The Australian's Proposal

Cal, who’d been standing at the foot of the bed with his arm around Gina, nodded tiredly at Kate, then led Gina away. Jill, who looked as if she hadn’t slept for days, also departed, her shoulders slumped as if Jack’s failure to respond was somehow her fault.

Kate continued to talk, while Charles sat beside her, watching the screen for any kind of response from his nephew.

Nothing—well, not nothing, but the changes were all negative. They were looking on while a healthy young man died for no apparent reason.

Hamish stood outside the room, watching through the window, seeing the urgency in Kate’s pose as she bent over the bed, trying to force a reaction of any kind from Jack.

Apparently deciding there was nothing he could do, Charles left the room, wheeling to a stop beside Hamish so he, too, could watch through the window.

‘I tried to phone his mother, but got an answering-machine. Philip thinks she might be skiing in New Zealand. Even if we ask the police over there to track the family down, it could be days before she gets here.’

The anguish in Charles’s voice told Hamish far more than the words. The man was blaming himself for insisting the lad stayed here in Crocodile Creek.

‘You did all you could,’ Hamish assured him. ‘His whole blood clotting time was within acceptable limits, we had the desmopressin on hand for Lucky, so you were able to infuse that into him before the op. They couldn’t have done any more in a major city hospital, and shifting him again might have provoked this problem earlier.’

But Charles refused to be comforted.

‘I shouldn’t have assumed my way was the best way,’ he said bitterly. ‘Damn it all, Hamish. There’s far too much bad blood in this family already, without me having more of it on my hands.’

‘You’ve already done what you can to get Jim and Honey Cooper back on their feet and to end the feud between the Coopers and the Wetherbys,’ he reminded Charles.

‘Sure!’ Charles growled. ‘I patch things up just fine then let the father of their grandchild die. It’ll start all over again!’

‘Not if Kate has any say in it,’ Hamish said, nodding to where Kate was ordering the young man to live.

Standing helplessly beside the bed, her gaze snapping from Jack to the monitor and back again, Kate thought about the story Hamish had told her. A family feud that had torn this modern-day Romeo from his Juliet.

His Juliet! His girlfriend! The baby! She swung around to see Hamish talking to Charles outside the window.

Leaving Jack’s side, she headed out the door.

‘Megan? Where’s Megan? Is she still in the hospital? Or in town? Can we get her here? She’s the one person to whom he might respond.’

Hamish, who’d heard Jack’s insistence that Megan was the only girl for him, caught on fastest.

‘She’s living at Christina’s house. I’ll go there now.’

But Charles held him back.

‘You think he cares about her? According to Jim, he hasn’t seen her for six months.’

‘He cares,’ Hamish said, and Charles nodded.

‘Then go and get her. I’ll handle Jim.’

Satisfied she’d done what she could, Kate returned to Jack’s side, and continued urging a response from him, but through the window she saw Charles wheel away—to tell Jim Cooper his daughter’s boyfriend was now in the hospital?

Would Megan come? Kate was frustrated that she didn’t know more about the dynamics of the relationship between Megan and Jack. There was a baby—but did Megan care about its father?

The question was answered very soon afterwards when a plump young woman came racing into the ICU, Hamish hurrying rather ineffectually behind her.

‘Where is he? Where’s Jack?’ she demanded.

Emily came out from behind the monitor to intercept her.

‘Hush, Megan,’ she said quietly. ‘Calm down, love. You’re not long out of here yourself.’

But Megan was beyond stopping. With one swift glance around the sterile space, she found which room held the man she sought and, stepping around Emily, headed straight for it.

But was it love or anger driving her? Kate had no idea, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. She intercepted Megan as the excited young woman burst through the door.

‘He’s very sick. Don’t shock him,’ she warned, then put her arms around the newcomer as Megan’s face crumpled and she let out an anguished cry.

‘I wouldn’t hurt him,’ she whispered. ‘I love him!’

The plaintive declaration speared pain deep into Kate’s heart, but she held her ground, talking quietly to Megan to calm her before she approached Jack’s bed.

‘Hamish said there was no reason for him to be so sick,’ Megan whimpered, allowing Kate to hold her while she stared at the pale, depleted figure on the bed.

