‘What work?’ Jack asked. ‘He’s a miner and the mine’s been closed. It’s not safe any more.’
‘They’re not allowed down the mine but a lot of the men are working to try and improve the safety so they can open it again. They’re desperate to get their livelihoods back.’
‘I’ll come and talk to him soon,’ Sam said. ‘And if I can’t convince him, I’ll get his wife, Nani, in here. She’ll sort him out.’
‘Okay...’ Anahera turned to leave, and Luke stared at her. Was she not even going to acknowledge him?
‘Stay for a few minutes,’ Sam said. ‘There’s something Luke and I are going to discuss and it involves you.’
‘I...I need to get back to Kalifa.’
‘He’s had his first dose of antibiotics, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘And his first nebuliser is still going?’
‘Yes.’
‘And one of the aides is in the ward with him who can come and find us if there’s any deterioration in his condition?’
Anahera just nodded this time. Still without looking at Luke, she came and sat down on one of the kitchen chairs around the table.
Sam put down two mugs of tea and gestured to Luke to take another seat. Jack watched them.
‘Maybe I’ll leave you to it. Go and polish the red bird or something.’
‘You’re welcome to stay,’ Sam said. ‘In fact, you’ll probably be involved as much as Ana. Have a seat.’
Jack looked intrigued. Anahera was looking wary.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘You both know the really exciting news.’
‘You talked about it enough yesterday.’ Jack grinned. ‘We have a vaccination available for M’Langi encephalitis that’s been approved for clinical trials.’
‘That’s right.’
Jack’s grin faded as he looked at Luke. ‘From what Sam was saying, it was one hell of an opening address that your friend made.’ He turned to Anahera. ‘You had a day off yesterday so you weren’t here to hear that story, were you? About the sheikh and his investment?’
‘Ah...no. I did briefly see the sheikh at the conference centre and I also heard about the new vaccination. The whole island’s talking about it.’ She smiled at Luke. ‘It’s amazing news.’
‘It’s thanks to Luke that it’s happened,’ Sam said. ‘There’s already the vaccination for Japanese encephalitis but there were plenty of other varieties to choose to work on next. It was Luke’s connection to these islands that made M’Langi the lucky one.’
‘I’ve never forgotten my time here,’ Luke said quietly. ‘I think about it every day.’
A flush of colour darkened Anahera’s olive skin. The hidden message had been received loud and clear. It hadn’t been just the island that he’d thought about every day, had it? He’d been thinking about her...
‘But the thanks should go to Harry,’ he continued. ‘He’s the one who’s put an extraordinary amount of time and money into getting this vaccination developed.’
‘Which he couldn’t have done if you hadn’t saved his life.’ Sam turned his gaze to Anahera. ‘You should have heard him talking,’ he told her. ‘There wasn’t a dry eye in the house by the time he’d finished telling us how close to death he was when he got encephalitis. How Luke was there with him twenty-four seven in the ICU, fighting for his life as if it was his own. That it was that kind of devotion that made Harry determined to give something back to thank him and to try and stop other people having to go through what he went through.’
The praise had been embarrassing yesterday. He’d only been doing his job after all, but watching Anahera’s reaction to the story made it feel very different. There was something in her eyes that was making him feel proud instead of embarrassed. There was respect there. And something warmer—as if she was feeling proud of him, too?
‘I always knew you’d go on to do great things,’ she said softly. ‘It’s a great story.’
‘Sounds like you have, too. Paramedic and ICU qualifications? An expert in difficult airway management? How long did you stay in Brisbane?’
‘About two years.’ Anahera’s glance flicked away the moment Brisbane was mentioned, and Luke could almost feel a change in temperature around him as any perceived warmth got sucked out.
She really didn’t want to talk to him about Brisbane, did she?
Why? Had the opportunity for postgraduate training been compelling for more than professional reasons? Because it had meant a fresh start—away from the place she had met him?
No. He was reading too much into it. She hadn’t cared that much or she wouldn’t have dismissed him with such devastating effect after all the effort he’d made to track her down. She’d moved on with her life, that was all. And what she’d done with it was none of his business.
Fine. He could move on, too. He could start with this conversation.
‘Harry has plans for some research projects that can only happen here,’ he said. ‘One of them involves travel to some of the outer islands, which is where you come in, Jack. He’s only just heard about this M’Langi tea and he thinks it could be important.’
‘Why?’ Anahera was frowning. ‘It only has insect repellent qualities, doesn’t it?’
‘Exactly,’ Sam said with satisfaction. ‘Controlling the mosquito population by reducing habitats that support breeding and personal protection by clothing and repellents are the mainstay of prevention of mosquito-borne disease. Repellents are only ever applied externally. It could be a real breakthrough to discover something effective that can be taken systemically. Did you know that there were an estimated seventy-seven thousand deaths worldwide in 2013 from encephalitis?’
‘You’ve got some data on which islands have the lowest incidence of encephalitis, haven’t you?’ Luke asked. ‘That’s where we’ll need to go to collect samples and find out exactly how they brew that tea.’
