The Nurse Who Stole His Heart

by Alison Roberts

  The flash of anger was almost a welcome addition to the kaleidoscope of emotions because it was so very familiar. Anahera had relied on it as a way through the heartbreak of what had been an ultimate betrayal.

  It didn’t feel quite the same now, though. It had lost its power because she knew the truth.

  What could she hang on to now as a framework to make such big decisions about the future?

  ‘Ana...they said I might find you out here.’ Her mother’s face creased with concern. ‘You look... You haven’t been crying, have you?’

  ‘Oh, Mum.’ It was such a comfort to have her mother sit on the bench beside her and to be folded into the arms that had always made anything so much easier to bear. ‘It’s been quite a night.’

  ‘So I heard. Tane’s very sick, isn’t he?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘His family are on the way to sit with him. I’m going to make sure we’ve got enough food for everybody.’ Vailea sighed. ‘I wish there was more I could do to help. At least we’re lucky enough to have a world expert in treating encephalitis here.’

  ‘Luke won’t be here for long, Mum. He’ll have to get back to his work in London.’

  ‘Hettie tells me he’s put off going back so he can look after Tane. And it’s even more important that the research gets going so that we don’t have more cases like this in the future. He’s a wonderful man, isn’t he?’

  ‘Mmm.’ The sound was choked. The emotional cauldron Anahera was immersed in had just been stirred again. She felt ridiculously proud of Luke for putting his own life on hold to help Tane. There was a wash of relief that he wouldn’t be walking out of her life in the immediate future but there were also newly sharpened edges to the guilt and a deepened dread of the consequences if she told him the truth.

  It was all too much. She wanted to bury her face against her mother’s neck and stop trying to hold back her tears. She wanted to tell her everything and ask for advice but she already knew what her mother would say. Vailea had been horrified that Hana’s father had apparently walked out of their lives and had never wanted contact with his child. She couldn’t understand how any parent could do that. How disappointed would she be with her own daughter if she found out that it was Anahera who had forced that lack of contact?

  So she choked back the tears and pulled herself out of the embrace that had the potential to weaken her resolve and turn their lives upside down before she was ready to do that herself. At least she had a small reprieve of time to choose when—or if—she was ready.

  ‘How’s Hana? Did she miss me last night?’

  ‘Of course. But she’s learned to take times like this in her stride.’ Vailea smiled. ‘She’s such a happy little soul. I took her up to Bessie at the house, and she danced up the path, flapping her arms. Said she was being a flutterby today.’

  Anahera’s smile wobbled and she couldn’t stop a tear escaping. And then another one.

  ‘Tch...’ Vailea smoothed the tears away with her thumb. ‘You’re just too tired, darling. Hana’s fine. Bessie loves her as much as we do. She’s safe and happy and she’ll be even happier when she sees her mumma later. What you need is some sleep. And some food. When did you last have something to eat?’

  ‘I...I guess it was the sandwiches you made for us to take to French Island for the clinic run yesterday.’

  Vailea’s huff of sound was appalled. ‘Come with me. I’m going to whip up some scrambled eggs for you. You can’t sleep properly on such an empty stomach. And then you can go home.’

  ‘I need to talk to Sam and see what the roster is like. We’re going to need extra staff for the next few days. Tane will have to have someone with him at all times and I’m the only nurse with intensive care training.’

  ‘You can talk to him while you’re having your breakfast. I’ll make sure those doctors come and eat as well.’

  Breakfast with Luke? Knowing that every time she looked at his face she would be remembering that kiss? Falling back into the whirlpool of the feelings that had surfaced? She couldn’t do it. Not yet. The thought of having to try was disturbing enough to push Anahera to her feet.

  ‘I’ll tell Sam you’re making breakfast but I’ll find something at home. Or I’ll pick a mango or pawpaw on the way. I’m so tired I think I’d be sick if I tried to eat something hot.’

  Vailea simply nodded and smiled. ‘I’ll have something ready for you when you get back.’

  Their paths diverged as they entered the covered walkway between the hospital rooms and the garden.

  ‘Sleep well, my love,’ Vailea said by way of farewell. ‘Love you...’

  ‘Love you, too.’

  Anahera needed to turn right to go in search of Sam, who would either be with Tane or in the staffroom, but, for a long moment, she watched the tall figure and straight back of her mother as she headed towards the kitchens.

  She had always had something ready for her. Food, shelter, acceptance, love...

  Anahera barely remembered her father, even though there were plenty of photographs and she’d been told so often that her daddy loved her.

  Exhaustion took on a peaceful edge suddenly and the whirlpool stopped spinning.

  She didn’t need anger any more. She could use logic as a framework, along with the evidence that her own history provided. Parents that belonged in different worlds couldn’t forge a family no matter how much they might want to. She could use her head instead of her heart.

  How selfish would it be to put her own needs or desires ahead of those of her child? Or her mother, for that matter, when Vailea was still devoting her life to her daughter and her granddaughter?

  So she still loved Luke. And maybe he still wanted her. But the love story, if that was what it was, had been doomed before it had even begun. The best thing for everybody would be to close the book and walk away.

