how bereft she looked, and how he wanted to…
He couldn’t want. She had a life here and a son and a fiance and he was here with a job to do.
He should be working. He should go back to the hospital and organise paperwork for the evacuations. He could help treat the minor wounds of islanders still cautiously presenting.
His team were doing that. He wouldn’t be needed again unless there was a blast-out in the hostage situation.
A blast-out. Benjy. His son.
Think of something else, he thought fiercely. They were nearing the headland where the compound lay and the strain on Lily’s face was well nigh unbearable. She was staring ahead as if she was willing herself to see through walls. He had to distract her.
‘Lily, there’s a couple of things bothering me.’
‘I don’t have time to-’
‘Not about us,’ he said gently. ‘About this situation. Can you help?’
She took a deep breath and steadied. ‘Of course.’
‘You told me seven years ago that this island was like a huge family. Everyone knew everyone and no one locked their doors. Is that right?’
‘Yes, but-’
‘But what?’ he asked. ‘The insurgents were forced to leave the hospital alone, and we’ve been wondering why. We’ve been told there’s been a drug problem on the island, so you’ve trained orderlies to act as security guards. Is that right?’
‘Yes, but-’
‘Do you know these drug users? Are they locals?’
‘No,’ she said slowly, and he knew she was having trouble concentrating, but she was determined to try. ‘We’ve had three break-ins over the last two months. None before. Down south there’s a surf camp. The surf here is fantastic and devotees come to train, but for the last couple of months there’s been guys there who are worrying. They just lie around and drink, and the break-ins started at the same time they arrived. They’ve had three-month visas. Our local policeman couldn’t find evidence to deport them, so he trained and armed our orderlies and we let it be known.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘Our orderlies are the most peaceable of men, but it acted like a deterrent. The break-ins stopped.’
‘So where are these men now?’
‘Maybe I heard they were to go to one of the outer islands. I’m not sure.’
‘You never thought to get a profile on any of them?’
‘I’m a doctor. I didn’t think anything.’
‘But you-’
‘It’s not my responsibility,’ she flashed. ‘Ben, if you knew how hard I work… There’s no other doctor on any of these islands. Kapua’s the biggest in the chain but there’s twenty inhabited islands. The health service is me. No one wants to fly to Australia for treatment. Hardly anyone will leave their own island. Pregnant mothers are supposed to fly out to Fiji to give birth but hardly any do. Elderly islanders won’t leave, no matter how sick they are. I fly by the seat of my pants, doing what comes next, and policing isn’t on my list. Sure, our policeman should have investigated more, and maybe if I’d thought of it I would have reminded him, but I didn’t. I was just grateful the break-ins stopped.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, startled by her anger, and she stooped and picked up a shell and tossed it into the sea with such savagery that she came very near to knocking out a seagull. The gull rose with a startled shriek and Lily stared at it for a moment and then sighed.
‘Sorry, bird,’ she said. And then, ‘Sorry, Ben. It’s just…during med school everyone-including you-assumed I was coming home to an idyllic island existence. But this place…We need a full medical service, with helicopter evacuation, with at least two doctors and a set-up where I can do operations that involve more than me cutting frantically while I’m instructing Pieter in the niceties of anaesthesia.’ She broke off, turned her face to the council compound again and winced.
He tugged her against him. For a moment she resisted, staying rigid in his grasp, but he on kept holding her, willing some of his strength into her.
‘I promise we’ll keep your son safe,’ he said softly. ‘I swear.’
But what sort of dumb promise was that? How could he make it good?
But she finally gave in and let herself lean against him. His arms held her and he smelt the citrus fragrance of her hair. Memories flooded back of the Lily of seven years ago and he thought, She’s the same Lily, my Lily. And with that thought came self-knowledge. If there was a choice… If he could walk into the compound and say let the boy go, take him instead, he’d do just that.
For Lily.
But it wasn’t just for Lily. For things had changed. The child in the compound wasn’t just Lily’s son. He was his own son.
He had family.
The thought was incredible. His world had changed, he thought, dazed. It had shifted on its axis, leaving everything he knew unaligned.
And suddenly, desperately, he wanted to kiss this woman, properly, as she needed to be kissed, as he ached to kiss her, taking her lips against his mouth, possessing the sweet core of her. Loving her…
But he knew that if he did that, she’d pull back. She was terrified for her son. She was taking strength from him and he wanted her to keep doing that. So hold yourself back, he told himself fiercely, though God only knew what effort that cost him.
But somehow he managed it, kissing her hair, but lightly, as one would have comforted a distressed child. He stood, holding her as she leaned against him. Warmth flowed between them. It was as if she was admitting finally that she needed help; she needed him.
But with that thought came an answering one. He needed her.
Lily.
He couldn’t pull her tighter into him. He mustn’t. What was happening here was too precious to be destroyed by stupid impulses, no matter how strong those impulses might be.
‘Let’s go,’ he said gently, and somehow he put her away from him and smiled gently down into her strained- to-exhaustion face. ‘Let’s go and find our son.’
‘Of course,’ she said dully. ‘If we can.’
‘We will,’ he said. ‘We’ll do this together. We’re together until we find him.’
‘Ben…’
He pulled her against him once more, but gently, as one would have comforted a friend. She was his friend. She was the mother of his child. He hugged her and then he linked his hand in hers and led her forward.
‘You’re not alone, Lily,’ he told her. ‘I’ll be here for you for however long it takes.’
CHAPTER FOUR
THE days wore on, and the nights. Each night Ben lay in the dark and listened to the soft breathing of the woman in his arms. Imperceptibly his world changed.
Lily needed him, in a way he’d never been needed in his life.
This crisis didn’t stop medical imperatives occurring elsewhere, and Lily had refused to stop working as the island’s doctor. Ben and his team tried to take as much of the load from her as they could but the islanders made no secret of the fact that they trusted only Dr Lily.
‘Just refuse to go,’ Ben told her.
‘I’ll go crazy with nothing to do,’ she’d say. ‘Besides, there’s a girl in labour on an outer island.’ Or… ‘There’s an old man in severe pain. This is my normal workload, Ben. The islanders trust me but no one else. You’re an outsider.’
He was an outsider, but he wasn’t an outsider to Lily. He was father to an island child. A child he’d never met.