Sam nodded. ‘From memory, I’m pretty sure it’s French Island, and that’s where the particular hibiscus bushes that they make the tea from grow, but I’ll check.’
‘French Island?’
‘Apparently there was a shipwreck there long ago. A French square-rigged sailing vessel. The crew survived and so we have a fair bit of French blood mingling with the islanders’. We still get some French sailors turning up, intrigued by the historic link.’
Curiously, Anahera didn’t seem to want to be hearing any of this. She got to her feet.
‘I really need to get back to my patients. I can’t see how any of this involves me.’
‘You’re due to do the clinic on French Island in the next couple of days, aren’t you?’
‘Oh...you want me to collect some tea-leaves? Talk to the locals?’
‘No. I want you to take Luke with you.’
That shocked her enough to freeze her movements, except for the direction of her gaze, which flew to Luke in alarm. ‘But the conference finishes today, doesn’t it? Don’t you have to get back to London?’
There was that fear again. It was just a bit over the top, wasn’t it? He’d been keeping his distance and it had to be obvious he wasn’t going to force his company—or anything else—on her.
‘Harry’s persuaded me to stay on for a bit. To set up the research projects and get the protocols in place for a clinical trial of the vaccination.’
Anahera turned to Sam. ‘Maybe you should do the clinic instead of me, then. I don’t have anything to do with research and you love it.’
She was trying to avoid him again. Luke could feel himself frowning and barely registered Sam’s smile as he spoke.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll sort out the logistics. Why don’t I give you a tour of the hospital while we talk? You’ll be wanting to get back for the last session of the conference.’
Jack got to his feet as well. ‘Time I did some work, too. Nice to meet you, Luke. I look forward to transporting you around the islands very soon.’
Anahera was leading the way as they all left the staffroom. The layout of the hospital still felt familiar to Luke. The U-shaped building with small wards on one side, Outpatients, kitchens and the staffroom in the middle and the ED, ICU and Radiography—that now, apparently, had gone high-tech with CT and ultrasound equipment available—on the other side. The wide covered walkway linking the wings surrounded a lush tropical garden that boasted a pretty pond in its centre.
The walkway was as spacious as he remembered and the overhead fans kept everything deliciously cool as they added to a sea breeze coming in from the garden.
There was more than a breeze coming in from the garden at the moment, though. An older woman who was carrying a small child could be seen ahead of them.
And, again, Anahera froze.
‘Bessie...what are you doing here? What’s happened?’
Luke could see that the child—a tiny girl—had been crying. Her hand was wrapped in what looked like a bloodstained tea towel.
‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ the woman said. ‘Just a little cut but it took a while to stop the bleeding and Hana got upset. I said we’d come and find Dr Sam and Mummy.’
Mummy? One of the other nurses here, perhaps? Luke, like everyone else, had stopped walking. Now the island woman stopped, too, as the child in her arms wriggled free. As soon as the girl’s feet touched the floor, she was running. The tea towel unwound itself and fell to the floor as she threw her arms up in the air.
‘Mumma...’ The word was a sob.
Anahera was crouching, arms out, ready to catch the little girl. She scooped her up and held her close, pressing her cheek to a fluffy cloud of pale curls as she murmured reassurance.
And then she looked up and her gaze met Luke’s.
He knew he must look like an idiot, with his jaw still hanging open, but this was the biggest shock yet since he’d set foot on Wildfire Island again.
There could be no mistaking the relationship between these two with the way this child had her arms wound so tightly around Anahera’s neck and the palpable comfort she was clearly receiving from having found the person she needed most.
Anahera was a mother?
He had to swallow his shock. At least no one else seemed to have noticed. Jack was behind him and Sam was focussed on the child.
‘Have you got a sore finger, sweetheart? Can you show Dr Sam?’
‘It’s all right, darling,’ Anahera said. ‘It’s not going to hurt. We just want to see.’
A tiny hand appeared from behind her mother’s neck and then a forefinger uncurled itself. The cut was quite deep but small.
‘She found a piece of broken glass,’ Bessie said unhappily. ‘She was helping me clean out a cupboard.’
‘You know what?’ Sam asked cheerfully.
The small head moved slowly from side to side.
‘I think I’ve got a plaster that’s just the right size for a finger like that. And it’s got a picture on it. Do you know what that picture might be?’
Big dark eyes widened. ‘A flutterby?’
Sam grinned. ‘Sorry, not a butterfly this time, button. Would a princess do instead? A Cinderella plaster?’
The smile was tentative.
‘Didn’t Cinderella have butterflies on her dress?’ Anahera said. ‘I’m sure she did. We’ve got the book at home, haven’t we, Hana?’
Hana. So this exquisite child had a name that sounded like an echo of her mother’s shortened name. She had her mother’s gorgeous dark eyes, too, but her skin was much lighter and her hair very different from Anahera’s midnight black.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Luke heard himself saying aloud. ‘How old is she?’
The moment the words left his mouth he realised, with what felt like a body blow, that it was possible he was looking at his own daughter here.
