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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 (#ulink_06861901-f50e-5cf4-8a31-4cff80a22b39)
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.’
‘Might be for the research station. Plenty of people coming and going there,’ Harold offered, but Bessie was going to have the last word.
‘In that case you don’t need to do the yard.’
Caroline decided she couldn’t stand behind an allemande vine, wild with shiny green leaves and brilliant yellow trumpet flowers, eavesdropping any longer.
‘Bessie, Harold, it’s me, Caroline!’
She passed the bush and came into view, expecting to be welcomed like a prodigal son—or daughter in her case—but to her utter bewilderment both of them burst into tears.
Eventually they recovered enough from their shock to rush towards her, arms held out.
‘Oh, Caroline, you have come back. Now we have you and Keanu back where you belong, everything will be good again.’
Wrapped in a double, teary hug, Caroline couldn’t answer.
Not that she would have been able to. Although she knew he was here—knew only too well—hearing Keanu’s name knocked the breath out of her. But it had been the last part—about everything being good again—that had been the bigger shock.
But it also gave her resolve. If the trouble was so bad the islanders thought she, whom they’d always considered a helpless princess, could help, things must be bad.
She eased out of their arms and straightened up. Of course she had to help. She didn’t know how, but she certainly would do everything in her power to save the islanders’ livelihood and keep much-needed medical care available to them.
Enough of the doormat.
M’Langi was her home.
‘But why are you working in the house, Bessie? What happened to the young woman Dad appointed after Helen left?’
With Keanu, a voice whispered, but she had no time for whispering voices right now.
‘That was Kari but from the time that Ian got here we thought it would be better if she kept her distance,’ Bessie explained. ‘Ian is a bad, bad man for all he’s your family. In the end I said I’d do the housework. I mind Anahera’s little girl too, but she’s no trouble, she plays with all your toys and loves your dolls, dressing and undressing them.’
Caroline smiled, remembering her own delight in the dolls until Keanu had told her it was girl stuff and she had to learn to learn to make bows and arrows and to catch fish in her hands.
‘Anahera?’ she asked, as the name was vaguely familiar.
‘Vailea, her mother, worked as the cook at the research station while we were caretakers there. But there’s all kinds of funny stuff going on there too, so now she’s housekeeper at the hospital and Anahera—she’s a bit older than you and went to school on the mainland; her grandmother lived there—well, she’s a nurse here so I mind her little one.’
It was hard to absorb so much information at once, so Caroline allowed herself to be led up to the house, where a very small child with dark eyes, olive skin and a tangle of golden curls was lining up dolls in a row on the cane lounge that had sat on the veranda for as long as Caroline could remember.
The cane lounge, potted palms everywhere, a few cane chairs around a table, once again with a smaller pot in the middle of it, and the swing she and Keanu had rocked in so often—this was coming home …
‘This is Hana,’ Bessie said, leading the little girl forward. ‘Hana, this is Miss Caroline. She lives here.’
Caroline knelt by the beautiful child, straightening one of the dolls.
