The Australian's Proposal (Mills & Boon By Request): The Doctor's Marriage Wish / The Playboy Doctor's Proposal / The Nurse He's Been Waiting For (15 page)

Could she like Harry better?

The voice was interrupting her reply so he ignored it for a moment to listen to whatever lame excuse she was about to offer.

‘I know I keep having second thoughts about finding my father, but Harry’s lived here all his life and must know everyone, and I thought maybe I’d find out from him if my father
does
have a family, and what they’re like, and then maybe I could judge if I should make contact or not.’

‘You’re going out with him so you can find your father?’

The internal voice seemed to think that would be OK, except …

‘Is that fair?”

‘No, probably not!’ Kate snapped at him, but Hamish, caught in the grip of an emotion he’d never felt before, couldn’t let it go.

‘So don’t go out with him. Visit him at the police station. Ask him there. Make it an official visit.’

‘I don’t want to make it an official visit. That’s the whole point. I want to find out about him first. He mightn’t even be here. He might never have been here. He might have been someone passing through, someone my mother met on holiday. Anyway, this isn’t the time or place to be talking about this. We’ve got to get Lily back to hospital. What’s more, whether I go out with Harry or not is really none of your business!’

Stunned by her final statement, Hamish could only watch her back moving further and further away from him.

He’d lost her!

Not that he’d ever really had her—he’d just had hope, quite a lot of hope.

But he’d pushed too far. Now she’d go out with Harry just to spite him.

Or maybe not. He doubted there was a spiteful bone in Kate’s body.

But the ‘none of his business’ phrase told him she was finished with whatever small flirtation she’d allowed herself to enjoy.

Pain he didn’t understand bit in again. How could this possibly have happened?

To him, who didn’t do love?

Kate watched him as he slipped into the police car—not into the back where she and Lily sat, but into the front beside the driver.

She read his hurt in the slump of his usually straight shoulders and the way he turned his head to look out into the darkness of the rainforest through which the road ran.

And pain of knowing she’d hurt him swamped her heart.

She stroked the hair of the little girl who was sleeping safely strapped in but with her head resting on Kate’s body.

What
was
she thinking? What was the hurt of love compared with the loss this child had suffered? How had she and Hamish got into personal stuff while this little girl needed all their attention?

But, no matter how much she felt for Lily, it didn’t stop the regret clutching at her gut when she glanced at the man in front of her in the car.

‘N
ORMAL
S
ATURDAY NIGHT
chaos,’ Hamish remarked as they walked into the emergency department with Lily.

He sounded OK—but, then, he did the colleague thing so well it was hard to tell.

Grace was doing admissions. She looked at the little girl in Kate’s arms and shook her head, news of the accident and its devastating results having reached the hospital well ahead of them.

‘You’ll get her processed faster if the two of you do it,’ she said. ‘I know you’re off duty, both of you, but if you wouldn’t mind?’

‘I want to check her out anyway,’ Hamish assured Grace. ‘Have you got a spare cubicle we can use?’

Grace tapped her keyboard.

‘Room Five. I’ll let Charles know you’re here. He’s been trying to find some close relatives.’

Hamish rested his hand lightly on the small of Kate’s back and steered her and her sleeping burden towards the small examination room. She liked the touch, but she’d seen him do it to strangers, men and women.

Once inside Kate slumped down into a chair, turning the little girl so she rested against her body.

‘Do you have to wake her?’ She looked up into Hamish’s concerned blue eyes.

Concerned or hurt?

She didn’t know, though probably concerned—this was work after all.

‘You know I do,’ he said quietly. ‘Let’s get her on the table and clean her up a bit and see what we can see.’

He bent to lift Lily, the movement bringing his head close to Kate’s and bringing something else to her mind—a prescience—as if this was a snapshot of the future—herself, Hamish and a child …

How could that be?

Not possible!

She must have shivered because before he lifted Lily Hamish brushed his thumb against Kate’s temple.

‘She’ll be OK,’ he said softly, then, just as she was feeling thankful he hadn’t read her thoughts, he added, ‘Maybe we all will be.’

Maybe? There were far too many maybes in her life right now.

Lily woke as Hamish settled her on the table and looked around in panic, which subsided when Kate reached out to hold her hand and explain what was going on. The child’s eyes, a clear, pale blue, searched further, then, as if remembering what she sought wouldn’t be there, they closed, shutting her off from the world and the dreadful reality it held.

‘How is she?’

Charles asked the question as he and Jill came into the room.

‘Miraculously all right,’ Hamish replied, but his voice was sombre and no one really needed the ‘physically’ which he added to the sentence.

He straightened from his examination.

‘She should be kept overnight anyway,’ he said, ‘purely for observation.’

Kate wanted to protest—to say Lily could stay with her, that she could watch her during the night—but Charles was already agreeing, and Kate knew it was the right thing for the child.

‘I’ll stay with her,’ she said instead. ‘I’m off duty tomorrow. I can sleep then.’

