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‘Nah, he’s strong, and he just told us he’s tough, so he’ll survive. We’ll drip the antivenin in, let him rest for a while, check everything’s working as it should be, then send him home. He might only be a surgeon but I reckon he knows enough general medicine to yell for us if he has any further problems.’
Harry had to smile at the laid-back, teasing attitude of these men who worked on the island. They did enormous good, providing medical assistance and support to the whole M’Langi group of islands. It was a complicated programme of clinic visits, preventative medicine, rescue work and emergency callouts, yet they made everything seem easy.
Maybe if he stayed here long enough, he might pick up some of the relaxed island vibe.
Impossible right now, though. The woman he’d just hurt was walking into the room, still in the long white shirt she wore over a black bathing suit, a black and white striped beach towel slung over her shoulder, and an obviously anxious expression on her face.
Anxious about his well-being?
Well, she was a doctor!
‘Is he okay?’ she asked Sam.
‘Ask him yourself,’ Sam retorted, and the sea-green eyes set in that pale creamy skin turned towards him, narrowing slightly.
‘Are you?’ she demanded.
‘Hey, be nice. He’s a patient,’ Sam reminded her.
‘Yours, not mine. I just happened to be there when he strolled through reef waters without anything on his feet.’
She didn’t actually add the idiot, but the words hung in a bubble in the air between them.
But even with her contempt there for all to see, she was beautiful. He knew it was probably her colouring that he found so fascinating: the vibrant hair, the pale skin, the flashing green eyes. Things he’d noticed way back when they’d first met.
But now he sensed something deeper in her that drew him inexorably to her.
Hidden pain?
He knew all about that.
Didn’t it stab him every day when he felt the tremor in his hand as he shaved?
So grow a beard, a mocking voice within suggested, and Harry closed his eyes, against the voice and the woman.
‘I just popped in to make sure he’d made it safely up here,’ the woman said. ‘So, see you two tomorrow.’
Sam stopped her retreat with a touch on her arm.
Harry suppressed a growl that rose in his throat. It had hardly been a lover’s touch and, anyway, what business of his was it who touched her?
‘Actually, Sarah,’ Sam was saying, ‘if you could spare a few minutes, I’d like you to stay around until the drip’s finished. We were actually at a staff meeting up at the house and your phone call switched through to there. Mina’s here for the other patients, but I think Harry should be watched.’
I have to watch him?
Sarah nodded in reply to Sam’s request, telling herself it didn’t mean watch watch, just to check on him now and then.
But watching him—he’d opened his eyes briefly as Sam spoke but they were closed again—actually looking at him might be a good idea. She could start by confirming her impressions of his physical appearance and maybe that would help sort out why the man made her so uneasy.
Why he stirred responses deep inside her that she hadn’t felt for four years …
For sure he was good looking. Olive-skinned, dark-haired, strong face, with a straight nose and solid chin. The lips softened it just a little, beautifully shaped—sensual—
Get with it, Sarah!
Stop this nonsense!
‘Are you looking at me?’
Surprisingly pale eyes—grey—opened, and black eyebrows rose.
‘Not looking, just watching—that’s what I was asked to do, remember.’
‘Not much difference, I’d have thought,’ the wretch said, with the merest hint of a smile sliding across those sens—
His lips!
She turned her attention to the monitor. The blood-pressure cuff was just inflating, so at least she had something to watch.
A little high, but the pain would only just be subsiding, so that was to be expected.
‘Tell me if you feel any reaction to the antivenin,’ she told him. ‘Nausea, faintness …’
He opened one eye and raised the eyebrow above it as if to say, is that all you’ve got?
She almost smiled then realised smiling at this man might be downright dangerous, so she walked out into the main room and found a magazine that was only four years old, grabbed a chair, and returned with it to the emergency cubicle to sit as far as possible from the man as she could get in the curtained alcove and still see the monitor.
He appeared to be asleep, and she tried hard to give her full attention to an article about the various cosmetic procedures currently in vogue in the US.
And failed.
The stonefish wound was in his right foot, so it had been his right arm she’d had around her shoulder as she’d taken some of his weight to get him back to the bure.
Had she felt a tremor in it?
Looking at him now, the arm in question was lying still on the bed. Or was it gripping the bed?
Parkinson’s patients she’d encountered in the past found tremors in their arms and hands worsened when they relaxed but lessened when they held something. Would that hold true for tremors induced by encephalitis or was a different part of the brain affected?
And just why was she interested?
She sighed and tried to tell herself it was because the surgery world had been shocked to learn the results of his brush with encephalitis. Shocked that such a talented and skilful man had been lost to surgery.
But she wasn’t here to wonder about his tremor. That was his business.
She was here to watch him, not worry about his past or the problems he faced now.
She turned her attention from the monitor to the man.
His eyes were open, studying her in turn, and although she’d have liked to turn away, she knew doing so would be an admission that he disturbed her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, those strange pale eyes holding hers. ‘I had no right to throw such a petty, personal, ridiculous remark at you. All my friends tell me I’m over-sensitive about the results of my illness, but that’s no excuse.’
Now she did look instead of watching, looked and saw the apology mirrored in his eyes.
She almost weakened because the man had been through hell.
And to a certain extent hadn’t she opted out as well, heading away from home as fast as she could, taking a job that meant she didn’t have to settle in one place, make friends, get hurt by loss again?
