Two months later.
Rural airstrip, Western Province,
Sri Lanka.
JAYE HAD PUT all his efforts into getting the precious medical supplies out of the plane’s cargo hold and stacked by the side of the tarmac. The pilot had made it very clear that the only thing he did between landing and taking off again was to drink iced tea and sit in the shade, and the helpers he’d been promised by the clinic hadn’t turned up yet.
It didn’t matter. He’d been sitting down for too long, first on the flight from Heathrow and then in the cramped cockpit of the chartered cargo plane, and it had given him far too long to think about this. A little hard work was more than welcome.
Something was wrong at the clinic. They were short-staffed, having lost a couple of nurses and the doctor in residence in the last month, and Ranjini, the head of nursing services, had reported that morale was very low. Then, out of the blue, Megan had put in an urgent request for medical supplies that they should already have.
Jaye had become increasingly worried. When he’d last spoken with Ranjini, he’d asked her what she needed him to do and she’d answered straight away.
We cannot work this out on the phone. I need you here, Jaye.
There had been no time to contact Megan, and if there had been Jaye wasn’t sure what he would have said. That one kiss had echoed in his memory, along with the promise to himself that it wouldn’t be repeated, and together they’d morphed into a longing that he didn’t know how to handle.
He’d packed his bags and left, hitching a ride with the medical shipment for the last leg of his journey. Ranjini wouldn’t have called him there unless there were serious problems, and getting to the bottom of them was more important than his own feelings, or Megan’s for that matter.
He heard an engine, and stood up, stretching his back. A battered motorbike was speeding towards the plane, kicking up dust on the dirt airstrip. For the first time in the last three days Jaye smiled. No one kicked dust up quite as well as Dinesh.
Someone was on the back of the bike, but since they were travelling at speed and seemed to be wearing the better half of the road, it was difficult to make out who it was. But when the passenger dismounted, he recognised Megan even before she’d taken off her helmet, shaking her blonde hair in the breeze.
Even now, the familiar pain twisted in his heart. How often in the last two months had he longed for just a glimpse of her? Just one touch of her fingertips.
He watched as Dinesh took a brush from under the seat and flicked it across his beloved machine. Jaye never had got to the bottom of why he rode through every dust bowl and puddle he came across when he was so very particular about the motorbike being spotless when it was stationary. Perhaps he just liked cleaning it.
Megan had turned towards him, shading her eyes against the sun, and suddenly stood stock-still. Jaye began to walk towards her, and she seemed to gather her wits, hurrying in his direction.
He’d run through this moment so many times in his mind. He was here to solve problems, to be an arbiter if one was needed, and that meant that he had to swallow his own feelings and treat Megan exactly the same as he treated everyone else.
Still, all he could see was her hair, shining in the sunlight. All he could think about was her smile, and how her dusty clothes only served to make her cheeks look pinker and her eyes even more lustrously blue. Despite everything, he still ached to kiss her.
Which was impossible on just about every level imaginable. Megan didn’t want it, she’d made that pretty clear. And Jaye still had a little bit of his pride intact.
‘Jaye…’ He’d known it would be hard, but he hadn’t quite anticipated how hard it would be to hear her say his name. ‘What are you doing here? I thought the relief doctor—’
‘Dr Stone won’t be able to fly out until next week. I’m filling in for him. Didn’t Ranjini tell you?’
‘No…no, we’ve been very busy. She left me a note saying that a doctor was coming with the medical supplies and I thought it would be Dr Stone. I came to meet you because…’
Suddenly, a tear dropped from her eye. Megan wiped it away impatiently, leaving a smear of grime on her cheek.
‘What’s the matter?’ Jaye fisted his hands at his sides to stop himself from holding out his arms, ready to comfort her.
‘It’s nothing.’ She shook her head to emphasise the point. It was the death knell to all the vain hopes that had intruded into his waking and sleeping for the last two months. Even when she was angry with him, Megan had always told him why.
‘I mean…yes, there’s something the matter. We have a boy with dengue fever at the clinic. I need you to go to him. Dinesh will take you.’
‘Okay.’ It was almost a relief to think about something else. ‘What’s his condition?’
‘He’s starting to haemorrhage. We’re desperately low on IV fluids. Have you brought some with the supplies?’