  And maybe that was the answer. If she could persuade herself that those things were all that needed to be said, they might be able to part on good terms—with a clean slate to begin the rest of their lives. Okay, so her slate wouldn’t be completely clean, but in a way, she would be telling him why she couldn’t tell him the truth and that could—hopefully—make that lump of guilt a bit easier to live with.

  She just needed to find an opportunity to talk to him.

  * * *

  Luke had known that finding an opportunity to even suggest a private talk to Anahera would be difficult, but he hadn’t bargained on it being impossible.

  In the few hours she had gone home to sleep, members of Tane’s family and community began to arrive and fill spaces in and around the hospital and any free moments for any member of staff were taken up with making sure these people were kept informed and offered all the support they needed.

  Given the available space and the need for such intensive monitoring, only one person at a time, other than his wife, Kura, could be allowed to sit with Tane, and these people were all frightened. They were listening to every beep of the monitors and watching everything that was done, desperately waiting for any sign that would give them hope.

  The atmosphere was sombre. Knowing that Tane’s eight-month-old son was among the family members being cared for outside the intensive care unit added to the tension. When Anahera arrived back at the hospital in the early afternoon, Luke was with Tane, adjusting the parameters of the ventilator again. Kura was on a chair pressed against the head of the bed, her hand touching Tane’s cheek, and his mother, Marama, was standing behind Kura, her hands resting on the young mother’s shoulders. They watched Hettie slip out of the room to allow Anahera to take her place, and Luke could feel the intensity of the way they waited for Luke to greet her.

  Even a meaningful glance between the doctor and nurse, who understood far more than the family could, had the potential to be easily misinterpreted, which might
add to the suffering of the people who loved this young man in their care. But Luke already knew that and he was an expert in shutting anything remotely personal out of the professional sphere. That only hours ago kissing this woman had shaken his world so hard it was still rattling was irrelevant. His greeting was no different than it would have been if Sam had come into the room and eye contact no more than polite.

  Thankfully, Anahera was clearly in exactly the same space. She moved close enough to brush his shoulder but her gaze was on the ventilator settings and her swift glance showed that she recognised the significance of every change he’d just made.

  The glance hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Kura whispered. ‘Is he getting worse?’

  ‘His breathing is getting harder for him.’ Anahera slipped past Luke to touch Kura’s hand. ‘We can help by changing the settings on the machine, like how much oxygen we give him and what the pressure needs to be to get it right into his lungs.’

  Both women looked bewildered, and Anahera switched languages. After answering many questions, the women nodded and turned their attention back to Tane. Anahera stepped back.

  ‘It was harder than I thought it would be to explain positive end expiratory pressure and how it helps to increase it.’ A line appeared between her eyes as she scanned Luke’s face. ‘Have you had any sleep?’

  ‘Not yet.’ That Anahera clearly cared how he was did something weird to Luke’s heart, as if it was filling up with a physiologically impossible amount of blood that was warmer than it should be as it got pumped to every cell in his body.

  ‘Where’s Sam?’

  ‘Doing a round of the other inpatients. I don’t think he’s slept yet either.’

  She was still holding his gaze. This might seem like no more than a professional exchange to anyone around them but it was more. So much more. They were more than simply a team working as a single unit towards the same goal. The bond was laced with concern. A tenderness that offered hope for the future?

  ‘I’ll hold the fort in here. Just bring me up to speed.’

  ‘I’ve charted all the drugs here.’ Luke picked up the chart on the end of Tane’s bed. ‘The lorazepam and morphine seem to be enough to be keeping him comfortable and maintaining ventilator synchrony. His temperature is stable but I’d like to see it come down further.’

  ‘I’ll give him a sponge bath. That’s something that Kura will be able to help with. I’ll show them how to massage his hands and feet, too.’

  Luke nodded. The more they could involve Tane’s family in his care, the better. It was no surprise that Anahera would already be planning how to do that. How to care for every member of his family as well as her patient. Everything she did was tinged with the extraordinary amount of love she had to offer.

  Was her concern for him purely because he was in her orbit right now? That curious warmth in his body had faded enough that he knew he would probably dismiss it later as a combination of tiredness and imagination.

  ‘I want to get another chest X-ray in a few hours. We’ll need to put in a gastric tube for enteral feeding but that can wait a little while, too.’

  It was Anahera’s turn to nod. ‘Until you’re rested.’ She was already turning back to her patient. ‘I’ll call you if anything changes.’

  Luke almost smiled as he left the room. He’d been dismissed but he was happy enough to go. He’d be no use to anyone unless he got some sleep. Maybe he had imagined the secret level he and Anahera had been communicating on for a few seconds there but he had absolutely no doubt that she could—and would—provide the best care that Tane needed.

  Tragically, even the best care wasn’t going to be enough for this young islander. Tane’s condition deteriorated slowly over the next twenty-four hours and, early the next afternoon, his heart gave up the struggle and stopped. The desperate attempts of the medical team were unsuccessful in getting it started again and the ventilator was finally switched off when his family could return to surround his bed. Even his small baby was silent in his mother’s arms as the final impression of life faded.

