The Surgeon’s Family Miracle

CHAPTER FIVE

MIRACULOUSLY there were no more deaths. The official decision not to oppose the rescue effort had been the saving of many, Ben thought gratefully as he worked through the night. The sound system’s message and the noise of the choppers had made everyone seek refuge.

There were shock cases among the hostages, as well as gunshot wounds. The hostages were a trembling, stunned muddle of emotions, and Ben thought they’d need to bring in psychologists to counsel them.

As for Benjy… ‘I’m taking him home,’ Lily had said, solidly, loudly, as if she had been defying anyone to argue. Ben had been needed, so he’d reluctantly nodded to one of his men to accompany her-to see her home safely. She’d disappeared into the night and he hadn’t seen her since.

Benjy was physically unharmed. For now that was all that mattered. He wanted desperately to go to them, but he couldn’t.

Medical imperatives… He had a job to do.

It was almost midday the next day before he surfaced from the field hospital and could hand over the hospital to Sam.

‘I’m going to Lily’s,’ he said, and Sam looked thoughtful.

‘The whole army’s relieved we got the kid out,’ he said. Then he hesitated. ‘You know, the islanders think the sun rises and sets around Lily. But there’s talk. There’s no sign of the boyfriend. It was assumed he was a hostage, but he’s not.’

Ben knew that. The unknown Jacques. Lily’s fiancé.

‘Do you think he’s an organiser?’ Sam asked bluntly.

‘I’m betting he is,’ Ben said grimly.

‘That’s what we’re thinking. The big boys will be wanting to talk to your Lily.’

‘She’s not my Lily.’

Sam raised his brows in mock enquiry. ‘Not?’

‘She’s engaged.’

‘To Jacques. Who’s not here. I suspect she’s not engaged any more, boyo.’ He raised his brows. ‘And the boy? There’s rumours…’

‘Scotch them.’

‘Of course,’ Sam said blithely, but Ben knew exactly where the rumours stemmed from and he knew there was nothing he could do about it.

He was wasting time. He had to see Lily.

Ben knocked and entered the little bungalow behind the hospital. There was no answer. He hesitated but he’d been in and out of this bungalow so many times over the last few days he felt he had the right. He pushed the door. It swung inward and he went right on in.

They were asleep.

For a moment the sight of them knocked him sideways. Lily’s bedroom door was ajar. From the sitting room he could see them clearly, a woman and a child huddled together on a big bed, holding each other tightly even in sleep.

He went further in. They didn’t stir.

Lily had been crying. He could see tear stains on her dusty face. The choppers, flying low, had sent up a swirl of dust and sand, and everyone who’d been near them had been coated. Lily was no exception.

She looked so young, he thought. She looked almost as young as the child in her arms.

And the boy? This was the first time he’d been able to see him clearly. Benjy.

Called after his father.

Ben stood stock still, taking in every detail. Benjy was six years old and skinny, his small face freckled and open. He was wearing stained shorts and a filthy T-shirt. His legs were bare and grubby. His small feet were callused as if his constant state was barefoot. Of course, he thought. This was an island child.

This was his child. His arms were twined around his mother’s neck and his small nose was flattened against her breast.

He looked…like him.

There was a photo he had somewhere of himself at the same age, Ben thought, stunned into immobility. The likeness was unmistakable.

Benjy.

Safe with his mother.

He didn’t cry. Hell, he never cried. Such a thing was unthinkable.

But the kid was…

‘Ben.’ With a start he realised Lily was awake. She was looking up at him with eyes that were uncertain. Almost as soon as she saw him her gaze went to her son, as if making sure his reality was not some hopeless dream. ‘Ben,’ she whispered again as the sleep faded from her eyes, and he wasn’t sure who she was referring to.

‘I’m glad he’s safe.’ It was inadequate but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘Are there more casualties?’

‘Five injured hostages, from the original attack, none critical. It’s over, Lily.’

‘They’ve gone?’

‘Yes.’

