The Australian's Proposal: The Doctor's Marriage Wish / The Playboy Doctor's Proposal / The Nurse He's Been Waiting For

‘And then some. Did you find out about it through osmosis?’

Hamish grinned and slipped into a chair between Cal and Kate.

‘Much the same thing. Mrs Grubb. She came over to make sure there was food in the house for me and Kate and told me Harry Blake had been turned away from questioning Jack in Recovery because of some complication.’

Cal sighed.

‘The bullet is lodged in bone. The X-ray wasn’t clear because there was a lot of blood pooled around the actual site, and when I went in I could see the bullet had scored down along the periosteum.’ Cal turned to Kate. ‘That’s the fibrous vascular membrane that covers bones. Then it entered the greater trochanter.’

‘The ball-shaped head of the femur that fits into the hip bone?’ Kate checked.

‘A job for an orthopod?’ Hamish asked.

Cal nodded.

‘Which means flying Jack out to Townsville,’ Hamish said.

Cal shook his head. ‘Charles doesn’t want to do that. He says we have all we need here, and the flight could further weaken the lad. He is very sick—the infection is still causing fever—but I think that’s just an excuse. Damn, but it’s complicated!’

Cal stirred sugar into his coffee then tapped the teaspoon fretfully on the side of the cup.

‘I suppose Charles is worried that if Jack goes to Townsville and the police there become involved, Jack could be placed under arrest,’ Hamish suggested, taking the teaspoon out of Cal’s hand and setting it on the table.

‘Placed under arrest? Why?’ Kate demanded. ‘He hasn’t confessed to anything. All we know is that he’s been shot. The rest is just guesswork.’

‘No, Hamish is right. That’s a definite possibility. Apparently there’s been a special federal police squad working on organised cattle thefts in this area,’ Cal explained. ‘One of their officers went under cover some months ago, and only last week his body was found—in a state of advanced decomposition and with a bullet in his chest. If that bullet matches the one in Jack’s leg, it’s enough of a connection for the police to hold him pending further enquiries.’

‘But he was the one who was shot, not the shooter,’ Kate protested, looking at Hamish as she recalled the saga he’d told her. ‘And what about Megan and Lucky and Mr Cooper? What will it do to Mr Cooper’s fragile health if his grandson’s father is arrested?’

Hamish shrugged his shoulders.

‘I’m sure Charles is considering all of that,’ Cal told them. ‘He probably feels he might have more control over the situation if we keep Jack here and Harry does the investigation. But there’s more to it than the police side of things. First, the kid’s Charles’s nephew and Charles will want to keep an eye on him. It was a dumb accident with a gun when he was a kid that put Charles in a wheelchair and I’m betting there are a whole bunch of memories being stirred up right now that Charles is trying to keep a lid on. Charles’s accident caused the family feud which is maybe how Jack got to be in this mess. So Charles is going to want to hold him close.’

‘But doesn’t Jack have parents? Do they have a say in this?’ Kate asked.

‘That’s the next hassle,’ Cal explained. ‘Charles has to let them know he’s injured, and if they hear we’re moving him to another hospital, Charles believes they’ll want him flown to Sydney—to top specialists down there.’

‘But if he’s in Sydney and Megan’s up here, what chance will they have to sort out their feelings for each other?’

Cal answered Kate’s new protest with a nod.

‘Exactly!’ he said. ‘That’s the other reason we really need to keep him here if we possibly can.’

‘So, what’s the answer?’ Hamish asked Cal. ‘Will you do the op? Do you feel confident of handling it?’

Cal hesitated.

‘With expert help, yes. Charles is trying to set it up now. He has a friend, an orthopaedic surgeon, in Brisbane. If we set up a video camera and link it via computer to Charles’s mate, he can virtually guide my hands. In a less complicated form, this system’s being trialled in a number of country areas where there’s a nurse but no doctor. It’s mainly been used for diagnostic purposes but some operations have been performed this way.’

‘You OK with it?’ Hamish asked, and Kate sensed a bond between the two men.

Cal nodded.

‘The worst part will be the timing. The surgeon we need is in Theatre right now, and he has a full list for today. It could be midnight before we get going.’

