‘Well, it was last night,’ she admitted with a laugh, remembering how strange she’d found it, in the past, that Angus, who was usually so serious, could always make her laugh. And with that memory—and the laugh—she relaxed.
Just a little.
‘I nearly died to see a person standing there, then to find it was you.’ She shook her head. ‘Unbelievable.’
‘But very handy, apparently,’ he said, and she had to look at him again, to see if he was teasing her.
But this time his face was serious.
‘Very handy,’ she confirmed, although it wasn’t handy for her heart, which was behaving very badly, bumping around in her chest as if it had come away from its moorings.
‘How long have you been on the island?’
She glanced his way again and her chest ached at the familiarity of his profile—high forehead, strong straight nose, lips defined by a little raised edge that tempted fingers to run over it, and a chin that wasn’t jutting exactly but definitely there. The kind of chin you’d choose not to argue with—that had been her first thought on seeing it.
Forget his chin and answer the question!
‘Only a couple of weeks. I spent some time at the Crocodile Creek Hospital on the mainland, getting to know the staff there, as they—the doctors and the nurses—do rostered shifts at the clinic and, of course, the helicopter rescue and retrieal services the hospital runs are closely connected with the island.’
‘Why here?’ he asked, and she glanced towards him. Big mistake, for he’d turned in her direction and she met the same question in his dark-lashed eyes. Although that might have been her imagination! He had beautiful eyes, but if eyes were the windows of the soul, then she’d never been able to read Angus’s soul, or his emotions, in them.
Except when he’d looked at Bobby. Then she’d seen the love—and the pain…
‘It was somewhere different, a chance to see a new place, experience different medicine, meet new people.’
‘Always high on your priority list,’ Angus said dryly, but this time she refused to glance at him, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the track in front of her.
‘I’ve always liked meeting people,’ she said quietly. ‘I might not be the life and soul of a party, or need to be constantly surrounded by friends, but I enjoy the company of colleagues and patients—you know that, Angus.’
Did she sound hurt? Angus replayed her words—and the intonation—in his head and didn’t think so. She was simply making a statement—putting him down, in fact, though she hadn’t needed to do it because he’d regretted the words the instant they’d been out of his mouth.
For all her shyness, or perhaps because of it, she was good with people, knowing instinctively how to approach them, intuitively understanding their pain or weaknesses, easing her way into their confidence.
‘And are you enjoying it? The island? The people?’
They were on a straight stretch of track, coming out of the thick rainforest into a more open but still treed area, and he could see cabins and huts nestled in private spaces between the trees.
Apparently more sure of the path now, she turned towards him before she answered, and her clear blue eyes—Bobby’s eyes—met his.
‘Oh, yes!’ she said—no hesitation at all. ‘Yes, I am.’
Then her brow creased and she sighed.
‘Or I was until the kids starting getting sick. What shall we do, Angus, if it is bird flu?’
‘Let’s wait and see,’ he said, touching her arm to reassure her.
Or possibly to see if her skin was really as soft as he remembered it…
He shook his head, disturbed that the strength of the attraction he felt towards Beth hadn’t lessened in their years apart. Perhaps it was a good thing she had a problem at the medical centre—something he could get stuck into to divert his mind from memories of the past.
Although sick children were more than just a diversion —they were a real concern.
She pulled up in front of a new-looking building, the ramp at the front of it still trailing tattered streamers and limp balloons. The dog leapt out and began biting at the fluttering streamers, trying to tackle them into submission.
Was this the medical centre and these the remnants of the official opening celebrations? The building was certainly new, and built to merge into its surroundings—tropical architecture, with wide overhangs and floor-to-ceiling aluminium shutters to direct any stray breeze inside. Beautiful, in fact.
‘Around the back,’ Beth said, leading him down a path beside the building. ‘The front part is Administration and a first-aid verging on ER room. The hospital section is behind it, here.’
They walked up another ramp and had barely reached the deck, when a woman with tousled curls and a freckled nose came out through a door, greeting Beth with obvious relief.
‘Thank heavens you’re back,’ she said. ‘I’ve called Charles, but you’re the only one who can calm Robbie. He’s babbling—hallucinating, I think—just when we thought he might have turned the corner.’
‘I’ll go right through,’ Beth said, then, apparently remembering she’d brought him to this place, turned to Angus.
‘Grace, this is Angus. Angus, Grace. He’s the doctor I told you about, Grace. Could you take him around so he can see the other patients, introduce him to Emily if she’s here and Charles when he arrives?’
The ‘doctor’ not ‘ex-husband’, Angus thought, feeling annoyed about the wording for no fathomable reason, though he did manage to greet the distracted nurse politely.
Beth hurried back to Robbie’s room. The virus that had struck the camp had started off with drowsiness, and the children seemed almost to lapse into unconsciousness in between bouts of agitation. Right now Robbie was agitated, tossing and turning in his bed, muttering incoherently, his movements more violent than they’d been during the night.
Beth checked the drip running into his arm, then felt his forehead. Not feverish, she guessed, then picked up his chart to confirm it. The paracetamol she’d given him earlier must be working.
‘Hush, love, it’s all right, I’m here,’ she whispered to the fretful little boy, holding his hands in one of hers and smoothing his dark hair back from his forehead with the other.
But even as he stilled at the sound of her voice, fear whispered in her heart. They were treating the symptoms the patients had without any idea if this was an aggressive cold or something far more sinister. Alex Vavunis, a paediatric neurosurgeon who was a guest on the island, had taken samples of spinal fluid from the sickest patients the previous day, but it was too early to expect results.
Beth knew her assurances could easily be empty—that everything might not be all right for Robbie.
‘We’ve three children not feeling well, still in the camp, but Robbie and Jack are the most severely affected. My ward, Lily, was admitted yesterday and she’s a little better today.’
Beth heard Charles’s voice before she saw him, and turned to see he’d guided his wheelchair silently into the room, Angus seeming taller than ever as he stood beside the chair.
‘How is he, Beth?’
Charles wheeled closer as he asked the question.
Beth shook her head.
‘Agitated,’ she said, ‘although there is some good news. Jack seems a little better this morning. Lily?’
She heard Charles’s sigh and knew the little girl must still be unstable.