‘And…Jacques?’

‘He’s gone, too.’

‘I see,’ she whispered, and her lips touched Benjy’s filthy hair. ‘Do you need me?’

‘No. I just came to make sure…’

‘Benjy’s fine. He’s not hurt. He said…Jacques looked after him.’

Ben had guessed that much. However wicked Jacques was, there must have been a vestige of fondness for the boy. Otherwise he’d have been thrust out with the other rejected hostages. Or killed.

At least he hadn’t taken him with him.

‘I don’t understand,’ Lily whispered and neither did Ben. It might take weeks for this story to be pieced together, if indeed it ever could be.

‘Let’s leave it for now,’ he said softly, and he stooped and kissed her softly on the forehead. He brushed tears from her eyes with his fingers, and then knelt and kissed her again. On the lips. She didn’t move, just lay passive, not welcoming his kiss but not pushing him away either. Maybe she needed the contact as much as he did.

But he couldn’t stay. Not now she had her son back. For that would be admitting something he couldn’t begin to admit. A need of his own?

No.

‘Just sleep,’ he told her. ‘We have two doctors and six paramedics on duty, and there’s nothing for you to do but to care for your son.’

‘Our son,’ she whispered, and he felt his gut twist as he’d never felt it twist before.

‘Our son,’ he repeated, and he stood and stared down at them for a very long time.

Until Lily’s eyes closed again.

She held her son now and not him.

He was no longer needed.

He left them. Somehow.

When she appeared at the hospital the next morning Ben told her sternly she was to spend the next few days with her son, that she wasn’t to think of anything else, that he and Sam and Pieter had things under control. She looked at him blankly and left, but she didn’t go home. On this island everyone knew everyone’s whereabouts and Pieter told Ben what she was doing. She was working her way through the island homes, talking to each family about what had happened, and there was nothing Ben could do to stop her.

In medical school they’d been taught to stay emotionally detached. Emotional detachment on Kapua? The concept was ridiculous.

The concept of such involvement left Ben cold, but he couldn’t remonstrate. He didn’t understand why she needed to do this, but she did. And he had to take a back seat emotionally as well. She had enough emotional baggage already, without him adding more.

She’d need time to come to terms with Jacques’s betrayal.

For it had been betrayal. It had been confirmed that Lily’s fiancé had been in the group of insurgents who’d made the break away from the island.

‘He was with them,’ Ben had been told, and he’d had to say as much to Lily.

She hardly seemed to take it in. She desperately needed time.

So did he, he thought grimly as he worked on. How did you come to terms with fatherhood?

At least there was work enough to keep his mind busy elsewhere. Somehow the night of the hostage drama had changed the islanders’ distrust of outside doctors. Whether it was Sam’s big mouth or Pieter’s he wasn’t sure, but it was suddenly known everywhere that Ben was Benjy’s father. And if he was Benjy’s father then he had the right to protect Lily, to say, no, she couldn’t come, her first priority had to be Benjy. Astonishingly the consensus now was that he had the right to treat the islanders.

How did Lily manage? he asked himself as the days wore on. He hadn’t realised-had anyone?-what a medical centre Kapua had become. Lily was the island doctor not just for Kapua. She was island doctor for a score of smaller islands as well.

There was such need. In the three days after the hostage release he saw trauma as great as that caused by the uprising. Two men drowned on an outer island-they’d been fishing drunk and had ended up on rocks. Two boys survived the accident but they were now in hospital, one with a broken leg, one with multiple lacerations and shock. As well as that, he had viruses to deal with. He had infections. There was a manic depressive who’d refused to take her medication and was seeing aliens. There was a childbirth.

That was one where he’d really wanted Lily. The girl had gone into premature labour. The women caring for the expectant mother had rung the hospital to ask Lily to come, but they hadn’t said what the need was. When they’d heard Lily wasn’t available they’d simply hung up and tried to cope themselves. By the time they’d admitted defeat and called Ben, he’d had a premature baby of thirty weeks gestation on his hands.

