But that was a mistake.
The first thing they noticed—everyone noticed—in the schoolyard was the huge old curtain fig tree, so called because air roots grew down from the branches, forming a thick curtain around the trunk.
And behind that curtain, like hundreds of children who’d attended the school over the years, they’d once shared a very chaste kiss. Her grandma had died and Caroline had known they’d both be off to mainland schools the following year, and for some reason—playing hide and seek most probably—they’d both ended up beneath the fig.
Not that an innocent kiss between a ten-year-old girl and a twelve-year-old boy meant much, but the memory sent a tingle up her spine.
‘All the kids are in school,’ Keanu murmured. ‘Should we?’
Of course they shouldn’t but she was ducking between the trailing roots right behind him, letting him take her in his arms, turn her towards him, and lift her head to his, to relive that first kiss.
In actual fact, it was nothing like that first kiss, more like a first kiss between two people attracted to each other and early on in the courtship.
Tentative, exploring, tasting and then tempting, Keanu felt heat rise in his body, and strained to keep things—well, not exactly casual, more noncommittal, if such a thing was possible.
When Caro began kissing him back as if her life depended on the joining of their lips, the contact of their tongues …
Or was it he who’d intensified things—he couldn’t think straight, could barely think at all, except that there was no way he should be kissing Caro like this when his life was such a mess.
It was a silly, sentimental thing to do, but there was nothing silly or sentimental about the way their lips met, the teasing invasion of Keanu’s tongue, her own tangling with it, the heat in his body as her hands pushed up his shirt to touch his skin, no doubt matched by the heat in hers as his hand slid down her neck towards her breast.
A hundred questions jumbled in her head. Was this just attraction? Or perhaps leftover love from their youth? And hadn’t attraction led her into trouble with Steve? No, she could answer that one honestly—it had been his attention to her that had made her lose her head with Steve.
But this kiss—this kiss was different. This kiss was amazing—
So why was she so bamboozled?
‘Damn it all!’
The explosive words broke the spell.
‘I thought we were trying to be friends,’ he muttered, taking her hand and almost dragging her out from under the tree. ‘Do you realise I could have made love to you right there under the tree with half of Atangi walking by? Why on earth would you kiss me back like that?’
‘Oh, so it’s all my fault?’ Caroline retorted. ‘Anyway, we’re both adults and if we feel like it, why shouldn’t we kiss?’
She could feel the heat in her cheeks, the disappointment and relief battling for supremacy in her body.
Not that he’d know it because she was stalking away from him, throwing back over her shoulder, ‘Anyway, it was your fault—you started it!’
But hearing the words they’d flung at each other so often in childhood fights, she felt a deep sorrow for all they’d lost …
Or had they?
What about the friendship they’d decided to rediscover? ‘Nice walk?’ Nori asked brightly when they returned to the clinic, any further exploration totally forgotten.
‘It had its moments,’ Caroline replied, then proceeded to ask Nori about her family, marital status and children, a conversation that lasted until Jack returned to tell them they could head back to Wildfire.
Not interested in the brilliance Nori’s three-year-olds were already showing, Keanu had moved into the theatre to check their patient. She was dozing in the big chair, the baby sleeping against her breast.
The sight brought unexpected emotion welling up inside him, bringing a thickness to his throat.
Time he was out of there …
‘Coming back with us?’ Keanu said to Caro, who was still deep in a conversation about Nori’s children.
Which made him wonder as she said, ‘Yes, sir!’ and followed him out of the clinic, why she’d never married the Steve guy and had children of her own.
Apart from their medical ambitions, if he remembered rightly they had been going to get married and have ten children.
Ten?
‘Did you know Nori has six children—three sets of twins?’
Keanu shook his head. She’d been talking to Nori—talking about children—so it was a fairly innocuous thing for Caro to have said. But coming right on top of the thick throat and his memory of the past, it shook him. There were far too many things going on his head that he didn’t want her picking up on, although he wouldn’t have minded having a few clues about her thoughts.
Fortunately, by the time they arrived back on Wildfire he had an excuse to escape. He had to concentrate on the arrangements for Alkiri’s funeral and the first thing on the list was to try entry to the research station via the gate, and get permission from whoever was in charge.
Should he ask Caroline to accompany him?
She’d been anxious to know what was happening at the station but walking with her through the scented tropical dusk with her was too much to contemplate.
He went in to see Sam, inevitably battling paperwork in his office, to check he wasn’t needed at the hospital.
‘You’re free to go, mate,’ Sam told him, ‘and I’ve already got their okay. In fact, the bloke who’s the foreman down there actually contacted me to see if I’d like to come down and see the laboratories, and I asked him about the longhouse. But if you want to check it out, just explain who you are to the gate people. Sounded to me that, now they’ve finished, they’re happy to have people see what they’ve achieved.’
Sam’s eyes slid away from his, and Keanu turned to see Caroline standing there.
‘You want to go with Keanu and see the renovations down the road?’
‘We’re allowed in?’ She sounded so delighted Keanu could hardly say he didn’t want her with him.
‘As of today,’ Sam was assuring her.
At least she wouldn’t be wearing a wet shift, Keanu told himself, but somehow that wasn’t comforting at all. She’d been in the same mid-calf pants and uniform shirt when they’d kissed under the tree …
The foreman’s name was Bill and he was at the gate talking to the guard there when Keanu and Caroline arrived.
‘Sorry about the fence, but the boss wanted the place secure—or as secure as anything can be with so much beach frontage. It was mainly to keep out adventurous kids during the building process, and the fences and guard will remain because the laboratories will have some evil chemicals in them. Not that they won’t be locked as well, and I imagine there’d be more kids coming by boat than down from the hospital, but what he says goes.’
‘Who is he?’ Caroline asked, so excited to be ‘invited’ to the station that she was barely registering Keanu by her side.
Well, almost barely.
‘Some fellow from the Middle East apparently. I get my orders from his—what do they call him?—Australasian manager. He’s from the Middle East as well, but speaks English the same way the Queen does.’
Caroline smiled. Children from all over the world were educated in top English public schools so undoubtedly all of them spoke ‘like the Queen does’.
Keanu