Jaye had just unloaded the box, and he started to walk towards it. ‘Over here. You have no IV fluids?’
‘I’ll explain later. You should go.’
Jaye tore open the box with rather more force than necessary. Something was going on, and it looked as if Megan was as likely to tell him as fly in the air. If she wanted him to just be her boss, he’d be her boss, and that meant she had some questions to answer.
* * *
Megan watched as Jaye drove Dinesh’s bike away from the airstrip, followed by the obligatory plume of dust. The horror when she’d first seen Jaye had given way to a sudden joy, a feeling that everything was going to be all right. Which was even more terrifying.
Dinesh had handed his bike over to Jaye with little more than a murmur. The people here trusted him. It was good that he’d come because the clinic needed a firm hand to steer it right now. If that hand happened to be Jaye’s then there was no reason for Megan to start fantasising about all the other things that he could do with his hands.
And she didn’t have time for that, anyway. The truck from the clinic would be here soon and there were medical supplies to load. She’d survived the four days of Jaye’s presence and two months of his absence. She could manage to get through the next week until the new doctor arrived.
An hour later, she navigated the bumpy track that led to the clinic, brick built and shaded by trees that seemed even more lush and inviting after the heat of the road. Her arms ached from lifting boxes and the heavy steering on the truck, and Megan was glad to be back, even if it did bring her in closer proximity to Jaye.
Dinesh jumped down from the passenger seat, making for his bike, clearly intent on giving it a thorough once-over and applying a little man-to-bike reassurance that allowing someone else to take charge of it had been an exception to the rule and wouldn’t be happening again. Megan felt suddenly too weary to move.
A tap on the door made her jump, and as she opened it Ranjini stood back so that the shower of dust didn’t spoil the bright colours of her sari. ‘Jaye’s here?’
Ranjini gave her usual broad smile. ‘Yes. He has seen to the boy and is making a round of all the patients now.’
‘How is Ashan?’
‘We have what we need for him. He will be well now.’
‘Good. Did Jaye say anything…?’ Megan hardly dared ask. But asking Ranjini was a good deal easier than approaching Jaye. ‘Did he want to see me?’
‘When he has finished his rounds. You have plenty of time to go and get cleaned up, he is taking his time.’ Ranjini leaned forward, laying her hand on Megan’s arm. ‘He is here now. Things will be better, you’ll see.’
‘I hope so.’
‘You do not know him as we do.’
Megan felt a tear prick at the side of her eye. This time she managed to blink it back.
‘You are very tired.’ Ranjini was looking at her, concern in her face.
‘We all are. But things will get better. I’m just going to count the boxes off the truck, and then I’ll go and have a shower.’
In the shower, her tears would be unnoticeable, even to herself. She’d towel herself dry and pretend that everything was all right. Pretend that she didn’t want to see Jaye’s smile because, now more than ever, it was impossible.
* * *
Triple-checking each box off the lorry and into the stockroom took longer than Megan had thought. By the time she’d cleaned up and changed her clothes, the word around the clinic was that Jaye was waiting for her in the office that Dr Clarke had recently vacated.
He’d tidied up a bit, putting all the papers that had been left scattered across the desk into a neat pile. A new pile of patients’ case notes had appeared and he was obviously working his way through it, a cup of tea at his elbow. When Megan appeared in the open doorway he looked up.
‘Come in, Megan. Shut the door.’
A chair was positioned on the other side of the desk, and the tray that was on the desk contained an extra cup and saucer. Jaye had obviously prepared for this interview, and Megan still felt completely unprepared.
‘Would you like some tea?’
‘No. Thank you.’ The pouring of tea was only going to prolong this agony. ‘You want to know why we ran out of essential drugs for the clinic.’
‘Yes. I’d very much like to know that.’ His face was impassive. Maybe he felt nothing. It had only been one kiss and he could be forgiven for that.
‘When I first arrived here, I did a thorough stock check. I sent a copy through to the London office.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I looked that up when I saw your emergency requisition. It indicates that you had good stock levels.’
‘We thought we did. But one of the nurses came to me with a batch of medicines that had a current date on the outer box, but the packs inside were out of date. I investigated a bit more, and found a lot more like that in the stockroom. There were dressings that were covered with mould as well.’