‘Late night for all the staff. Because of the von Willebrand’s you’ll need Alix on hand and Emily for the anaesthetic—do you want me to assist?’ Hamish asked.

Cal grinned at him.

‘You’ll probably be more useful as a babysitter. Knowing Gina, she’ll insist on assisting. I know it’s not heart surgery, but as soon as she heard you’d found Lucky’s father, she’s been itching to get involved.’

Kate was only half listening to the conversation, aware more of the interaction of the two men and the sense of belonging that being part of a hospital staff engendered. Dangerous stuff—belonging. She finished her sandwiches, drained her coffee-cup and stood up.

‘Speaking of babysitting, I’d better get back to Jack,’ she said, and if Hamish looked surprised by her abrupt departure, that was too bad. She’d opted to go through an agency to get this job, rather than applying direct to the hospital. She knew from experience with agency nurses in the hospital in Melbourne that they worked set contracts. They came, they did their jobs, remaining uninvolved with the people around them because they were moving on. Her contract was for two months. Long enough, she’d decided, to find out what she wanted—needed—to know. Then she’d move on.

Yes, she wanted to find her father, and to learn the circumstances of her birth—she needed to know these things to give her new life some foundation. But her new life would not be dependent on other people. From now on, she was depending solely on herself.

‘He’s sleeping, and so should you be,’ Charles told her, when she arrived in Recovery where Jack was being held awaiting his second operation.

‘I feel I should stay,’ she said, but Jill, on the other side of Jack’s bed, shook her head.

‘I’ll order you to bed if I need to,’ she said, smiling to soften the words. ‘But common sense should tell you, you need to sleep.’

Kate nodded her agreement but as she walked away she wondered why she felt a little lost now Jack had so many other people to be there for him. This wasn’t how someone who depended solely on herself should be feeling.

She made her way back to the house, pleased Hamish was still over at the hospital with Cal, then, as she heard voices in the kitchen, contrarily wished he was here so she wouldn’t have to face a roomful of strangers alone.

‘Here she is—the elected judge,’ someone said, and Kate looked helplessly around the smiling faces, catching sight, eventually, of Gina’s.

And CJ’s.

CJ and Rudolph and another little boy were cutting and pasting something in a corner where the kitchen opened onto the back veranda.

‘Elected judge?’ Kate echoed weakly. What on earth were they talking about?

Gina took pity on her, coming forward and introducing her to Mike—the paramedic chopper pilot Hamish had spoken of—and Marcia, a fellow nurse. There was also Susie, a pretty woman with short blonde curly hair and blue eyes who was apparently the hospital physiotherapist, and Georgie Turner, O and G specialist, a stunning young woman with very short shiny black hair and long legs encased in skin-tight jeans. The only other man there was someone called Brian—someone Kate realised she should have met earlier, as apparently he was the hospital administrator.

‘Poor Kate, I bet she doesn’t even know about Wygera and the swimming pool,’ Georgie said. ‘And here we are appointing her judge of the designs.’

‘Judge of the designs? I’m a nurse, not an architect.’

The others all chuckled.

‘We don’t need an architect—well, not yet. We need an unbiased person, someone who doesn’t know any of the people of Wygera, to choose the best model or design then we’ll pass it on to an architect to draw up the plans for us.’

Kate was about to protest that surely the architect should be the judge when Susie spoke.

‘We’ve been arguing about it for ages, then decided you’d be the best, not only because you don’t know anyone and can’t be accused of bias but because you’re going out there tomorrow. Doing the clinic run. Jill always puts new nurses on the clinic run to give them an idea of the area we cover.’

As everyone was smiling encouragingly at Kate, she couldn’t argue, so she accepted the dubious honour of being the judge of the Wygera Swimming Pool Competition.

‘Is there a prize? Do I have to give someone something?’ she asked, sitting down in the chair Mike had brought over for her.

‘The prize is free entry to the rodeo for the entrant and his or her family—within reason, the family part,’ Mike explained. ‘The company who brings a truck to all the rodeos, selling clothes and rodeo equipment, is also donating a western shirt and hat, so whoever wins gets that as well.’

‘We want to win the hat,’ a small voice said, and Kate turned to see CJ looking up from his task. ‘I’ve got a hat, but Max hasn’t.’

