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 half expected Caro to argue—she’d always been the one more willing to take risks—but to his surprise she turned back into the bushes.

‘Come on, we’ll go back the way we came before someone finds us.’

Caroline smiled to herself, realising Keanu was now as intent on this expedition as she had been.

But holding Keanu’s hand was distracting, and he was pulling her along, far too close to his body, which was beyond distracting. She began to tremble and suspected it wasn’t nerves or cold, although he stopped in a particular dense patch of shadow and pulled her into his arms.

‘You’re cold,’ he whispered, folding her against his body, the action making her tremble even more. His bare skin was warm against hers, his body hard where hers was soft. And her reaction to it was so startling she probably would have done something stupid like kiss him if he hadn’t been rubbing his hands up and down her arms, obviously trying to warm her, although the trembles had nothing to do with the cool night air.

A boulder—it confirmed her suspicions. No matter what weird reactions she was having to this reunion—to his closeness, his body—he was feeling nothing for the woman trembling in his arms.

A rustle in the bushes broke them apart, and although it was only an inquisitive lyrebird, it was enough to remind them of where they were and the inherent danger of being caught there.

But red flags of warning of another kind waved in Caroline’s head as they crept back to the beach. Her reaction to Keanu holding her had to be a rebound thing. Devastated by Steve’s rejection and reunited with her childhood friend, she’d really only wanted comfort.

Right.

So why was her body throbbing with what felt very like desire, not to mention an even deeper regret that the kiss hadn’t happened?

Ridiculous! A relationship between them just couldn’t happen. Not only had her uncle Ian done all he could to blacken the Lockhart name among the islands’ population but he’d—what?—assaulted Keanu’s mother?

Although he’d said worse than assault …

Little wonder Keanu had broken off all contact with her—and probably distrusted anyone who bore the Lockhart name.

At which stage she fell over, making enough noise as she landed in a baby palm tree to awaken the ghosts of the dead.

‘What is wrong with you?’ Keanu growled, hauling her to her feet. ‘You’re blundering along as if you’ve got your eyes shut.’

She could hardly tell him the line her thoughts had been following so she got back onto the edge of the path and resumed walking quietly along it.

‘Tomorrow night we could walk along the fence,’ Keanu said, breaking a silence that had stretched a little tautly between them.

‘I might be on duty. I haven’t met Hettie yet, let alone get a roster from her.’

‘Come to think of it, you probably will be on duty,’ Keanu told her. ‘Anahera does extra day shifts so she can be at home with Hana in the evenings. Besides which we probably wouldn’t see much—the plantings are too thick.’

‘On duty all night?’ Caroline ignored his fence conversation because she was interested in the set-up at the short-staffed hospital, although she’d get back to him ordering her around some other time. They’d been a pair, a partnership, in all the right and wrong things they’d done, and now here he was, giving orders …

‘No, three to midnight. We have a couple of local nurses’ aides who share the night shifts between them.’

‘And who supports them?’

Keanu sighed.

‘It’s a small hospital, Caro, and either Sam or whatever doctor is here is always on call. Hettie, too, for that matter. The staff quarters are just at the back of the hospital and it takes exactly two minutes to get from one of our apartments to the wards.’

‘You’ve timed it?’

They’d reached the beach and paused beneath the palm trees, talking quietly while they checked that no one else was taking a midnight stroll.

‘I’ve done it,’ Keanu told her. ‘More than once. The aides are good, but they know what they can handle and what they can’t. The system could be a lot better but it works.’

It didn’t seem right to Caroline that Hettie was the nurse always on call, but until she knew more about the hospital, there was nothing she could do.

She was concentrating on hospital staffing issues because Keanu’s use of her childhood name—his casual use of ‘Caro’—had started up the disturbances the warming hug had caused.

‘It seems quiet, let’s go,’ she said, and led the way across the sand to the shadow of the rockfall.

To Keanu’s relief the tide had gone out far enough for them to wade around the rocks. Given the effect that holding her had had on his body, he didn’t think he could handle seeing the wet shift again.

He had no idea why Caro had returned to the island, certain her coming to help because she’d heard it was in trouble wasn’t the whole story.

What had happened to that sleazy-looking guy called Steve who was always with her in the society pictures?

Had he dumped her?

Keanu shook his head, angry with himself for even thinking about Caroline’s private life, but angrier for feeling sorry for her. It was bad enough he’d become involved in tonight’s escapade, but to have held Caro in his arms, felt her body pressed to his …

He must have been moonstruck!

They were scaling the rocky cliff path now and he paused to look around for a moon but failed to find one.

‘Are you grunting?’ Caro asked. ‘I know it’s steep but I thought you’d be fitter than that.’

‘I was not grunting,’ he told her, voice as cold as he could make it.

‘Wild pigs, then,’ Carol said cheerfully, although he knew she didn’t for a minute believe it.

Though would she have believed he’d been grunting at his own stupid thoughts?

‘Bright lights ahead,’ the woman he shouldn’t have held in his arms said cheerfully, and he locked away the past and moved himself swiftly into the present.

Bright lights indeed.

‘The helicopter must have brought in a patient from an outer island,’ he said, lengthening his stride so he passed Caro as he hurried towards the scene of the action.

Hettie had one end of the stretcher they were unloading, Jack, the pilot, holding the other end. He could see Manu, their one remaining hospital orderly, running towards the airstrip, Sam not far behind him.

‘Tropical ulcer gone bad,’ Hettie said as Manu took over her end of the stretcher and Sam and Keanu arrived. ‘I’m actually dubious about it. I think it might be worse than that.’

‘A Buruli ulcer?’ Sam queried, and Hettie shrugged.

‘We’ll need to test it.’

She spoke quietly but Keanu knew they were all feeling tension from the words she’d spoken. Tropical ulcers were common enough and in many cases very difficult to treat, but the Buruli was a whole other species, and could lead to bone involvement and permanent disability.

‘Is it common here?’