  The whole hospital fell silent as the news spread and people gathered to comfort each other. And then the tears began. Luke was close to tears himself as people came up to him to thank him for everything he’d done. The generosity of their gratitude in the face of his failure was overwhelming, and the grief was contagious.

  He had failed. And it hurt.

  ‘Get some rest, mate...’ Sam’s grip on his shoulder was tight. ‘We’ll take care of everything here.’

  Anahera was right behind Sam. She had Tane’s baby in her arms and the pain of failure got a whole lot sharper. They’d not only lost a young man in the prime of his life; a wife had lost her husband and a baby had lost his father. Pain morphed into anger. Not at himself, because he knew he’d done everything any doctor could have done—this anger was at the unfairness of life and the suffering dealt out to people who had done nothing to deserve it.

  ‘The family want to take Tane home,’ Anahera said. ‘I’ll help get him ready. We’ll need the death certificate filled in...’ She hesitated and bit her lip, her gaze barely touching Luke’s.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Sam said quietly. ‘We just need you to sign it.’

  Luke’s nod was grim. ‘Just show me where the forms are. I’ll do it.’ He had been the physician in charge of the case and this was his responsibility. ‘And then I’ll get out of everybody’s way. There’s nothing more for me to do here.’ He shook his head. He couldn’t keep a lid on his anger any more and he had to let some of it out. ‘I’d better see how soon I can book a flight back to London. No reason not to head back tomorrow if it’s possible.’

  Anahera’s shocked intake of breath was overtaken by the wail of the baby she was holding, which was probably why Sam didn’t notice, but Luke heard it, and it cut through him like a knife.

  He’d lost control of his anger but he hadn’t intended directing it towards Anahera.

  He could see exactly how she was interpreting his words in the way her eyes darkened and the frozen expression on her face. He was telling her that she wasn’t a reason to want to be here. That he didn’t want any more to do with her.

  For a heartbeat Luke stayed where he was. He even opened his mouth to say something that would mollify his dismissal of his time here, but nothing came out. The baby was sobbing now, and Luke could see the grandmother, Marama, coming towards them. She would probably smile at Luke and add to the number of people thanking him for the care he’d taken of Tane.

  He couldn’t take any more of it. Any of it. What was the point of trying to talk to Anahera anyway? The kind of conversation he’d had in mind was a minefield of making yourself vulnerable and then having to deal with pain, and he’d had more than enough of that today.

  It was far easier to turn on his heel and follow Sam, who was already moving towards the office where the grim paperwork would need to be completed, so that was exactly what Luke did.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SO THAT WAS IT?

  Luke was simply going to turn his back on Wildfire Island—and her—and ride off into the sunset without a backward glance?

  Talk about hitting someone when they were already down.

  Tears flowed freely as Anahera worked with Kura and Marama to prepare Tane’s body to be returned to his home and the churchyard where he would be buried within a few days.

  She removed the tracheal tube, the IV lines and ECG electrodes as carefully as if her patient could still feel every touch. She brought scented water and warm, fluffy towels so that Tane’s wife and mother could bathe him. She listened to the traditional, soft songs of grief and her heart broke a little more with every verse.

  The undertaker had been summoned, and Tane would have to be in his care for a while before his final voyage back to his o
wn island. Anahera joined the solemn procession of family and friends to accompany his body to the boat. Sam walked by her side, but Luke was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘He’s taken it hard,’ Sam said quietly. ‘I suspect he’s got used to saving people even when they get to a critical stage. From what I hear, that’s what he did for that sheikh—Harry—who’s poured a fortune into developing the new vaccine. It’s a personal failure for him.’

  ‘It’s personal for all of us. These are our people.’

  ‘They are.’

  His glance reminded Anahera that Sam had no island blood in his veins. He had been born and raised in Britain—like Luke—but he never talked about his old life except to say he was happy to have left it behind. This young doctor had virtually washed up on the shores of these islands and then had never left, but even if it hadn’t been so long ago, he would be one of her people. There was something about him that meant he had been one of them from the moment he’d arrived.

  ‘Is he really going to leave tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ve asked him not to. He thinks we can sort all the details of setting up the clinical trial for the new vaccine by internet connection but...’ Sam shook his head. ‘I get the feeling he needs to be here longer for his own sake as much as mine.’

  Anahera’s heart skipped a beat. Had Luke said something? About her? About his ‘unfinished business’?

  They stood a little apart as Tane’s immediate family said their temporary farewells until they could have their loved one with them again. A heart-rending wail from Kura split the air as the undertaker’s boat pushed off from the jetty.

  ‘We have to do all we can to make sure this doesn’t happen again,’ Sam said, his voice raw. ‘And that’s the way forward for us all. A way to deal with the grief and any sense of failure. I don’t want Luke to go off and carry this on his own shoulders. He saved Harry and he was there when the whole concept of developing the vaccine started. Actually being here himself to set up and start the trial would give him something a whole lot more positive to take away from here.’