‘Max is mine,’ Georgie explained, but then everyone was talking again—this time about the barbeque they were planning for dinner—so Kate couldn’t ask on what criteria she should judge the contest.

‘Are there rules for this contest? I don’t want to choose some stupendous design whoever’s paying for this pool can’t afford.’

‘We’re paying for the pool,’ Georgie said, and Kate looked around the group, arguing amiably about who would do what for the barbeque. None of them looked as if they had fortunes tucked away.

‘We’re running fundraising events like the rodeo,’ Brian explained, ‘and soliciting donations from local businesses. The local council has guaranteed to match us on a dollar-for-dollar basis so I think we can afford to build something fairly special.’

Kate smiled to herself. The ‘fairly’ in front of special showed Brian up as a number-cruncher. Hospital administrators had to be cautious in their spending—after all, it was their job to see the place ran within its means.

The group had by now delegated tasks, and were scattering in various directions, although Gina, Susie and Marcia remained in the kitchen, pulling things out of an old refrigerator and starting work on salads.

‘Can I help?’ Kate asked, but once again Brian had spoken over her, offering to show her around the hospital, saying they may as well get her paperwork in order.

Kate’s apologetic smile at Gina was greeted with a grimace, but directed more at Brian, Kate thought. Was he one of those administrators who insisted on all the paperwork being perfect and always up to date? She’d worked with ward secretaries who’d thought paperwork more important than patients, and it had driven her to distraction.

But she followed Brian out of the house—through the front door this time—and across to the hospital, while he talked about bed numbers, and clinic flights, and retrievals, and how expensive these ancillary services were.

‘But people living in isolation five hundred miles away can’t rely on an ambulance getting to them, surely,’ Kate reminded him, and although he nodded agreement, he didn’t seem very happy about it.

‘Ah, Kate. I was coming to get you. Jill tells me you’re off to Wygera tomorrow so I thought I’d show you around.’

Hamish loomed up as Brian was explaining how much it cost to run the emergency department, giving Kate figures per patient per hour that made her mind close completely. Maths had never been her strong point.

So Hamish was a welcome relief—he, at least, would make the grand tour patient-oriented.

Providing she concentrated on what he was saying, not what she was feeling. The feeling stuff was to do with having spent a fraught night together, nothing more. She knew that, but at the same time knew she should be on her guard.

Feelings could be insidious. Creeping in where they were least wanted.

‘No, no, we’ve paperwork to do. You go on back to the house and help the others with the barbeque. I’ll bring Kate when we finish here.’

Brian’s assertions cut across her thoughts, so it seemed that even if she’d wanted Hamish as her tour guide, she wasn’t going to get him.

By the time they’d seen the hospital, met dozens of staff, completed the forms Brian required for insurance purposes and walked back to the house, the party on the back veranda was in full swing. The smell of searing meat hung in the air, while sizzling onions tantalised Kate’s taste-buds.

‘After a dry biscuit for breakfast and some sandwiches for a meal at afternoon teatime, that certainly smells good,’ she said to Brian, who had put his arm around her waist to guide her into the crowd.

Cal was there, so she headed towards him, anxious to know when Jack’s operation would take place, only realising who he was with as she drew closer.

‘So, seen all you need to of the hospital?’ Hamish asked, frowning at a point over her shoulder.

‘More than I could take in,’ Kate told him, feeling a new touch on her back and realising Brian had followed her. ‘It’s far bigger than I thought and I’ll be getting lost for at least the first week.’

‘I’m sure you won’t,’ Cal said kindly. ‘Did you look in on Jack?’

‘He was still sleeping and Charles was with him so I didn’t go in. When’s the op? Have you heard?’

Cal shrugged.

‘Between ten and twelve’s the best timing we’ve got so far,’ he said. ‘Though we should know more by nine when the surgeon in Brisbane is due to start the last patient on his list.’

Brian had moved to her side and was asking if she wanted a drink, and politeness decreed she answer him.

‘Something non-alcoholic—I haven’t had much sleep,’ Kate told him, pleased he would have to move away so she could ask Cal about the operation. But to her astonishment Brian simply turned to Hamish and said, ‘Hamish, would you get a squash for Kate?’

