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

‘Yes, I know, and it’s very nice—lovely kisses—very special, but, Hamish …’

Kate couldn’t find the words she needed to tell him about the hurt inside her—about the scars so new they had no protective scabs—about the hurt against which she had so few defences.

To open herself up to pain like that again, it was unthinkable …

‘No buts,’ he said gently, and he kissed her again, so thoroughly she wondered if they’d leave scorch marks on the settee.

‘No, I won’t go to the fire on the beach with you tonight,’ Kate said firmly, pushing past a lounging Hamish to get into the ED office. With Harry apparently satisfied he’d got all he could out of Jack, Kate had been shifted back to the ED for the weekend.

She’d been happy about the arrangement as there was usually less time for chat and gossip in ED—until Hamish had wandered in.

Searing embarrassment still swamped her when she remembered her behaviour on the settee the previous night. They’d eventually been startled apart by a round of applause from the kitchen, Cal announcing with unabashed delight that they’d broken the settee kissing record, set only recently by himself and Gina.

Kate had skulked off to her room, not knowing the others well enough to laugh it off, though Hamish had stayed, apparently unaffected by the fact any number of their housemates had seen them kissing.

Now here he was again, wanting her to accompany him to the fire party at the beach, making public a relationship that didn’t exist.

‘You’ll enjoy it,’ Hamish persisted.

‘Yes, I will, because I’m going anyway,’ Kate told him. ‘With Susie. She was talking about it yesterday while she was massaging Jack’s leg. And as it’s in celebration of getting Megan and Jack back together, Megan’s coming with us. Girls’ night out.’

‘Oh!’ For a moment Hamish looked so downcast Kate wanted to change her mind, but when he smiled just seconds later she was glad she’d stood firm. Hamish’s smiles were nearly as addictive as Hamish’s kisses and neither were the kind of addiction a woman who was determined to make her own way in life could afford.

‘Susie and Megan, huh? Well, that’s OK.’

He wandered off, leaving Kate to get on with her work, which, today, because the ED secretary hadn’t appeared, was recording patients as they came in and prioritising them to see the doctor on duty, who happened to be Charles—making it the first time Kate had worked directly with him.

She glanced cautiously around, but he was still out the back where ambulance patients were admitted or in treatment room five where a small boy who’d been vomiting all night had been shifted up ahead of a young woman with stomachache and a drunk who’d fallen out of his mate’s car and taken a lot of skin off one leg.

‘OK, I’ll take over here while you make yourself useful out there.’ Jane, a cheerful secretary who usually worked on the front desk, came bustling into the small office. ‘Charles phoned to say Wendy hadn’t arrived, and asked if I could come. Don’t worry, I started work in this cubbyhole, so I know what to do.’

Then she nodded to the drunk who was singing a song neither Kate nor, by the looks on their faces, anyone else in the room could recognise.

‘Who’s your friend?’

Kate smiled.

‘I’ll do him first,’ she said, and went out, taking the man with the gravel rash through to a treatment room. With any luck, all his leg needed was to be cleaned up and dressed, then he could go on his way.

Easier said than done. She managed to get him into the treatment room, but he’d no sooner lain down on the examination table than he gave a helpless yelp then threw up all over her.

A hastily summoned aide came in to clean up while Kate grabbed some clean scrubs and headed for the bathroom. But no matter how much water she splashed over herself, she knew she’d smell all day.

Damn the man!

Back in the treatment room, he was sitting up and at least had the decency to look embarrassed.

‘Room went round and round when I lay down,’ he explained, which was when she realised she’d misread his embarrassment as he began to sing again, this time about a room going round and round.

Kate shifted him so his leg was propped on an absorbent pad on the table and she could get at the bits of gravel in the wound. She flushed it first, but the grit remained embedded and she knew it was going to be a piece-by-piece job.

Using small tweezers and wearing a magnifying loupe, she painstakingly removed every grain, while her patient alternately serenaded her and asked her to marry him. She had nearly finished when Charles appeared in the doorway.

‘Need me?’ he said, and this time she was sure the frown accompanying the words was because of the way the two of them smelt. ‘Phew! Talk about ripe!’ he added, confirming her thoughts but making her smile nonetheless.

‘You might like to take a look, but he’s up to date with his tetanus shots, there are no deep wounds that need stitching and there’s no infection, so I thought I’d swab it all over with Betadine and let him go. Leave it without a dressing to dry it out?’

‘Yes,’ Charles said, then he frowned again, though he should have got used to the smell by now.

He wheeled away and, because the line-up for treatment hadn’t become noticeably longer, Kate finished tending her drunk then ducked over to the house to have a proper shower and change into clean clothes. She didn’t want people coming into the ED and going home feeling worse than when they’d arrived.

Susie knocked on her door at eight that evening.

‘You ready?’ she asked, when Kate called to her to come in.

‘As I’ll ever be,’ Kate told her. The quiet morning had turned into a hectic afternoon and she’d only come off duty fifteen minutes ago. But she’d had a quick shower and dressed in jeans and a light cotton knit sweater, thinking the breeze on the beach might be cool in spite of the fire.

‘Then let’s go,’ Susie said, leading the way out of the house.

‘Where’s Megan? Weren’t you going to pick her up?’

‘I was, but Hamish said he had to go downtown so he said he’d get her.’

Girls’ and Hamish’s night out?

Had he offered deliberately? Would that explain his smile?

Kate shook her head. She was here to find her father, not to get caught up in thinking about Hamish. Not about his kisses, or his Colleague Hamish days—just to find her father.

Harry might be there tonight.

She’d ask Harry about her mother. Say she was a friend of a friend in Melbourne—from a long time ago.

‘Hi you two.’

Mike and Emily greeted them, and Kate was relieved to see Emily was at last taking some time off. She worked in Theatre when Cal was operating and did shifts in other parts of the hospital, but mostly Kate had met her in the ICU where Emily had spent her free time fretting over Jack.

So her presence at the fire party was not only good for her, it meant she had at last accepted he was stable and his recovery would continue.

Susie unfolded the blanket she’d been carrying and spread it by the fire. She and Kate settled on it, though they had to move only minutes later when Megan and Hamish and Hamish’s guitar arrived, all three joining Susie and Kate on the blanket that had become, in Kate’s eyes, almost minuscule.

Not that Hamish was bothering her—not deliberately. Oh, no, he was being Colleague Hamish again, cheerful, chatty, making Megan laugh at silly jokes, asking her about Jackson’s progress, although every member of the hospital staff personally checked Jackson’s progress every day.

‘He’s coming home tomorrow,’ Megan said happily. ‘Well, home to Christina’s house with me. I’m not sure how I’ll manage, what with Mum over in Townsville with Dad.’

‘You know we’ll all do anything we can to help you with Jackson,’ Susie said, putting her arm around Megan and giving her a hug. ‘Anything you want, just yell, and half the staff will come running.’

Megan nodded.