Marion Lennox - A Child To Open Their Hearts

‘Ian couldn’t be trusted with anything at all,’ Keanu said bluntly. ‘But he was your brother and Hettie tells me he’s dead. I’m sorry.’

‘Are you? Will anyone on this island be sorry?’

‘No,’ Keanu admitted bluntly. ‘Maybe Sefina might have mourned him, but now...’ He shrugged again, and then went back to focussing on Max’s knee. ‘Maybe a stitch here...’

‘Steri-Strips,’ Max growled. ‘A scar or two won’t hurt.’

‘You can always cover it with pantyhose,’ Keanu said, and grinned. ‘It’s good to have you home, Max. You’ve done so much for the island.’ And then he glanced up as the door opened a crack. ‘Hettie. Come in. That is, if Dr Lockhart doesn’t mind you seeing his bare legs.’

‘I saw a lot more than his legs out in the water,’ Hettie retorted. ‘And there’s nothing our Dr Lockhart has that I haven’t seen a thousand times before.’

‘Shall we let the lady in?’ Keanu asked.

And Max thought, What the heck? It was true, Hettie was a professional. Right now, he was a patient, she was a nurse. There was no reason he should feel odd at the idea of her seeing him dressed in a hospital gown with bare legs.

‘Sure,’ he growled, and Hettie popped in, smiling. It was a professional smile, he thought, just right, nurse greeting patient. She was in nurse’s uniform, blue pants and baggy blue top. Her curls were caught back in a simple ponytail.

She looked younger than she’d looked on the atoll, he thought, and then he thought... She looked lovely?

She wasn’t beautiful in the classical sense, he conceded. Her nose was too snub, her cheeks were strong-boned, and her mouth was maybe too generous to be termed lovely.

She was wearing no make-up.

He still thought she looked beautiful.

‘How’s Joni?’ Keanu asked, before Max could form the same question, and Hettie smiled, albeit sadly.

‘Clean and dry and fast asleep in the kids’ ward. He’s the only occupant, now that any kids with minor injuries after the storm have gone home. I left Bugsy asleep beside his cot.’

‘The dog?’ Max stared. What sort of a hospital let dogs stay in the children’s ward?

‘We have monitors,’ Hettie told him. ‘The moment Joni stirs I’ll be in there, but the first thing he’ll see when he wakes will be Bugsy. Bugsy’s a friend, and Joni...well, Joni needs all the friends he can get.’

‘What will you do with him?’ Keanu asked. Keanu was still cleaning. Hettie had moved automatically to assist, handing swabs, organising disinfectant. They were both focussed on Max’s legs, which was disconcerting, to say the least.

The question hung and suddenly Max realised Keanu was talking to him.

What will you do with him?

‘He’s not mine to do anything with,’ Max growled, and Keanu raised his brows.

‘That’s not what the islanders think.’

‘They’ll think he’s yours,’ Hettie said. ‘I told you. He’s your brother’s child, your brother’s dead, therefore he’s your family. You don’t want him?’

‘Why would I want him?’

‘Goodness knows,’ Keanu said, and kept on working. It was disconcerting, to say the least, to be talking to two heads bent over his legs—plus talking about a child he’d only just learned existed. ‘Family dynasty or something?’ Keanu suggested. ‘He is a Lockhart.’

‘I have no proof he’s a Lockhart.’

‘You don’t, do you?’ Hettie was concentrating—fiercely, he thought—on his legs, and yet he could tell that her thoughts were elsewhere. On a little boy in the kids’ ward. ‘He could be anyone’s.’

Yeah, but he looked like a Lockhart.

‘Is there any sort of Child Welfare in the M’Langi group?’ he asked.

‘We don’t need Child Welfare,’ Hettie snapped, and Keanu cast her a surprised look. But then he shrugged and addressed Max.

‘We don’t normally need Child Welfare,’ Keanu agreed. ‘The islanders usually look after their own, but Joni’s an exception. He’s an outsider.’

‘He’s not an outsider. He belongs here, and if Max won’t look after him, I will.’ Hettie murmured the words almost to herself, but for a murmur it had power. The words were almost like a vow.

They made Keanu pause. The doctor stood back from the table and stared at Hettie, who was still looking at Max’s legs fiercely.

‘What the...? Het, are you suggesting you adopt him?’

‘If no one else claims him, yes.’

‘You can’t decide that now.’

‘I have decided. If his family doesn’t want him, I do. I mean it. Keanu, do you want to keep cleaning or will I take over?’

Keanu stared at her for a moment longer and then silently went back to cleaning. There was a tense stillness, broken only by the sound of tiny chinks of coral hitting the kidney basin.

His legs really were a mess but, then, everything was a mess, Max thought grimly. So what was new? When hadn’t life been a mess?

For just a moment, this morning, watching the sun rise, watching the fish darting in and out of the water, watching a pod of dolphins give chase, he’d given himself time out. He’d thought, What if...?

What if he finally let himself be free?

Twenty-six years ago his wife had died on this island, giving birth to twins. He and Ellie had been babies themselves, barely twenty.

He’d met Ellie at university. They’d both been arts students, surrounded by friends, high on life. They’d fallen in love and when they’d discovered a baby was on the way they’d accepted the pregnancy with all the insouciance of youth.

‘Maybe it’s not a mistake,’ Ellie had told him. ‘Maybe we’re meant to be a family.’ The knowledge that she’d been carrying twins had only added to their feeling of excitement.

‘How do you feel about marrying on Wildfire?’ he’d asked, and she’d been ecstatic.

‘The Lockhart family home? Your real-life island? Max, can we?’

They could, but not until summer vacation. They’d travelled to the island as soon as exams had ended. Ellie had been thirty-two weeks pregnant, excited about her pregnancy, excited about her sheer bulk.

He remembered their welcome. His mother had been wild with joy at their homecoming. His father had been gravely pleased that his son had found someone so beautiful to wed. No one had worried that Ellie had been pregnant at the ceremony. After all, what trouble could come to this truly blessed couple?

No one had worried that twin pregnancies sometimes spelled trouble.

He remembered his brother the night before the wedding. Ian had been blind drunk, toasting him for the hundredth time. They’d lit a campfire on the beach. Ian had waved his glass towards the island and then out at the stars hanging bright and low over the ocean.

‘Here’s to us, bro. We’ve got it all.’

He’d even been stupid enough to agree. The next day, he’d married. They’d danced into the small hours.

Ellie had gone into labour that night.

There had been no medical centre on the island then. They’d faced an agonising wait for medical evacuation, while Ellie had bled and bled.

She’d died before help arrived. The twins, Caroline and Christopher, had survived, but prematurity and birth trauma meant Christopher would be burdened with cerebral palsy for the rest of his life.

Christopher. His son.

‘Family dynasty or something? He is a Lockhart.’

No. Christopher was his son, he thought grimly. Not some child called Joni. How could he ever want another child?

He closed his eyes and Keanu paused again.

‘If this is hurting too much, let me knock you out.’

‘Just go for it.’

There was silence as Keanu started work again. Undercurrents were everywhere, Max thought, gritting his teeth against the pain.