Christmas at Coorah Creek (Choc Lit) (6 page)

‘Okay.’

The dimly lit workshop was silent except for the sound of Ed Collins working.

Scott looked around him. Nothing had changed here in the past eight years. The workshop was still littered with tools and engine parts and spare car wheels in a sort of semi-controlled chaos that only his father understood.

‘She’ll need her things.’

‘What?’

‘I said she’ll need her things. That girl. The new nurse. You seem friendly with her. You could take them over to the hospital.’

His father was asking for his help? Well, not exactly asking; but it was something.

‘All right. I’ll get my car.’

Scott stepped back into the sunshine, feeling as if he had just taken a first very small step in achieving his goal. And the thought of seeing Katie again was icing on the cake. It was the work of just a few minutes to return to the pub and collect his car. When he returned, there was another car parked at the garage and a tall, dark-haired man was talking to his father. They both turned as he walked into the workshop.

‘Adam, this is my son, Scott. Scott, this is Adam Gilmore. The doctor.’

Scott took the man’s outstretched hand, trying not to show his shock at hearing the words ‘my son’ for the first time in so many years. Instead, he tried to focus on the man who must be Katie’s boss. He had a firm grip and was as casually dressed as you would expect in a place like Coorah Creek. Scott guessed he’d be considered handsome by some women. Would Katie think that?

‘Thanks for helping out yesterday,’ Adam said. ‘I had planned to be here to meet Katie, but … well … the life of a doctor. You know how it is.’

‘Glad to help,’ Scott said.

‘Anyway, we just flew back into town. I thought I would pick up her things and take them over to her by way of apology.’

There was nothing to say to that. Scott helped him load Katie’s things into his car and watched him drive away. His father had returned to the workshop, his head once again buried under the bonnet of Katie’s car. Scott really wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe he’d taken a step in the right direction, but there was still a long way to go. He decided to head back to the pub and make use of the Wi-Fi there. He had a feeling he was going to stay in Coorah Creek longer than just a few days. There were some travel plans he needed to change.

Chapter Eight

There was no choice. She was going to have to walk back to the garage and collect her things. Katie rinsed her mouth out with water and looked down at her rumpled clothing. She looked like she had been dragged through a hedge backwards. Sometime today she was probably going to meet her new boss and this was not how she wanted to look when that happened. When she’d left her car at the garage yesterday, she had been too exhausted to think straight. And she had expected to be able to return for her things. It hadn’t worked out quite like that. She wanted a change of clothes, some face cream and most of all, she wanted her toothbrush!

Katie avoided even glancing at the couch where Scott had spent the night. He’d been gone before she woke. She certainly didn’t want him to see her looking like this, but if he’d still been here, she could have asked him to drive her back to the garage to pick her things up. That would have been a lot easier than walking.

She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about last night.

Scott
being there had certainly eased her first night and driven away any fear or loneliness. The food and beer had been good. Not only that,
Scott had actually listened to her when she talked and treated her like a real person. She hadn’t had a man do that for a very long time. The only men in her recent past were the doctors at her hospital, who seemed to think that the nurses were simply there to serve them … in more ways than one.

Scott was different. When he looked at her he saw
her
, not just a nurse. And when she looked at him, she felt the occasional flutter in her stomach. She didn’t believe in love at first sight, or course, but was such a thing as like at first sight? Like a lot …

She left the flat and walked through the hospital, hearing her footsteps echo in the empty hallway. It was a sound she had never before heard in a hospital. She stopped when she reached the hospital veranda. There was no lock on the door … should she just leave it? And was it right to leave the hospital totally unattended? What if someone needed help? Or broke in trying to steal drugs?

Even as the thought formed, a car appeared at the hospital gates. A small cloud of dust followed behind as it drove up and parked just a few yards away. A man got out and approached her.

‘You must be Katie. Sorry about all this. I’m Adam Gilmore.’

On no! She took her boss’s outstretched hand, mentally listing all the ways in which this was NOT going to be the best job interview she’d ever had.