It had still taken all his persuasive powers before mother and child had agreed to being flown to Fiji. ‘Lily will fix my baby when she’s back at work,’ the girl had said, desperately trying to ignore the fact that her baby had major breathing difficulties. In the end Ben had simply said, ‘Ruby, Lily can’t help you. You go to Fiji on the next flight, or you have a dead baby.’

Ruby had conferred with the island women and had finally agreed that, yes, she and her baby could go, but there had been an unspoken undercurrent. If Lily had been there, she’d have fixed the baby herself. What did you expect of a male doctor interfering in women’s business?

What Lily must have to cope with…

He ached to talk to her but he knew she had to have space. Somehow he let her be.

On the third evening he returned from an outer island late. An old lady with bone metastases had needed pain relief but she wasn’t stirring from home, and it had taken him hours to get her settled and pain free. Finally, exhausted, he headed for the mess tent to face a congealed dinner. He carried his unappealing plate over to an empty table-and Lily walked in.

She was such a different Lily to the Lily he’d met and loved at med school, he thought. Oh, she was still dressed as she always was, as she had been then, in light pants and simple T-shirt. Her curls were washed and shining and her features were those of the Lily of old. She was smiling, with a trace of the laughter he remembered so well.

But the strain behind her eyes was dreadful.

She had her Benjy back, but there were still losses that must ache, he thought. Kira had been like a mother to Lily since her own mother had died. He’d gleaned that much from island gossip. Lily’s grief for the old woman would be raw and deep.

There were few secrets on this island and wherever he went people talked of Lily. Even though he was taking away her load of acute medicine, he knew she was working with traumatised islanders, listening to them, being one of them, acting more effectively than any trauma counsellor his team could possibly provide.

‘Hi,’ she said, with that lovely trace of a French accent.

‘Hi,’ he said back, and attempted another mouthful of…What was this?

‘I hear you’ve been out saving my world.’ She sat and smiled across at him. ‘Thank you, Ben,’ she said, and his gut twisted, just like that. A simple thank you…

‘I haven’t saved everybody,’ he said. ‘I sent Ruby Mannering and her baby to Fiji. The women infer that if you’d been there no such trip would be necessary. And a couple of fishermen drowned on Lai. I know it’s unlikely, but I have the distinct impression if you’d been around you could have brought them back from the dead.’

Her smile faded. ‘I heard about them,’ she admitted. ‘Morons. And as for Ruby and the baby…’ Her smile returned again, just a little. ‘Sure, I would have sent her to Fiji and if I’d known she was pregnant I would have sent her earlier. But she didn’t tell me she was pregnant and for once the island’s grapevine let me down. I need to get over there and box some ears.’

‘I can imagine you boxing ears.’

Her smile returned. ‘You’d better believe it. If they want me to care for them then they have to tell me what’s going on. I have enough problems without unexpected births.’

‘You have enough problems anyway,’ he said gently. ‘This set-up is impossible.’

‘It is what it is,’ Ben,’ she said. ‘There’s no point in questioning it.’

There was a moment’s silence. So much to say. Ben attempted another bite of whatever lay on his plate-maybe lasagne?-and gave up. He pushed the plate aside and the mess sergeant came over to collect it.

‘Not hungry?’

‘No,’ Ben lied. ‘They fed me out on Lai.’

There was another silence. They were alone in the mess tent now, apart from the two men behind the workbench. It was hot in there, and still.

‘You want to go for a walk?’ Lily suggested.

‘Where’s Benjy?’

‘Asleep. Henri’s dad, Jean, is staying at my house. Henri’s getting on well, but Jean’s having nightmares. Sam’s sending Henri to Sydney in the next couple of days for reconstructive surgery but meanwhile Benjy and I are helping keep Jean’s nightmares at bay.’

Here it was again. Lily, taking on the troubles of her world.

‘But you’re here,’ he said, thinking she couldn’t be keeping other people’s nightmares at bay if she was out of the house.