‘No, it just seems as if he’s given up.’

‘He can’t do that. He’s got a baby,’ Megan protested. ‘He can’t die without knowing about Jackson.’

‘He won’t die,’ Kate promised—both fiercely and foolishly—then she led Megan close to the bed, took Jack’s hand and spoke to him again.

‘Hey, Jack, I’ve got a surprise for you. This will make you open your eyes.’

She put his hand into Megan’s and stepped back, while Megan collapsed into the chair beside the bed and brushed her lips across his hand. Tears spilled onto his skin and dampened the sheets, and Kate backed up against the wall and waited, knowing Megan needed to get her own emotions under control before she could speak to Jack.

‘Jack, I’m here, and I love you so much. Please, don’t leave me again. I tried so hard to believe I didn’t love you. I even told myself I could live without you, but seeing you again I know I can’t, so don’t leave me, Jack, don’t leave me again.’

Megan used his hand to wipe away fresh tears, and Kate found herself swallowing hard and hoping her eyes weren’t brimming too obviously.

‘I need you, Jack,’ Megan continued, her voice steady although she was trembling all over. ‘You have no idea how much I need you—especially now.’

She glanced up at Kate, despairing questions in her eyes. Was she talking too much? Was it doing any good?

And the big one—should she tell him about the baby?

Or maybe Kate imagined that one. She hoped so because she had no idea how a young man might respond to the unexpected news he was a father.

‘Keep talking, that’s all you can do,’ she said.

Megan obeyed, telling Jack she’d been here in hospital herself and though she’d been sick she’d kept thinking of him and that had kept her going.

‘We need each other, Jack,’ she said, imploring a response from him. ‘We’re meant to be together.’

But Kate, who was watching the monitor all the time, willing a change in the slowly declining peaks, knew the words were being lost somewhere in the caverns of emptiness inside the young man.

Megan gave her one last despairing look, then threw the last dice.

‘We have a baby, Jack. A little boy. I called him Jackson—you know, Jack’s son. He’s been sick too, Jack, he has a bad heart, but he’s a fighter, our baby, a real little champ.’

There! The spike Kate had been praying for happened, and she turned her attention from the monitor to the patient. Jack had opened his eyes, startling Megan so much she began to cry again.

‘A baby?’ Kate lip-read the question, as his voice was strangled by the tubes in his nose and mouth.

Megan held both his hands now, and nodded, tears falling all over him.

‘A baby called Jackson. I’ll bring him in to show you just as soon as you’re well enough.’

‘Now!’

Neither Megan nor Kate could decipher the word, until Jack repeated it.

Megan turned to Kate.

‘The baby’s still here in the nursery because he ran a temperature last week and he’s still not feeding well. Can I bring him now?’

Kate had no idea of the protocol of tiny babies in this ICU, but Charles had obviously heard the conversation, for he was at the door.

‘I’ll get Lucky for you,’ he said to Megan, then he smiled apologetically and added, ‘Jackson! I must remember Jackson!’

He wheeled away, Megan returning to Jack’s side to tell him the baby was on the way, and that he looked just like his father, and now Jack was back they could be a family.

And although Jack’s eyes had closed, Kate could tell he hadn’t slipped away from them again. He’d left that no-man’s land between life and death and, hopefully, wouldn’t return there for a long, long time.

Leaving the little family in the ICU in Charles’s hands, Kate returned to the house, but now, in daylight, she knew she wouldn’t sleep. Not that there was time for sleep. It was after six and she’d been told the hospital car left for Wygera at eight. She changed into her running gear, slipped on her trainers and once again went quietly out of the house.

This time, however, she heard noises in the old building, voices from the side veranda—CJ and Cal, she guessed, while Mike was sitting at the kitchen table, talking into a mobile phone.

He lifted a hand in salute to Kate, then jotted something in a small notebook on the table in front of him.

Kate waved back and continued on her way. A good run over the headland would shake away the cobwebs her interrupted night’s sleep had left behind, and prepare her for whatever lay ahead.

She began slowly, pacing herself as she crossed the dewy grass, relishing the salt tang of the air as she drew it deeply into her lungs. Then her rhythm picked up and she extended her pace so she reached the sun-drenched summit winded enough to need to bend over to regain her breath.

