‘I needed a break,’ he said simply. ‘Time to get myself together. No one warned me of cyclones.’
‘It’s the tropics,’ she said simply. ‘Here be dragons.’
‘Don’t I know it!’
‘But we’re glad you’re back.’
That got her a hard look.
Max Lockhart had inherited the whole of Wildfire Island on the death of his father. The stories of the Lockharts were legion in this place. Max himself had hardly visited the island over the past twenty years, but his brother’s presence had made up for it.
Ian Lockhart had bled the island for all it was worth. He’d finally fled three months ago, leaving debt, destruction and despair...
Ian Lockhart. The hatred he’d caused...
She hugged the child in her arms tighter, as if she could somehow keep protecting him.
How could she?
The sun was getting hotter. She was starting to get sunburnt. Sunburn on top of everything else?
She was wearing knickers and bra. But they were her best knickers and bra, though, she thought with sudden dumb gratitude that today of all days she’d decided to wear her matching lace bra and panties.
They were a lot more elegant than the boxers Max was wearing. His boxers were old, faded, and they now sported a rip that made them borderline useless.
‘You needn’t look,’ Max said, and she flashed a look up at him and found he was smiling. And in return she managed a smile back.
Humour... It was a tool used the world over by medical staff, often in the most appalling circumstances. Where laypeople might collapse under strain, staff in emergency departments used humour to deflect despair.
Sometimes you laughed or you broke down, as simple as that, and right now she needed, quite desperately, not to break down. Max was a surgeon, she thought gratefully. Medical. Her tribe. He knew the drill.
‘My knickers are more respectable than your knickers,’ she said primly, and he choked.
‘What? Your knickers are two inches of pink lace.’
‘And they don’t have a hole in them right where they shouldn’t have a hole,’ she threw back at him, and he glanced down at himself and swore. And did some fast adjusting.
‘Dr Lockhart’s rude,’ she told Joni, snuggling him some more, but the little boy was drifting towards sleep. Good, she thought. Children had their own defences.
‘My yacht seems to be escaping,’ Max said, and she glanced back towards the reef.
It was, indeed, escaping. The anchor hadn’t gripped the sand. The yacht was now caught in the rip and heading out to sea.
‘One of the fishermen will follow it,’ she told him. ‘The rip’s easy to read. They’ll figure where it goes.’
‘It’d be good to get to it now.’
‘What could a yacht have that a good rock doesn’t provide?’ she demanded, feigning astonishment. And then she looked at his legs. ‘Except maybe disinfectant and dressings. And sunburn cream.’
‘And maybe a good strong rum,’ he added.
‘Trapped on an island with a sailor and a bottle of rum? I don’t think so.’ She was waffling but strangely it helped. It was okay to be silly.
Silliness helped block the thought of what had to be faced. Of Sefina’s body drifting out to sea...
‘Tell me about yourself,’ Max said, and she realised he was trying to block things out, too.
‘What’s to tell?’ She shrugged. ‘I’m Hettie. I’m charge nurse here. I’m thirty-five years old. I came to Wildfire eight years ago and I’ve been here ever since. I gather you’ve been here once or twice while I’ve been based here, but it must have coincided with my breaks off the island.’
‘Where did you learn to swim?’
‘Sydney. Bondi.’
‘The way you swim... You trained as a lifesaver?’
‘I joined as a Nipper, a trainee lifesaver, when I was six.’ The surf scene at Bondi had been her tribe then. ‘How did you know?’
‘I saw how you took Joni from me,’ he reminded her. ‘All the right moves.’
‘You were a Nipper, too?’
‘We didn’t have Nippers on Wildfire. I did have an aunt, though. Aunt Dotty. She knew the kids on the island spent their spare time doing crazier and crazier dives. I’ve dived off this headland more times than you’ve had hot dinners. We reckoned we knew the risks but Dotty said if I was going to take risks I’d be trained to take risks. So, like you, aged six I was out in the bay, learning the right way to save myself and to save others.’ He shrugged. ‘But until today I’ve never had to save anyone.’
‘You are a surgeon, though,’ she said gently, looking to deflect the bleakness. ‘I imagine you save lots and lots.’
He smiled at that and she thought, He has such a gentle smile. For a big man...his smile lit his face. It made him seem younger.
‘Lots and lots,’ he agreed. ‘If I count every appendix...’
‘You should.’
‘Then it’s lots and lots and lots. How about you?’
‘Can I count every time I put antiseptic cream on a coral graze?’
‘Be my guest.’
‘Then it’s lots and lots and lots and lots and lots.’
And he grinned. ‘You win.’
‘Thank you,’ she managed. ‘It takes a big surgeon to admit we nurses have a place.’
‘I’ve never differentiated. Doctors, nurses, even the ladies who do the flowers in the hospital wards and take a moment to talk... Just a moment can make a difference.’
And she closed her eyes.
‘Yes, it can,’ she whispered. ‘I wish...oh, I wish...’
* * *
He’d stuffed it. Somehow they’d lightened the mood but suddenly it was right back with them. The greyness. The moment he’d said the words he’d seen the pain.
‘What?’
Her eyes stayed closed. The little boy in her arms was deeply asleep now, cradled against her, secure for the moment against the horrors that had happened around him.
‘What?’ he said again, and she took a deep breath and opened her eyes again.
‘I didn’t have a moment,’ she said simply. ‘That’ll stay with me for the rest of my life.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning Sefina was brought into hospital just before the cyclone. Ruptured spleen. Concussion. Multiple abrasions and lacerations. Her husband had beaten her to unconsciousness. Sefina’s not from M’Langi—she came here eighteen months ago from Fiji. Pregnant. Rumour is that...Joni’s father...brought her here and paid Louis to marry her. Louis’s an oaf. He’d do anything for money and he’s treated her terribly. She’s always been isolated and ashamed, and Louis keeps her that way.’
There was a moment’s silence while he took that on board, and somehow during that moment he felt the beginnings of sick dismay. Surely it couldn’t be justified, but once he’d thought of it he had to ask.
‘So Joni’s father...’ he ventured, and she tilted her chin and met his gaze square on.
‘He’s