‘Jean’s watching rugby on television,’ Lily said, and that faint smile returned again. ‘There are limits on neighbourliness. Come on. It’s better outside and maybe we need to talk.’

So they left. It was cooler outside, the ocean breeze making the night lovely.

‘Do you want to go to the beach?’ he asked tentatively.

‘Wait here for a minute.’ She was gone for three or four minutes and when she returned she was carrying a basket. ‘Dinner,’ she said. ‘I can see a lie when it rises up and bites me, and you saying you’d eaten on Lai was a great big lie, Dr Blayden.’

‘It might have been,’ he admitted cautiously, and she chuckled, a lovely, throaty chuckle that he’d almost forgotten but when he heard it again… How could he have forgotten?’

‘Egg and bacon pie,’ she told him. ‘Sushi rolls. Chocolate éclairs.’

‘You’ve been cooking!’ He was astounded, and she chuckled once more.

‘How little you know of this island. The currency here is food. I’m the islanders’ doctor, therefore I have more food than I know what to do with. This week the island’s cooks have been working overtime. There’s not a family affected by this tragedy that doesn’t have an overstocked pantry.’

‘Great,’ he said, because he couldn’t think what else to say. He followed as she led him to the path down to the beach. There was enough light to see by, enough light for Lily to choose a spot on the sun-warmed sand, spread a rug and then plop down on her knees and unpack. As he didn’t follow suit, she looked up at him.

‘What?’ she demanded.

And he thought, What indeed? He didn’t have a clue.

The tide was far out. The sand was soft and warm and the moonlight made the setting weirdly intimate-a picnic rug in the night with this woman whom he’d known so well seven years ago but not known since.

He was still in his uniform, heavy khaki. He felt overdressed.

‘You could take your boots off,’ she suggested, as though she’d read his mind, and he smiled and sat and hauled his boots off, and that made it more intimate still.

‘Eat,’ she ordered, and that was at least something to do. Actually, it was more than something. Whoever was doing Lily’s cooking knew their stuff.

‘You don’t need army rations while you’re here,’ she said. ‘Help yourself to my fridge.’

‘I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be here.’

‘Sam was saying. I talked to him today while you were away. But we have fifteen islanders still in hospital with injuries that need rehabilitation. Sam’s thinking we’ll have to airlift them out.’

‘They’ll hate it,’ Ben said, who knew enough of the island mindset by now to realise such an airlift would create major problems. For patients like Henri who’d need further reconstructive surgery, the islanders would consider evacuation regrettable but reasonable. But if the patient was slowly recovering and all they needed was supervision and rehabilitation…

‘I can’t cope if we don’t,’ Lily said, and he heard a hint of despair behind the words.

‘You won’t have to. We’ll work things out. Maybe some of our medical staff can stay.’

‘Presupposing here’s no crisis anywhere else in the region.’

‘There is that. But, Lily-’

‘You’ll be wanting to talk about Jacques,’ she said dully, changing the subject as if she couldn’t bear talking about the last one. ‘Everyone wants to talk about Jacques.’

‘I don’t especially.’ He knew he sounded cautious. Hell, he was cautious. If she hadn’t wanted to talk about evacuating the injured, how much more difficult would it be to talk about Jacques?

‘I’ve been talking to your intelligence people,’ she muttered bleakly. ‘Intelligence…that’s more than I have.’

He still wasn’t sure where to go with this. ‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ he tried, and she responded with anger.

‘Easy for you to say. You didn’t agree to marry someone who turns out to have betrayed the whole island.’

‘He’s a smart man, Lily. It wasn’t just you he conned.’

For the essentials had been worked out by now. It must have been no accident that Jacques arrived on the island just after the council had decided not to sell their oil. Maybe they could be persuaded to change their minds. But no one had been persuaded, and Jacques’s attempts to drum up political change had been met not just with apathy but with incomprehension. Then Jacques and whatever political power was behind him must have decided to take over by force. They must have thought no one would notice the distress of such a small island.

