‘I’ve done it,’ Keanu told her. ‘More than once. The aides are good, but they know what they can handle and what they can’t. The system could be a lot better but it works.’
It didn’t seem right to Caroline that Hettie was the nurse always on call, but until she knew more about the hospital, there was nothing she could do.
She was concentrating on hospital staffing issues because Keanu’s use of her childhood name—his casual use of ‘Caro’—had started up the disturbances the warming hug had caused.
‘It seems quiet, let’s go,’ she said, and led the way across the sand to the shadow of the rockfall.
To Keanu’s relief the tide had gone out far enough for them to wade around the rocks. Given the effect that holding her had had on his body, he didn’t think he could handle seeing the wet shift again.
He had no idea why Caro had returned to the island, certain her coming to help because she’d heard it was in trouble wasn’t the whole story.
What had happened to that sleazy-looking guy called Steve who was always with her in the society pictures?
Had he dumped her?
Keanu shook his head, angry with himself for even thinking about Caroline’s private life, but angrier for feeling sorry for her. It was bad enough he’d become involved in tonight’s escapade, but to have held Caro in his arms, felt her body pressed to his …
He must have been moonstruck!
They were scaling the rocky cliff path now and he paused to look around for a moon but failed to find one.
‘Are you grunting?’ Caro asked. ‘I know it’s steep but I thought you’d be fitter than that.’
‘I was not grunting,’ he told her, voice as cold as he could make it.
‘Wild pigs, then,’ Carol said cheerfully, although he knew she didn’t for a minute believe it.
Though would she have believed he’d been grunting at his own stupid thoughts?
‘Bright lights ahead,’ the woman he shouldn’t have held in his arms said cheerfully, and he locked away the past and moved himself swiftly into the present.
Bright lights indeed.
‘The helicopter must have brought in a patient from an outer island,’ he said, lengthening his stride so he passed Caro as he hurried towards the scene of the action.
Hettie had one end of the stretcher they were unloading, Jack, the pilot, holding the other end. He could see Manu, their one remaining hospital orderly, running towards the airstrip, Sam not far behind him.
‘Tropical ulcer gone bad,’ Hettie said as Manu took over her end of the stretcher and Sam and Keanu arrived. ‘I’m actually dubious about it. I think it might be worse than that.’
‘A Buruli ulcer?’ Sam queried, and Hettie shrugged.
‘We’ll need to test it.’
She spoke quietly but Keanu knew they were all feeling tension from the words she’d spoken. Tropical ulcers were common enough and in many cases very difficult to treat, but the Buruli was a whole other species, and could lead to bone involvement and permanent disability.
‘Is it common here?’
He’d forgotten about Caro but she was right behind him, so close that when he swung around to answer her his arm brushed against her breast.
And restarted all the thoughts he was sure he’d locked away.
‘Not as common as in some islands in the west Pacific,’ he told her, then he caught up with Hettie, who was following the stretcher up the slight incline to the hospital.
‘I’ve got a new recruit for you here,’ he said. ‘Sam’s probably told you Maddie and the FIFO nurse weren’t coming in today, but Caroline dropped from the skies yesterday and she tells us she’s a nurse.’
He ignored the glower Caro shot at him as she stepped past him to introduce herself to Hettie.
‘Caroline Lockhart,’ she said, holding out her hand, while Keanu watched the meeting with some trepidation.
‘Of the hilltop mansion Lockharts?’ Hettie demanded, ignoring the proffered hand.
‘Yes, and proud of it,’ Caro said quietly but firmly. ‘And I’d rather be judged by my work than the house I live in.’
Hettie pushed errant bits of hair off her forehead and sighed.
‘Fair call,’ she said softly, and this time, to Keanu’s relief, she held out her hand. ‘It’s just been too long a day trying to work out how to replace a resident clinic nurse on Raiki Island.’
‘What happened to her?’ Caroline asked, and Keanu knew the answer was going to hurt her.
‘Apparently she went off with your uncle Ian—she and all the drugs.’
‘She what?’ Caroline swung towards Keanu. ‘Does my father know all that’s been going on? Know his brother’s stooped so low as to rob an island of their drugs, not to mention their nurse?’
‘It was only discovered yesterday.’ Hettie answered for him, and her voice was gentle. ‘And as Ian’s gone off in his yacht to who knows where, there’s very little your father or anyone else can do about it.’
Keanu read the pain on Caro’s face as she realised exactly why the Lockhart name was mud. The harm Ian had done reached out across all island life and all the islanders.
Following the little procession up to the hospital, Keanu felt deeply sorry for her, sorry for the pain the slights against her family must be causing her.
But the Caro he’d known would have pushed away any offer of comfort and tossed her head to deny any pain.
He glanced towards her and saw her chin rise.
This Caro wasn’t so different. She’d take them all on and prove all Lockharts weren’t tarred with the same brush.
And seeing that chin tilt—reading it—his heart cramped just a little at the sight of it. The woman she’d become wasn’t so different from his Caro after all.
‘A Buruli ulcer?’
Caroline had caught up with him so the question came from his right shoulder.
He glanced towards her and even in the poor light on the track he could see the remnants of her hurt.
He wanted to put his arm around her shoulders and pull her close. Comfort her as he had when she’d been a child, hurt or lonely or bewildered by her motherless, and usually fatherless, situation.
But with all the new disturbances she’d caused in his body, giving her a comforting hug was no longer an option.
Professional colleagues, that’s all they were.
‘It’s not that common but it’s a nasty thing if left untended, as this one may have been. Often it starts as a small nodule, hardly bigger than a mosquito bite, so the patient just ignores it, but the infection can lead to a bigger ulcer forming, destroying skin and tissue. If it’s left too long there can be bone involvement, even loss of a limb.’
‘Sounds like a similar infection to leprosy.’ She was frowning now, no doubt thinking back to her years of study.
‘Spot on,’ he told her. ‘The bacterium causing it is related to both the leprosy and tuberculosis bacteria.’
‘Can you test for it here or do you have to send swabs to the mainland? Wouldn’t that take days?’
Hettie answered for him.
‘We’re fortunate in that