undid the microphone and began to walk away, ignoring the pleas of the other reporters. They’d be better off showing footage of the rescue crews hard at work while he figured out how to help patients and simultaneously order the urgently needed helicopters to get the worst cases over to Athens.
He could call his dad.
He could also saw off his own hand. Lifting up that phone would come at a cost. It always did.
“Dr. Nikolaides?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have time for any more interviews—”
“No! I’m not with the press. I’m a doctor. My name is Lea Risi.”
He stopped and turned. The woman was wearing holiday clothes. Chinos. A flowery top. Her accent was not local, but she spoke flawless Greek. Useful, considering there was a heavy mix of tourists and locals pouring into the clinic.
For just a nanosecond he rued the appeal of this gorgeous port town that drew holidaymakers from all around the world. If only they were on a rocky outcrop with a diminished population...
“Dr. Nikolaides!” A paramedic was calling him from the hastily put-together triage area off Reception.
He beckoned to Lea. “Come along, then.”
“Don’t you want to know my credentials?” She ran a few steps to catch up with his long-legged strides.
“Not particularly.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, then pulled the shoulder-length mane back under control with an elastic band he’d picked up somewhere during the course of the day. He didn’t know when, exactly. Sixteen hours’ straight trauma work did that to a man. The details blurred.
“I’m a psychiatrist.”
He nodded. Fine. That meant she had medical credentials. “What do you want? Old or young?”
“Sorry?”
“We’ve got patients coming in from a care home and a school. Both were hit hard. We’re triaging on site and transporting to hospital with limited resources.”
He stopped and wheeled round, holding out his hands to steady her when she lost her balance trying not to collide with him.
“Apologies.” He shook his head. “I’m a bit short on manners today.”
“I totally understand. I just want to help.”
Theo put out a hand. “Good. Help is what we need. Theo Nikolaides.” They shared a quick handshake as he rattled off the necessary facts. “I run the clinic. With the help of some friends. Doctors.”
He silently reeled through the cities in the world where they might be. Was Deakin in Paris or Buenos Aires this month? And Christos...? New York. Definitely New York. Ares? Only heaven knew.
Burn specialist.
Neurosurgeon.
Miracle-worker.
If only they were all pilots. He needed them here. But they’d come...they would come.
“Put me wherever you think I’ll be best placed—”
Lea was about to say something else when his eyes latched on to a set of unruly curls weaving its way through the crowd jamming up the entryway into the clinic.
Christos!
A jolt of lightning would have affected him less.
What was Cailey Tomaras doing here? The last time he’d seen her—
“Doctor?”
“Sorry. I’m a bit frazzled.” He tapped the side of his head. “What did you say your name was again?”
“Leanora Risi. Lea. Just call me Lea.”
Her empathetic smile spoke volumes. She could see he was busy, but she wanted to help—and at this juncture he needed all the help he could get.
His eyes slipped past Lea again. Cailey had left the island to become a maternity nurse, hadn’t she? Good for her. He knew she’d always been interested in medicine—
“If there’s someone else you’d rather I speak with...” Lea put a hand on his arm.
“No. I’m your man. Apologies. There’s just someone I—”
Someone I should’ve kissed ten years ago. Someone I should’ve taken on a proper date. Someone I never thought I’d see again.
He looked down at Lea’s feet and saw strappy sandals not wholly suited to working in a chaotic clinic.
“Here on holiday?”
“I was.” Lea tipped her head and tried to capture his attention. “But now I’m here to help. I don’t have any equipment but I have these.” She lifted up her hands and twisted them as if they were freshly washed for surgery.
“Perfect. Good.”
Wholly distracted, he let his attention shift past Lea yet again.
Cailey face had grown...not thinner...just... Well, even more beautiful, obviously. She’d had quite a lead in that department. Her cheekbones had become more elegantly defined...her lips were still that deep red, difficult to believe it was real and not painted on...
Had she finally come home?
“Dr. Nikolaides...?” Lea’s expression shifted to one of grim determination. “You obviously need to be elsewhere. Now, I haven’t practiced emergency medicine in a while. But I’m definitely up to the cuts and bruises variety of injury—if you’ll just point me in the right direction I can get on with helping patients.”
“Yes. Of course.”
He gave himself a sharp shake. He wasn’t here to ogle ghosts from the past. There were very real, very urgent medical cases that needed help. Now.
“Why don’t you go grab a notebook from Petra? She’s the loving but steel-hearted battleax working the main desk. She’ll give you everything you need to work your way through the queue and categorize people. We’ve got a couple of doctors working just through that archway. It’s makeshift, but we aren’t really kitted out for intensive care. I’ll be there shortly. There are a couple more volunteer doctors from the mainland seeing less urgent cases.”
He looked up to the skylight above them as a medical helicopter flew overhead.
“And a medevac. If we’re lucky, we’ll soon have one very talented nurse on board as well.”
Lea gave his arm a quick squeeze, then headed toward Reception to start work. If she’d said something to him, he wouldn’t have known. All he wanted to know was what had brought Cailey back to the island she’d sworn never to set foot on again.
“WELL, LOOK WHO we have here. If it isn’t Little Miss I’m-Going-to-Make-a-Difference.”
Theo Nikolaides. As she lived and breathed...barely.
She opened her mouth. She’d prepared for this. Spent hours of her life thinking about what to say when and if she ever saw him again.
Fffzzzzttt! There went her ability to use actual words.
“Come to help out at our little backwater clinic, have you?”
“I...uh...”
Kaboom! An explosion of fireworks she was clearly powerless to resist went off in her chest, then her belly, then her... Well, everywhere, really.
“Cailey? Are you all right? You haven’t been hurt, have you?”
Crrrrassssh! Down came the defenses she’d worked so hard