‘Oh, Keanu! I can only imagine how you felt and your poor mother—’
‘I lost it, Caro! I went at him, fists flying, while Mum was covering herself and gathering clothes and telling me to stop, not that I did much good. At fifteen I was a fair size, but nothing like Ian’s weight. He eventually pushed me to the ground and told me to get out, both of us to get out. He’d ask the plane to wait so we could pack then be out of there.’
‘But it was your home, Keanu. It always had been. Grandma had promised that before I was even born!’ Caro hauled him to his feet and hugged him properly. ‘Anyway, after I arrived Helen was employed by Dad, not Ian.’
Keanu put his hands on her shoulders and eased her far enough apart to look into her face.
‘Ian’s words destroyed Mum. She refused to talk about it except to say she’d always known she wasn’t the only one. I realised then it had been going on for some time. But to humiliate her like that, in front of me—it was more than she could take! When we got back to the house in Cairns she phoned your father to say she wouldn’t be there to look after you during the holidays and that she’d retired. No other explanation no matter how often he phoned, even when he visited. With the admiration she had for your father, there was no way she could have told him about it. She just shut herself away from life, then only a few years later she was gone.’
Caro drew him close again, wrapping her arms around him, holding him tightly.
‘Oh, Keanu,’ she whispered, the words soft and warm against his neck. ‘At least now I understand why you deserted me. How could you have had anything to do with any Lockhart after Ian’s behaviour to your mother?’
Was it the release of telling her the story, of her finally knowing why he’d cut her off that made his arms move to enfold her?
He didn’t know—he only knew that he held her, clung to her, breathing in the very essence that was Caroline—his Caro. And like a sigh—a breath of wind—something shifted between them … an awareness, tension—
Attraction?
You’re married.
Probably.
He didn’t actually leap away from her embrace, but the space between them grew.
They were friends, but whatever this new emotion was, it hadn’t felt like friendship.
Had Caro felt it?
Were warning bells clanging in her head?
For once he had not the slightest idea of what she was thinking, but deep inside he knew that, whatever lay ahead, he couldn’t do anything to hurt her, not again, which meant not getting too involved until he knew he was free.
Something had obviously happened between her and Steve because she was back on the island and he could see she was hurting.
Abandoned again by someone she loved?
Wouldn’t he have to do that if his divorce didn’t go through?
Get out of here and sort it out!
‘You have lunch here,’ he said, aiming for sounding calm and composed—sensible—although his whole body churned with emotion. ‘I’ll go back to the hospital and talk to Sam. He’ll know the best way to close down the mine.’
Caroline nodded. ‘Yes, good idea.’
Perhaps she hadn’t felt what he’d felt when they’d hugged, because she’d never sounded more together—practical, professional—putting the past firmly behind her.
But then, she’d always been a superb actress, having grown adept at hiding her feelings.
Though usually not from him …
HAD THEY BEEN going to kiss?
Surely not!
But Caroline was very relieved he’d pulled away, and hopefully without seeing her suddenly breathless state.
And if he hadn’t?
Would that surge of attraction have led to a kiss—right there on the front steps of the house?
Her heart ached for him after hearing the story of his return from school, his mother’s humiliation, and imagining the pain the pair must have suffered, leaving the place that had been their only true home.
Her first reaction had been numbness. After Bessie’s chance remark about no woman being safe around Ian, she’d imagined rape, but humiliating Helen as he had done had been emotionally so damaging. How impotent Keanu must have felt in the face of Ian’s callousness.
Of course she’d had to hug him!
But hugging Keanu had never felt like that before!
Hugging Keanu had never produced that kind of mayhem in her body. Not even Steve, who’d never failed to boast about what a great lover he was, had ever managed to evoke something like that.
Or was that unfair to Steve?
He hadn’t really boasted of his prowess, it was just the impression she’d got from his confidence, and the fact that other women had envied her the man who had wooed her with flowers, and gifts and promises of undying love.
Actually, now the hurt was gone and she could look back rationally, it had been the undying love thing that had got her in the end; the fact that this person had come into her life, vowing to be there for ever—to never let her down or abandon her. That last had been the clincher.
How stupid had she been?
A practised lover, he’d sniffed out the silly issues she had with abandonment—with the loss of so many people in her life and the distraction of others—and had worked on it!
Jilly had been right, she was well out of that relationship, and as the days had turned into months Caroline had realised that as well, glad the man she’d thought she loved had turned out to have not only feet of clay but whole legs of it!
And Keanu?
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply then decided she wouldn’t think about that right now. She had more important things to consider, the first being to find some way to pay the miners what they were owed.
She didn’t think it would go all the way to restoring the Lockhart name but those people had worked for her family—they deserved to be paid.
And they would be.
She’d phone Dad, talk to him about the mine closure and the problems Ian had left behind him on the island—the damage he had done to the Lockhart name.
Although could she add that much more worry to his already over-burdened shoulders?
An image of her twin rose up in front of her—Christopher’s crippled, twisted body, his lovely blue eyes gazing blankly towards her as she talked to him, the pigeon chest battling for every breath …
No, she couldn’t pull Dad away from Christopher, especially right now when he had been hospitalised again …
So it was up to her.
Or was she fooling herself?
‘Nurse Hettie phoned to say she expected you back at the hospital.’ Bessie appeared at the front door. ‘I told her you’re having a late lunch and will be down soon.’
Bother!
‘Thanks, Bessie, I’ll go right now.’
‘You’ll do no such thing. You come into the kitchen and have lunch.’
‘But Reuben gave Keanu and I fruit salad and cold