marriage to a stranger … That was something else.
He’s spent too long in the West but deep in his bones knew that some of the old ways were best.
Some!
He was at the rock fall now.
Stupid! He should have stopped to put something on his feet as the rocks were sharp in places. But the tide was going out, the water at the base not very deep.
He’d wade …
Sarah came out of the cool, translucent water, towelled dry, then slipped her arms into the long white shirt she wore as covering over her swimsuit. Even at sunset the tropical sun had enough heat in it to burn her fair skin.
Fair skin and red hair—a great combination given she was slowly finding peace and contentment on this tropical island. Slowly putting herself back together again; finding a way forward in a life that had been shattered four years ago, sending her to what seemed like the end of the earth—Australia—and then finding a job where she could move around—a week here, a week there—not settling long enough for anyone to dig into her past, bring back the memories …
A loud roar of what had to be pain startled her out of her reverie and she looked towards the rock fall at the other end of the beach where a man—the roarer, apparently—was hopping up and down in thigh-deep water.
Some kind of local ritual?
No, it was definitely pain she’d heard—and could still hear.
Pushing her feet into her sandals, she ran across the white coral sand to where the man was struggling to get out of the water, clutching one foot now, slowly becoming the man she’d seen briefly at the cocktail party—the man they’d all called Harry.
Sheikh Rahman al-Taraq, in fact, a man she’d once admired enormously for the expertise and innovations he’d brought to paediatric surgery. Admired enough to be flattered when he’d asked her to have a coffee with him afterwards, babbling on to him about her desire to specialise in the same surgery. So she had been late for David, who’d said he’d wait at work and drive her home rather than letting her take the tube—half an hour late—half an hour, which could have changed everything.
She closed her eyes against the memories—the crash, the fear, the blood …
It hadn’t been Harry’s fault, of course, but how could she remember that meeting without all the horror of it coming back—not when she was healing, not on the island that had brought peace to her soul.
But right now that man was in pain.
She reached him and slipped to the side of what was his obviously injured foot, taking his arm and hauling it around her shoulders to steady him.
‘What happened?’ she asked, once they were stabilised in the now knee-deep water.
‘Trod on something—agonising pain.’
The man’s face was a pale, grimacing mask.
‘Let’s get you back to civilisation where we can phone the hospital,’ she said, hoping she sounded more practical than she felt because the warmth of the man’s body was disturbing her.
In fact, the man was disturbing her, and, if truth be told, the memory of her chance meeting with him at the cocktail party had been niggling inside her for the past six weeks. Reminding her of things she didn’t want to remember …
But reminding her of other things, as well.
Not that he’d know that.
‘I’m Sarah. We met at the cocktail party.’
‘Harry!’
The name came out through gritted teeth but they were out of the water now and heading slowly, step hop, step hop, for the first of the bures in the resort.
‘Did you see what it was?’ Sarah asked, thinking of the many venomous inhabitants that lurked around coral reefs.
‘Trod on it!’
They’d reached the door.
‘That probably means a stonefish. They burrow down into the sand or camouflage themselves in rock pools so they’re undetectable from their surroundings. You should be wearing shoes. Is your hot-water system good? Water hot?’
The man she was helping—Harry—seemed to swell with the rage that echoed in his voice.
‘Need a shower, do you?’
Sarah decided that a man in pain was entitled to be a little tetchy so she ignored him, helping him to a chair and kneeling in front of him to examine his foot.
‘You’ve got two puncture wounds and they’re already swelling. I’ll get some hot water and then phone the hospital. Hot water, as hot as you can stand, should ease the pain.’
Sarah looked directly at him, probably for the first time since she’d arrived at the bottom of the rock fall. Even with gritted teeth and a fierce expression of pain on his face, he was good looking. Tall, dark, and handsome, like a prince in story books. The words formed in her head as she hurried to the small kitchen area of the bure in search of a bowl and hot water.
No bowls, but a large beaten copper vase. The stings were in the upper part of his foot—he could get that much of his foot into it.
Back at the chair, she knelt again, setting down the vase of hot water but keeping hold of the jug of cold water she’d brought with her.
‘Try that with the toe of your good foot,’ she said. ‘If it’s too hot I’ll add cold water but you need it as hot as you can manage.’
He dipped a toe in and withdrew it quickly, tried again after Sarah had added water, and actually sighed with relief as he submerged the wounds in the container and the pain eased off.
Looking up at her, he shook his head.
‘How did you know that?’
But she was on the phone to the hospital and someone had answered, so she could only shrug in reply to his question.
Quickly she explained the situation, turning back to Harry to ask, ‘Is the pain travelling up your leg?’
He nodded.
‘Like pins and needles that turn into cramp, although it’s easier now.’
Sarah relayed the description to Sam, who was on the hospital end of the phone.
‘We’ll pick up a few things and be right down,’ Sam said. ‘Put his foot in hot water.’
Sarah smiled to herself as she hung up, glad some tiny crevice of her brain had come up with the same information, although it had been at least ten years since she’d practised general medicine and, having been in England, had never encountered a stonefish sting before.
Grabbing the jug, she returned to the kitchen for more hot water, knowing that as the water cooled, the pain would return.
‘I