Hamish—Cal, too, for that matter—seemed equally surprised, but Hamish moved obediently away, while Brian, perhaps sensing everyone’s reaction, explained, ‘I don’t live here so don’t want to be poking around in their kitchen.’

It was an acceptable excuse, yet Kate felt uncomfortable that Brian was sticking to her like Velcro. She knew it was probably kindness on his part—after all, she was the new face in this gathering of friends and colleagues—but the discomfort remained.

Although being uncomfortable about Brian was certainly distracting her from thoughts of Hamish.

Setting both aside, she returned to her mission—finding out from Cal what lay ahead for Jack.

‘I’m virtually doing a hip replacement. We have prosthetic devices here because we have a visiting orthopaedic surgeon who comes once a quarter, operating in Croc Creek to save the patients travelling to him. It will depend on the damage to the neck of the trochanter. If the bullet is deeply lodged, the orthopod in Brisbane suggests we take if off completely and insert a new-age ceramic replacement and ceramic acetabular socket for it.’

Cal smiled at her.

‘Want to watch?’

Kate shuddered.

‘I had to do a certain amount of theatre work during my training, but the noise of the saws in orthopaedic work put me off that kind of surgery for life.’

‘Besides, she needs to sleep,’ Gina put in, arriving with Hamish and the lemon squash. ‘She’ll need all her wits about her to judge the pool entries tomorrow.’

Hamish handed her the drink, and somehow he and Gina managed to detach Brian from her side. Kate wasn’t sure but she felt it had been deliberate, a sense confirmed when, a little later, Gina whispered, ‘Brian makes a play for all the new female staff and Hamish felt you might be too polite to escape his tenacious clutches.’

Hamish felt that, did he?

Kate scowled at the man in question who’d moved, with his arm around Brian’s shoulders, over to the barbeque. She was about to launch into a ‘What right had he to make that decision?’ tirade to Gina when she realised that she’d given Hamish that right—had told him she wasn’t interested in a relationship with anyone.

Gina suggested they find a chair before they were all taken.

‘Nothing worse than trying to eat barbequed steak standing up,’ she said. ‘Besides, if we’re sitting down, someone might serve us—saves getting in the queue at the salad table.’

Someone did—Hamish bringing two plates piled high with meat and assorted salads across to where they sat.

‘CJ’s eating with Max and Georgie, and Cal’s nabbed us a table at the end of the veranda,’ he said, adding, rather obscurely, ‘With only four chairs.’

Gina stood up and moved away immediately, though Kate followed more reluctantly. Hamish was only being kind, she knew that, but his kindness—she was sure it was just that—made her feel warm inside. Actually, quite hot in places.

Funny that kindness could have that effect …

‘Oh!’

The table Cal had snagged was beyond the old settee and had the most wonderful view out over the cove. The moon had just risen, so it hung like a slightly squashed golden lantern just above the horizon, spreading a path of light across the sea.

‘Nice view?’ Cal teased, and Kate shook her head.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she whispered, not wanting to break the spell beauty had cast around her.

‘It’s what makes Crocodile Creek so special,’ Hamish said. ‘And what I’ll miss when I go home. Although I do have a view of the Firth from my flat, and moons do rise in Scotland, though not in quite the same majestic splendour as these tropical moons.’

‘You’re going home?’

Kate’s question came out far louder than she’d intended it to, and she certainly hadn’t meant to sound shocked.

‘In less than three weeks.’ Cal answered for him. ‘And, boy, are we going to miss him. I know Charles has a replacement lined up—several replacements, in fact, because we’re down about three doctors and we don’t know if Joe and Christina will be back—but we’ve kind of got used to having a big, useless Scot around the place.’

‘Useless? I’ll give you useless!’ Hamish growled, and the others laughed.

‘We thought he’d be useless when he first arrived,’ Cal explained. ‘He was so polite to everyone, and so correct, and he’d never been in a light plane or a helicopter and didn’t trust either of them.’

He smiled at his friend. ‘But we brought him up to speed, and now, just when he’s become a reasonably useful member of the community, he’s going back to cold, dreary Scotland.’

‘To specialise in paeds,’ Gina added, giving Cal a nudge in the side, ‘which is what he’s always wanted to do, remember. You should be happy for him, not giving him grief.’