Charles looked at her, the frown she often saw on his face only just held at bay by a slight smile.

‘Were you always bringing home stray dogs as a child, or is it only stray humans you collect?’

‘I lived in the inner city—no stray dogs. And Jack’s no longer my stray, he’s Megan’s.’

Kate wasn’t sure why Charles always made her feel slightly uncomfortable. Was it just the frown, or something more?

Whatever, she edged a little closer to the table where Lily lay—and where Hamish stood beside her.

‘I think Kate’s one of those rare people whose compassion is like an aura she carries with her,’ Jill said, startling the subject of her observation. ‘People bond with her without really knowing why.’

‘I think it’s just that I was there—for both Jack and Lily,’ Kate protested, acutely embarrassed to think she might have an aura of any kind floating somewhere around her body. ‘And I’m still the person with the day off tomorrow, so it won’t hurt me to stay with Lily.’

She bent over the little girl, explaining that Hamish wanted to keep her in hospital.

‘Is it because my head hurts?’

‘You didn’t tell me your head hurt,’ Hamish said.

Charles wheeled out of the room, calling for an orderly to take the child through to Radiology.

‘It just started now,’ Lily told him, and fear for the girl welled in Kate’s chest as she thought of a deadly haematoma building pressure inside the little girl’s skull.

‘I should have done a CT scan earlier,’ Hamish said to Kate as they stood outside the doors of the radiology department and waited for a result. He looked as anguished as Kate felt.

‘Why?’ Kate demanded, the argument on the road forgotten
as she tried to reduce the load of guilt he was now carrying. ‘She was obeying commands, talking, open-eyed, top marks in all her GCS responses. As far as we know, she hadn’t lost consciousness and there was no palpable depressed fracture or other sign of skull fracture.’

‘She had the cut on her scalp.’

‘It bled a lot, that’s all. There wasn’t even swelling.’

Reassuring Hamish was helping Kate’s nerves, but she was just as pleased as he was when Charles emerged to tell them the CT scan was clear.

‘Her head’s hurting where the cut is, and where’s her Kate?’ he added, smiling so warmly at Kate she wondered why she’d ever worried about his liking her.

‘I’ll go into her,’ she said, but before she did she turned to Hamish and squeezed him gently on the arm. ‘See!’ she added softly, but she knew he wasn’t comforted. He’d continue castigating himself for some time, although he’d followed ED rules to the letter in his examination and treatment of the little girl.

Kate walked into the X-ray room but Hamish was in front of her, lifting Lily in his arms and carrying her out, following Charles through to the four-bed children’s room.

Lily grew heavy in his arms, falling so deeply asleep she didn’t wake up as he laid her on the bed or protest as Kate changed her into a pair of child-size hospital pyjamas.

Still anxious about the little girl, Hamish wrote an order for half-hourly obs, then did the first himself.

‘We know there’s no bleeding inside her skull, and no damage to her skull. It’s exhaustion,’ Charles told him. ‘You and Kate are showing signs of it as well. Go and get some dinner. I’ll sit with Lily until you get back.’

‘You’ll sit with her?’

The question slipped out before Hamish could prevent it, but Charles seemed more amused than annoyed.

‘I
can
sit with patients!’ he said with mock humility. ‘I know the way to do it!’

Then he sighed.

‘Actually, it’s personal as well. More in the feuding Wetherby family saga,’ he said regretfully. ‘Her grandmother was a cousin, but my father stopped speaking to that branch of the family before I was born. I knew about Lily’s grandmother, and probably should have made more of an effort to contact her after my father died, but—’

‘Families!’ Kate said, and Hamish wondered if Charles heard the understanding in her voice.

Or knew her link with Lily was more than empathy.

He looked down at the pale face, thinking of how much the child had lost—of how much Kate had lost.

No wonder she didn’t want to trust the love that had sprung up between them lest it be stripped away from her. Easier by far to deny it existed, or to pass it off as attraction …

Easier by far to push it away by going out with Harry!

So why did this understanding not make him feel better—not reduce the primal urge he felt to throttle Harry and carry Kate off, bodily if necessary, to his lair?

Or Scotland …

‘Go!’ Charles said, and Hamish touched Kate on the shoulder then steered her away.

‘He’s lonely, isn’t he?’ she asked, as they walked towards the dining room. ‘I hadn’t thought about it before, but you could hear it in his voice when he talked of the family feud.’

Hamish nodded, understanding—and not saying that he heard it in her voice, too.

Not saying anything at all as he thought about loneliness in all its many manifestations.

His own future loneliness not least among them …

No! That was not to be. Kate felt something for him, so somehow he had to battle through her resistance—somehow.

‘Doctors’ house meeting?’ Kate joked as they walked into the dining room to find Cal, Gina, Emily, Grace and Susie all sitting at a table.

With Harry!

‘Harry’s found the missing bulls,’ Gina told her, when Kate had helped herself to some roast beef and vegetables and joined them.

