‘Because love doesn’t work one way,’ she whispered, and then suddenly she was no longer whispering. She’d had five years to think this through, five years to know she was right. ‘Love’s all about giving. Giving and giving and giving. And how can I love you if all I can do is take?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Of course you do. It’s why you walked away. Josh, after Mikey died, you tried to do it your way. You did all the right things. You said all the right things. You supported me every inch of the way. You stood by my side while we buried our son and your whole body was rigid with trying. You had to be everything to me. You couldn’t crack yourself because I needed you. You couldn’t show one hint of emotion, and you know why not? Because there’s a vast dam of emotion inside you, and if you let one tiny crack appear then the whole lot will flood out, and you’re terrified.’
‘Maddie—’
‘Don’t “Maddie” me,’ she bit out. ‘You walked away from me. Sure, you stuck around after Mikey died. You held yourself together, you hugged me and I let myself be hugged because, yes, I needed you, but it hurt even more that you didn’t cry with me. You still hurt from losing Mikey. I saw it on your face when Lea was born but you won’t admit it. You’ll hardly admit it to yourself. And then Holly died and it was worse. You were wooden, as if admitting even a little bit of grief would make you implode. I was so sad for you, but when I tried to get close, when I needed to share, you walked away.’
Hell. He went to dig his hands into his pockets but boxers have a dearth of pockets. He felt exposed. He was exposed. Boxers and T-shirt and bruises and...emotion.
‘It was five years ago,’ he managed. ‘It’s history.’
‘You mean you have your armour back in place so we’ll start again? That’ll be fine as long the need all stays one way.’
‘Maddie, you care for your mother. You’ll care for Lea. You don’t need—’
‘Another person who needs me? That’s what I mean. You still don’t get it. Not letting me close hurts, Josh. After five years I should have built my own armour but I don’t want to build armour. I love it that my mum needs me. I love it that Lea needs me and I love it that I have a working life where this community needs me, too. But you know what? I need them, too. I sit and read to Mum and it warms my heart that she can still smile and hold my hand. I cradle Lea and I’m warm all over. The islanders bring me their problems but they also include me in their lives. They share, and when I’m off the island I miss them. Kalifa died when the mine collapsed and I’ll go to his funeral and I’ll weep. I loved him. I needed him as I need so many.’
‘You can’t—’
‘Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, Josh Campbell. You don’t have the right.’
And suddenly she was almost shouting and Caroline was gliding into the room and putting herself firmly between Josh and Maddie and giving him a glare that might have turned lesser mortals into stone.
‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ she demanded. ‘I told you—you upset Maddie, you upset the whole island. Maddie, you want me to call in a few good men to cast this guy to the fish?’
‘I... No.’ Maddie choked on an angry sob and fell back on her pillows. Lea whimpered and Josh felt sick.
‘What’s he been saying?’ Caroline demanded. ‘Tell Aunty Caroline.’
‘He wants to marry me—again.’
There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then Caro’s lips twitched. It was a tiny twitch. She had herself under control in an instant but he saw it.
‘So he proposes in Keanu’s boxers and T-shirt,’ she managed. ‘I can see why that would upset a girl. And where’s the diamond?’
‘I don’t want a diamond.’
But Caroline had moved back into professional mode. ‘What you want,’ she said, lightly now but still just as firm, ‘is a sleep. I’m going to take your obs and then close this room off to everyone. Whatever Dr Campbell has been saying, forget it. What’s most important, for you and for baby, is sleep.’ And then she lifted Lea from Maddie’s arms and turned and handed the tiny girl to Josh.
