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Although the strip had been resurfaced.
Could things have come good?
No, her father had confirmed the mine was in trouble when she’d spoken to him about the article in the paper. Although all his time was spent in Sydney, working as a specialist physician at two hospitals, and helping care for Christopher, her twin, severely oxygen deprived at birth and suffering crippling cerebral palsy, the state of the mine was obviously worrying him.
He had been grey with fatigue from overwork and his fine face had been lined with the signs of continual stress from the hours he put in at work and worry over Christopher’s health, yet with the stubborn streak common to all Lockharts he’d refused to even listen when she’d asked if she could help financially.
‘Go to the island, it’s where you belong,’ he’d said gently. ‘And remember the best way to get over pain is hard work. The hospital can always do with another nurse, especially now clinical services to the outer islands have expanded and we’ve had to cut back on hospital staff. Our existing staff go above and beyond for the island and the residents but there’s always room for another pair of trained hands.’
Losing himself in work was what he’d done ever since her mother had died—died in his arms and left him with a premature but healthy baby girl and a premature and disabled baby boy to look after.
‘Maybe whoever owns that very smart helicopter has an equally smart plane and needed the strip improved.’
Jill’s comment brought Caroline out of her brooding thoughts.
‘Smart helicopter? Our helicopters have always been run-of-the-mill emergency craft and Dad said we’re down to one.’
But as she turned in the direction of Jill’s pointing finger, she saw her friend was right. At the far end of the strip was a light-as-air little helicopter—a brilliant dragonfly of a helicopter—painted shiny dark blue with the sun picking out flashes of gold on the side.
‘Definitely not ours,’ she told Jill.
‘Maybe there’s a mystery millionaire your shady uncle Ian has conned into investing in the place.’
‘From all I hear, it would take a billionaire,’ Caroline muttered gloomily.
She’d undone her seat harness while they were talking and now opened the door of the little plane.
‘At least come up to the house and have a cup of tea,’ she said to Jill.
Jill shook her head firmly.
‘I’ve got my thermos of coffee and sandwiches—like a good Girl Scout, always prepared. I’ll just refuel and be off. It’s only a four-hour flight. Best I get home to the family.’
Caroline retrieved her luggage—one small case packed with the only lightweight, casual summer clothes she owned. Her life in Sydney had been more designer wear—Steve had always wanted her to look good.
And I went along with it?
She felt her cheeks heat with shame as yet another of Steve’s dominating characteristics came to mind.
Yes, she’d gone along with it and many other ‘its’, often pulling double shifts on weeknights to be free to go ‘somewhere special’ with him over the weekend.
The fact that the ‘something special’ usually turned out to be yet another cocktail party with people she either didn’t know or, if she had known them, didn’t particularly care for only made it worse.
But she’d loved him—or loved that he loved her …
Jill efficiently pumped fuel into the plane’s tank, wiped her hands on a handy rag, and turned to her friend.
‘You take care, okay? And keep in touch. I want phone calls and emails, none of that social media stuff where everyone can read what you’re doing. I want the “not for public consumption” stuff.’
She reached out and gathered Caroline in a warm, tight hug.
‘You’ll be okay,’ she said, and although the words were firmly spoken, Caroline heard a hint of doubt in them.
Dear Jilly, the first friend she’d made at boarding school so many years ago, now back in the cattle country of Western Queensland where she’d grown up, married to a fellow cattleman, raising her own family and top-quality beasts.
Caroline returned the hug, watched as Jill climbed back into the plane and began to taxi up the runway. She waved to the departing plane before turning to look around her.
Yes, the shed was a little run-down and the gardens weren’t looking their best, but the peace that filled her heart told her she’d done the right thing.
She was home.
Bending to lift her suitcase, she was struck that something was missing. Okay, so the place wasn’t quite up to speed, but where was Harold, who usually greeted every plane?
Harold, who’d told her and Keanu all the legends of the islands and given them boiled lollies so big they’d filled their mouths.
Her and Keanu …
Keanu …
She straightened her shoulders and breathed in the scented tropical air. That had been then and this was now.
Time to put the past—all the past—behind her, take control of her life and move on, as so many of her friends had advised.
And moving on obviously meant carrying her own suitcase up the track to the big house. Not that she minded, but it was strange that no one had met the plane, if only out of curiosity.
Had no one seen it come in?
Did no one care any more?
Or was Harold gone?
How old had he been?
She didn’t like the tightening in her gut at the thought that someone who had been so much part of her life might have died while she’d been away …
Impossible.
Although all adults seemed old to children, she doubted Harold had been more than forty when she’d left—
The blast of a horn sent the past skittering from her mind, and she turned to see a little motorised cart—the island’s main land transport—racing towards her from the direction of the research station.
‘Are you the doctor?’ the man driving it yelled.
‘No, but I’m a nurse. Can I help?’
The driver pulled up beside her and gestured towards his passenger.
