The Nurse Who Stole His Heart

by Alison Roberts

  Surely that had been punishment enough for her mistake?

  No. Thanks to her deception today, there would be more punishment to come if she did tell Luke the truth.

  He had been honest with her and he deserved the same respect in return, but the implications of reciprocating were so huge she couldn’t begin to get her head around them.

  Her life—and those of the people she loved more than life itself—would change for ever.

  It would also destroy any trust that Luke had in her.

  And that mattered more than she wanted to admit.

  * * *

  As if her patient was aware of the tension building inside Anahera, a grimace appeared on his face and then the muscles of his body seemed to shrink and stiffen. Within the few seconds of registering what was happening, Tane was once again in the throes of a seizure. Anahera hit the alarm button on the wall, which she knew would sound in the staffroom, and then did her best to stop IV lines tangling or pulling free from the forceful jerking of Tane’s arms.

  It was Luke who came into the room.

  ‘How long has he been seizing again?’

  ‘About a minute.’

  ‘Have you given another dose of diazepam?’

  ‘No.’ Was Luke disappointed with her performance already? ‘I’ve been trying to secure the IV lines. I didn’t have enough hands...’

  ‘Of course you didn’t.’ The flash of Luke’s smile wiped out any impression that he had been criticising her. He reached for a drug ampoule and syringe. ‘We’ll add in some phenobarbitone.’

  Anahera turned her head to glance at the monitor as an alarm sounded. ‘His oxygen saturation is dropping.’

  Luke nodded, glancing up as he injected the drug. ‘We need to get effective control of his airway and then I can juggle meds to see if we can stop the intracranial pressure rising any further.’

  ‘Do you want me to set up for an RSI?’

  Luke nodded again. ‘Do you think we can manage that on our own? Sam and Hettie are a bit tied up with a baby that’s come in with bronchiolitis and is in quite severe respiratory distress.’

  Anahera caught Luke’s gaze again and held it for a moment. Ideally, a rapid sequence intubation procedure needed a team of three people, an assistant to the person in charge of the airway and someone to manage the drugs. A clear memory surfaced of how well she and Luke had worked together in the past. Could they still do that?

  It felt like nothing had changed.

  ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I’ll set up.’

  She worked swiftly, moving a suction unit, having checked that it worked, and then exchanging Tane’s oxygen mask for nasal prongs that would keep oxygen running while they worked on securing his airway. Then she unrolled a pack on the top of a trolley, revealing the range of endotracheal tubes, stylets, airways and the laryngoscope and blades that would be needed.

  The new medications had controlled Tane’s seizure so they had a window of time that would make intubation easier. Luke already had the extra drugs lined up.

  ‘You good to go?’

  ‘When you are.’

  ‘Got a cric kit there?’

  The need to create a surgical airway by a cricothyrotomy was an emergency backup in case the intubation attempt was unsuccessful and they had a still paralyzed patient who had no way of breathing for himself. Anahera nodded but then caught Luke’s gaze.

  ‘You won’t need it.’

  Luke maintained the eye contact long enough for Anahera to get the message that he had just as much confidence in her own skills and, despite how critical the next few minutes were going to be, she felt herself relax.

  It was still there—that professional connection that had made them such an amazing team.

  Luke’s focus was completely on the task ahead the instant he looked away. ‘Let’s pre-oxygenate.’

  The procedure went like clockwork. During the three minutes of pre-oxygenation the equipment, drug dosages and monitoring were all checked. Sedation and then the paralysing drugs were administered. Luke obtained visualisation of the vocal cords easily and the tube to secure Tane’s airway was slipped into position. Luke’s focus was still a hundred per cent on their patient at this point, as he confirmed the correct positioning of the tube by listening to Tane’s chest. Anahera’s tasks of securing the tube and attaching it to the ventilator were automatic enough for her to find her focus shifting somewhat.

  To the doctor rather than the patient.

  This wasn’t the first time they’d worked together. It wasn’t the first time they’d been alone, doing something that had the potential to go wrong with disastrous consequences for the patient either, but it felt like the first time.

  Anahera’s instincts had told her that their professional rapport was still there but she’d forgotten how it actually felt to work with someone where there was such a smooth professional connection it was like one person having an extra pair of hands. She’d never experienced it with anyone else, including all the intensive care specialists she’d worked with in that huge Brisbane hospital. Was it just Luke? Did he achieve that kind of rapport with whoever was assisting him?

  Maybe not. He looked away from the ventilator settings and caught her gaze.

  ‘I always knew you were good,’ he said quietly. ‘But you’ve even better now. That was a real pleasure.’

  The praise sparked a glow of warmth and then Anahera remembered that this was Luke praising her and something weird happened inside her chest—as if a plug had been jarred loose and a leak had sprung from what had been a tight seal. A leak that rapidly turned into a small torrent of...feelings.

  The feelings she had once had for Luke that made his praise so much more than professional approval or respect.

