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

He slung the backpack over his shoulder and reached out to take her arm.

‘Let’s go,’ he said. She moved away from his outstretched hand, but undeterred he added, ‘It will be like old times!’

Except all his senses were on full alert, his body buzzing just being near her, so who the hell knew what would happen if she actually swam!

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_7478b0a3-e24c-5b89-b7ce-eda0f7c50fdf)

THEY WALKED SWIFTLY to the clifftop, muscle memory in their feet remembering the path possibly better than their brains did. Above them, in the thick rainforest, birds were settling down for the night, rustling among the leaves. Then down the rocky track with its views out over the reef to the ocean beyond. The path they took was now overgrown in places as if it had been rarely used since two adventurous children had left the island.

‘How long have you been here?’

Caroline, following him with one hand on his backpack, asked the question.

‘Three weeks.’

The answer came easily. Three weeks of shock as he’d tried to accept the island as it was now and work out what had happened.

‘Have you seen the Blakes?’

Keanu shook his head.

‘They were long gone when I got here. The old man, your grandfather, appointed Peter not long before he died and your father was happy to leave him in charge of the mine when you were born and he had to take Christopher to the mainland for constant medical supervision.’

‘Dad liked the fact that Peter was an engineer as well as having practical knowledge as a miner, and he was as honest as they come.’

‘Probably too honest for Ian,’ Keanu said. ‘He decided he could do the job better and sacked Peter. Then, with Peter gone, Ian announced he’d take over the running of the mine as well as everything else on the island.’

‘No wonder it’s run-down,’ Caro said tartly. ‘Ian couldn’t manage his way out of an open door.’

‘Harsh!’ Keanu said, turning to take Caro’s hand and help her over a particularly tricky bit of the path.

‘Well, you know he couldn’t. The only things he was ever interested in were money and women and gambling, although I imagine the order changed according to the situation.’

And even in the dim light of early evening reflected off the sea she saw the pain on Keanu’s face, the stricken look in his eyes. She remembered something strange that Bessie had said about it being better if Kari kept her distance from Ian, and started to connect the dots …

‘Oh, Keanu, not your mother?’ She reached for his shoulders and pulled him close, wrapping her arms awkwardly around his body. ‘Is that why you left? Why didn’t she tell my father? Or the elders? Or the police? Do something to get him stopped?’

Keanu eased out of her grasp and looked down at her, his face now wiped as blank as she’d ever seen it.

‘He didn’t assault her, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘What he did was worse.’

Bitterness as harsh and hurtful as Caroline had ever heard leached from every word so each one was a separate prick of pain—into her skin, through her flesh and into her heart.

But worse than rape?

What could she say?

Much as she longed to know more, she knew by the cold finality in Keanu’s voice that the conversation was finished.

He had turned and was moving on and although she longed to ask him if that’s why he’d never contacted her, she knew she wouldn’t—couldn’t. In fact, she knew the answer.

Somehow or other, a Lockhart had hurt his mother—an unforgiveable sin.

They stumbled their way down to the beach then, staying in the shadows of the fringing coconut palms, made their way to the rockfall.

The tide was in, the small ripples of water inside the reef splashing up against the rocks.

‘So we swim,’ she said brightly, wishing they could get back to the not easy, but easier atmosphere they’d shared as they’d started down the cliff. ‘But I doubt Dad’s camera’s waterproof so what if I go around first then climb up on the lower rocks on the other side and you pass it to me, then you swim around?’

‘Haven’t changed much, have you? Bossy as ever!’ Keanu muttered, and Caroline hid a smile—the old Keanu was back with her again, if only temporarily.

It was far worse than he’d expected, Keanu realised as Caro, the thin wet shift clinging to every curve of her body, appeared on the other side of the rockfall, reaching up and out for the rucksack.

He’d taken off his shirt but his shorts would be wet as he clambered ashore, so his reaction would be obvious, though it was darker now and maybe she wouldn’t notice …

Well, he could hardly leave her alone on the other side of the rockfall—not with his mother’s order, the ‘take care of Caroline’ one, still echoing in his ears.

He swam, emerging from the lagoon and flapping at his shorts to conceal the evidence of his reaction.

‘We’d better move into the shadows of the palm trees,’ he said, deciding it was time to take charge. ‘And walk quietly. You don’t know who might be around.’

‘What, like fierce Alsatian guard dogs that will rip us to pieces without a second thought?’ Caroline muttered. ‘I wonder if I can still shin up a coconut palm.’

Keanu smiled at the image, although he was thinking more of the darkness the shadows would provide. At least in the shadows beneath the palms he wouldn’t be able to see the way her full breasts were outlined by the wet shift, or the way it was indented into her navel, and raised slightly over the mound of her sex.

He had to stop thinking about wet shifts and sex and concentrate or they’d be caught for sure.

As they approached the first of the bures that had once housed visiting scientists they heard voices, but not close.

‘That sounds like people over beyond the kitchen where the little staff bar used to be,’ he murmured to Caroline.

The helicopter pilots, back when there had been three or four and so they’d had more time off than other staff, had always frequented it, not by creeping down the cliff and swimming around the rockfall but by walking down the track from the airfield—the track now fenced off, guarded and gated.

A lone light shone in the first of the bures, but even from outside Keanu could see the place had had a lot of money spent on it. Stone walls where mud had been, a marble deck with a deep spa bath shaded by thick vegetation.

‘This isn’t accommodation for visiting scientists,’ Caro whispered to him. ‘It’s luxury accommodation for the very wealthy who want absolute privacy and can afford it. See how each bure has been separated from the next by a thick planting of shrubs, most of them scented, like that huge ginger plant over there.’

‘But what of the laboratories and the communal kitchens and dining rooms?’ he argued. ‘Surely people paying the kind of money they’d pay to stay here aren’t all going to eat together?

‘Let’s see.’

Keanu took her hand, ignoring the shock of excitement such an impersonal touch had caused. He led the way towards the kitchen area, although always off the path that, even in the dark, looked freshly raked and would show their footprints.

What had been the kitchen and adjoining open eating area seemed shrouded in scaffolding, until they crept closer and realised the old longhouse had been included in the renovations. It was now a longer, wider building, still open at the sides to catch the breezes, exactly like the meeting halls on the other islands, where feasts were held and elders met to make rules or administer judgment. Only better—fancier …

The kitchens must be behind it, but so was the bar because the noise was louder now.

‘We can’t go farther,’ Keanu said firmly. ‘We’d be caught for sure. We’ll have to rely on Sam to report on the laboratories when he’s able to go back to work in them. And there’s no way we can take photographs, the flash would alert someone for sure.’