But the thugs sent to carry out the operation had been idle for too long, aching for a fight. Maybe Jacques had argued for more time, for better trained men. The hostages said that Jacques had been appalled at what had happened, knowing such bloodshed must have been bound to cause international response. But that didn’t help Lily, who was staring out at the darkened sea, her face bleak and self-judging.

‘You loved him?’ he asked, and anger resurfaced.

‘What do you think?’

‘I guess you did if you agreed to marry him.’

‘He was here for three years before I agreed.’

‘That’s a pretty long courtship.’ He wasn’t sure where she was taking this, but he didn’t know where he was going either, so he may as well join her.

‘He was great to Benjy,’ she said, and some of the anger faded. ‘He was smart and funny and kind. He transformed the island’s financial situation. He worked so hard…’

‘While he tried to persuade you to sell the oil.’

‘That was the only thing we disagreed about. Six months ago, when he was given the final knock back, he just exploded, telling me the islanders were fools, they were sitting on a fortune and if they didn’t want it, others did. He was just…vitriolic.’

‘And then?’

‘Then he just seemed to accept it,’ Lily said. ‘He stopped haranguing our politicians and just focused…well, on being nice again. On being…perfect.’

‘So you agreed to marry him.’

‘There wasn’t anyone else,’ she said. ‘After you.’

He drew in his breath. It had to be talked about some time. It had to be now.

‘Ours was a great friendship,’ he said softly, and then watched as her anger returned.

‘Is that how you think of it? As a friendship?’

‘Don’t you think that?’

‘I loved you, Ben,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve never thought anything other than that. I broke my heart when we went our separate ways.’

There was a moment’s silence while he thought that through. For the life of him he couldn’t think what to do with it. She’d loved him? Had he loved her? He’d been a kid, he thought, a useless kid just starting out on the adventure of life.

He hadn’t known how to love a woman. He still didn’t know.

‘You should have told me about Benjy,’ he said finally, and it sounded lame even to him.

‘You wouldn’t have wanted to know. You think back to what you wanted then-to be in the middle of every hot spot this world had to offer. Where did a child fit into that?’

‘I would have…’ He paused and she answered for him.

‘What, Ben? Sent him a cheque at Christmas and a signed photo of his daddy doing brave and daring things all over the world?’

‘That’s not fair.’

She hesitated. For a moment he thought she was going to make some hot retort, but in the end she didn’t.

‘No, it’s not fair,’ she agreed at last. ‘And you’re right. I should have told you. Any number of times over the last seven years I’ve thought you should know, but…’

‘Were you afraid I’d come?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe that was it. But I’m over it.’

She was over loving him? That was good. Wasn’t it?

She’d loved Jacques.

‘We’re grown up now,’ he agreed at last. ‘We’re sensible. We don’t do the heart thing any more.’

‘Did you ever do the heart thing?’

‘Lily…’

‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not fair to ask if you loved me seven years ago. We were kids. But I did feel grown up in the way I felt about you.’

‘As you felt…grown up about Jacques?’

‘Even more grown up,’ she said. ‘And just as stupid. That was a decision of the head and look where that got me.’ She rose and brushed sand from her pants, looking uncertainly back toward the hospital. ‘I need to go.’

‘I’d like to get to know Benjy before I leave.’

‘Of course.’

It worried him, he decided, that she was being calmly courteous. This was a reasonable discussion, but he didn’t feel reasonable. He felt like hitting something. ‘Maybe I need to do that fast,’ he told her. ‘Most of the troops will be pulling out in the next few days.’ Then, as he saw the flash of fear behind her eyes, he said, ‘Lily, there’s no need to fear anyone coming back. No one’s naming names but we know who was behind this. Nothing can be said, no accusations can be made, but they’ll be aware that the eyes of the world are on them now and they daren’t try again. I suspect…maybe the islanders aren’t as innocent as they thought you were.’