‘Dr Gilmore. I … I … Um …’

‘Call me Adam. We’re all very casual out here.’

‘Um. Thank you Dr … Adam.’

‘I’m sorry you were stranded last night, but we had to fly to the Isa. And I hear you had car trouble too. Ed Collins will soon get that fixed. But still, I guess it wasn’t the best welcome to town. But if it helps, I’ve brought your things from the car.’

If it helps? How could it not help?

‘Oh, that’s really good of you … Adam. Thank you.’

The doctor turned back to the car and began pulling her bags from the back seat. Too late Katie
realised that he’d brought everything from her car, including the empty water bottle and the loose shoes she had strewn across the back seat.

‘Perhaps you’d better take these.’ Adam was holding up a couple of shopping bags containing a swimming costume and some flip-flops that she’d bought the day she’d left Brisbane and headed for the outback.

She almost snatched them from his hand.

‘I hope you’re comfortable in the flat,’ Adam said as, oblivious to her discomfort, he began carrying her two large suitcases up the stairs. ‘I used to live there. I liked it, but if you don’t, we can maybe come up with somewhere else.’

‘No. No. It’s fine.’ She scurried after him, trying not to think that she was sleeping in her boss’s bed.

‘Good. Well, here we go.’ He pushed open the door to her living quarters and strode in for all the world as if he owned the place. Which, Katie thought, he did, in a way.

The doctor carried her things through to the bedroom and unceremoniously dropped them on the bed. He returned, running his hands through his dark wavy hair.

‘Were you all right last night? I asked Trish at the pub to look after you.’

‘I didn’t meet her,’ Katie said. ‘Scott brought some food over though, which I think she had cooked.’

‘Scott?’ Adam frowned. ‘Oh yes. Ed Collins’s son. I just met him.’

His words caused Katie to do a double take. Ed? Wasn’t that the name of the old man at the garage? But that meant Scott …

‘Adam, give the poor girl some space.’

Before Katie could sort out the thoughts spinning in her head, a beautiful woman with short dark hair joined them.

‘Hi. I’m Jess Gilmore. I fly the air ambulance and have the utter misfortune to be married to this crazy man here.’

The look the two shared put a lie to the latter part of that statement.

‘Nice to meet you Jess.’

‘I’m just going to drag Adam out of here, to give you a chance to settle in a bit,’ Jess said. ‘When you are ready, drop in to the office. I’ll show you around and we can get the paperwork done.’

Jess ushered Adam out and began to pull the door closed behind her, then paused. ‘Adam,’ she called, ‘we need to get Jack around to put a lock on this door.’ She raised a hand and disappeared.

Katie stood in the middle of the room, still holding her bag of recent purchases, wondering if Coorah Creek was always like this. People coming and going, without due regard for … well for anything really. It appeared the people here were as foreign as her surroundings. And there were obviously things she had yet to find out; relationships and where Scott fitted in to the picture.

She shook her head. She’d feel better after a bath – or rather, a shower. There was no bath in her tiny bathroom. She took a couple of steps towards the bedroom and paused. Turning, she placed a chair under the knob of her door. She had no idea who this Jack was. If he was going to put a lock on her door, that was all to the good, but she didn’t want him wandering in to do it while she was in the shower.

About an hour later, feeling much refreshed with clean skirt and shirt and teeth, she set out in search of the hospital office. It wasn’t that hard to find. The hospital wasn’t very big, and she could hear voices.

‘Katie, come in,’ Jess said when she spotted her loitering outside the office door.

‘We were just chatting. Ken Travers, this is our new nurse, Katie.’

The middle-aged man was tall and thin, with receding hair and the slightly haunted air that Katie instantly recognised. This was a patient.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Ken and I are just setting up his next appointment,’ Jess said. ‘He’ll no doubt be pleased to have a real nurse here again, instead of putting up with my inexpert help.’

‘Jess, you’ve been great,’ the patient said with a smile. ‘And welcome Katie. We are very glad to have you.’

With that he left.

