The Man She Could Never Forget

He gestured towards the man slumped in the back of the little dark blue vehicle. He had no visible injury—until she looked down and saw his foot.

Clad only in a rubber flip-flop, the foot had a nail punched right through beneath the small toe, and apparently into a piece of wood below his inadequate footwear.

Caroline slid in beside the man and put a hand on his chest. He was breathing, and his pulse—Yes, a bit fast but obviously it had been a very painful wound.

‘I think we should get him up to the hospital as quickly as possible,’ she said, as a figure appeared on the track they would take.

A figure she knew, although the intervening years had stretched him from an adolescent to a man—and for all her heart was bumping erratically in her chest, she certainly didn’t know the man.

Caroline slid out of the cart and took the spare seat in front while Keanu, without more than a startled glance and a puzzled frown in her direction, took over in the back, fitting an oxygen mask to the man’s face and adjusting the flow on the small tank he’d carried with him.

‘Give me a minute to get some painkiller into him.’

Prosaic words but the deep, rich voice reverberated through Caroline’s body—a man’s voice, not a boy’s …

This was Keanu?

Keanu was here?

She didn’t know whether to hug him or hit him, but with witnesses around she could do neither. What she really wanted was to turn around and have another look at him, but the image of that first glimpse was burned into her brain.

Keanu the man.

Now grown into his burnished, almond-coloured skin, his grey eyes—his mother’s eyes—strikingly pale beneath dark brows and hair.

Straight nose, tempting mouth, sculpted shoulders, abs visible beneath a tightly fitting polo shirt.

He was stunning.

More than that, he projected a kind of sexuality that would have every female within a hundred yards going weak at the knees just looking at him.

‘Come back for a break from Sydney society?’

The cold wash of words obviously directed at her fixed the trembling knee thing, while the sarcasm behind them replaced it with anger.

She turned, chin tilted, refusing to reveal the hurt his words had caused.

‘I’m a nurse, and I’ve come back to work, but I am surprised to see you here after the way you cut your connection to the islands so many years ago.’

Fortunately, as Caroline had just realised their driver was listening to this icy conversation with interest, they pulled up at the front of the hospital.

The patient was awake, obviously benefiting from the oxygen and the painkilling injection.

Keanu asked the driver to lend a hand, and the two of them eased the man out of the vehicle.

‘Sling your arms around our shoulders and we’ll help you in,’ Keanu said, and Caroline guessed he was concentrating on the patient so he wouldn’t have to look at her.

Or even acknowledge her presence?

What had happened?

What had she done?

Steely determination to not be hurt by him—or any man—ever again made her shut the door firmly on the past. Whatever had happened had been a long time ago, and she was a different person, had moved on, and was moving on again …

But walking behind Keanu, she couldn’t not be aware of his presence. This man who’d been a boy she’d known so well was really something. Broad shoulders sloping down to narrow hips, but a firm butt and calf muscles that suggested not a workout in gym but a lot of outdoors exercise—he’d always loved running, said he felt free …

She was looking at his butt?

Best she get away, and fast.

But once they had the man on the deck in front of the hospital, Keanu turned back towards her.

‘Well, if you’re a nurse, don’t just stand there. Come in and be useful. Hettie and Sam are on a clinic run to the outer islands and there’s only an aide and myself on duty.’

He stood above her—loomed really—the disdain in his voice visible on his features.

And something broke inside her.

Was this really Keanu, her childhood friend and companion? Keanu, who had been gentle and kind, and had always taken care of her when she’d felt lost and alone?

Back then, his mother’s mantra to him had always been ‘Take care of Caroline’, and Keanu, two years older, always had.

Which was probably why his disappearance from her life had hurt so deeply that for a while she’d doubted she’d get over it.

Head bent to hide whatever hurt might be showing on her face, she took the steps in one stride and followed the three men into the small but well-set-up room that she knew from the hospital plans doubled as Emergency and Outpatients.

Having helped lift the patient onto an examination table, the driver muttered something about getting back to work, and hurried through the door.

Which left her and Keanu …

Keanu, who was managing to ignore her completely while her body churned with conflicting emotions.

‘Nail gun?’ Keanu asked the patient as he examined the foot.

The patient nodded.

‘Never heard of steel-capped workboots?’ Keanu continued. ‘I thought they were the only legal footwear on a building job.’

‘Out here?’ the man scoffed. ‘Who’s going to check?’

‘Just hold his leg up for me, grasp the calf.’

An order to the nurse, no doubt, but even as he gave it Keanu didn’t glance her way.

‘No “please”?’ Caroline said sweetly as she lifted the man’s lower leg so Keanu could see just how far through the wood the nail protruded.

She must have struck a nerve with her words, for Keanu looked up at her, his face unreadable, although she caught the confusion in his eyes.