  Was it even possible to stop loving someone you had once felt so strongly about?

  Apparently not. Not in her case, at least...

  She had to tear her gaze away from Luke’s. Had to move. If she could walk she would feel the ground beneath her feet and it would dispel the alarming sensation that the foundations of the life she had built for herself were not in the process of crumbling. Unfortunately, it seemed that her brain and her body weren’t quite in sync and she almost stumbled. Luke’s hand caught her arm and steadied her.

  ‘Whoa... You okay, Ana?’

  The touch of his hand would have been quite enough to make things worse but it came with the sound of her name and a tone of genuine concern that made her want to cry.

  She pulled in a ragged breath but no words emerged.

  ‘You’re exhausted,’ Luke said quietly. ‘Things are under control here now. I’m going to review meds and sedation and then I’ll see if Hettie’s free to come and cover for you. You need some rest.’

  It wasn’t rest that Anahera needed as much as some space. Distance from Luke so that she could get that emotional plug securely back where it belonged. She closed her eyes and drew on a strength she hadn’t known she possessed.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I just need a bit of fresh air. I’ll stay until the day shift gets here. I...I’ll go and sit in the garden for a minute.’

  She had always loved it that the three wings of Wildfire Island’s hospital were U-shaped and surrounded a lush patch of tropical garden that had a pond and more than one space to sit comfortably and enjoy the serenity and delicious scents of the flowering plants like frangipani and jasmine. At night it took on a life of its own, with pale blooms shining like stars amongst dark green foliage and the chorus of the tiny frogs that called the pond home. The relaxing sound of the trickle of the water feeding the pond was a bonus that wasn’t heard in the daytime, thanks to the bustle of people and birdlife.

  It was deliciously cool, too. Anahera sat close to the pond and breathed in the last of the night air. The light was also b
eginning to change and a new day was about to begin. A new day in the life she had chosen for herself and her precious child. And with every breath she reminded herself that this was home and they were safe. Nothing had to change unless she wanted it to.

  The frogs falling silent warned her that she wasn’t alone any more, even before she heard the rustle of leaves as shrubs were brushed and the sound of approaching feet on the path. It had to be Luke—unless he’d told someone else to come and find her.

  She kept her eyes closed as she registered the sounds and even a change in the air as someone sat down on the bench beside her, but she knew she had been right. She had no need to open her eyes to confirm who it was. How weird was that—to recognise someone so easily without seeing them or hearing their voice? Even more astonishing was to feel as though she was more present herself because of having him in the same space. More...alive...

  ‘You okay?’

  The query was soft and that concern that had almost been her undoing was still there. Anahera knew she had to open her eyes. If she didn’t, he would touch her again to see if she was all right and she couldn’t afford to let that happen.

  But when she opened her eyes, it was to find Luke looking directly into them with an expression that told her she was the only thing in the world that mattered to him at this moment.

  The way he’d looked at Tane when his patient’s life had been his only focus.

  The way he’d looked at her once, so long ago, just before he’d kissed her for the very first time.

  Any intention to reassure him about her well-being died on her lips. Anahera could only stare back at him. At his eyes and then at his lips as the memory of that first kiss ambushed her head and then took her heart captive.

  Maybe those memories were written on her face somehow. Or maybe it was some kind of telepathy.

  Whatever it was, the hands of some invisible clock were whirring backwards, faster and faster, taking them both back in time.

  It wasn’t dawn any more. It was sunset. They weren’t sitting on a wooden bench in a well-kept tropical garden. They were standing on a beach with soft sand beneath their bare feet.

  And Luke had touched her face—just like this—his fingertips tracing the line of her cheek and jaw as if they were the most beautiful sculpture on earth. With just a single fingertip he brushed her lower lip so gently it felt like the whisper of a butterfly’s wing and that was when Anahera knew how lost she was.

  Lost in time.

  Lost in love.

  This kiss was as inevitable as the rising of the sun behind the mountains of this island but Anahera didn’t see that first real glow of its appearance because she had closed her eyes again the moment Luke’s lips touched her own and then she was aware of nothing but the pleasure of his touch.

  A feeling of coming home after the longest journey would have been more than enough to deal with, but that wasn’t enough for her body. Or her heart.

  Pleasure escalated into desire.

  She wanted more.

  She needed more.

  The force of that desire was so shocking she had to pull back and break the contact.

  Instinct was telling her to run. To get away before she lost that unexpected strength she’d been able to tap into when she’d realised her feelings for Luke hadn’t changed. But the commands her brain was issuing were being totally ignored by her body. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even take a breath.

  Anahera was trapped by Luke’s hands that were still gently cradling her head. By the way he was still looking at her. By the way his breath was released in a poignant sigh.

  ‘Oh, Ana... Nothing’s changed, has it?’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LUKE REALISED HE couldn’t have been more wrong the moment the words left his lips.