‘We phoned the hospital. Someone said the doctor would come to meet us on the way. My mate was fine at first but now he’s passed out, well, you can see …’
He gestured towards the man slumped in the back of the little dark blue vehicle. He had no visible injury—until she looked down and saw his foot.
Clad only in a rubber flip-flop, the foot had a nail punched right through beneath the small toe, and apparently into a piece of wood below his inadequate footwear.
Caroline slid in beside the man and put a hand on his chest. He was breathing, and his pulse—Yes, a bit fast but obviously it had been a very painful wound.
‘I think we should get him up to the hospital as quickly as possible,’ she said, as a figure appeared on the track they would take.
A figure she knew, although the intervening years had stretched him from an adolescent to a man—and for all her heart was bumping erratically in her chest, she certainly didn’t know the man.
Caroline slid out of the cart and took the spare seat in front while Keanu, without more than a startled glance and a puzzled frown in her direction, took over in the back, fitting an oxygen mask to the man’s face and adjusting the flow on the small tank he’d carried with him.
‘Give me a minute to get some painkiller into him.’
Prosaic words but the deep, rich voice reverberated through Caroline’s body—a man’s voice, not a boy’s …
This was Keanu?
Keanu was here?
She didn’t know whether to hug him or hit him, but with witnesses around she could do neither. What she really wanted was to turn around and have another look at him, but the image of that first glimpse was burned into her brain.
Keanu the man.
Now grown into his burnished, almond-coloured skin, his grey eyes—his mother’s eyes—strikingly pale beneath dark brows and hair.
Straight nose, tempting mouth, sculpted shoulders, abs visible beneath a tightly fitting polo shirt.
He was stunning.
More than that, he projected a kind of sexuality that would have every female within a hundred yards going weak at the knees just looking at him.
‘Come back for a break from Sydney society?’
The cold wash of words obviously directed at her fixed the trembling knee thing, while the sarcasm behind them replaced it with anger.
She turned, chin tilted, refusing to reveal the hurt his words had caused.
‘I’m a nurse, and I’ve come back to work, but I am surprised to see you here after the way you cut your connection to the islands so many years ago.’
Fortunately, as Caroline had just realised their driver was listening to this icy conversation with interest, they pulled up at the front of the hospital.
The patient was awake, obviously benefiting from the oxygen and the painkilling injection.
Keanu asked the driver to lend a hand, and the two of them eased the man out of the vehicle.
‘Sling your arms around our shoulders and we’ll help you in,’ Keanu said, and Caroline guessed he was concentrating on the patient so he wouldn’t have to look at her.
Or even acknowledge her presence?
What had happened?
What had she done?
Steely determination to not be hurt by him—or any man—ever again made her shut the door firmly on the past. Whatever had happened had been a long time ago, and she was a different person, had moved on, and was moving on again …
But walking behind Keanu, she couldn’t not be aware of his presence. This man who’d been a boy she’d known so well was really something. Broad shoulders sloping down to narrow hips, but a firm butt and calf muscles that suggested not a workout in gym but a lot of outdoors exercise—he’d always loved running, said he felt free …
She was looking at his butt?
Best she get away, and fast.
But once they had the man on the deck in front of the hospital, Keanu turned back towards her.
‘Well, if you’re a nurse, don’t just stand there. Come in and be useful. Hettie and Sam are on a clinic run to the outer islands and there’s only an aide and myself on duty.’
He stood above her—loomed really—the disdain in his voice visible on his features.
And something broke inside her.
Was this really Keanu, her childhood friend and companion? Keanu, who had been gentle and kind, and had always taken care of her when she’d felt lost and alone?
Back then, his mother’s mantra to him had always been ‘Take care of Caroline’, and Keanu, two years older, always had.
Which was probably why his disappearance from her life had hurt so deeply that for a while she’d doubted she’d get over it.
Head bent to hide whatever hurt might be showing on her face, she took the steps in one stride and followed the three men into the small but well-set-up room that she knew from the hospital plans doubled as Emergency and Outpatients.
Having helped lift the patient onto an examination table, the driver muttered something about getting back to work, and hurried through the door.
Which left her and Keanu …
Keanu, who was managing to ignore her completely while her body churned with conflicting emotions.
‘Nail gun?’ Keanu asked the patient as he examined the foot.
The patient nodded.
‘Never heard of steel-capped workboots?’ Keanu continued. ‘I thought they were the only legal footwear on a building job.’
‘Out here?’ the man scoffed. ‘Who’s going to check?’
‘Just hold his leg up for me, grasp the calf.’
An order to the nurse, no doubt, but even as he gave it Keanu didn’t glance her way.
‘No “please”?’ Caroline said sweetly as she lifted the man’s lower leg so Keanu could see just how far through the wood the nail protruded.
She must have struck a nerve with her words, for Keanu looked up at her, his face unreadable, although she caught the confusion in his eyes.