‘Missing bulls? What missing bulls?’ Hamish, who was pulling a chair out for her, asked. ‘Don’t tell me we’ve got to put more bulls in the cow paddock. Charles’ll have a fit!’

The others laughed but it was Cal, not Harry, who took up the explanation.

‘The Alcotts definitely had four bulls at the rodeo, but when you bravely liberated Oscar, he was the only animal in the trailer. Ergo, three missing bulls.’

‘So?’ Kate said, looking around the table. ‘You all seem particularly happy about Harry finding these three. Why?’

‘Because they’re at Wygera,’ Gina said, as if that totally explained the group’s pleasure.

‘Rob Wingererra, the uncle of one of the girls who died in the car accident some weeks back, travelled the rodeo circuit for years, and later on worked with rodeo stock animals.’ Once again it was Cal telling her what she needed to know to connect the dots. ‘He helped the Alcotts set up their business, but returned to Wygera recently because his mother isn’t well.’

‘So when he was talking to them at the rodeo, about the swimming pool and the kids being bored—’ Gina took up the tale, her excitement almost palpable ‘—the Alcotts suggested they leave some bulls with Rob so he can get the kids interested not only in bull riding but in the care of rodeo stock. Isn’t it marvellous?’

A young couple dead—two young people with names—Brad and Jenny. A little girl orphaned, a truck driver injured. Kate’s mind flashed back to the nightmare horror of the scene, and pushed away her meal. She wasn’t at the marvellous part yet.

Then she felt Hamish’s hand on her knee, squeezing gently, and she knew he hadn’t reached the marvellous goal either.

But his touch brought comfort—comfort she shouldn’t be accepting—but she could no more have shifted that hand than she could have swallowed food.

‘It will be another interest for the kids at Wygera, and a challenging one at that. At least equal to playing chicken in their old bombs of cars,’ he said gently. ‘Gina and Cal have been very involved with the community because of the pool, and can see how having the bulls to care for will help even more. I know it seems a funny kind of industry but apparently there’s good money to be made in breeding and training rodeo stock, and Rob can manage the business for Lily for as long as is necessary—’

‘And other members of the community can get involved.’ Kate could see the reason for the smiles now.

The conversation continued around her but she wasn’t thinking about bulls, but about how nice it was to have Hamish’s hand resting on her knee.

Stupid, really. The last thing she should be feeling pleased about was contact with Hamish. For a start, she’d just told him that what she did was none of his business. And if she set that minor hurdle aside, there was the fact that in less than a week he’d be gone, and the closer she was drawn to him, the more she’d miss him when that day arrived.

‘So, are we on for tomorrow?’

Hamish’s fingers tightening their hold suggested Harry’s question might have been for her, but she’d drifted so far away from the conversation it took her a few seconds to make sense of it.

Hadn’t she already told Harry she wouldn’t be free tomorrow?

The others were now watching her with interest. Could they know about Hamish’s hand on her knee?

And could she say yes to Harry when Hamish had his hand on her knee, and she could feel the tension in it, the tension in
the man beside her—the man she’d already hurt with careless words this evening?

‘I’m sitting with Lily tonight so I won’t get much sleep,’ she said, her voice genuinely regretful because Harry was her best chance of finding out more about her father, although Harry wasn’t asking her out to be helpful.

‘We could go in the afternoon,’ Harry pursued, but even though Hamish had now removed his hand, leaving a cold patch on her skin, she shook her head.

‘No, Harry,’ she said, as gently as she could, embarrassed that this conversation was taking place in front of others but needing to get it said. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

He glanced from her to Hamish, then back to her again, and she wondered why she didn’t feel shivers down her spine when Harry’s cool grey eyes looked at her.

It had to be more than eye colour …

‘OK!’ he said easily, but she sensed he was hurt, an impression confirmed when he stood up and left the table without even a casual goodbye.

‘He’s a good bloke,’ Grace said stiffly, then she too stood up and departed.

Following Harry, or hiding hurt Kate hadn’t suspected?

‘How’s that for breaking up a party?’ Hamish asked no one in particular, while Gina stacked dirty plates at one corner of the table.

‘Grace has been in love with Harry for ages,’ Emily said quietly. ‘Unfortunately, until Kate arrived, he’s never shown any particular interest in women—or not in any woman working at the hospital.’

‘Poor Grace,’ Gina said. ‘Love can be the pits!’

But though her voice showed sympathy, the smile she shared with Emily showed two people, at least, who’d been there in the pits but had since clambered out—both now glowing, annoyingly for Kate, with the radiance of love.

‘Gina’s right,’ Hamish said gloomily, now only he and Kate were left at the table. ‘Love can be the pits!’

‘It’s not love,’ Kate told him firmly. ‘It can’t possibly be love. We’ve known each other exactly two weeks—people don’t fall in love in two weeks.’

He said nothing for a moment, then caught her eyes and held them.

‘I have,’ he said, so firmly she knew it was true. ‘I know you don’t want to hear it, Kate. I know you have so many other issues that you don’t need to hear it. But I have to say it.’