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Enough!
He picked up his phone and got through to the island’s small hospital.
‘Is Dr Watson there?’ he asked the woman who answered.
‘Finished for the day, probably down on Sunset Beach,’ was the succinct reply.
Sunset Beach—just around the corner, a short walk to the rock fall that separated his resort beach from the next small curve of sand. Walk around that and there was Sunset Beach.
He’d meet her there, as if by accident, and work out where they’d met—ask her again if necessary.
Action was better than brooding.
He dropped the phone and left the bure, not giving himself time to consider what he was doing in case he decided it wasn’t a good idea.
He’d see her, ask her again where they’d met, perhaps smell her hair …
Was he mad?
Wasn’t he in enough trouble with women at the moment, with his mother, three sisters, seven aunts, and Yasmina, the woman he was supposed to be marrying —for the good of the country, of course—insisting he come home and prepare to take over his role as ruler when his aging father died?
They all knew, as did his father, that his younger brother would be a far better ruler than he, and the very thought of returning home to the fussing of his horde of relatives made him feel distinctly claustrophobic.
While marriage to a stranger … That was something else.
He’s spent too long in the West but deep in his bones knew that some of the old ways were best.
Some!
He was at the rock fall now.
Stupid! He should have stopped to put something on his feet as the rocks were sharp in places. But the tide was going out, the water at the base not very deep.
He’d wade …
Sarah came out of the cool, translucent water, towelled dry, then slipped her arms into the long white shirt she wore as covering over her swimsuit. Even at sunset the tropical sun had enough heat in it to burn her fair skin.
Fair skin and red hair—a great combination given she was slowly finding peace and contentment on this tropical island. Slowly putting herself back together again; finding a way forward in a life that had been shattered four years ago, sending her to what seemed like the end of the earth—Australia—and then finding a job where she could move around—a week here, a week there—not settling long enough for anyone to dig into her past, bring back the memories …
A loud roar of what had to be pain startled her out of her reverie and she looked towards the rock fall at the other end of the beach where a man—the roarer, apparently—was hopping up and down in thigh-deep water.
Some kind of local ritual?
No, it was definitely pain she’d heard—and could still hear.
Pushing her feet into her sandals, she ran across the white coral sand to where the man was struggling to get out of the water, clutching one foot now, slowly becoming the man she’d seen briefly at the cocktail party—the man they’d all called Harry.
Sheikh Rahman al-Taraq, in fact, a man she’d once admired enormously for the expertise and innovations he’d brought to paediatric surgery. Admired enough to be flattered when he’d asked her to have a coffee with him afterwards, babbling on to him about her desire to specialise in the same surgery. So she had been late for David, who’d said he’d wait at work and drive her home rather than letting her take the tube—half an hour late—half an hour, which could have changed everything.
She closed her eyes against the memories—the crash, the fear, the blood …
It hadn’t been Harry’s fault, of course, but how could she remember that meeting without all the horror of it coming back—not when she was healing, not on the island that had brought peace to her soul.
But right now that man was in pain.
She reached him and slipped to the side of what was his obviously injured foot, taking his arm and hauling it around her shoulders to steady him.
‘What happened?’ she asked, once they were stabilised in the now knee-deep water.
‘Trod on something—agonising pain.’
The man’s face was a pale, grimacing mask.
‘Let’s get you back to civilisation where we can phone the hospital,’ she said, hoping she sounded more practical than she felt because the warmth of the man’s body was disturbing her.
In fact, the man was disturbing her, and, if truth be told, the memory of her chance meeting with him at the cocktail party had been niggling inside her for the past six weeks. Reminding her of things she didn’t want to remember …
But reminding her of other things, as well.
Not that he’d know that.
‘I’m Sarah. We met at the cocktail party.’
‘Harry!’
The name came out through gritted teeth but they were out of the water now and heading slowly, step hop, step hop, for the first of the bures in the resort.
‘Did you see what it was?’ Sarah asked, thinking of the many venomous inhabitants that lurked around coral reefs.
‘Trod on it!’
They’d reached the door.
‘That probably means a stonefish. They burrow down into the sand or camouflage themselves in rock pools so they’re undetectable from their surroundings. You should be wearing shoes. Is your hot-water system good? Water hot?’
The man she was helping—Harry—seemed to swell with the rage that echoed in his voice.
‘Need a shower, do you?’
Sarah decided that a man in pain was entitled to be a little tetchy so she ignored him, helping him to a chair and kneeling in front of him to examine his foot.
‘You’ve got two puncture wounds and they’re already swelling. I’ll get some hot water and then phone the hospital. Hot water, as hot as you can stand, should ease the pain.’
Sarah looked directly at him, probably for the first time since she’d arrived at the bottom of the rock fall. Even with gritted teeth and a fierce expression of pain on his face, he was good looking. Tall, dark, and handsome, like a prince in story books. The words formed in her head as she hurried to the small kitchen area of the bure in search of a bowl and hot water.
No bowls, but a large beaten copper vase. The stings were in the upper part of his foot—he could get that much of his foot into it.
Back at the chair, she knelt again, setting down the vase of hot water but keeping hold of the jug of cold water she’d brought with her.
