Wildfire Island Docs: The Man She Could Never Forget / The Nurse Who Stole His Heart / Saving Maddie's Baby / A Sheikh to Capture Her Heart / The Fling That Changed Everything / A Child to Open Their Hearts. Marion Lennox
She’d told Keanu things she’d never told anyone, before or since, then suddenly, he’d been gone.
Nothing.
Until now, and although the confusion of seeing him again had at first been confined to her head, since he’d held her—if only to warm her—it was in her heart as well.
Damn the man.
‘I don’t need you to walk me home,’ she said when they’d left the staffroom. ‘I do know the way.’
‘And I know there are a lot of unhappy Lockhart employees—or ex-employees—on the island at the moment, and while I don’t think for a minute they’d take out their frustration on you, I’d rather be sure than sorry.’
So he was walking her home to protect her. Looking after Caroline as his mother had always told him to when they’d been children.
She felt stupidly disappointed at this realisation then told herself she was just being ridiculous.
As if that kind of a hug meant anything. And anyway she didn’t want Keanu hugging her.
That just added to her torment.
‘What employees and ex-employees are upset?’ she asked to take her mind off things she couldn’t handle right now.
‘Just about all of them,’ Keanu replied. ‘But mostly the miners, and although some of them are from other islands, a lot of them live in the village. They’ve had their hours cut and the ones who’ve been sacked haven’t been paid back wages, let alone their superannuation.’
‘But if Ian’s gone, who’s here to pay them or to cut hours? Who’s running the mine?’
‘Who knows? Ian’s disappearance, as you may have gathered, is fairly recent. He was here last week, then suddenly he was either holed up in the house or gone.’
‘Gone how?’ Caroline asked as they reached the front steps of the house, where Bessie had left a welcoming light burning.
‘Presumably on his yacht. It was a tidy size. One day it was in the mine harbour and the next it was gone.’
‘But the mine’s still operating?’
Keanu nodded.
‘Then we should go down and check it out.’
‘Go down to the mine?’ Keanu demanded.
Caroline grinned at him.
‘Not right now, you goose, but tomorrow or whenever we can get some time off together. That’s if you want to come with me.’
‘Well, I damn well wouldn’t let you go alone, although why you want to go—’
‘Because I need to know—we need to know. Without the mine there’s no way we can keep the hospital going, not to mention the fact that the entire population, not just those here on Wildfire, will lose their medical facilities as well as their incomes.’
She was so excited her eyes gleamed in the moonlight, and it was all Keanu could to not take her in his arms again, only this time for a different reason.
But if holding her once had been a mistake, twice would be fatal.
And he was still married—or probably still married, even if he hadn’t seen his wife for five years.
Did that matter?
Of course it did.
He could hardly start something that she might think would lead to marriage if he couldn’t marry her.
So forget a hug.
‘We can’t run the mine,’ he said, far too bluntly because now a different confusion was nagging at him.
She shook her head in irritation.
‘Then we’ll just have to think of something.’
He had to agree, if only silently. The continued survival of the hospital—in fact, of all the health care in the islands—depended on support from the mine.
‘I imagine once we know what’s happening we can find someone who can,’ he said, reluctantly drawn in and now thinking aloud. ‘Some of the local men have worked there since it opened, or if they’re not still there we could find them. We want men who trained under Peter Blake or maybe beg Peter to come back.’
‘And pay him how?’ Caroline demanded.
Keanu held up his hands in surrender.
‘Hey, you’re the one who wanted to think of something. I’m just throwing out ideas here. You can take them or leave them.’
He saw the shadow cross her face and knew he’d somehow said the wrong thing.
‘Is that how you felt about me back then? That you could take me or leave me? Yes, Ian obviously hurt your mother, but what did I do to you to make you cut me out of your life?’
She was angry—beautiful with anger—but he stood his ground, then he leaned forward and touched her very gently on the cheek.
‘You were never right out of my life, Caro,’ he said quietly, his hand sliding down to rest on her shoulder. Momentarily. He turned and walked swiftly back down the track, not wanting her to see the pain her words had caused written clearly on his face.
But she was right. He had come back to see what he could do to save the hospital, and saving the mine should have been the obvious starting place.
But joining forces in this crusade would mean seeing more of her, working with her outside hospital hours, feeling her body beside his, aware all the time of the effect she had on him, aware of her in a way he’d never been before, or imagined he ever would.
Physically aware of the one woman in the world who was beyond his grasp—the woman whose trust he’d betrayed when she’d been nothing more than a girl …
Caroline watched him stride down the path, long legs moving smoothly and deliberately over the rough track, stance upright, broad shoulders square …
Was it just the length of time since they’d seen each other that was making things so awkward between them, or was Keanu still brooding over whatever had happened to make him stop writing to her? Even stop reading her letters …
‘Bother the man,’ she muttered to herself, climbing the steps and wandering through the house towards her bedroom.
Her bedroom. Still decorated with the posters of the idols of her teenage self.
Of course, with Ian gone, she could have the pick of any of the six bedrooms in the house, but her room felt like home, even if home was an empty and lonely place without Keanu in it. Helen and Keanu. Their rooms had been in the western annexe, but the whole house had been her and Keanu’s playground—the whole island, in fact.
Stupid tears pricked behind her eyelids as memories of their youth together—their friendship and closeness—threatened to overwhelm her.
Pulling herself together, she ripped the posters off the walls. One day soon—when she’d done the things she really needed to do, like visit the mine, she’d find some paint and redo the room, maybe redecorate the whole house, removing all traces of the past.
Except in your head, a traitorous voice reminded her.
But she’d had enough of traitorous voices—hadn’t one lived with her through most of her relationship with Steve?
She’d learned to ignore it and could do so again.
Although, with Steve, maybe she’d have been better off listening to it. Listening to the whisper that had questioned his protestations of love, listened to the niggling murmur that had questioned broken dates with facile excuses, listened to her friends …
Had she been so desperate for love, for someone