‘How can we be innocent when so many of our number are dead?’ she said, not attempting to hide her bitterness. ‘And that they be allowed to get away with murder…’ She faltered, and closed her eyes. Ben stepped forward, but her eyes flew open and she stepped away. ‘Don’t touch me.’

‘I only-’

‘I’m not the Lily you knew.’

‘I can see that,’ he said gravely. ‘To have coped with the medical needs of this community for so long…’

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m fine because I have support from all the islanders. You know, when I came back here seven years ago there was a part of me that didn’t want to come. But now…’

‘You want to put up the barricades.’

‘Jacques was an outsider and look what he caused. I should have known. So, yes, I want you all gone. I want my life normal-like it was before Jacques was here. How could I ever have been stupid enough to believe him? First you, then him. My choice of men…’

‘You’re putting me in the same category as Jacques?’ he demanded, appalled, but no apology was forthcoming.

‘Look at you,’ she said scornfully. ‘A grown man, chasing danger like it’s some sort of adrenalin rush…’

‘I don’t need it.’

‘Yes, you do,’ she said, weariness replacing anger. ‘I asked you to come and see my island when we finished med school and you know what you said? You said, “I’ve no intention of wasting time sleeping under coconut palms.” As if my life has anything to do with sleeping. And now…You’re on this island because it’s what you term exciting. Someone else might stay behind and help me pick up the pieces but it won’t be you. Sam told me…’

‘Sam,’ Ben said, and groaned inwardly, because Sam was the last person he’d want to be telling Lily what he was like now. ‘What’s Sam been saying?’

‘Sam said you’re a frontline doctor,’ she said. ‘You go in first. The heroic Lt Blayden. Where danger is, that’s where you are.’

‘So?’ he said, cautious, unable to think of any way to avoid a criticism he didn’t really understand.

‘So maybe that’s why I haven’t told Benjy about you.’

‘What have you told him about his father?’

‘Not much,’ she said, and flushed. ‘Ben, this is crazy. I’m way out of my league. I’ve spent the last few days thinking Benjy might have been killed. That should make the rest of this discussion trivial, but it’s not. It still matters.’

‘I do want to get to know him.’

‘So stay on,’ she said, challenging. ‘If a medic can stay here as long as the field hospital’s needed, why can’t that person be you?’

‘My job means I don’t stay in one place,’ he said blankly.

‘And my job is to protect Benjy,’ she said, as if he’d ended the conversation. ‘I need to get back to him.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘I don’t want you in my house.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I know. That sounds dumb-and mean. While Benjy was in danger I needed you-I needed anyone-and you sleeping in my house helped. But it doesn’t help now. It only complicates things.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t need you any more,’ she told him simply. ‘I don’t need you and I don’t need Jacques. End of story. You’ve taught me a hard lesson, Ben Blayden, but maybe I’m finally learning. So go back to your quarters and move on.’

‘And Benjy?’

‘I can’t figure that out. Maybe I will in the morning. I’m too tired now. It’s too late at night and I’m not sleeping.’

‘Lily-’

‘Leave it,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t want you being sympathetic. I don’t want you to be anything at all. I just want everything to be as it was.’

‘It can’t be.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ she yelled, and her voice rose so high that a flock of native birds flew upward from the palms in sudden fright. She backed away from him, taking some of her anger out in movement. She glared at him, turned away and kicked out as the remains of a wave reached up to her toes. Water sprayed up around her, and then retreated. She was left alone on a patch of washed sand, shimmering in the moonlight.

Shimmering blue.

Electric blue.

Where a moment ago it had been dark and lifeless, suddenly a thousand lights had turned on around her feet.

She stood absolutely still and the lights slowly faded. But they were still there, a thousand, no, a million tiny blue lights shining from within the wash of white water surging in and out with the tide.

‘Oh,’ she whispered, deflected from her anger.

Light was everywhere. She gazed down at her feet and she wiggled her toes experimentally.

The lights went on around her.

‘Oh.’ It was scarcely a breath. It was a whisper of awe.

