She stopped suddenly, so he had to turn back, and standing this close, seeing the blue-green of her eyes, the dark eyebrows and lashes that drew attention to them, the curve of pink lips, the straight, dainty nose, his breath caught in his chest and left him wondering why no one had ever come up with an antidote for attraction.
Cold blue-green eyes—waiting, watchful …
‘So?’
Demanding …
Keanu shifted uneasily. As a clan the Lockharts had always been extraordinarily close to each other and even though Ian was the noted black sheep, Caroline’s father had still given him a job.
‘Ian apparently had gambling debts before he came—a gambling addiction—but unfortunately even on a South Sea island online gambling is available. From all I heard he never stopped gambling but he wasn’t very good at it. Eventually he sacked Peter Blake, the mine manager your father had employed, and took whatever he could from the mine—that’s why it’s been struggling lately and your father’s having to foot a lot of the hospital bills. Ian stopped paying the mine workers, closed down the crushers and extractors and brought it to all but a standstill.’
He paused, although he knew he had to finish.
‘Then he ran away. No one knows for certain when he went but it was very recently. One day his yacht was in the harbour at the mine and the next day it was gone.’
Blue-green eyes met his—worried but also wary.
‘Grandma always said he was no good,’ she admitted sadly. ‘“In spite of the fact he’s my son, he’s a bad seed,” she used to say, which, as a child, always puzzled me, the bad-seed bit.’
He heard sadness in Caroline’s words but she seemed slightly more relaxed now, he could tell, so he took a deep breath and finished the woeful tale.
‘The trouble is, Ian’s damaged the Lockhart name. I don’t know how people will view your return.’
‘What do you mean, view my return?’
Her confusion was so obvious he wanted to give her a hug.
Bad idea.
He put out his hand and touched her arm, wanting her calm enough to understand what he was trying to tell her. Though touching her was a mistake. Not only did fire flood his being, but she pulled away so suddenly she’d have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed her.
And let her go very swiftly.
‘Lockharts have been part of M’Langi history since they first settled on Wildfire,’ he said gently. ‘Your grandfather and father helped bring prosperity and health facilities to the islands and were admired for all they did. But Ian’s behaviour has really tainted the name.’
He could see her confusion turning to anger and guessed she wanted to lash out at him—well, not at him particularly … or perhaps it was at him particularly, but she definitely wanted to lash out.
She turned away instead and trudged on up the slope, spinning back when she’d covered less than three feet to reach out and say, ‘I’ll take my bag now, thank you.’
Cool, calm and collected again—to outward appearances.
But he knew her too well not to know how deeply she’d been affected by his words. She’d never been a snob, never seen herself as different from the other island children with whom they’d attended the little primary school on Atangi, but she’d felt pride in the achievements of her family, justifiably so. To hear what he was telling her would be shattering for her.
But all he said was, ‘I’ll carry the bag, Caroline, and maybe, one day soon, we can sit down and talk—maybe find our friendship again.’
In reply, she stepped closer, grabbed her bag and stormed away, marching now, striding, hurrying away from him as fast as she could.
And was it his imagination, or did he hear her mutter, ‘As if!’?
KEANU RUSSELL WALKED swiftly back down the track. He probably wasn’t needed but the hospital was so short-staffed someone had to be there. The situation at the hospital was worse than he’d imagined when, alerted by the elders on Atangi, the main island of the group, he’d come back.
He touched the tribal tattoo that encircled the muscle of his upper arm, the symbol of M’Langi—of his belonging.
‘Come home, we need you.’
That had been the extent of the elders’ message, and as the islanders—with help from Max Lockhart—had paid for his high school and university education, he’d known he owed it to them to come.
He’d tried to contact Max before he’d left Australia but had been unable to get on to him. Apparently, Max’s son, Christopher, had had a serious lung infection and Max had been with him in the ICU.
Trying the hospital here instead, Vailea, the hospital’s housekeeper, had answered the phone and told him the islands—and the hospital in particular—were in big trouble.
‘That Ian Lockhart, he’s no good to anyone,’ Vailea had told him. ‘Max has been paying for the hospital out of his own money, because the mine is run-down and any money it does make, that rotten Ian takes.’
There was a silence as Keanu digested this, then Vailea added, ‘We need you here, Keanu.’
‘Why didn’t you call me? Tell me this? Why leave it to the elders?’
There was another long pause before Vailea said, ‘You’ve been gone too long, Keanu. I did not know how to tell you. I thought with me asking, you might not come, but with the elders—’
She broke the connection but not before he’d heard the tears in her voice, and he sat, staring at the phone in his hand, guilt flooding his entire being.
M’Langi was his home, the islanders his people, and he had stayed away because of his anger, and his mother’s inner torment—caused by a Lockhart …
But if he was truly honest, he’d stayed away because he didn’t want to face the memories of his happy childhood, or his betrayal of his childhood friend.
But home he was, and so aghast at the situation that memories had had no time to plague him. Although sometimes when he walked through the small hospital late at night he remembered a little boy and even smaller girl holding hands on about the same spot, talking about the future when he would be a doctor and she would be a nurse and they would come back to the island and work in the hospital her father had, even then, been planning to build.
Okay, so the ghost of Caroline did bother him—had bothered him even as he’d married someone else—but there was enough work to do to block her out most of the time.
Or had been until she’d arrived in person. Not only arrived but apparently intended to work here.
Not that she wasn’t needed …
The nurse they had been expecting to come in on the next day’s flight had phoned to say her mother was ill and she didn’t know when she might make it. Then Maddie Haddon, one of their Fly-In-Fly-Out, or FIFO doctors, had phoned to say she wouldn’t be on the flight either—some mix-up with her antenatal appointments.
Sam Taylor, the only permanent doctor, was doing a clinic flight to the other islands, with Hettie, their head nurse—another permanent. They didn’t know of the latest developments but as Keanu himself had come as a FIFO and intended staying permanently whether he was paid or not, he could cover for Maddie.
And, presumably, Caroline could cover for the nurse.
Caroline.
Caro.