Jess closed the appointment book as she watched him leave. Then she turned her attention to Katie. ‘It is so good to have you here. I help Adam when I can – but I’m a pilot and he needs a real nurse.’

Katie remembered the young mother’s words the night before. Jess had helped deliver her baby. They certainly did need a real nurse.

‘What happened to your last nurse?’

To Katie’s discomfort, a shadow of grief fell over Jess’s face. Her eyes dimmed for a minute and she appeared lost in memory. Then she spoke in a voice that was infinitely sad. ‘Sister Luke was our nurse for a long time. She was a medical nun. She and Adam were very close and when she died, Adam refused to look for a new nurse for a long time. Then he hired a couple, but they didn’t work out. It takes a special kind of person to work all the way out here. But,’ Jess took a deep breath and the sadness left her face, ‘I’m sure you’ll be great. Adam was up all night with a patient, and he’s sleeping now, but I’ll show you around.’

The hospital was small, but very well equipped. Jess explained that the money came from the Goongalla Uranium Mine – the town’s main employer. There was a small and immaculate theatre where minor surgery was performed. Anything major and the patient was flown to the nearest big hospital at Mt Isa. The half-unpacked box of Christmas decorations sitting in the reception area was testament to the fact that the patients’ needs came first. At least, that’s how Katie chose to interpret it.

‘You’ll encounter all sorts of things here,’ Jess warned. ‘I could hardly believe it myself when I first arrived. You’ll have to be ready to turn your hand to almost anything. We can’t just call for extra help if the going gets tough. There is no-one else, just this community.’

‘Do you like it here?’

‘I love it,’ Jess said warmly. ‘It’s a unique place … full of interesting people. In fact, why don’t you come and meet some of them this evening? We can grab a counter meal at the pub and introduce you around.’

‘Okay.’ Katie wasn’t sure exactly what a ‘counter meal’ was, but she knew about eating in pubs. She had often eaten at the centuries old London pub near her home. She imagined Coorah Creek’s pub would be very different, but she was willing to give it a go.

‘But first things first,’ Jess added. ‘I need to get you introduced to the paperwork.’

Chapter Nine

Scott sat alone at one end of the long polished wood bar, staring morosely at the glistening tinsel on the Christmas tree. The cheerful decorations seemed almost to mock him as he lost himself in memories of Christmases past. He should have happy Christmas memories, but any he did have were overshadowed by the darkness of those later years when he and his father had lived alone, barely speaking to each other. Times when the holidays had been barely acknowledged in the house behind the garage. Dark times.

There was movement in the corner of his vision as his father walked into the pub.

A flash of surprise crossed Trish Warren’s face as she looked up from pouring a beer and saw who her new customer was. Scott guessed his father didn’t make a habit of going to the pub. Ed had never been the sociable type. Scott turned his attention back to the cold beer in front of him, running a finger through the wet droplets of condensation running down the glass onto the beer mat beneath.

‘I guess I could join you for a drink.’

‘I guess you could.’

Ed parked himself on the next bar stool. Not too close, but close enough for a conversation that would be as private as any conversation could be with Trish in the same room.

Scott took a pull on his beer, and watched out of hooded eyes as his father did the same with the glass of Fosters that Trish placed in front of him.

A palpable silence settled over them.

Where did you start, Scott wondered. After so many years, where did you start trying to reconnect? There wasn’t going to be an apology on either side. Eight years was far too long for that. But there had to be some way to start rebuilding some sort of relationship. Ed was the only family he had and this was the only chance they were going to get to put the past behind them. But what could he say that wouldn’t seem banal, or critical or at the very least draw attention to the huge gap between them?

‘So. You’re staying at the pub.’
      

It wasn’t a question.

‘Yes. I …’ Scott let his voice trail off. He didn’t want to say that he thought he might not be welcome in his father’s home. He also didn’t want to say that he wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to set foot inside that house again. Neither comment was going to help the two of them cross the enormous gulf that lay between them.

Silence settled again.

‘That your Prius outside?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hybrid?’