So it wasn’t until she straightened that the full beauty of the place struck her—the blue-green of the sea, the curved hump of an island on the horizon, the golden sands curling around the cove.

Finally, a house by the sea. Maybe she’d extend her contract.

Maybe if her father wanted her …

Best not to think about it, she reminded herself, but the warning came too late. Thinking about the father she didn’t know had disrupted the blissful serenity her run had given her, and now, as she stared out at the peaceful sea, disquiet was growing again within her.

Or was the disquiet because she sensed she was no longer alone on the bluff?

She turned, wondering if it was one of the housemates she hadn’t yet met who was joining her in her silent communion with the sea.

It was a housemate, but one she knew—one she’d been trying not to think about as she’d run across the tough, springy grass of the headland.

‘Kate.’

Hamish was close enough to shield her from the breeze that had been fidgeting at her clothing, and her name was both an acknowledgement and a greeting.

She nodded in reply then decided to walk along the clifftop, assuming, if he wanted her company, he’d fall in beside her.

But instead he grasped her elbow, effectively halting her progress and, at the same time, turning her towards him.

He stared at her for a moment, as if uncertain who she was.

‘This is the most ridiculous situation,’ he grumbled at her.

‘Walking on a clifftop?’

‘No!’

The grumble had become a growl.

‘Then what?’

Batman would never have asked that question.

Batman would have known the answer without having to ask.

In actual fact, Kate knew the answer, too, because she could feel the attraction between them simmering in the clean morning air.

Pollution, that was what it was …

And, as Hamish had said, it was a ridiculous situation. They’d barely met. He was going away.

‘Do you know how badly I want to kiss you?’ His voice was tight enough to make the words sound clipped and harsh.

‘I can guess,’ Kate admitted, as her own body hummed with a quite absurd desire to do the same to him. ‘But I’m sure it’s just proximity that’s doing this to us. We shared a night of tension, out there in the gorge with Jack, and it drew us closer together than a month of normal company might do.’

Did she sound down to earth and together, or had her internal flutters botched the job?

‘Do you honestly believe a work-related bond would make me want to kiss you? I’ve worked with Cal for two years and never wanted to kiss him. Or Emily. Or Christina.’

Hamish didn’t seem to be moving but his body was narrowing the gap between the two of them so now she could feel its warmth.

‘I should hope not,’ Kate retorted, edging backwards because the warmth was dangerous. ‘You can’t go around kissing all your colleagues. And that includes me. Apart from anything else, with me, anyway, it’s impractical. Think about it, Hamish! Starting something would be idiotic. You’re going home in less than three weeks and I’m here on a mission. It’s a perfect example of the wrong time and the wrong place.’

She was trying hard not to look directly at him—looking at Hamish being something more safely done from a distance—but she knew for sure he’d greeted this prime example of common sense with a frown.

Knew for sure he’d closed the gap between them once again!

‘Wrong time? Wrong place? Is there such a thing with kisses?’ he demanded, then, without waiting for her answer, his lips closed on hers, warm and firm and all-encompassing, claiming her mouth like a trophy, tempting her lips open with an inciting tongue, luring from her a response she knew she shouldn’t give.

The kiss lasted until her knees gave out and she slumped against his body.

‘Hamish!’

The word she’d intended as a protest came out more like an endearment, encouraging him to lock his arms around her body and draw her close against him, supporting her, so he could continue to plunder her mouth at will.

The sweet invasion warmed the lonely places in her heart, seducing her with its promise, and although her head knew kissing Hamish was not at all a good idea, her heart longed for more—her body demanded more.

No! Kate broke away, frightened by the intensity of whatever it was between them.

‘I’m going back,’ she said abruptly, and ran away, heading down towards the house—hoping she might find her lost sanity along the way.

CJ was on the top step again, but as Kate drew close Cal appeared, hoisting the child onto his shoulders and carrying him down the steps.

‘I’m taking a spaceship to child care,’ CJ told her, waving a cardboard contraption in the air above Cal’s head. ‘And Mr Grubb’s taken Rudolph to get his shots so he won’t follow me today.’