Jaye’s brow was furrowed. ‘You’re saying that our suppliers are sending you old stock?’
‘No, because I looked up the records, and some of those boxes had been opened and checked before, and they were fine.’
‘So…?’ His gaze suddenly met hers. Searching, as if he wanted to turn over the darkest recesses of her mind. He’d done that when he’d kissed her, and she’d revelled in the way he’d seemed to want to gauge her every response. But now it felt like a searing condemnation.
‘So someone here has taken the new supplies from the boxes and replaced them with old ones. Probably drugs that have been marked out of date and put to one side to be destroyed.’
‘You’re saying that we have a thief. Working here in the clinic?’
‘I don’t know.’ Megan felt suddenly angry. Jaye was probing her but giving nothing back. She didn’t want any special consideration from him, but she’d bet her life he didn’t treat the rest of the clinic staff like this.
‘Make a guess.’ There was no humour in his face as he said the words.
‘Okay… On the same day this all came to light, one of the nurses left early, saying she was ill. She hasn’t been back here since and we’ve gone to her house and she isn’t there. She’s worked here a while and she was good at her job. I have no evidence against her, but it’s a coincidence.’
‘All right.’ He picked up his pen and started to scribble notes on the pad in front of him. ‘I’ll take it from here. Anything else?’
Yes, there was a lot else. The bad feeling in the clinic, the way that Dr Clarke had acted. The fact that this job wasn’t what anyone had promised, and now Jaye was here and treating her like the person he least wanted to see.
Okay. She hadn’t much wanted to see him either. But at least she was trying.
‘I’m doing a thorough stock check. I’ll know exactly how much we have of everything, and have the old stock ready for disposal in a couple of days.’
‘I want to see all the stock before you destroy anything. And your stock check, please.’ Jaye didn’t look up at her.
‘All right.’ Perhaps she should go now. But it felt as if there was nothing but unfinished business here. ‘Is there anything else?’
For a moment his eyes softened. She saw the man she’d opened her heart to over that turbulent four days.
‘Yes.’
Megan nodded, waiting for him to elaborate. Then the Jaye she knew seemed to snap back out of focus, retreating into cool professionalism. The man who had seemed to understand everything now appeared intent on understanding nothing.
‘Ranjini and Dr Narayan ran this place for a long time together, almost since it started. They made a reality of our original vision, that it would be a calm and quiet place of healing.’
He said the words almost as if he’d never said them before. Almost as if they’d never met before.
‘Yes. I know.’
‘When Dr Narayan retired, and we replaced him with Dr Clarke…well, you knew that there were some teething problems before you came here.’
Teething problems. That was one way of putting it. ‘Dr Clarke had a very confrontational approach. A lot of the staff are unhappy and claim they’ve been treated unfairly. I know that Ranjini’s mentioned this to you.’
‘Yes, she has. She tells me that since Dr Clarke left, two weeks ago, you and she have been working very hard. You’ve been cleaning the wards and filling in for absentee nurses, and now I hear that you’ve been spending quite a bit of time in the stockroom as well.’
‘Yes…’ Megan could feel that Jaye was working around to some kind of point. ‘The staff shortage…’
‘Yes, I understand that. What I don’t understand is why I didn’t hear about this from you. This isn’t the job you were employed to do, and I suspect that neither of us are particularly happy about that. I’m certainly not.’
Something thudded in Megan’s chest. Perhaps it was her heart, reacting to the blow that Jaye’s ice-cold words had dealt.
‘I…’ She felt her ears burn. ‘I…had some initial concerns, which I spoke with John Ferris about. The first two weeks that I was here I was trying to get the measure of the place, both organisationally and in terms of the personalities involved.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘John’s been away sick for the last two weeks.’
‘Yes, I know. I’ve been filling in for him in London.’ Jaye leaned back in his chair, swiping his hand across the top of his head. ‘You’ve clearly been unhappy here, and things are falling apart. I’ll ask again. Why didn’t you tell me?’
Was he really that obtuse? Or was he just making this more difficult for her, because he knew that he could? Suddenly Megan didn’t care that he was her boss, or that it was in his power to send her home if he felt like it. He couldn’t treat her like this.
‘Why do you think, Jaye?’