She was a woman with obligations.

Kapua, her island home since she was eight years old, had never had a doctor. Islanders were dying because of it. But Lily had excelled at school, and she’d been desperate to study medicine. Somehow the islanders had supported that wish. Kapua’s economy was subsistence level, which meant the islanders’ decision to fund her medical training had been huge. Her family and neighbours had gone without basic necessities to give her-and themselves-this chance.

The further her training had progressed, the more the islanders’ anticipation had built. Their telephone calls over the last few months had been jubilant. They’d built a hospital because they knew she was coming. She was qualified. The island would have its first doctor.

She was carrying Ben’s child.

Appalled, she let the test strip fall and her hand dropped to her waistline. She was feeling for a pregnancy that was hardly there. This was so new. So tiny. A fragment of human life.

Pregnancy didn’t always end in a live birth, she thought, trying not to cry. To tell Ben now…

Impossible. He was off at the end of this week on his first mission with the armed forces. He’d react with forcefulness, she thought. He’d decide on marriage. He’d organise a date for a wedding during his first leave.

But if she left-as she had to leave-he wouldn’t follow, she thought bleakly. She’d tried so hard to persuade him to visit her island but he’d reacted with incomprehension. The islanders were her family? How could that be? He didn’t know what a family was.

Family… Yes, the islanders were her family. They’d love this child to bits, she thought.

Ben would see a child as nothing more than chains.

She was rocking back and forth now, distressed beyond measure. How could she tell him? If she told him then he’d insist on marriage, and how could she refuse him? But how could she not go home?

‘So tell him and go anyway,’ she told her reflection.