‘Here,’ she said, and Caroline might be young but right now she was every inch a Lockhart of Wildfire, with a lineage obviously stretching back to the dinosaurs. No old-fashioned hospital matron had ever sounded more bossy. ‘Lea looks like she needs time to settle,’ she decreed. ‘I need to care for Maddie and if you’re proposing marriage then maybe you could take this small dose of domesticity and try it out for size. Keanu wants you to walk, just a little, slowly but getting the circulation moving in those legs. We don’t want clots, do we? Can you hold her without hurting your arm? Excellent. I want you to take Lea for a wee walk around the veranda, then settle down outside until I come and get her. You’re banned from here, Dr Campbell. Now, Maddie, do you need some pain relief? Yes? Let’s get you sorted.’
And she turned her back on Josh, blocking his view of Maddie.
He was left with an armful of baby.
He was left with no choice but to leave.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HE STOOD IN the hall, holding Maddie’s daughter, and he thought...
Nothing.
Maddie’s words were still echoing in his head. He should try and make sense of them, but he couldn’t sort them out.
In his arms Lea wuffled and opened her mouth to wail.
And at that, the professional side of him kicked in. Caroline had given him Lea for a reason. She knew he was more than capable of caring for a baby. She also knew that Maddie was distressed and needed to sleep, and the one thing that’d stop her doing that was to hear her baby crying. That was the reason she’d handed her over to him. Professional concern.
So be professional. How to stop a baby crying?
He hadn’t actually read that in any of his textbooks.
Still, it was a professional challenge and he was a professional. How hard could it be?
‘Hush,’ he told Lea, and he lifted her onto his shoulder and let her nuzzle into the softness of his T-shirt while he made his way outside.
He walked for a little, as ordered, until the threat of wails was past, until he heard only gentle wuffling. Then he headed for a mammoth rocker on the side veranda. He settled—cautiously—into the softness of its faded cushions, and rocked.
It was a good place to sit. There were herons wading at the edge of the lagoon, seeking tiny fish in the shallows. The veranda was shaded, cool and lovely. In the distance the sea was a sheet of shimmery, turquoise glass.
There was a cyclone threating Cairns, but here there was nothing but calm.
‘There’s no threat here,’ he murmured to the baby in his arms, but she seemed singularly unimpressed.
She whimpered some more. He lifted her from his shoulder and cradled her in his hands. Why did newborns feel so fragile? He knew from training that babies were born tough but she didn’t feel tough.
She felt precious.
He laid her on his knee. He expected to hurt a bit as her weight settled on his bruised thigh, but she nestled as if this was a cradle made for her. Her eyes were drifting with newborn lack of focus but she seemed to be taking in this strange new world.
She looked like Maddie.
Who was the father? he wondered. Who was the unknown sperm donor?
He wished it could have been him.
No. He didn’t wish that. Fatherhood... He remembered clearly the agony of loss.
His son and then his sister.
How could he hold himself and not crack? That’s why he’d had to walk away. He couldn’t help Maddie when he was hurting so much himself. He was no use to anyone.
‘If you were mine I’d be useless,’ he whispered. ‘If you hurt... Or if your mother hurt...’
So why had he offered marriage again? What had change
d?
Hope that this time it could be different? Hope that there wouldn’t be a time when he was needy?
‘Excuse me?’
He turned to see a woman maybe in her late sixties standing at the foot of the veranda. She was short, slightly overweight, breathless. Her soft, white hair was tugged into a wispy bun and her eyes looked swollen, like she’d been crying.
‘Excuse me,’ the woman said again. ‘I knocked on the front door but no one answered.’
‘I’m Dr Campbell,’ he told her. ‘Can I help?’
She’d been climbing the side steps, but as soon as Josh spoke she stopped short, looking at him in shock.
‘You’re a doctor?’
‘I don’t look like one, but yes.’
‘So...Keanu said...you were helping when my husband died.’
It was a simple statement, said with dignity and peace, like a jigsaw puzzle was coming together in a way she could understand.
‘You’re Kalifa’s wife,’ he ventured, remembering the big man, the desperate fight to save him, the hopelessness he always felt when he lost a patient. He’d been gutted, and then the trauma with Maddie had stopped him following up. Normally when a patient died in his presence he’d seek out the relatives and talk them through it.