Kate congratulated them both on the excellent spaceship, wished CJ a happy day then took the steps two at a time, crossing the veranda and finding Emily in the kitchen with Mike.

‘Hi, Kate. Have you met Mike? Our second chopper pilot and paramedic.’

Emily had a possessive hand resting on Mike’s shoulder, and the same sheen in her eyes that Kate had noticed in Gina’s the previous day.

The love epidemic?

‘We met last night,’ Kate explained. ‘Jack OK?’

Emily beamed at her.

‘More OK than he was earlier. We’d thought of bringing Megan in, but we had no idea if he’d want to see her or not. He hadn’t been in touch with her for six months, so we thought maybe he’d be more upset than he already was.’

She paused for breath, then added, ‘Hamish said Jack told you both how he felt about his girlfriend, and how he’d tried to go and visit her.’

‘It’s often a case of whatever works in medicine, isn’t it?’ Mike said, patting Emily’s hand, which still rested on his shoulder. ‘How was your run?’

The change of subject was somewhat abrupt and Mike’s question was innocent enough, yet Kate felt colour surge into her cheeks. Could people see the headland from the kitchen? Or had Mike been outside and seen her kissing Hamish?

‘It was fine,’ she said, ‘but I’m very sweaty. I’ve got to change for work.’

And with that she escaped to her room.

It didn’t matter who saw what, she told herself, but she knew it did. After the public humiliation she’d endured with Daniel and Lindy, Kate was determined her private life would be just that—private.

Not that she intended having a private life with Hamish.

She’d have a shower, grab a bowl of cereal—she would have to find out about cooking and shopping rosters—then go over to the hospital well in time for the trip to Wygera.

If she was early enough, she could get her roster from Jill. Maybe she could get the doctors’ rosters as well. Then all she had to do was make sure she was always busy if she and Hamish happened to have corresponding time off.

Avoidance—that was the answer.

The white station wagon with the 24-hour-rescue emblem she was beginning to recognise as belonging to the hospital, pulled up in front of her, the driver—from his sheer size—unmistakable.

‘Charles or Cal usually do Wygera clinics,’ Hamish said cheerfully, reaching across to open the door for her, ‘but Cal’s got a theatre list today and Charles wants to stay close to Jack, so you’re stuck with me again.’

Kate eyed him with suspicion. It wasn’t so much that he might have engineered this togetherness—after all, he didn’t know about her avoidance decision—but the way he was acting so … well, colleaguey!

Weird!

Uncomfortable, even.

But two could play at pretending they hadn’t exchanged heated kisses on a headland a bare hour earlier.

‘Will you be helping me judge the swimming pool designs?’

‘Oh, no, not me! That’s your job, Sister Winship. Yours alone, although remind me when we get there, I’ve got young Shane’s model in the back of the car. He came in a few days ago with a burst appendix and as he had to finish his model in hospital we gave him an extra couple of days to get his entry in.’

Kate remembered the talk about the competition she’d heard the previous evening. And CJ’s words as well.

‘And CJ and Max’s entry? They were working on it last night. Have you got that on board?’

Hamish turned and smiled at her, and she forgot swimming pools, and models, and a small boy who needed a cowboy hat.

This could not be happening!

‘Cal has already ordered a cowboy hat for Max and he and CJ will get it as a consolation prize,’ Hamish said. ‘That was arranged after Rudolph ate the dressing sheds which they’d made out of dog biscuits.’

Kate had to laugh, but Hamish’s tone made her feel uncomfortable.

He was either far, far better at this colleague stuff than she was, or his words about needing to kiss her had been just that—words.

Or maybe he tested women with a kiss.

Maybe he’d tested her and she’d failed.

The thought made her so depressed she remembered she was going to Wygera so she could see something of the countryside, and she looked out the window at the canefields through which they were passing, seeing nothing but a green blur, while her mind wondered just what the man beside her might have expected from a kiss.

Kissing ineptitude—was that why Daniel had chosen Lindy?

‘Aboriginal community.’

Kate tuned back in to Hamish’s conversation but it was too late. Not a word of it could she recall.

‘I’m sorry, I missed that,’ she said, facing him again, although that was dangerous when he might smile at any time.