She bent and put a hand on the sand. Lifting it, she left a perfect handprint of light, shimmering blue. She stared down, awed, as the lights slowly went out again and her handprint became nothing but a darker patch in the wet sand. But still there were lights. Wherever the water washed, there was light.

‘What is it?’ she breathed. ‘Oh, Ben…’

He was as awed as she was. But he did know what it was. He’d seen this once before, on the south coast of Australia, and it had blown him away then as it was doing again now.

‘It’s bioluminescence,’ he told her. ‘It’s millions of tiny sea creatures called dinoflagellates. You rarely see them this close to shore. They’re like fireflies, responding to movement with a tiny blue glow.’

‘It’s not magic?’ She was turning round and round, very slowly, watching her feet glow around her.

‘Almost.’ In truth he was as awed as she was. ‘Maybe it is. It surely looks magic.’

‘Oh, Ben…’

He walked down the beach until he was beside her. As soon as he reached the soaked sand, his footprints lit up blue just like Lily’s.

‘This wasn’t here when we came. We’d have noticed,’ Lily breathed. ‘How…?’

‘They’ll have come in on the tide.’

‘They never have before.’

‘It’s rare as hen’s teeth this close in.’

‘It’s…’ She was still turning, slowly, with her hands held out, like a ballet dancer. She sank and dug her hands into the soaking sand. Lifting them high, the sand fell from her fingers in a shower of blue light.

She laughed, a laugh of pure delight, a laugh he hadn’t heard for so long.

‘It’s magic,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just magic.’

‘It is.’ He caught her as she rose and spun once more, and he tugged her against him. They stood side by side, their bodies touching, water washing over their feet, gazing out at a sea that was a wash of blue and shimmering silver, a magic show put on just for them. Just for this night.

They didn’t speak. There was no need. The wonder of the night was before them-and it was also within them, Ben thought as he held her close and watched her wonder.

How could he have left this woman? She was so beautiful…

‘Lily,’ he said at last, uncertainly, and she took a deep breath, cast one last wondering look at the sea and then tugged away from him. Just a little, but enough.

‘That was…awesome, Ben,’ she managed. ‘But I need to go.

‘Lily-’

‘Don’t,’ she said as he looked down at her in the moonlight, and they both knew what he meant. Don’t take this further.

They were no longer lovers, he thought, and this was a night for lovers. This was a scene set for lovers.

She was right. They had to move on.

‘Thank you for tonight, Ben,’ she whispered, her voice suddenly ragged at the edges. She was forcing herself to break the moment. She was forcing herself to break away from him. ‘Thank you for the last few days. But…I can’t… I can’t…’

She put her hand up to his face and she touched him, a fleeting gesture, maybe reassuring herself that he was real and not some figment of this magic night, this magic setting.

‘I need to ground myself,’ she faltered. ‘I need to return to my islanders, my medicine and my son. I need…to go.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Lily-’

‘No. No, please. You can’t… And neither can I.’

She was right and he knew it. They both knew it. And she at least had the courage of her convictions.

This night was meant for them, he thought, but he could take it no further.

They both knew it. Before he could say another word she fled. She grabbed her sandals and her picnic basket as she ran up the beach, and then she disappeared into the night, behind the palms, back to her bungalow. Back to her life.

As she must.

As he must return to his life. For it was what he wanted. Wasn’t it? He stared once more at the magic light show put on just for them.

‘Find another audience, guys,’ he said wearily. ‘You misjudged this one.’

But how could she find sleep after that? She couldn’t. The night was long and full of shadows, and Ben was no longer beside her.

She had Benjy back, she told herself. It should be enough. But Ben had lain with her in those nights of terror and she missed the warmth of him, the smell of him. She missed…Ben.

If she’d stayed at the beach…

Don’t go there.

The night stretched on and Lily let her thoughts drift to the first time she’d met him. She’d been in her second year of university, studying furiously, her work taking up every available minute. Up three steps of a library ladder, she’d tugged out a tome that had been shoved in too tightly. The book had come out too fast, and all of a sudden she had toppled backward.