Too much had happened.
‘Kalifa Lui was my husband,’ the woman agreed, looking to the baby, to him, then back to Lea. ‘My name is Nani Lui. The nurses told me that you and Keanu tried very hard to save him. I thank you.’
‘I wish we could have done more.’
‘It would seem that you’ve done more than you could be expected to do,’ she said, and the echo of a smile washed across her tired face. ‘Did they teach you mine rescue in medical school?’
But then she was interrupted. ‘Nani?’ It was Maddie, calling through the open window. ‘Nani, is that you?’
Uh-oh. ‘You’re supposed to be asleep,’ Josh called back. ‘We’ll move farther along. Caroline will have us hauled before the courts for disturbing you.’
There was a sleepy chuckle. ‘Caroline’s gone across to the hospital to get more diapers and, oh, I need to see Nani. Quick, Josh, bring her in.’
‘Nani, if you go through that door...’
‘No,’ Maddie called out, suddenly imperious. ‘Come in with her, Josh. I want Nani to meet both you and my daughter.’
He was wearing boxers! ‘I’m hardly dressed—’
‘Nani won’t care. She’s practically family and I guess...after all we’ve been through, so are you.’
So he ushered the elderly woman into Maddie’s bedroom—keeping a wary eye on the door. Caroline seemed a woman it was better not to cross. But Maddie’s distress seemed to have evaporated. She hugged Nani to her as Josh had seen her hug her mother and he thought...maybe it was true. Maybe Nani was family.
He stood silent, feeling superfluous, until the hugging finished, until Nani stepped back, tears streaming down her face, and turned back to see Lea in Josh’s arms.
‘And this is your little one,’ she whispered. ‘They tell me you’ve named her Lea. For my daughter?’ She forced her gaze from the baby to Josh. ‘Lea was my daughter,’ she whispered. ‘She did the cooking at the hospital. She was so full of love and laughter. Then she got the encephalitis. It was so bad, so fast. Maddie worked desperately to try and save her but she died before she could be evacuated. And now... To call your little one for her... My Kalifa would be so proud.’
And Josh looked down at Maddie and saw her eyes fill with tears. It was true, then. She’d named her baby for a patient she’d lost.
Part of her extended family? Surely not. He hadn’t asked, though...
He hadn’t had the right to ask why she’d decided to call her baby anything.
It hurt that he didn’t have that right. It hurt a lot.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Nani whispered. ‘A new life from this tragedy. This is joy. And you called her Lea.’
‘I wanted to share.’ Maddie’s voice was weak but determined. ‘I know all of you will love her. She’ll need you all.’
‘And we’ll need her,’ Nani breathed. ‘Oh, Maddie, I’m so happy for you.’ She glanced up at Josh. ‘Maddie’s wanted this little one for so long.’
‘I know.’
And Nani’s gaze sharpened. She looked from him to Maddie and back again. ‘It’s true then,’ she said forcefully. ‘They’re saying you two were married.’
‘I... Yes.’
‘And you walked away.’ Her tone was accusing.
‘I couldn’t help her,’ Josh said helplessly.
‘Maddie said she couldn’t help you.’
‘Maddie talked to you about us?’ He turned to Maddie, incredulous.
‘I’m a grandmother,’ Nani said simply. ‘Everyone talks to me.’ And then she paused, the present crashing home. ‘But not my Kalifa. No more. People tell me things and I weep for them, but then my Kalifa holds me...’
‘We’ll hold you, Nani,’ Maddie said. ‘You know we will. Whenever you need us. Just as you’ve always held us.’
And Nani’s face crumpled. She stooped and hugged Maddie and she sobbed, just once. And then she sniffed and braced herself and rose and faced Josh again.
‘She will, too,’ she said. ‘Maddie is part of my strength, part of this island’s strength. I knew Maddie would be sad about Kalifa’s death. She told him to stop smoking. She told him to lose weight. He didn’t listen but she tried, and she was there for him when he needed her. As she always is.’
