A lot of time had passed. Surely they could find a way to connect on some level? He wanted that, he realised. More than was probably good for him.
He wanted to see her eyes the way he remembered them, not full of fear that he might hurt her again. Or so distant he wasn’t even being acknowledged for who he was. Or who he had been.
What he really wanted was to see Anahera smile, but it wasn’t going to happen, was it?
And then it struck him. She wouldn’t be afraid of him if she knew the truth. She wouldn’t feel that avoiding him was the best way to cope either.
Something else crept into the odd mix of his feelings.
A glimmer of hope, perhaps?
Maybe this was an opportunity for both of them to lay some ghosts to rest. So that they could both move on with their lives without being haunted by what had happened between them.
‘You stay.’ Anahera zipped up the resus kit after Sam had taken the blood sample Charles had finally agreed was a good idea. ‘You were coming here anyway. I can take all the gear back to the hospital.’
‘Are you sure?’ Sam was watching their patient rejoin the gathering. ‘I would quite like to keep an eye on him for a while. It’s only going to take a few minutes to run the assay.’
‘I’d like to see the laboratory again.’ Much to Anahera’s discomfort, Luke hadn’t followed Charles to the other side of the meeting hall. ‘It sounds like you’ve got more gear in there than there was when I was last here.’
‘I’ll bet. You should come and see the hospital, too. You wouldn’t have had the CT scanner when you were here. Or the ventilator we’ve got for intensive care either.’
‘You’ve got a CT scanner? Wow …’
‘And Anahera, here, is a qualified intensive care nurse. She could pretty much do my job, to tell the truth. She did paramedic training in Brisbane, too. She’s the best at intubating if you’ve got a difficult airway.’ Sam laughed. ‘But you probably know that. You guys must have kept in touch since you were here?’
‘No.’ Luke and Anahera spoke at the same time but their tones were very different. Luke’s held regret. Anahera’s was firm enough to sound like a reprimand. No wonder Sam gave her such a surprised glance.
She shrugged, her smile wry as she tried to excuse her tone. ‘You know how many FIFOs we get. If we kept in touch with them all we’d never have time to do our jobs.’
Slipping the straps of the resus kit over her shoulders, Anahera bent to pick up the life pack in one hand and the oxygen cylinder in the other. She managed a brief glance at Luke. Another smile even, albeit a tight one. ‘Enjoy your visit,’ she said. ‘I hope the conference is worthwhile.’
‘Let me carry some of that for you.’
She avoided his gaze. ‘I’m fine.’
Surely Luke could see that she needed to get away from him? Someone certainly could. Anahera could feel her mother’s curious gaze all the way from where she was serving food again.
Had she been wrong in assuming that only she and Luke knew what had happened when he’d been on the island that first time? How close they had become?
If Vailea was busy putting two and two together, it could make things a whole heap more difficult.
‘No, you’re not.’ Sam took the heavy life pack from her hand. ‘Don’t be such a heroine, Ana. You make us look bad.’
Sure enough, another man was coming towards them, clearly intent on helping.
Anahera smiled at Sam. ‘Go on, then. Just to make you feel better.’
It would make her feel better, too, to have company as she walked away from Luke. She straightened her back. She had friends here. She used her now free hand to wave at her mother, who smiled back. She had family here, too. Luke was the outsider. If he presented a threat, she had plenty of people on her side.
And maybe he would retire gracefully. Sam had paused as Luke introduced him to the man who’d joined them.
‘This is Harry. Sheikh Rahman al-Taraq. He’s the person who’s responsible for all of this. The man who’s making it his mission to find a way to beat encephalitis, amongst other tropical nasties.’
A sheikh? Anahera blinked. This was all getting a little surreal.
Sam shook the sheikh’s hand. ‘I can’t wait to talk to you,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a few minutes to spend in the laboratory and then I’ll be back.’
‘Mind if I come with you? I’d like to see how the labs are shaping up. We’ve put quite a lot of new equipment in there. Luke, you should come, too.’
‘Oh?’
‘I might have another job for you—after you’ve given your keynote address tomorrow. We’ve got a bit of research to set up, here. A clinical trial, I’m hoping.’
‘I’m only here for a couple of days, Harry.’ Luke’s laugh sounded a bit forced. Nervous even?
If that was the case, he wasn’t the only one feeling like that. Anahera started walking towards the golf cart again. This was getting rapidly worse. She needed a safe place to try and get her head around it all. She couldn’t wait to get back to the hospital.
No … maybe she’d ask Hettie to stay on to start her night shift early. The safe place Anahera really needed was at home.
With her daughter.
Bessie, the housekeeper at the Lockhart mansion who looked after Hana when Anahera was at work, had been happy to babysit tonight.
‘She’s been no trouble,’ she said. ‘Went to bed and off to sleep like an angel.’
‘That’s where you need to go, too, Bessie. You look tired. Thank you so much for your help. I don’t know what we’d do without you.’
The hug from the older woman was soft and squashy and full of love, and it took Anahera straight back to the kind of simplicity her childhood had been full of.
It made her want to cry.
‘I am tired,’ Bessie admitted. ‘But I’m also very happy. Miss Caroline and Keanu are coming back very soon so I want the house to look perfect. We might have a wedding to get ready for.’
Anahera smiled. Keanu was another permanent doctor on Wildfire Island and, along with Sam, was a very good friend. Caroline was a Lockhart—the twin who had come into the world unscathed. ‘It is very happy news. But don’t go overdoing things.’
‘Tell your mother that, too. She’s working too hard. She has her job at the hospital and now she’s taking on more work at that resort place.’ Bessie shook her head as she gathered up her basket and cardigan. ‘So much is happening on the island at the moment. I can’t keep up …’
‘I know. I feel like that, too.’ Especially right now. ‘But they’re good things, Bessie. The mine closing has been a disaster for everybody, and Caroline’s going to try and fix things. And the conference centre is going to create more jobs and bring in some money. I heard that there’s going to be some new research projects happening, too. It’s all good.’
But Bessie was frowning. ‘You don’t look so happy about it, Ana.’
Anahera summoned a genuine smile and words of reassurance as she waved Bessie off. She was going to have to be careful what showed on her face for the next few days. At least it would be a while before her mother came home. She had time to get things sorted in her head.
And her heart.
It was easy to do that. All she needed to do was tiptoe into the room where Hana lay sleeping in her small bed inside the mosquito