She loved him.
There wasn’t a lot she could do about it. Flying out of the door wailing,
So… Go back to sleep until it’s time for the royal day to begin.
Start making Amy’s Christmas Cake.
Wait for her prince to come home.
It was a direct flight from Athens to New York. The details of his surgical list had been faxed through to him so he had a mass of reading to do on the way. He leafed through the first case and then the second-and then found himself staring sightlessly ahead. Superimposed on the printed pages was the vision of Elsa’s tousled curls, her bare feet, as she’d opened the door to say goodbye.
More than anything else he’d wanted to sweep her into his arms, take her back to her bed and stay with her for ever and ever and ever.
She’d knocked back his proposal of marriage. He was trying to understand her reasons.
He’d spoken too early. One night in Athens hadn’t been enough. Her hip had been hurting. He needed to have her healed and then take her away properly-a weekend in Paris, maybe. Or a month in Paris.
Or New York? There was his dream. Manhattan and Elsa. Or…more, he thought. Manhattan and Elsa and Zoe and Buster. His family-something he’d never thought he wanted, but now he had such a hunger for that he couldn’t see past it.
But…He had to stay in Khryseis.
And that was the problem, he thought. Elsa knew better than he did that marriage to her would make things better for him. But she’d knocked back his proposal. He had to make things better himself.
‘Excuse me, but are you Prince Stefanos of Khryseis?’
The man in the next seat had been glancing at him covertly since take-off. Small, a bit unkempt, wearing half- rimmed glasses and the air of a scholar, he’d been reading notes that looked even more dense than those Stefanos had been studying.
‘I am,’ Stefanos said warily, because admitting to being royalty was usually asking for trouble.
‘So you’re the one who seduced our Dr Elsa from her studies.’
‘Pardon?’ What the hell…? This man looked angry.
‘She’s brilliant,’ the man said, ignoring Stefanos’s incredulity. ‘She has one of the most brilliant scientific minds in Australia. In the world. She and that husband of hers…the research they did on the preservation of the Great Barrier Reef was groundbreaking. If she’d kept it up it could have made her a professor in any of the most prestigious universities in the world. And then she just hands it over. Hands it over!’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Stefanos said.
‘Her work,’ the man said impatiently, and then suddenly seemed to remember his manners. ‘David Hemming,’ he said. ‘Professor of Marine Studies at…Well, never mind, it doesn’t matter. All I know is that I’ve never seen such a generous act. She had all the research done. All the hard work. She was just starting to see the academic rewards and suddenly a letter arrives out of the blue saying she can no longer go on with her studies but she doesn’t want her research wasted so here it is, take it and publish as you see fit, just take it forward. Well, I tell you there’s at least eight international experts now who are international experts only because of Dr Langham’s generosity.’
‘Dr Langham?’
‘We could never find her,’ he said morosely. ‘Only then we started hearing about starfish research-really interesting stuff-and dammit, there she was, only she was calling herself Elsa Murdoch. But, just as we were finding out what she was doing, dammit if she didn’t do exactly the same again. Package it all up and pass it on. No honours for her. Just good, solid research that’ll mean species will survive that were otherwise facing extinction. And now…’
He’d been building up indignation, incense personified, and Stefanos got poked in the chest with a pencil. ‘And now she’s off again. But at least it’s turtles this time. Kemp’s Ridley, by what I hear, and you couldn’t get a better woman working on them. You know what? She sees the big picture. Already she’s contacting international institutions, trying to broaden our understanding. If she’s found this breeding site there must be more. She’ll use that to make them safe.’
‘How…?’
‘Pure energy,’ he said, stabbing Stefanos again. ‘Only don’t you let her give her work away this time. If she settles-if she’s allowed to settle-then I’m guaranteeing those blessed turtles will be safe for a thousand years, such is the commitment she generates. So you might have seduced her to your island but you make sure she stays. Or I and half the marine academics in the world will want to know why not.’
And, with a final poke in the chest, he retired back to his notes.
Leaving Stefanos winded.
Stunned.
The vision of Elsa as he’d last seen her was still with him-beautiful, almost ethereal, a freckled imp with her glorious sun-blonded curls. With her face creasing from laughter to gravity, from teasing to earnestness, from joy to…love?
To loss.
If he’d met her when she was twenty, when life was simple, when she was free to fall in love, then maybe he’d have stood a chance. He knew that. For he’d looked into her eyes and what he saw there was a reflection of what he believed himself. That she was falling in love with him as deeply as he was falling in love with her.
Only life had got complicated. He’d thought it was complicated for him. How much more complicated was it for her?
She’d buried a husband. She’d said goodbye to two careers. She’d taken on a child so injured that she’d needed almost a hundred per cent commitment, and that at a time when Elsa was injured herself.
And along came Prince Stefanos, grudgingly changing direction this once. Hating the idea that he’d be handing over his work, his teaching, his skills, watching others take his work forward while he ceased to be able to contribute.
She knew his commitment was grudging. She had so much generosity of spirit herself that she must know it.
He’d enjoy family medicine, he thought, and doing everything else he could to help Khryseis, as a doctor and as the island’s Prince Regent. He must. He’d immerse himself into it all, convince Elsa that he was content.
Only she knew him. He couldn’t lie to her. And it wasn’t entirely the work he wanted to do.
Khryseis wasn’t big enough for the medical work he wanted to do.
But…
For some reason, the academic’s words stuck. Hit a chord.
Khryseis was one of three islands. Put together…
He needed to concentrate on these cases. He’d be operating hours after landing. He needed to read his notes.
But there were things happening in his head apart from his most pressing concerns. Major things.
The image came to him of the night he’d held the three tiny turtle hatchlings in his hand.
Could he somehow change direction but get to the same place by another route?
There wasn’t time to think this through now. Those kids were lined up waiting for him. But he had six weeks to think.
How much did he want Elsa?
And Zoe. And Khryseis. And turtles and cats and Amy’s Christmas Cake which, for some weird reason, was becoming a really big thing to look forward to.
How much did he want them all?
He lifted his third set of case notes and tried to read.