  Everything had changed.

  The way Anahera had responded to his kiss told him something she had been keeping so well hidden, maybe she hadn’t even realised it herself.

  It was still there—that astonishing connection he’d never known could even exist between two people.

  A connection that had brought them together in the first place, professionally and then personally, to explode into an emotional force that made the word love seem too small to encompass.

  Or maybe she still didn’t realise it. Or didn’t want to admit it.

  She shook her head just enough to dislodge the touch of his hands and she looked as though she wanted to turn and run but she was frozen—her huge, dark eyes filled with something that made his heart want to break.

  Fear?

  Yes...the flash of what looked like enormous relief a moment later confirmed that awful impression. Someone was calling her name.

  Rescue was at hand.

  ‘Ana? You out there? Have you seen Luke?’

  He could help her, too. Give her a few moments of peace to realise that she was, in fact, safe. That he would never do anything to hurt her.

  Not again...

  ‘I’m here, Sam.’ Standing up and moving onto the path that led to the pond made him visible. ‘I was just catching a breath of fresh air. What’s up?’

  Turning his head, he could see that Anahera was going to accept the gift of privacy, but the way she had buried her face in her hands was just as heartbreaking as the fear he had seen in her eyes.

  This was no fairy-tale reunion, then, with the glow of a happy-ever-after lighting the way forward.

  But it was something that needed resolution. If things were left like this it was clearly going to haunt them both, probably for the rest of their lives. And Luke already knew the damaging effects that could have because he’d been living with it for nearly five years.

  People used the term ‘the love of my life’ all the time but it was only in recent years that Luke had come to understand what it really meant. Yes, there were many, many people in the world that you could be compatible with. Could love, in fact, and go on to have a very happy life in their company, but, for some people, there was one who stood on a different level and if you were lucky enough to connect with them, nothing would ever be the same.

  For Luke, that person was Anahera. Every time he thought of her—and barely a day went past in his life when something, however tiny, didn’t remind him—the thought was accompanied by a sense of loss. Of losing something that he knew he would never find again because...well, because Anahera was the love of his life.

  And maybe...just maybe—despite the devastating evidence to the contrary that she’d had a child with another man—Anahera’s life had been affected as well. She wasn’t with the father of her child any more, was she?

  It took a moment to tune in to what Sam was saying.

  ‘...so I thought if you took the morning meeting and briefed the day staff, you could get some sleep. I’ll give you a pager and we can send a driver if there’s any deterioration in Tane’s condition. Or we can find a bed in the hospital for you to crash on.’

  ‘That would be better. The next twenty-four hours are going to be critical. Maybe longer. How did you go with getting the chest X-ray?’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to show you. You were right about those crackles in both lung fields. There’s bilateral pulmonary oedema.’

  Luke nodded grimly as he followed Sam down the corridor. ‘I suspect his pulmonary status is going to get worse. If it develops into ARDS, we’re looking at a week or more of intensive care before we can expect any improvement.’

  ‘Should we consider evacuating him?’

  ‘There’s no point. All that can be done is supportive measures and we can do that here. This way, he’ll at least have his family nearby.’

  ‘We? Are you saying you’ll stay that long?’

  ‘I’ll contact my department later today. As far as I know, I don’t have anything in
my diary that couldn’t be handled by my senior staff and...and I could do with a bit more time. We need to set up that research project and I haven’t collected those tea-leaves yet.’

  He had another reason to want more time and that it was personal rather than professional failed to make it any less important. That kiss had changed something huge. An unspoken rule that Luke had been living by for far too long had just been exposed as being unfounded in truth. Work wasn’t more important than anything else life had to offer and it wasn’t the only route to happiness or fulfilment. It may have been a successful strategy to bury himself in his profession to the extent that he could ignore every other aspect of his life but he couldn’t do that any longer.

  Not after that kiss.

  He knew it might be one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, but somehow he had to find a way to talk about this with Anahera. Really talk, openly and honestly. And the hardest thing about that was likely to be getting Anahera to agree to have that talk.

  In the meantime, burying anything personal by focussing totally on the welfare of someone who desperately needed his professional expertise was not only vital but a retreat into a comfort zone he really needed right now.

  * * *

  The sun was almost halfway visible above the mountains by the time Anahera removed the shelter of her hands and exposed her face to the world again.

  Good grief...how long had she been sitting there like a stunned rabbit, unable to break the spell of that kiss or to move herself from being trapped beneath the weight of that onslaught of long-buried feelings?

  Not to mention the shock of what had seemed so blindingly obvious in the silent communication of that kiss. Even if Luke hadn’t said that nothing had changed, she would have known that he still wanted her. Still loved her?

  No. She tried to shake that thought away. She had been the one who’d been head over heels in love and dreaming of a future. If what was between them had been strong enough for Luke to have intended keeping her in his life, surely he would have told her about the little complication that his wife represented?