to see Kiri. Ergo, I don’t want to see you.’ She stopped and her breath hitched painfully. ‘Now, please …’ Her voice had risen in tone and volume and she stopped. As he watched, she seemed to gather her emotions together. ‘Please go,’ she continued quietly. ‘I’m sick and I’m tired and I—Just please go. All right?’
‘All right. Message received loud and clear. Sex officially off the agenda. And have a nice life.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and tugged the mosquito net closed.
Aaron left the room, closed the door and stood there.
Duty discharged. He was free to go. Happy to go.
But there was some weird dynamic at work, because he couldn’t seem to make his feet move. His overgrown sense of responsibility, he told himself.
He’d taken two steps when he heard the sob. Just one, as though it had been cut off. He could picture her holding her hands against her mouth to stop herself from making any tell-tale sound. He hovered, waiting.
But there was only silence.
Aaron waited another long moment.
There was something about her. Something that made him wonder if she was really as prickly as she seemed …
He shook his head. No, he wasn’t going to wonder about Ella Reynolds. He’d done the decent thing and checked on her.
He was not interested in her further than that. Not. Interested.
He forced himself to walk away.
Ella had only been away from the hospital for eight lousy days.
How did one mortal male cause such a disturbance in so short a time? she wondered as she batted away what felt like the millionth question about Aaron James. The doctors and nurses, male and female, Khmer and the small sprinkling of Westerners, were uniformly goggle-eyed over him.
Knock yourselves out, would have been Ella’s attitude; except that while she’d been laid low by the dengue, Aaron had let it slip to Helen—and therefore everyone!—that he was a close friend of Ella’s film director brother-in-law. Which part of ‘Don’t talk to anyone about me’ didn’t he understand?
As a result, the whole, intrigued hospital expected her to be breathless with anticipation to learn what Aaron said, what Aaron did, where Aaron went. They expected Ella to marvel at the way he dropped in, no airs or graces, to talk to the staff; how he spoke to patients and their families with real interest and compassion, even when the cameras weren’t rolling; the way he was always laughing at himself for getting ahead of his long-suffering translator.
He’d taken someone’s temperature. Whoop-de-doo!
And had volunteered as a guinea pig when they’d been demonstrating the use of the rapid diagnostic test for malaria—yeah, so one tiny pinprick on his finger made him a hero?
And had cooked alongside a Cambodian father in the specially built facility attached to the hospital. Yee-ha!
And, and, and, and—give her a break.
All Ella wanted to do was work, without hearing his name. They’d had their moment, and it had passed. Thankfully he’d got the message and left her in peace once she’d laid out the situation. She allowed herself a quick stretch before moving onto the next child—a two-year-old darling named Maly. Heart rate. Respiration rate. Blood pressure. Urine output. Adjust the drip.
The small hospital was crowded now that the dengue fever outbreak was peaking. They were admitting twenty additional children a day, and she was run off her still-wobbly legs. In the midst of everything she should have been too busy to sense she was being watched … and yet she knew.
She turned. And saw him. Aaron’s son, Kiri, beside him.
Wasn’t the hospital filming supposed to be over? Why was he here?
‘Ella,’ Aaron said. No surprise. Just acknowledgement.
She ignored the slight flush she could feel creeping up from her throat. With a swallowed sigh she fixed on a smile and walked over to him. She would be cool. Professional. Civilised. She held out her hand. ‘Hello, Aaron.’
He took it, but released it quickly.
‘And sua s’day, Kiri,’ she said, crouching in front of him. ‘Do you know what that means?’
Kiri shook his head. Blinked.
‘It means hello in Khmer. Do you remember me?’
Kiri nodded. ‘Sua s’day, Ella. Can I go and see her?’ he asked, looking over, wide-eyed, at the little girl Ella had been with.
‘Yes, you can. But she’s not feeling very well. Do you think you can be careful and quiet?’
Kiri nodded solemnly and Ella gave him a confirming nod before standing again. She watched him walk over to Maly’s bed before turning to reassure Aaron. ‘She’s not contagious. It’s dengue fever and there’s never been a case of person-to-person transmission.’
‘Dr Seng said it deserved its own documentary. The symptoms can be like malaria, right? But it’s a virus, not a parasite, and the mosquitoes aren’t the same.’
Ella nodded. ‘The dengue mosquito—’ She broke off. ‘You’re really interested?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I just …’ She shrugged. ‘Nothing. People can get bored with the medical lingo.’
‘I won’t be bored. So—the mosquitoes?’
‘They’re called Aedes aegypti, and they bite during the day. Malaria mosquitoes—Anopheles, but I’m sure you know that—get you at night, and I’m sure you know that too. It kind of sucks that the people here don’t get a break! Anyway, Aedes aegypti like urban areas, and they breed in stagnant water—vases, old tyres, buckets, that kind of thing. If a mosquito bites someone with dengue, the virus will replicate inside it, and then the mosquito can transmit the virus to other people when it bites them.’ Her gaze sharpened. ‘You’re taking precautions for Kiri, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, yes. It’s been beaten it into me. Long sleeves, long pants. Insect repellent with DEET. And so on and so forth.’
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