For a long moment there was a silence so complete it felt like everyone else here knew the significance of what the answer to his query could be. In the end, it was Hana who spoke.
‘I’m free,’ she told him.
‘Three,’ Anahera corrected her. ‘Three and a half, even.’
The mental calculations were so easy to make, it took only a few seconds. Add on nine months for a pregnancy. Count up the years and months since he and Anahera had had that last, incredible night on Sunset Beach.
The difference was six months. There was no way that Hana was his child.
It should have been a huge relief.
So why was he left feeling so crushed?
Maybe because it was the final proof that Anahera hadn’t cared enough. She’d moved on so fast she’d found someone else and become pregnant in the short space of a few months. For all Luke knew, Hana’s father was also here on Wildfire Island. He might come through the same door any moment now.
Luke swallowed hard as he checked his watch. ‘I might head back, Sam,’ he said. ‘We’ll have plenty of time for this tour in the next few days, and, as you reminded me, I don’t want to miss the last session of the conference.’
He didn’t look back as he fired his parting words. ‘It’s what I actually came here for, after all.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHAT’S UP, ANA?’
‘Nothing.’ Anahera didn’t look up from her task of packing the large plastic bin that was on the bench, surrounded by a wide array of supplies.
‘You don’t seem yourself, that’s all.’ Sam was leaning against the doorframe of this storage room in the hospital’s theatre annexe, having delivered the chilli bin with the lunch that Vailea had packed for the team doing the clinic run to French Island today.
Anahera turned away from him to stare at a shelf. ‘Don’t tell me we’re out of urine dipsticks...I know we’ve got people who aren’t managing their type two diabetes very well on French Island.’
Sam took a step into the room, reached past her shoulder and picked up the jar that had been right in front of her.
‘Thanks.’ Anahera cringed inwardly. ‘Guess I was having a “man” look.’
‘If you’re worried about blood-glucose levels, a blood test is far more sensitive.’
‘I know that.’ The words came out as an unintentional snap and she hurriedly modified her tone. ‘If the level’s high enough to show up in urine then we’ll know treatment is urgent. I’ve found that the occasional patient is more likely to agree to give a sample of urine than get stuck with a needle, even if it is just in a finger. I’ve already packed the BGL kit. I need the dipsticks for the antenatal checks, too.’
‘Okay...’
She could feel Sam watching her. Maybe she hadn’t undone the damage that that uncharacteristic snap had done.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I didn’t sleep that well last night and I guess I’m a bit put out, having to take someone else with us today. It’ll put us under pressure to get through the clinic cases so I have time to take him into the village to talk to people and get samples of the leaves or bark or whatever it is they use off the hibiscus plants.’
‘Hmm...’ Sam still hadn’t left the room. ‘Why is it that I get the impression you don’t like Luke? I’m going to be working with the guy and he seems great. Is there something about him I should know?’
‘No.’
‘But you’ve met him before. You know him better than I do.’
Anahera almost laughed at the understatement. She could only hope that her smile wasn’t wry.
‘He’s an awesome doctor. Hard-working and very, very smart. And he cares a lot about his patients.’ She was keeping her hands busy, packing syringes and swabs into the plastic bin. Then she reached for the pregn
ancy test kits and had to close her eyes for a heartbeat. Sam was a good friend. Maybe he deserved to know that Luke wasn’t completely honest. That he couldn’t be trusted.
‘I know...you should have heard that sheikh guy talking about him. Harry made him sound like God’s gift to medicine.’
‘Mmm...’ It really was time to change the subject. ‘Has Jack called to say the chopper’s ready yet? We should get going soon. And if Luke’s not here on time, we’ll have to go without him.
‘I’ll find out.’
It was a relief to be left alone to finish her packing. Anahera really needed a few minutes to herself. A few deep breaths should do it, along with bringing her focus back to the task at hand so that she didn’t find herself staring at something on a shelf that she couldn’t see.
But the deep breathing didn’t do what it was supposed to do. It didn’t even melt the edges off that hard knot that seemed to be lodged in her belly.
Guilt, that was what it was.
She’d told Sam she hadn’t slept that well last night but the truth was she’d tossed and turned so much that she’d barely slept at all.
It didn’t matter how many times she went over and over that incident at the hospital when Hana had been brought in because she couldn’t change the impressions she’d been left with. If anything, they only became crisper.
For a start, there’d been that unexpected and shocking reaction to seeing them together. A flash of imagining what it could have been like if they had become a family. A slicing pain of loss so deep that it was fortunate it had vanished as instantly as it had attacked.
Luke’s face had been as easy to read as a large-print book. She’d seen the shock of discovering that she was a mother. Had seen the moment when it had occurred to him that he could possibly be Hana’s father. And then she’d seen something that was shocking to her. Disappointment?
Did he want a child?
Even if he didn’t, he had the right to know he had one, didn’t he?
Oh, God...the guilt stone was getting steadily bigger and it had sharp edges that were giving her shafts of pain like colic.
The Nurse Who Stole His Heart Page 4