The Man She Could Never Forget

He touched the tribal tattoo that encircled the muscle of his upper arm, the symbol of M’Langi—of his belonging.

‘Come home, we need you.’

That had been the extent of the elders’ message, and as the islanders—with help from Max Lockhart—had paid for his high school and university education, he’d known he owed it to them to come.

He’d tried to contact Max before he’d left Australia but had been unable to get on to him. Apparently, Max’s son, Christopher, had had a serious lung infection and Max had been with him in the ICU.

Trying the hospital here instead, Vailea, the hospital’s housekeeper, had answered the phone and told him the islands—and the hospital in particular—were in big trouble.

‘That Ian Lockhart, he’s no good to anyone,’ Vailea had told him. ‘Max has been paying for the hospital out of his own money, because the mine is run-down and any money it does make, that rotten Ian takes.’

There was a silence as Keanu digested this, then Vailea added, ‘We need you here, Keanu.’

‘Why didn’t you call me? Tell me this? Why leave it to the elders?’

There was another long pause before Vailea said, ‘You’ve been gone too long, Keanu. I did not know how to tell you. I thought with me asking, you might not come, but with the elders—’

She broke the connection but not before he’d heard the tears in her voice, and he sat, staring at the phone in his hand, guilt flooding his entire being.

M’Langi was his home, the islanders his people, and he had stayed away because of his anger, and his mother’s inner torment—caused by a Lockhart …

But if he was truly honest, he’d stayed away because he didn’t want to face the memories of his happy childhood, or his betrayal of his childhood friend.

But home he was, and so aghast at the situation that memories had had no time to plague him. Although sometimes when he walked through the small hospital late at night he remembered a little boy and even smaller girl holding hands on about the same spot, talking about the future when he would be a doctor and she would be a nurse and they would come back to the island and work in the hospital her father had, even then, been planning to build.

Okay, so the ghost of Caroline did bother him—had bothered him even as he’d married someone else—but there was enough work to do to block her out most of the time.

Or had been until she’d arrived in person. Not only arrived but apparently intended to work here.

Not that she wasn’t needed …

The nurse they had been expecting to come in on the next day’s flight had phoned to say her mother was ill and she didn’t know when she might make it. Then Maddie Haddon, one of their Fly-In-Fly-Out, or FIFO doctors, had phoned to say she wouldn’t be on the flight either—some mix-up with her antenatal appointments.

Sam Taylor, the only permanent doctor, was doing a clinic flight to the other islands, with Hettie, their head nurse—another permanent. They didn’t know of the latest developments but as Keanu himself had come as a FIFO and intended staying permanently whether he was paid or not, he could cover for Maddie.

And, presumably, Caroline could cover for the nurse.

Caroline.

Caro.

He had known how hurt she would have been when he’d cut her out of his life, but his anger had been stronger than his concern—his anger and his determination to do nothing more to hurt his already shattered mother.

Caroline discovered why Harold hadn’t met the plane. He was in the front garden of the house, arguing volubly with his wife, Bessie. It had been Caroline’s great-grandfather, autocratic old sod that he must have been, who’d insisted that all the employees working in the house and grounds take on English names.

‘You come inside and help me clean,’ Bessie was saying.

‘No, I have to do the yard. Ian will raise hell if the yard’s not done, not that I believe he’s coming back.’

Watching them, Caroline felt a stirring of alarm that they had grown old, although age didn’t seem to be affecting their legendary squabbles.

‘Nor do I but someone is coming. Some other visitor. We saw the plane on a day when planes don’t usually come, and anyway it was too small to be one of our planes.’

‘Might be for the research station. Plenty of people coming and going there,’ Harold offered, but Bessie was going to have the last word.

‘In that case you don’t need to do the yard.’

Caroline decided she couldn’t stand behind an allemande vine, wild with shiny green leaves and brilliant yellow trumpet flowers, eavesdropping any longer.

‘Bessie, Harold, it’s me, Caroline!’

She passed the bush and came into view, expecting to be welcomed like a prodigal son—or daughter in her case—but to her utter bewilderment both of them burst into tears.

Eventually they recovered enough from their shock to rush towards her, arms held out.

‘Oh, Caroline, you have come back. Now we have you and Keanu back where you belong, everything will be good again.’

Wrapped in a double, teary hug, Caroline couldn’t answer.

Not that she would have been able to. Although she knew he was here—knew only too well—hearing Keanu’s name knocked the breath out of her. But it had been the last part—about everything being good again—that had been the bigger shock.

But it also gave her resolve. If the trouble was so bad the islanders thought she, whom they’d always considered a helpless princess, could help, things must be bad.

She eased out of their arms and straightened up. Of course she had to help. She didn’t know how, but she certainly would do everything in her power to save the islanders’ livelihood and keep much-needed medical care available to them.

Enough of the doormat.

M’Langi was her home.

‘But why are you working in the house, Bessie? What happened to the young woman Dad appointed after Helen left?’

With Keanu, a voice whispered, but she had no time for whispering voices right now.

‘That was Kari but from the time that Ian got here we thought it would be better if she kept her distance,’ Bessie explained. ‘Ian is a bad, bad man for all he’s your family. In the end I said I’d do the housework. I mind Anahera’s little girl too, but she’s no trouble, she plays with all your toys and loves your dolls, dressing and undressing them.’

Caroline smiled, remembering her own delight in the dolls until Keanu had told her it was girl stuff and she had to learn to learn to make bows and arrows and to catch fish in her hands.

‘Anahera?’ she asked, as the name was vaguely familiar.

‘Vailea, her mother, worked as the cook at the research station while we were caretakers there. But there’s all kinds of funny stuff going on there too, so now she’s housekeeper at the hospital and Anahera—she’s a bit older than you and went to school on the mainland; her grandmother lived there—well, she’s a nurse here so I mind her little one.’

It was hard to absorb so much information at once, so Caroline allowed herself to be led up to the house, where a very small child with dark eyes, olive skin and a tangle of golden curls was lining up dolls in a row on the cane lounge that had sat on the veranda for as long as Caroline could remember.

The cane lounge, potted palms everywhere, a few cane chairs around a table, once again with a smaller pot in the middle of it, and the swing she and Keanu had rocked in so often—this was coming home …

‘This is Hana,’ Bessie said, leading the little girl forward. ‘Hana, this is Miss Caroline. She lives here.’

Caroline knelt by the beautiful child, straightening one of the dolls.