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

Though if he really loved her, the way she now realised she loved him, wouldn’t she be the first person to discuss it with?

Even before he knew it might actually work?

Of course not, that was a petty and stupid way to think.

She’d been unfair, but the calm way he’d announced he’d sorted out the mine problem, leaving her out completely, had temporarily blocked all rational thought and she’d struck out at him.

And now, heading further and further away from him, she couldn’t tell him—couldn’t say she was sorry and agree it was an ideal answer to the problem, even if she felt that a little bit of herself had been cut off.

In her head, the mine had been as much a part of Wildfire as the house she knew was home.

But stuff had gone from it and the house had still been home.

She’d phone Keanu as soon as she was in the car on the way to the hospital and tell him she was sorry.

Tell him she loved him.

Tell him she needed him?

Was it too soon for that?

CHAPTER TWELVE (#ulink_1b0e1d11-3477-5c50-9b65-a4d5a5884376)

RETURNING TO WILDFIRE, and heading straight to the house to tell Caro he loved her—this mission becoming more urgent by the moment—Keanu was disconcerted to hear she’d gone.

Because she was upset with him?

But Bessie was still explaining and he forced himself to listen.

Christopher … Sydney … charter flight …

He thanked Bessie and headed for his villa. Thankfully, he could get the regular flight out of here the next day. He sat at his computer, booking a flight from Cairns to Sydney, and arranging a hire car to be waiting at the airport.

Praying all the while—for Christopher, for Caro and for himself a little—hoping he hadn’t left all he wanted to say until it was too late.

Mrs Phipps, the housekeeper, older now and somehow smaller, opened the front door of the Lockharts’ Sydney house and squinted uncertainly up at him.

‘Do I know you?’

‘It’s Keanu, Mrs Phipps. I used to come here sometimes during the holidays to play with Caroline and talk to Christopher.’

‘Keanu?’

Her voice was slightly disbelieving.

‘But you’re much bigger now. You’ve grown. Of course you’ve grown! But welcome. You’ve come to be with Caroline, I suppose. They’re up at the hospital—she and Dr Lockhart. Christopher’s very poorly again.’

He didn’t need to ask what hospital. There was an excellent private hospital just a few blocks away and the professional staff there all knew and loved Christopher, treating him with special care.

‘Thank you, Mrs Phipps,’ he said and turned away.

‘But don’t you want to leave your bag? You’ll stay here surely?’

He looked down at the bag he was carrying, having decided a taxi was easier than a hire car in a city he didn’t know well.

Would he stay here?

Would he be wanted?

He wished he were as certain as Mrs Phipps seemed to be.

‘Best not,’ he said, ‘but thanks.’

And with that he headed down the ramp, out onto the street and up the road to where the hospital was built to look out over a part of Sydney’s magnificent harbour.

With the money the twins’ maternal grandparents had left in trust for Christopher, he would always have twenty-four-hour care, private hospitals and the best of doctors and specialists. So this hospital was a special place, and he would be getting the best possible treatment here.

But Keanu’s heart quaked at the thought of Caro losing her brother. They might not have been physically close but there’d always been a special bond between them. Even as a child, if she woke with a nightmare in the night his mother would be sure to get a call the next morning to say Christopher wasn’t well.

Poor Caro.

Would she let him comfort her? Take whatever support he could offer her?

Or had he hurt her too badly for that?

Once at the hospital, he asked a friendly receptionist if he could leave his bag behind her counter, then enquired about Christopher’s whereabouts.

‘He’s in Room 22 on the second floor, but I think it might be family only. Dr Lockhart and his sister are in with him right now. He’s very frail.’

The woman blinked back tears, and Keanu realised just how special Christopher was to all those who’d come in contact with him.

He tapped gently on the closed door of Room 22 then eased it open. Max was asleep in a big chair by the bed, while Caroline was sitting close to the bed, Christopher’s hand clasped in hers, her head bent over it, possibly dozing as well.

He opened the door wider, and a slight squeak made her turn.

‘Keanu?’

She mouthed his name, set Christopher’s hand down on the bed and got up stiffly from the chair, easing out the door and closing it behind her.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, but fairly weakly as her exhaustion clearly showed in the shadows under her eyes and the taut lines drawn in her skin.

‘I hadn’t said I loved you, really loved you—the now you not the past or anything else, just you,’ he replied, and realised how lame it sounded when he saw the puzzled look on her face.

‘I just wanted you to know. I know I don’t deserve your love after the way I treated you, but somehow it seemed important to tell you anyway. We talked all around it at times, but on my way to Atangi it came to me that I’d never said the words. Not properly …

‘There, I have more I need to talk to you about, much more, but that’s the crux of it,’ he added a little later, when the only reaction from the woman he loved had been a bewildered stare.

‘Now, how bad is Christopher? You look exhausted and I’ve never seen your father look so grey. Why don’t you take him home for a proper sleep and I’ll sit with Christopher? I’ll call you the moment there’s any change and don’t bother about that stuff I said, just go home and rest for a while.’