She stopped and stared down at the tiny child and her face softened. ‘Life goes on,’ she whispered. ‘With no blame. With love. This little one...she’s our faith in the future. She gives me strength, and, heaven knows, we all need to take strength where we can find it.’
‘You find it in yourself,’ Josh said, and Nani stepped back and looked at him as if he’d said something that didn’t make sense.
‘Is that what you think? That you’re born with strength enough to hold you up for your whole life?’ She groped backwards and sat and held Maddie’s hand. ‘Is that what drove you apart?’
‘Maybe,’ Maddie said, and Josh heard exhaustion in her voice.
‘We shouldn’t be here,’ he told Nani. ‘Caroline will be after us with a shotgun if she finds us in here. Maddie, go to sleep, love.’
‘I’m not your love,’ Maddie whispered, and Josh flinched.
But what she said was true. He might love Maddie. She might love him but the chasm between them was still miles deep.
He ushered Nani out. Nani looked as if she was bursting to say more but she held her tongue. Out on the veranda she touched Lea’s face again and then gave Josh a searching look.
‘There’s time,’ she said enigmatically. ‘You can’t be the only one to take care of you.’
She left. Josh looked down at the baby, now sleeping soundly in his arms. He thought of the web of love and dependence and need that held this island together.
He thought he’d head back to his rocker.
Babysitting was easier than thinking, he decided. It was just a shame he could do both at the same time.
* * *
She wasn’t asleep. She was tired and drowsy, her body was as comfortable as Caro could make it and there was no reason she shouldn’t sleep, but she lay in her beautiful bed and looked out at the distant sea and thought about Josh.
He was on the veranda. He’d be rocking back and forth, looking out over the lagoon.
Holding her baby.
He’d called her ‘love’. He still wanted her. He even wanted marriage.
The idea was preposterous, crazy, even heartbreaking, so why was there an insidious voice hammering away in her consciousness?
Go on. You know you want to.
&nbs
p; And part of her did want to. Despite what Nani had said, this island wasn’t her all.
There was still a part of her that ached for Josh.
Down the mine he’d massaged her head and shoulders, and, despite the shock, the danger, the physical battering her body had just been through, his touch had swept back all the memories of the fire between them. He just had to look at her and her knees turned to jelly.
Lovemaking with Josh.
There was a memory she had to suppress. It was still there, though. The perfection.
Five years. Surely she should have moved on by now?
The problem was that she’d made vows.
With my body I thee worship.
Had she made that vow? For the life of her she couldn’t remember. Her wedding day had passed in a blur of happiness, and the words she’d spoken, with love and with honour, had blurred, as well.
With my body I thee worship.
If she hadn’t said it out loud, she’d said it in her head.
It wasn’t enough. It had never been enough. Not when the caring was only permitted one way.
If Josh loved, he protected, and protection for Josh meant never letting her close enough to see his hurt.
‘It’s impossible,’ she whispered into the stillness. ‘The island has to be enough. I can’t love a man who won’t let me love back.’
The only problem was that she did.
* * *
‘Josh?’
He’d been dozing a little, the rocking chair stilling as he and Lea drifted towards sleep. His legs made a secure cradle. His hands still cupped her. Lea was peaceful and seemingly content, and for this moment so was Josh.
He had to be. Listening to Nani had left him...discombobulated. He’d tried to figure it out but the effort had left him too tired to sort the tangle that was in his head. For now all he could do was soak in the sun, the peace, the feel of this little girl sleeping between his hands.
Everyone should have a Wildfire Island, he thought sleepily. And a baby called Lea.
‘Josh!’ It was Caroline again—of course. She was standing in front of him, smiling her approval. ‘What a great job,’ she told him. ‘We’ll give you a job in the children’s ward any day.’
Saving Maddie's Baby Page 14
