As far as she was concerned, there was a lot of very strange stuff lingering in the deep recesses of her mind and fluttering along the nerves in her body, yet Keanu was sitting there, about as sensitive as a boulder.
Whatever. She was finding out things she needed to know so she had to set aside all the physical manifestations of the boulder’s presence and seek more information.
‘You mean this mystery millionaire is going to keep the research station going? So why build luxury accommodation?’
Keanu shrugged.
‘Who knows, but that’s what’s happening because Sam’s been carrying on with some of Luke’s research into why the islanders don’t suffer from encephalitis to the extent their counterparts in other island groups do and he’s been wanting to use the laboratories there. Apparently, they’ve said he can as soon as the renovations are completed.’
‘Weirder and weirder,’ Caroline muttered, but the worst of the weirdness was what was going on in her body. She’d been, what, thirteen when she’d last seen Keanu? And with her isolated life on the island then boarding school, had probably been a late developer. And although his disappearance from her life had devastated her—even broken her heart—it had been a child’s heart that had been broken, a child’s love betrayed.
What she was feeling now had nothing childish about it, and if she was going to be working with him, seeing him every day, she’d better get over whatever it was PDQ.
Practicalities—they would be the best antidote to this Keanu business.
‘Let’s go and see,’ she suggested. ‘I’ll grab some bottled water and a torch, and we’ll go take a look.’
‘We can’t,’ Keanu answered flatly, killing the small spark of excitement taking some action had lit.
‘And why not?’ she demanded, the young Caroline again.
‘I’ve already told you, it’s fenced off. Visitors to the resort won’t be bumped along a rocky track—they’ll travel down there by helicopter.’
‘They can’t have fenced the whole place. Not the beach and the reef and that rockfall around the corner of Sunset Beach.’
‘So?’
‘We’ll just have to find our way either around or over this fence and see what’s happening for ourselves. We’ll go down to the beach for a start, and walk to the rockfall then figure it out from there. We’ve swum around it in the past, but it might be low tide. We should at least go and have a look.’
She was twelve again and grinned at him.
‘Come on, Keanu, it will be an adventure, just like old times!’
Keanu studied the beautiful, smiling woman in front of him and knew that while her features might have changed as she’d matured, her determination obviously had not.
He heard his mother’s voice, back when they’d been young, saying look after Caroline—words to a child that were now coming back to haunt him. He’d have to go along on this ridiculous escapade because there was no way he could let her go alone. The very thought of her prowling around down there made his blood run cold, not to mention what might happen if she tried to climb the rockfall on her own.
Apart from which, he had to admit, he would like to know what was going on at the northern end of the island, and he could check out if they’d rebuilt the longhouse and if it would be suitable for Alkiri’s funeral feast—should they get permission to use it.
‘Are you going like that?’ he asked, looking at the short shift dress she wore.
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘It’s faded so much it almost looks like camouflage, although I didn’t choose it for that—just pulled it out of the cupboard. I’ll slip on some soft dive boots in case we have to swim.’
He hoped like hell they wouldn’t have to swim, because the thought of seeing that shift wet and clinging to her body was already causing a definite stirring in his lower abdomen.
The thought of helping her down the cliff path, taking her elbow on a tricky bit, touching her at all, had been bad enough, but the wet shift image was torturous.
Yet he’d seen Caroline naked often enough, when they’d shucked off their clothes to swim in the lagoon by the house—but that had been boy-girl stuff, kid stuff—and she hadn’t had breasts then …
Dear heaven, was he losing his mind?
He knew his mother had had good reason for leaving the island—Ian Lockhart had made sure of that—but he wondered if she’d also been thinking of what might happen as he and Caroline went through puberty? Feeling as she did about Ian, his having a relationship with Ian’s niece might have been too much …
Caroline was back, soft dive boots—more like ballet slippers—on her feet and a small backpack on her back. She passed a second one to him.
‘A camera with a long-distance lens,’ she announced. ‘Apparently, Ian didn’t know of Dad’s interest in photography or he’d have found them and sold them off as he seems to have done with everything else of value in the house.’
Keanu thought of the beautiful pieces of porcelain Caro’s grandmother had collected—and Caro had loved—and knew without asking that they’d be gone.
Well, he hadn’t been able to save her treasures, but he sure as hell was going to do everything he could to keep her safe in her mad quest to save the island. At least in that quest they’d be partners once again.
He slung the backpack over his shoulder and reached out to take her arm.
‘Let’s go,’ he said. She moved away from his outstretched hand, but undeterred he added, ‘It will be like old times!’
Except all his senses were on full alert, his body buzzing just being near her, so who the hell knew what would happen if she actually swam!
THEY WALKED SWIFTLY to the clifftop, muscle memory in their feet remembering the path possibly better than their brains did. Above them, in the thick rainforest, birds were settling down for the night, rustling among the leaves. Then down the rocky track with its views out over the reef to the ocean beyond. The path they took was now overgrown in places as if it had been rarely used since two adventurous children had left the island.
‘How long have you been here?’
Caroline, following him with one hand on his backpack, asked the question.
‘Three weeks.’
The answer came easily. Three weeks of shock as he’d tried to accept the island as it was now and work out what had happened.
‘Have you seen the Blakes?’
Keanu shook his head.
‘They were long gone when I got here. The old man, your grandfather, appointed Peter not long before he died and your father was happy to leave him in charge of the mine when you were born and he had to take Christopher to the mainland for constant medical supervision.’
‘Dad liked the fact that Peter was an engineer as well as having practical knowledge as a miner, and he was as honest as they come.’
‘Probably too honest for Ian,’ Keanu said. ‘He decided he could do the job better and sacked Peter. Then, with Peter gone, Ian announced he’d take over the running of the mine as well as everything else on the island.’
‘No wonder it’s run-down,’ Caro said tartly. ‘Ian couldn’t manage his way out of an open door.’
‘Harsh!’