Marion Lennox - The Surgeon’s Family Miracle

He had a son.

Where the hell was he?

‘She’d only just learned she was pregnant when she came home,’ Pieter was saying, watching his face. ‘This island is a very easy place to raise a child without a father. In a sense we’re a huge family where parenting is done by all. She wouldn’t have seen the need…’

He had it now. Anger in spades, sweeping through him with a ferocity he found breathtaking.

‘She wouldn’t have seen the need to tell me? She didn’t think I had the right to know?’

‘She said you feared relationships,’ Pieter said, ‘But she also said you were a moral man who’d want to do the right thing by your son. She said her decision was not to load you with that responsibility.’

‘But even you know…’

‘Lily and I have worked side by side for almost seven years,’ Pieter said, reassuringly, as if Ben was a little unhinged and he had to settle him. Which maybe wasn’t far from the truth. ‘I’m the cousin of her mother. There’s little about Lily I don’t know.’

‘So she told you and she didn’t tell me.’

‘I believe she thought you wouldn’t want to know.’ Pieter looked grave. ‘This is a conversation you should be having with Lily, but this is maybe not the time for considering feelings. Lily’s in desperate trouble. She needs all the help she can get.’

‘Where is she now?’

The big man’s face clouded. ‘I don’t know. Maybe that’s why I’m telling you this. I should be out looking for her. She should be here helping with our wounded. As I need to be. There are shoulds everywhere.’

‘There’s been no word about the hostages?’

‘No.’

‘And this Jacques?’

‘He will be fine, that one,’ Pieter said, and his expression grew even more grim. ‘He must be a hostage but if he is…maybe he’ll be the first one to talk his way out. He is not an islander, you understand. Jacques came here when the oil was found. He helps us with our administration.’

‘You don’t like him?’

‘He’s not one of us.’

And there it was, Ben thought grimly. The reason Lily had said she could never leave the island. The islanders were family.

But even though Jacques was an outsider, Lily had agreed to marry him. He must have something.

If I’d come to her island maybe she would have married me, he thought suddenly, but it was a dumb thought. He’d never have wanted to come here, and he had a lot more to think about right now than a seven-year-old romance that had gone astray.

‘Ben,’ a voice called from the end of the corridor, and it was Sam, wearing theatre gear again.

‘Yes?’

‘They’ve released three of the hostages,’ he said. ‘Or at least they opened the front doors and shoved them out. Each of them has gunshot wounds. We need all hands in Theatre and that means you.’

Which meant another six hours operating. Six hours where they somehow managed to stabilise the injured islanders.

‘But things have settled,’ Ben was told by the sergeant in charge when, with surgery completed, he’d made his way to temporary headquarters. ‘We’ve done a comprehensive sweep of the island. There are no more injured.’

‘Have you seen the island doctor?’

‘Lily,’ the sergeant said. ‘Yes. She’s working in the original hospital. She knows you guys are thorough, but most of the families want to talk to her.’ He hesitated. ‘They’ve had a succession of English teachers on the island and English is spoken by everyone. But maybe if my kin had been shot I’d want my family doctor to talk me through it.’

Damn. Ben had just come from the field hospital which was next door to the original building. He turned to leave but then he remembered. It wasn’t just Lily he was concerned about.

‘The hostage situation?’

‘We’re negotiating,’ the sergeant told him. ‘They want transport out of here.’

‘Do we know who’s in there?’

‘Ten islanders. The most badly injured they’ve tossed out. Ten fits with the number of islanders who remain missing. We don’t know how many rebels.’

‘Is Lily’s son there?’

‘Yes,’ the sergeant said, and Ben felt suddenly light-headed.

‘We know he’s alive?’ he demanded.

‘One of the injured men saw him. Yes.’

‘And you’ve told Lily?’

‘She was here when we heard. She’d been everywhere on the island, checking with each search team as they came in, checking herself. We were almost as glad as she was when we heard the kid was alive.’

‘And…Jacques someone?’ he ventured, and there was a nod.

‘We assume so. He wasn’t seen by the guy we talked to but he said he heard him talking.’

‘So they’re both safe. And you’ll negotiate transport in exchange for the hostages?’

‘We don’t know yet,’ the sergeant said. ‘These guys are dangerous. We need to get permission from higher up the line. Our politicians are talking to the only people here who are fit to speak. That’s the deputy head of council and the finance councillor, and they’re both still in a state of shock. But the decision to negotiate isn’t up to us.’

‘It has to be.’

‘You want to storm the place?’

‘No, but…’

‘Then…’ The sergeant was watching him curiously, sensing his tension. This was the team sent in as a front line at every crisis, and he knew Ben well. Ben usually worked efficiently, with little emotion. He was emotional now.

He couldn’t stop being emotional.

‘I need to talk to Lily.’

‘We need your written assessment by dusk,’ the sergeant said mildly.

‘You’ll have it. But the priority is Lily.’

He found her sitting outside the hospital, under a group of palms in the hospital gardens. There were three islanders with her-an old woman and two children. The old woman was keening her distress while the children looked on in incomprehension. Ben hesitated, but then he walked close enough to listen.

Lily glanced up as he approached. He gave a slight shake of his head. The hope that had flared in her eyes faded, and she turned again to the old woman, pulling her into her arms and hugging her close.

‘Hush. Kira died instantly, Mary. You know that.’

‘My only sister.’

Lily didn’t speak again. She simply held her, not hurrying, waiting until the woman had sobbed the worst of her grief out, waiting until she raised her head of her own accord, waiting until she was ready to talk.

‘Do you want help to look after the children?’ she asked her at last. ‘I can find someone if you need to be alone.’

The old woman glared and pulled away as if Lily had said something obscene. She put out her arms and the children, a girl of about five and a boy of about three, scooted in and were hugged tight.

‘They’ll stay with me until their mother is well enough to care for them again. Or until their father can get here.’

‘Here’s Dr Blayden. He’s here to help me with the injuries. He helped operate on your mother last night, kids. He’s a hero, right when we need him.’

The kids looked up at him, doubtful, looking for a real-life hero. Ben smiled and crossed to the little group, squatting down beside them and delving in his pocket for sweets. He carried them everywhere, for just such an emergency as this.

‘Tell me your names,’ he said, folding the sweets into their hands before they had a chance to draw back.

‘Nicki,’ the little girl whispered, staring down at her lolly, while the boy huddled behind his grandmother, keeping his hand closed over the precious sweet. ‘And my brother is Lanie.’

‘Is your mother’s name Louie?’

‘Yes.’

‘I did help fix her last night,’ he told them.

‘Nicki and Lanie were with their mother when the men came,’ Lily said briefly, and Ben thought Lily knew what she was doing. Traumatised kids had to talk about what happened. ‘Louie ran with them. She ran to her mother’s.’