But she hadn’t been a genius at what she did and this man had. The world needed him and people like him.
Straightening her shoulders, she met his eyes and said, ‘Well, if you’re expecting an apology from me, forget it. I meant every word I said. You must have any number of minions who could run around checking on the facilities and programmes you’ve sent up. By doing it yourself, you’re wasting such skill and talent it’s almost criminal.’
And on that note she would have departed, except she was stuck there—watching him.
Watching him raise that mobile eyebrow once again.
‘Minions?’
The humour lurking in the word raised her anger.
‘You know exactly what I mean,’ she snapped, and he nodded.
Thinking she’d got the last word, she prepared to depart, or at least back as far away as possible from him.
‘But we had met before—you’ll admit that now!’ he said.
So much for having the last word! He’d not only sneaked that one in but he’d brought back the memories—of that wonderful day at GOSH and the horror of its aftermath.
Her heart was beating so fast it was a wonder the patient couldn’t hear it, and a sob of anguish wasn’t far away. The curtain sliding back saved her from total humiliation as she burst into tears in front of this man.
Caroline Lockhart, one of the permanent nurses at the hospital, appeared, flashing such a happy smile that Sarah couldn’t not smile back at her.
‘I’m to take over,’ Caroline said quietly. ‘Sam says thanks for the hand. We were discussing how best to spend a rather large donation we’ve just received—working out what’s needed most. Since you overwhelmed us with the equipment needed for endoscopies and keyhole surgery, the theatre’s pretty well sorted. But if you have any other ideas, let someone know.’
Sarah nodded and stood up, wanting to get as far away as possible. Caroline’s words had added a further layer to her pain. Getting compensation for the accident that had taken her husband and unborn child four years after the event had been traumatic to say the least—how could money possibly replace a husband and son?—so her immediate reaction had been to get rid of it as quickly as possible.
And because it was the leisurely pace and overwhelming beauty of this magic island where she’d finally begun to put the broken pieces of herself back together again, wasn’t it right she give something back?
She made her way out of the rear of the hospital, down to the little villa where she stayed when she was here, and tapped on the door of the villa next door to remind her anaesthetist they had an early start in the morning.
Ben was clad in board shorts, his hair ruffled and a vague expression on his face.
‘Did I catch you at a bad moment?’ she asked.
‘Halfway through dismembering a body,’ he replied, and Sarah grinned.
Ben was an excellent anaesthetist and didn’t mind the travel, but apparently he was an even better writer, his sixth murder mystery hitting top-seller lists. It was only a matter of time before he was making enough money from his writing to support himself and she’d have to find a new anaesthetist willing to travel to isolated places in outback Queensland, and to Wildfire in the M’Langi group of islands.
‘We’re doing that thyroidectomy tomorrow. You all set?’ she asked.
He raised his hand in a mocking salute.
‘Ready as ever, ma’am,’ he said, the words telling her he was still lost in his book—one of his characters talking.
But lost though he was at the moment, she knew he’d be fully focussed in the morning.
‘Our patient came in this afternoon, if you want to pop over the hospital tonight to talk to her. I’d say the op will take three to four hours, depending on any complications, and she’s had some complications with her heart so we’ll have to watch her.
Ben nodded.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll be right. I’ve already read up on her and checked with my old boss back in Sydney about the level of drug use. We’ll be fine.’
Ben was about to back away, obviously anxious to get back to what he considered his real work, when he paused, then reached out and touched her cheek.
‘Have you been crying?’ There was suspicion and a touch of anger in his voice, and in his eyes. ‘Did someone upset you?’
Sarah forced a smile onto her lips and fixed it there. She was only too aware of how protective Ben was of her, once taking on the boss of an outback hospital when he’d wanted her to work beyond regulation safe hours.
‘I’m fine,’ she told him, taking his hand from her cheek and giving his fingers a ‘thank you’ squeeze.
‘Well, I hope you are,’ he said, before disappearing back into his villa, from which Sarah could almost hear his computer calling to him.
But the little white lie had made her feel better, so instead of hiding away in her island home, she walked to the top of the cliffs above Sunset Beach to catch the last fiery blast of the sunset.
Except she’d missed it. The soft pinks and mauves and violets, however, were still stunningly beautiful and like a soothing balm to her aching heart.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_4e843576-0577-5094-a12b-82356bc6a740)
KEANU DROVE HARRY back to his bure, offering to stay for a while, though Harry could see he was itching to get into the newly refurbished laboratories. As well as Harry’s team working towards clinical trials of an encephalitis vaccine, other scientists were welcome to use the facilities, and Keanu’s passion at the moment—apart from his fiancée, Caroline, and saving the island’s gold mine—was examining the properties of M’Langi tea, a project started by his father many years ago.
‘Are you getting anywhere?’ Harry asked the young doctor.
Keanu shook his head.
‘We know we have fewer encephalitis cases than other South Sea islands and the only difference as far as diet is concerned is this tea we drink.’
Harry nodded.
Keanu’s work fitted with what his team was doing, but the two strands needed to be studied separately.
Keanu pulled up outside the bure and came around to help Harry inside.
But he sat for a moment, wondering if he might not be better off going up to the lab, making himself useful.
Or would he be a nuisance to his ‘minions’, as Sarah Watson had described them?
Of course he would, limping and still in some pain as he was. Besides, meticulous research work was not his thing—he was far too impatient.