But Ben had been right underneath, ready to catch her. She’d landed in his arms; she looked up into his concerned eyes and she’d been smitten. He had been big and dark, with jet-black hair that curled randomly, flopping over his lovely brown eyes and making him look very, very sexy. He had been tall and big-boned and superbly muscled, and he’d had a smile to die for.

‘Hey, the sky’s falling!’ he’d exclaimed, holding her close. ‘But who’s complaining if the sky looks like this?’ He’d set her on her feet and he’d chuckled and brushed curls out of her eyes and picked up her books-and she’d fallen in love on the spot.

The years that followed were amazing. Ben took life as it came, seizing every opportunity with both hands. Oh, he was hard-working-his medicine was as important to him as it was to Lily-but from that day their mutual studies became fun. They studied together, they surfed, they went bushwalking, they drank coffee in late-night bars, they argued long into the night over anything and everything. It was a magical few years that almost blew her away with happiness.

But there was no long-term commitment. Ben’s background was wealth and neglect-his parents were socialites who threw money at their son instead of affection. And there was more. Lily guessed at shadows he wouldn’t talk of, and he wouldn’t let her probe.

And Lily? Lily had been taught what love did and she’d thought she didn’t want it. Her mother had abandoned the island and her people for a handsome Frenchman. When he walked out, Lily was four and mother and child were left destitute. Lily still had hazy memories of those days, which had culminated in her mother’s attempted suicide when she was seven. French authorities contacted the islanders and Lily and her mother were brought home, to be accepted back with love but to know that the island was not to be lightly left. And to be taught by her mother that romantic love was catastrophic.

So she’d agreed with Ben that love was for others. She’d tried to mean it, too, but she’d failed. Her heart was irrevocably his, but there was no way she could tell him. She might love him, but she agreed there was no future for them. For when med school was complete she knew what she had to do.

And she’d done it, she told herself. She’d come home. And she’d borne Benjy-who looked like his daddy.

Benjy stirred now in his sleep and she kissed the top of his head. The resemblance was amazing.

‘When Ben leaves again, I’ll still have you,’ she whispered, but it wasn’t enough.

It had to be enough. For ever.

She had been right to leave the beach tonight, she told herself. She had to be right.

And Ben…

Back in his quarters, listening to Sam’s not so gentle snoring, Ben was no closer to sleep than Lily.

What was wrong with him? He usually slept the moment his head hit the pillow.

Not now. He was thinking of Lily. Lily spinning slowly in her pool of phosphorescence. Lily.

Her face was right before him, the strain behind her eyes deep and real. The medical needs on this island were huge. She’d been working too hard before this had happened. And now… He’d leave her and she’d sink back into a life where duty overcame all.

She should have time off. That much was obvious. For her to calmly go on working with no time to adjust was asking for long-term trouble.

They had to get a medical team here on a longer-term basis, he thought. Well, maybe he could arrange that. In this current climate, no reasonable request would be refused. He could get doctors and paramedics here for at least the next few months.

That wouldn’t stop Lily working.

But she had to stop working. He thought again of the strain behind her eyes. She’d collapse if she didn’t stop.

She needed more nights like tonight, he thought. Oh, not with him, but nights where she could stop spinning because of work.

And then…

An idea came into his mind, so preposterous that for a moment he almost rejected it unexamined. She wouldn’t.

But she needed it so much.

He thought of the island’s political head. Gualberto Panjiamtu was a man in his seventies, who’d coped with being held hostage with dignity, and had emerged with his concern for his islanders paramount. Gualberto would understand that Lily’s health was vital to all. Could he ask Gualberto to release Lily from her obligations for a while?

She’d never agree.

But ideas kept spinning, faster than Lily had spun on the beach.

He should sleep.

He didn’t sleep. He lay and stared at the canvas overhead, and thought. About Lily.