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food for much longer anyway. Didn’t I hear Dr Sam say you might be able to go home tomorrow?’
‘He’s going to see how well I go on the crutches. And talk to my mum about getting to clinics to get my bandages changed.’
‘Yes … you’ve got to keep that leg clean. You don’t want to have to have any more operations.’
‘I’m going to have a big hole in my leg where the ulcer was, aren’t I?’
‘Not a hole, exactly, but it will be a big scar and a dent where there isn’t so much muscle. And you’re going to have to work on building up your other leg muscles with the exercises we’ve taught you. You’ve been in bed for a long time.’
‘Ana …’
She turned swiftly at the urgent tone of the call to see Sam in the doorway of the two-bed ward.
‘Sam … I thought you were at the cocktail party.’
‘I was on my way. Got a call. You have to come with me.’
Anahera tucked back a stray tress of long dark hair that was escaping the knot on the back of her head. She glanced down at her uniform of the green tunic and three-quarter-length pants that were looking a bit worse for a long day’s wear and she shook her head, but Sam was already turning. His voice got fainter as he headed towards their small theatre suite.
‘Now, Ana. It’s an emergency.’
Any thoughts of how she must look vanished as Anahera ran after Sam. He was lifting the heavy life pack in one hand and reaching for an oxygen cylinder with the other.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Could be a heart attack. One of the visiting doctors. Ten out of ten chest pain and nausea. Grab the resus kit and let’s go.’
Manu, the hospital porter, had a golf cart already running outside the door.
‘Maybe I should stay,’ Anahera said. ‘We can’t leave the hospital unattended.’
‘I’ll stay,’ Manu told them. ‘And Hettie’s on her way.’
‘I need you,’ Sam said as he stowed the gear on the back of the vehicle. ‘You’re the one with the intensive care training. If we have to intubate and ventilate, I want you helping.’
Ana climbed onto the cart. Sam was right. This was exactly the sort of scenario she had covered with her extensive postgraduate training. She could deal with something like this without a doctor around, if necessary, and the opportunity to keep her skills fresh didn’t happen that often.
They bounced down the track as Sam opened the throttle. It wasn’t that far to the new development but it was far enough to have Anahera running through all the possibilities in her head. Would they find their patient in a cardiac arrest? At least there were plenty of doctors there who could provide good-quality CPR but they would need the defibrillator to have any hope of starting a heart again.
It was almost an anticlimax to rush in and find nothing dramatic happening. A group of people were standing quietly beside a table covered with abandoned plates of food. A middle-aged man was sitting on the floor, propped up by a large cushion. Another man was crouched beside him with a hand on his wrist, taking his pulse. The woman standing beside them, directing a breeze from a fan to the patient’s face, was Anahera’s mother, Vailea Kopu, who was the first to spot their arrival.
‘They’re here,’ she said. ‘You’re going to be fine, Dr Ainsley.’
‘I’m fine already,’ the man grumbled. ‘I keep telling you, it’s only indigestion. I ate your wonderful food too fast, that’s all.’
Sam crouched beside the man. ‘Let’s check you out to make sure. I’m Sam Taylor, one of the resident doctors here.’
‘This is Charles Ainsley.’ The man monitoring the condition of their patient turned to look at Sam. ‘He’s sixty-three and has a bit of a cardiac history …’
Anahera wasn’t hearing any of their patient’s history. Her hands were shaking as she opened the pockets of the life pack and pulled out the leads they would need to do a twelve-lead ECG and check whether the heart’s blood supply was compromised.
She couldn’t look up but she didn’t need to.
She would have known that voice anywhere …
How on earth had the possibility of Luke Wilson attending this elite conference not occurred to her?
But it had, hadn’t it? She’d been avoiding any mention of the upcoming event because that thought had been haunting her. Not attending the cocktail party because she didn’t want to hear people talking about research into tropical diseases had been a blanket denial. There was only one person she would really dread listening to. Or meeting. The visiting medical specialists would only be here for a couple of days, she had told herself. It would be easy to stay out of the way.
Much easier not to even know whether Luke was present.
She’d been right to dread this. Even the sound of his voice was overwhelming enough to have her whole body trembling. What would happen if she looked up and made eye contact?
He was still talking to Sam. ‘… Stable angina but he’s due for a coronary angiogram next month.’
‘Let’s get an ECG,’ Sam said. ‘Have you had any aspirin today, Charles? Used your GTN spray?’
‘I took an extra aspirin for the flight. Forgot my spray.’
‘No problem.’ Having unbuttoned the shirt, Sam reached for the leads that Anahera had attached sticky dots to. ‘Grab the GTN, Ana. And let’s get some oxygen on, too.’
Ana …
Her name seemed to hang in the air. Had Luke heard? Or had he recognised her already and was trying to ignore her presence?
Dammit … her hand was still shaking as she pulled the lid from the small spray pump canister.
‘Open your mouth for me,’ she directed. ‘And lift your tongue …’
‘I can do that.’ A hand closed over hers to remove the canister and there was no help for it—she had to look up.
And Luke was looking right back at her.
For a heartbeat nothing else existed as those hazel-green eyes captured her own with even more effect than the touch of his hand had—and that had been disturbing enough.
Her body froze, and she couldn’t breathe. Her mind froze as it was flooded with emotions that she’d thought she would never experience again. The love she had felt for this man. The unbearable pain of his betrayal.
And then something else made those memories evaporate as instantly as they’d appeared.
Fear …
This wasn’t supposed to be happening. It was dangerous. She had to protect more than her own heart and that meant she had to find the strength to deal with this and make sure nothing was allowed to change.
Determination gave her focus and an unexpected but very welcome sense of calm. It was Anahera who broke the eye contact and found that both her voice and her hands had stopped shaking.
‘Fine. I’ll put the oxygen on.’
The moment had mercifully been brief enough for no one else to have noticed. Or maybe it hadn’t. Sam looked up after sticking the final electrode into place.
‘This is Anahera,’ he told Luke. ‘Our specialty nurse.’
‘Yes.’ Luke pressed the button on the canister to direct a second spray under their patient’s tongue. ‘We’ve met before.’
‘Of course …’ Vailea was still standing beside them, providing a cool breeze from the palm-frond fan. ‘I knew I’d