‘Canefields are fascinating,’ he said, eyes twinkling to let her know he knew she hadn’t seen them.

He knew too damn much!

‘I was saying that as well as a swimming pool, Wygera needs some kind of industry. Perhaps industry is the wrong word, but a number of aboriginal communities like it are self-supporting. They run cattle stations, or tourist resorts. In the Northern Territory there are artists’ colonies. The problem is Wygera’s close enough to Croc Creek for some of the men to be employed there, but there’s not enough employment in town for all of them. Nor does everyone want to drive fifty miles back and forth to work.’

‘So kids grow up and leave home,’ Kate said, understanding the problem of the lack of employment in small towns.

‘Or don’t leave home and get into trouble,’ Hamish said, sounding more gloomy than she’d ever heard him.

‘You sound as if you really care,’ she said, thinking how different he was from some city doctors she had known who felt their responsibilities ended when a patient walked out the door.

‘Of course I care!’ he snapped. ‘I’ve worked with these people for two years and become friends with a number of them. Just because I’m going home, it doesn’t mean I’ll stop thinking about them. But until something happens to change things at Wygera, these clinic runs—well, doctors and nurses will go on treating symptoms rather than the problem.’

They’d turned off the main highway onto a narrower road which ran as straight as a ruler towards a high water tower.

‘Wygera!’ Hamish said, nodding towards the tower, and gradually, beneath it, a cluster of houses became evident. Dilapidated houses for the most part, with dogs dozing in the dirt in the shade cast by gutted car bodies. Kate recognised the look—there were suburbs in Melbourne where car bodies were the equivalent of garden gnomes in front-yard decor.

Beyond the houses, the ground sloped down to where thickly grouped trees suggested a creek or a river.

But if the town had a creek or river, why would it need a swimming pool?

CHAPTER SIX

HAMISH PULLED UP in front of a small building with a table and three chairs set up outside and a group of people lounging around on logs, chairs, or small patches of grass.

‘Medicine, Wygera-style,’ he said to Kate. ‘If the weather’s good we work outside, although there are perfectly adequate examination, waiting and treatment rooms inside the building.’

He nodded towards a stand of eucalypts some distance away, where more people lay around in the shade.

‘They’re your lot. We come out a couple of times a week, and today’s well-baby day, but if you see anything that worries you, shoot the person over to me. Eye problems are the main worries with the kids, diabetes with the mums. They’ll all have their cards with them—the health worker sees them before we arrive.’

Kate accepted all this information and advice, then, as a young man opened her door with a flourish, she stepped out and looked around her.

The place was nestled in the foothills of the mountains that divided the coastal plain from the cattle country further inland. The ground was bare and rocky, with grass struggling to grow here and there, mainly in the patches of shade.

‘Your bag, ma’am,’ Hamish said, handing her a square suitcase from the back of the station wagon. ‘Scales, swabs, dressings and so on all inside, but Jake here will act as your runner if you need anything else.’

Kate took the bag, but the young man—presumably Jake—who had opened the car door lifted it out of her hand and led her towards the trees, where the shapes became women and children as Kate drew closer. Another table was set out there, with two chairs beside it, but Kate wondered if she might be better sitting on the grass with the women.

‘Sit on the chair, then the women can put babies on your knee,’ Jake told her, while another woman who Jake introduced as Millie got up from the grass and took the second chair.

‘I’m the health worker here,’ she said, unpacking the case and setting up the baby scales. ‘I do the weighing.’

‘Thanks,’ Kate said, but she glanced towards the clinic building. Strange it didn’t have its own scales.

‘People take them to weigh fish and potatoes and bananas, not so good afterwards for babies,’ Millie said, while Kate wondered if people in North Queensland had a special ability to read minds or if she’d always been so easy to read.

Though Hamish was a Scot, not a North Queenslander.

She almost glanced towards him, but remembered Millie and caught herself just in time.

‘I’m Kate,’ she said to the assembled throng, then she took her chair. ‘Now, who’s first?’

Some of the women giggled, and there was general shuffling, but Millie called a name and a pretty girl in blue jeans and a short tight top came forward, a tiny baby in her arms.