Once again Kate was struck by the warmth and camaraderie between these colleagues and housemates—and once again it emphasised her aloneness.

Or was it the news that Hamish was leaving so soon causing the empty feeling inside her?

Not possible.

She was still debating this when Brian appeared, a plate of food in one hand, cutlery poking out of his pocket and dragging a chair behind him.

‘Thought I’d lost you,’ he said to Kate, pulling his chair into position between her and Gina. ‘Great moon, huh? Maybe we can take a walk up onto the headland when we’ve finished eating. I often take a walk after dinner. Helps me sleep.’

‘I doubt Kate needs a walk to help her sleep,’ Hamish said, before Kate could think of a reply. ‘We had precious little last night and today she’s spent most of her time with Jack.’

Kate looked at Hamish, who appeared to be glaring at Brian, although with Hamish’s rather severe features it was hard to tell. But, glaring or not, he was going back to Scotland in a couple of weeks so he couldn’t possibly be warning Brian away for his own sake.

Did he not like Brian?

Or was he just genuinely interested in her need for sleep?

Whatever! She felt uncomfortable allowing him to take over her decision-making.

‘I’d like a walk after dinner,’ she said, more to the table in general than to Brian.

‘Oh, good, we’ll all go,’ Gina said.

Which was how Kate’s first evening in Crocodile Creek ended in a moonlit walk over the headland above the house with Brian and Hamish, Cal and Gina, Susie, Marcia, Mike, and Georgie, CJ and Max, while a lolloping, lovable, dopey dog called Rudolph gambolled along beside them.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘WHAT DO YOU mean he’s gone into shock? What kind of shock? Septic from the infection? Hypovolaemic from the blood loss? He’s in hospital—how could they let him go into shock?’

Kate was vaguely aware she was shooting the messenger, but Hamish was right there in front of her, so why not vent her anxiety and distress on him? He was big enough to take it.

She had clambered out of bed while he was explaining why he’d woken her for a second time, and was now pulling a pair of sweats over her skimpy pyjama pants. Thrusting her feet into her sandals, she hurried towards the door.

Hamish didn’t move.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ she urged.

‘You’re going like that?’

She glanced down at the amiable hippo on the T-shirt top of her pyjamas.

‘I’m decent, Jack’s very ill, why not?’

‘No reason,’ Hamish said, but he shook his head in a bemused manner and followed her through the quiet house.

Were all the occupants over at the hospital, or were some people actually getting some sleep?

As they walked through the garden, an imminent dawn ghosting the foliage into strange shapes and patterns, Hamish explained. The operation to remove the bullet, with the guidance of the surgeon in Brisbane, had apparently gone well, and no replacement devices had been required. Jack had made the transition to the recovery room safely. Even there, Emily had been pleased with his responses as he’d come out of the anaesthetic, then they’d transferred him to the ICU for monitoring, and everything had gone haywire, his blood pressure dropping, pulse rate rising and his mental state confused and lethargic.

He wanted to die, he kept repeating weakly, then closing his eyes in response to any comment or question.

Desperate with concern—had he made the wrong decision doing the op here?—Charles had paged Hamish, asking him to wake Kate in the hope she might be able to rouse the young man.

‘The ICU is through here,’ Hamish said, guiding Kate with a hand on her elbow to an area she hadn’t explored with Brian.

Talk about state of the art. Many city hospitals Kate had seen would have been pleased to have such a set-up. Five rooms, all monitored from a central desk, but only one of them occupied. Behind the desk, a nurse and Emily frowned at the monitor.

Jack’s was the room crowded with people in spite of ICU protocols that discouraged such practices.

‘Kate!’ Charles greeted her with relief. ‘I’m sorry, but we thought if you could speak to him—rouse him. Alix is running new blood tests but as yet we can’t find any physical reason for his sudden collapse.’

‘He’s been through a lot,’ Kate reminded him, slipping past the man in the wheelchair to reach the side of Jack’s bed and take one limp hand in both of hers.

‘Hey, Jack, it’s me, Kate. Sorry I was a bit late getting here, but you were ages in Theatre and a girl has to sleep some time.’

She was keeping it light, as she had earlier, but although Jack acknowledged her arrival by opening his eyes, that was all the response she got.

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.