babysit tonight.
‘She’s been no trouble,’ she said. ‘Went to bed and off to sleep like an angel.’
‘That’s where you need to go, too, Bessie. You look tired. Thank you so much for your help. I don’t know what we’d do without you.’
The hug from the older woman was soft and squashy and full of love, and it took Anahera straight back to the kind of simplicity her childhood had been full of.
It made her want to cry.
‘I am tired,’ Bessie admitted. ‘But I’m also very happy. Miss Caroline and Keanu are coming back very soon so I want the house to look perfect. We might have a wedding to get ready for.’
Anahera smiled. Keanu was another permanent doctor on Wildfire Island and, along with Sam, was a very good friend. Caroline was a Lockhart—the twin who had come into the world unscathed. ‘It is very happy news. But don’t go overdoing things.’
‘Tell your mother that, too. She’s working too hard. She has her job at the hospital and now she’s taking on more work at that resort place.’ Bessie shook her head as she gathered up her basket and cardigan. ‘So much is happening on the island at the moment. I can’t keep up …’
‘I know. I feel like that, too.’ Especially right now. ‘But they’re good things, Bessie. The mine closing has been a disaster for everybody, and Caroline’s going to try and fix things. And the conference centre is going to create more jobs and bring in some money. I heard that there’s going to be some new research projects happening, too. It’s all good.’
But Bessie was frowning. ‘You don’t look so happy about it, Ana.’
Anahera summoned a genuine smile and words of reassurance as she waved Bessie off. She was going to have to be careful what showed on her face for the next few days. At least it would be a while before her mother came home. She had time to get things sorted in her head.
And her heart.
It was easy to do that. All she needed to do was tiptoe into the room where Hana lay sleeping in her small bed inside the mosquito netting that was printed with pretty pink butterflies. The nightlight was also a butterfly with glowing wings—because Hana had had a passion for butterflies ever since she’d been a baby—and it gave enough light to see her daughter’s face clearly as Anahera pulled the netting back. She stroked the tangle of golden curls back from the little face and bent to press a gentle kiss to the soft olive skin of Hana’s cheek.
Hana stirred. She didn’t wake but she smiled in her sleep and her lips moved in a contented whisper.
‘Mumma …’
‘I’m here, darling. Sleep tight. Love you to the moon and back.’
She stole another kiss and then let the netting fall back to protect the precious little body, but for a long moment she didn’t move. This was what she’d needed more than anything. To feel this love.
To remind herself that everything had been worth it and that she had no regrets.
There were things that she needed to do, like finding something for dinner, having a shower and finding a clean uniform for work tomorrow, but they could all wait until her mother was home. A quiet moment to herself seemed more important and Anahera chose to curl up on the old cane chair in the corner of the veranda that was bathed in moonlight and the scent of the nearby frangipani bushes.
Maybe it was the moonlight that was her undoing. Or the sweet scent of the tropical flowers. It was probably inevitable that she had to revisit her past, given the shock of seeing Luke, and maybe it was a necessary step in order to get past it and move forward again. Or at least get herself together enough to make sure her mother didn’t guess the truth.
She couldn’t know, could she? If she’d had even the tiniest suspicion she would never have made that casual remark that had sliced open old wounds for her own daughter.
‘You had to rush away, though … Your wife was ill …’
It had been such a secret thing—their love affair.
How naïve had she been to think that had been because it had been so precious to them both? A private joy that might change when others knew about it?
But it had seemed like a natural progression, too, because of how it had started—as an almost telepathic conversation of glances and accidental touch as an undercurrent to the open conversations of two people getting to know each other. It had been Anahera who’d made the first move. Offering to show Luke the drama of Sunset Beach had been an invitation to let whatever had been happening between them grow and, for her, that first kiss had only confirmed that her heart had already been stolen.
And it would have changed things if others had known. Her mother would have been afraid that she would lose her. That Anahera would follow Luke back to London and forget her island heritage. Her work family would have worried about how they would replace her and she herself would have had to face the possibility of giving up so much for a new life, and she hadn’t been ready for that. She had wanted to stay in the safe bubble of no one else knowing for as long as possible. To revel in the bright colours and extraordinary happiness of being so completely in love.
How ironic was it that she’d ended up having to flee and start a new life anyway? Alone. Or so she’d thought until the disruption and heartache had settled enough for her to realise what was happening to her body.
And Luke? Well, he’d had his own reasons for wanting to keep their love affair a secret and it hadn’t had anything to do with how precious it was, had it?
Tapping into that old anger wasn’t going to help, though. She’d made a conscious decision to let it go the moment she’d first held Hana in her arms. To feel thankful that it had happened even. Oh, it had resurfaced sometimes in those first months of trying to raise her daughter alone, when the fatigue and financial pressures and homesickness had got on top of her, but coming back to Wildfire Island had fixed that. She’d been back for more than two years now and she had all the support she needed. A job that she loved and the joy of watching her daughter grow up in the same place she had. A place filled with such extraordinary beauty and countless butterflies.
Her life was exactly the way she wanted it to be.
The last thing she’d expected—or wanted—was to be reminded that something was missing. The kind of something she’d found with Luke Wilson. The one thing she had known she would never find again, especially coming back to the isolation of her childhood home, but the sacrifice had been worth it.
For Hana.
Anahera was so happy here so there was a new anger to be found that her happiness had been ambushed like this. The sooner she could get Luke and all the associated baggage out of her head, the better.