‘Try that with the toe of your good foot,’ she said. ‘If it’s too hot I’ll add cold water but you need it as hot as you can manage.’
He dipped a toe in and withdrew it quickly, tried again after Sarah had added water, and actually sighed with relief as he submerged the wounds in the container and the pain eased off.
Looking up at her, he shook his head.
‘How did you know that?’
But she was on the phone to the hospital and someone had answered, so she could only shrug in reply to his question.
Quickly she explained the situation, turning back to Harry to ask, ‘Is the pain travelling up your leg?’
He nodded.
‘Like pins and needles that turn into cramp, although it’s easier now.’
Sarah relayed the description to Sam, who was on the hospital end of the phone.
‘We’ll pick up a few things and be right down,’ Sam said. ‘Put his foot in hot water.’
Sarah smiled to herself as she hung up, glad some tiny crevice of her brain had come up with the same information, although it had been at least ten years since she’d practised general medicine and, having been in England, had never encountered a stonefish sting before.
Grabbing the jug, she returned to the kitchen for more hot water, knowing that as the water cooled, the pain would return.
‘I did know you before the cocktail party,’ her patient said as she returned, his dark eyes on her face, unsettling her with the intensity of his focus. ‘I remember now. You were at the talk I gave at GOSH on the use of transoesophageal echocardiography for infants. We had a coffee together afterwards.’
His voice challenged her to deny it a second time!
Great Ormond Street Hospital—GOSH—of course she’d been there. How could she ever forget? She’d been so excited to be invited because back then she’d been considering paediatric surgery, and listening to the mesmeric speaker—this man—had crystallised her ambition.
But further memories of that fateful day brought such anguish she couldn’t stop herself hitting out at the man who’d provoked them.
‘The man I had coffee with was one of the foremost paediatric surgeons in the world, an innovator and inventor, always finding new ways to help the most vulnerable but important people in our society—children. I know you’ve been sick, but still there’s so much you could offer.’
She shouldn’t have let fly like that, and knew it, so guilt now mixed with the anguish churning inside her. The recipient of the tirade just sat there, eyes hooded and spots of colour on his cheeks as warning signs of anger.
‘The cart from the hospital is here, I’ll go,’ she said, her voice still taut—angry—hurt …
Ashamed?
Yes, very, but—
She thought she might have got away, but as she stalked out the door, jug of hot water still clenched in her hand, the man spoke.
‘Well, the woman I met was ambitious to do the same work!’
Sarah closed her eyes, feeling stupid, useless tears sliding down her cheeks, almost blinding her as she made her way back to the beach to collect her things.
She’d deserved that comment, lashing out at him the way she had, but his insistence she remember that day had brought back far too many memories—just when she was beginning to think she’d healed.
How could he have said that?
Something so personal, and obviously very hurtful.
Because her words had struck a nerve?
More like a knife in his chest, directly into the similar doubts he had about himself.
Doubts he refused to face …
Which was no excuse for him to hit back at her!
What was happening to him that he could say such a thing?
‘Done something stupid, have you?’
Sam Taylor, senior doctor at the hospital, charged into the bure.
It was impossible to brood with Sam around! He was a cheerful, capable man, who deftly delivered an analgesic to the wounded foot before suggesting Harry move to the hospital so the wound could be cleaned, while the antivenin and any further pain relief could be given intravenously.
He helped Harry out to the small electric cart that was the common transport on the island, and drove them up the hill from the resort to the neat little hospital.
Out of the hot water, the analgesic yet to work, the cramping, burning pain returned to both Harry’s foot and his lower leg. But his mind had other things to handle.
Despair that he’d flung those words at Sarah Watson returned. Ultra childish, that’s all it had been. Her words had stung, probably because there was an element of truth in them. In fact, they’d gone so deep he’d hit back automatically, and from the way her face had grown even paler, he’d hurt her badly.
She hadn’t deserved that, for all she’d earlier denied knowing him. She certainly hadn’t deserved it after getting him back to the bure and providing pain-relieving first aid. With agonising pain shooting up his leg, he’d not have made it alone.
‘You brooding over something or is it just the pain?’ Sam asked, as they pulled up at the small hospital.
‘I don’t brood!’ Harry snapped, then regretted it.
More to brood over!
‘I didn’t think so,’ Sam said cheerfully. ‘Come on, we’ll get you inside.’
Keanu Russell, the second permanent doctor at the hospital, had appeared and with Sam helped Harry through the small emergency room and into a well-equipped treatment alcove.
Harry checked out the paraphernalia by the bed.
‘All this for a sting? Or are the spines lodged in my foot? Is it one of the deadly marine creatures that seem to flourish in these parts?’
Sam smiled and shook his head.
‘You’re here because we have good monitoring equipment in here. We can hook you up to oxygen, use a pulse oximeter, and a self-inflating blood-pressure cuff. And with a few wires on your chest, the screen will tell us all we need to know. And no, it’s not deadly. Just painful.’
‘Tell me about it!’ Harry grumbled. ‘I see myself as a tough guy but it was all I could do to not whimper while Sarah was helping me to my bure.’
‘Going to keep him in?’ Keanu asked Sam, as the two men efficiently attached him to the monitoring equipment.
