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

You don’t need nice, she reminded herself, dredging up a smile for a good-looking man with burnt red curls who was coming towards them now.

‘You must be Kate!’ the man said, holding out his hand towards her, though she knew most of his attention was on Jack. ‘I’m Cal Jamieson, the surgeon who’ll be digging the bullet out of your patient’s leg.’

He introduced himself to Jack and gave directions for the orderlies to take him into the emergency department first. The men wheeled their charge onto a wide veranda, turning right and entering through a door into a long, bright room, with curtains hanging from ceiling racks to divide off cubicles.

Kate undid the straps and the orderlies lifted Jack onto an examination table.

‘We’ll take a good look at it here,’ Cal explained to Jack, then he looked across at Kate. ‘You can stay if you want—meet some of the staff—but I imagine a shower and a sleep might be more of a priority.’

‘Is that a tactful way of telling me I’m on the nose?’ Kate lifted her arm and sniffed at her T-shirt. Not too bad, considering.

Cal laughed.

‘Definitely not. I just know how those overnighters can be.’

‘Stay with me, Kate.’ Jack decided for her. ‘You promised.’

‘I didn’t promise to stay with you for ever and ever,’ she told him firmly. ‘But just for now, I will. Until Dr Jamieson puts you under for the op. Then I’ll go home and shower and be back when you wake up. That’s if I’m not rostered on duty.’

‘I think they’ll let you have the rest of today to yourself,’ Cal said. ‘And here’s someone who can confirm that. Jill Shaw, Director of Nursing, meet Kate Winship, new nurse and local heroine.’

‘I’m not a heroine!’

Kate’s protest cut across Jill’s quiet, ‘How do you do, and a belated welcome to Crocodile Creek.’

Jill held out her hand, and as Kate shook it she sensed a quiet strength in the older woman. Here was someone, she knew immediately, who would stand firm in crises, and who would be there for her staff should they ever need her.

‘We were giving you today to settle in,’ she said, confirming Cal’s words. ‘And tomorrow we thought you might like to go on the clinic run to Wygera, so you can see a bit of the countryside and meet some of the people out there.’

Kate opened her mouth to ask about this place, but Jill was already bent over Jack, talking quietly to him. Did she know him?

‘Uncle Charles’ll kill me!’ Jack protested, and Kate realised Hamish’s surmises had been correct.

‘Don’t overdo the drama,’ Jill said, but she was smiling fondly at the young man. ‘Besides, his job is to save people from death, not cause it. You’re in trouble, yes, but Charles and Philip will both stand by you. You should know that.’

‘Charles might, but Philip certainly won’t,’ Jack muttered.

‘I think we should get this bullet out of your leg and worry about who kills who later,’ Cal said. He nodded towards a young woman who’d wheeled an X-ray machine into the room. ‘Right thigh, top and side views. Everyone out.’

Kate gave Jack’s hand an extra squeeze and left the cubicle.

‘He’s really worried about the repercussions of whatever he’s been up to,’ she said to Jill.

‘He should be,’ Jill replied, frowning in the direction of the wounded young man. ‘Hamish radioed Charles from the helicopter. Cattle duffing—if that’s what he’s been involved in—is a serious business up here—anywhere in outback Australia really. The sentences and fines have recently been increased. Oh, here’s Charles now.’

Kate looked around to find the man in the wheelchair had silently joined them.

‘I believe I owe you a debt of gratitude,’ he said. He, too, held out his hand. ‘Charles Wetherby.’

‘Kate Winship,’ Kate replied. ‘And no gratitude required. I was only doing my job.’

‘And doing it very well, from what I hear,’ Charles told her, a warm smile lighting up his craggy face. ‘Thanks, Kate. I haven’t seen much of young Jack lately, but as a kid he often holidayed up here and I’m very fond of him. I didn’t know he was at Wetherby Downs let alone that he’d fallen out with Philip and left. Silly young ass—he should have known he could come here. I’d have found him another job somewhere in the area.’

‘He might have thought you’d side with your brother.’ Hamish’s voice made Kate look up to find he’d come in through another door and was standing behind Jill. Kate smiled at him, then realised she shouldn’t have. Not that smiles meant anything. Not hers, nor the warm, friendly one Hamish bestowed on her in return. ‘Now, Kate, shouldn’t you have returned to your unpacking and settling in?’

‘I promised Jack I’d stay until he goes to Theatre,’ Kate told him, and Charles laughed.

‘I notice Jill’s standing guard over him as well. The young rascal wormed his way into her heart when he was a kid, always heading for her place if he was in trouble with me or his grandmother.’

Kate wished Jack could hear the affection in Charles’s voice as he spoke of his nephew. Jack’s fears he’d be disinherited were obviously baseless. She was relieved for him, of course, but somehow it made her own aloneness more acute.

And her desire to find her father even stronger—her father and perhaps some other family. Both her parents—the ones she’d known—had been only children, in their forties when they had taken Kate in, so though she’d known and loved her mother’s father, there were no other relatives.

‘The wound’s infected but the X-rays don’t show any nasty surprises, apart from a groove along part of his femur and some serious blood pooling further up around his hip.’ Cal appeared from the curtained cubicle to deliver his good news. ‘I want to get the clotting time down in his blood. I’ve got cryoprecipitate running into him now in a rapid infusion, and I’ll give Alix more blood to test when that’s done. I spoke to a haematologist after Hamish radioed in and described the patient, and Charles confirmed it was his nephew. The haematologist says minor surgery is OK once we get the blood-clotting factors up to thirty per cent of normal. The cryoprecipitate should do that.’

‘Do you want us to thaw some FFP just in case?’ Charles asked, and Kate realised just how sophisticated this country hospital was, to have fresh frozen plasma on hand.

Cal thought for a moment.

‘It’s such a waste to thaw it if we don’t need it within twenty-four hours. What’s thawing time?’

‘Twenty minutes.’

An attractive young woman with a long plait of dark hair swinging down her back answered the question as she came briskly into the room. She nodded at Kate then turned to Cal.

‘His clotting time is up to fifty per cent of normal. You can go ahead.’

‘Thanks, Alix.’

Cal disappeared back behind the curtain.

‘Alix, this is Kate. Kate Winship, meet our pathologist, Alix Armstrong.’

‘Hi,’ Alix said. ‘You’ve had an exciting introduction to Crocodile Creek. I’d love to hear about the gorge some time, but right now I need to talk to Cal about what he’ll need in Theatre.’

‘Alix is bush-crazy,’ Charles explained to Kate. ‘All her time off is spent bush-walking. She’s serious about wanting to hear about the gorge.’

Kate shivered, memories of the echoing gunshot sending icy tentacles along her spine.

Had Hamish noticed, that he put his hand lightly on her shoulder?

‘I’d better go in and see Jack before he goes to Theatre,’ she said, moving away from Hamish as swiftly as she could, but Charles was before her, shifting the curtain aside and wheeling silently towards the bed. He reached out and touched Jack’s cheek with the back of his hand.

‘Silly young fool,’ he said gruffly, and Kate swallowed hard. It wasn’t that she begrudged Jack this familial affection, just that once again it emphasised her own lack.

She took Jack’s hand, promised to see him later and left the cubicle, assuring herself it was lack of sleep and a letdown after the tension of the night that was making her so stupidly sentimental.

A small boy who looked just like Cal was sitting on the top step when she arrived back at the house. Beside him, spreadeagled like a fireside rug, was the weirdest dog Kate had ever seen. Part cocker spaniel and part something spotty, she guessed, greeting both boy and dog with a smile.