taken off his shirt but his shorts would be wet as he clambered ashore, so his reaction would be obvious, though it was darker now and maybe she wouldn’t notice …
Well, he could hardly leave her alone on the other side of the rockfall—not with his mother’s order, the ‘take care of Caroline’ one, still echoing in his ears.
He swam, emerging from the lagoon and flapping at his shorts to conceal the evidence of his reaction.
‘We’d better move into the shadows of the palm trees,’ he said, deciding it was time to take charge. ‘And walk quietly. You don’t know who might be around.’
‘What, like fierce Alsatian guard dogs that will rip us to pieces without a second thought?’ Caroline muttered. ‘I wonder if I can still shin up a coconut palm.’
Keanu smiled at the image, although he was thinking more of the darkness the shadows would provide. At least in the shadows beneath the palms he wouldn’t be able to see the way her full breasts were outlined by the wet shift, or the way it was indented into her navel, and raised slightly over the mound of her sex.
He had to stop thinking about wet shifts and sex and concentrate or they’d be caught for sure.
As they approached the first of the bures that had once housed visiting scientists they heard voices, but not close.
‘That sounds like people over beyond the kitchen where the little staff bar used to be,’ he murmured to Caroline.
The helicopter pilots, back when there had been three or four and so they’d had more time off than other staff, had always frequented it, not by creeping down the cliff and swimming around the rockfall but by walking down the track from the airfield—the track now fenced off, guarded and gated.
A lone light shone in the first of the bures, but even from outside Keanu could see the place had had a lot of money spent on it. Stone walls where mud had been, a marble deck with a deep spa bath shaded by thick vegetation.
‘This isn’t accommodation for visiting scientists,’ Caro whispered to him. ‘It’s luxury accommodation for the very wealthy who want absolute privacy and can afford it. See how each bure has been separated from the next by a thick planting of shrubs, most of them scented, like that huge ginger plant over there.’
‘But what of the laboratories and the communal kitchens and dining rooms?’ he argued. ‘Surely people paying the kind of money they’d pay to stay here aren’t all going to eat together?
‘Let’s see.’
Keanu took her hand, ignoring the shock of excitement such an impersonal touch had caused. He led the way towards the kitchen area, although always off the path that, even in the dark, looked freshly raked and would show their footprints.
What had been the kitchen and adjoining open eating area seemed shrouded in scaffolding, until they crept closer and realised the old longhouse had been included in the renovations. It was now a longer, wider building, still open at the sides to catch the breezes, exactly like the meeting halls on the other islands, where feasts were held and elders met to make rules or administer judgment. Only better—fancier …
The kitchens must be behind it, but so was the bar because the noise was louder now.
‘We can’t go farther,’ Keanu said firmly. ‘We’d be caught for sure. We’ll have to rely on Sam to report on the laboratories when he’s able to go back to work in them. And there’s no way we can take photographs, the flash would alert someone for sure.’
He half expected Caro to argue—she’d always been the one more willing to take risks—but to his surprise she turned back into the bushes.
‘Come on, we’ll go back the way we came before someone finds us.’
Caroline smiled to herself, realising Keanu was now as intent on this expedition as she had been.
But holding Keanu’s hand was distracting, and he was pulling her along, far too close to his body, which was beyond distracting. She began to tremble and suspected it wasn’t nerves or cold, although he stopped in a particular dense patch of shadow and pulled her into his arms.
‘You’re cold,’ he whispered, folding her against his body, the action making her tremble even more. His bare skin was warm against hers, his body hard where hers was soft. And her reaction to it was so startling she probably would have done something stupid like kiss him if he hadn’t been rubbing his hands up and down her arms, obviously trying to warm her, although the trembles had nothing to do with the cool night air.
A boulder—it confirmed her suspicions. No matter what weird reactions she was having to this reunion—to his closeness, his body—he was feeling nothing for the woman trembling in his arms.
A rustle in the bushes broke them apart, and although it was only an inquisitive lyrebird, it was enough to remind them of where they were and the inherent danger of being caught there.
But red flags of warning of another kind waved in Caroline’s head as they crept back to the beach. Her reaction to Keanu holding her had to be a rebound thing. Devastated by Steve’s rejection and reunited with her childhood friend, she’d really only wanted comfort.
Right.
So why was her body throbbing with what felt very like desire, not to mention an even deeper regret that the kiss hadn’t happened?
Ridiculous! A relationship between them just couldn’t happen. Not only had her uncle Ian done all he could to blacken the Lockhart name among the islands’ population but he’d—what?—assaulted Keanu’s mother?
Although he’d said worse than assault …
Little wonder Keanu had broken off all contact with her—and probably distrusted anyone who bore the Lockhart name.
At which stage she fell over, making enough noise as she landed in a baby palm tree to awaken the ghosts of the dead.
‘What is wrong with you?’ Keanu growled, hauling her to her feet. ‘You’re blundering along as if you’ve got your eyes shut.’
She could hardly tell him the line her thoughts had been following so she got back onto the edge of the path and resumed walking quietly along it.
‘Tomorrow night we could walk along the fence,’ Keanu said, breaking a silence that had stretched a little tautly between them.
‘I might be on duty. I haven’t met Hettie yet, let alone get a roster from her.’
‘Come to think of it, you probably will be on duty,’ Keanu told her. ‘Anahera does extra day shifts so she can be at home with Hana in the evenings. Besides which we probably wouldn’t see much—the plantings are too thick.’
‘On duty all night?’ Caroline ignored his fence conversation because she was interested in the set-up at the short-staffed hospital, although she’d get back to him ordering her around some other time. They’d been a pair, a partnership, in all the right and wrong things they’d done, and now here he was, giving orders …
‘No, three to midnight. We have a couple of local nurses’ aides who share the night shifts between them.’
‘And
