Alison Roberts - The Australian's Proposal

Jack’s eyes opened at that, and he tried to sit up straighter.

‘Shouldn’t I go to Cairns? Or what about Townsville? That has a bigger hospital, doesn’t it?’

‘Bigger but not better,’ Hamish told him. ‘Besides, it’s too far for a chopper flight. Something about Crocodile Creek bothering you? We don’t really have crocodiles in the creek—well, not where it flows past the hospital.’

Jack didn’t answer, but turned his head away, as if not seeing Hamish might remove him from the cave.

And the prospect of a trip to Crocodile Creek …

Hamish watched Kate bend to speak quietly to the young man, no doubt reassuring him he’d have the very best of treatment at Crocodile Creek, but Hamish was becoming more and more certain that Jack had reasons of his own for avoiding that particular hospital.

But how to confirm what he was thinking?

He walked around to the other side and squatted beside the open pack, delving through it for what he needed. Then, from this side, he looked directly at Jack.

‘I’ll add some pain relief to the fluid now, so you should be feeling more comfortable before long, and then I guess we should do the paperwork. You up for that, Kate? Did you see the initial assessment forms in the pack?’

Kate’s frown told him she disapproved of the change in his attitude from friendly banter to practical matter-of-factness, but she didn’t know about a feud between two neighbouring families up here in the north, or the connection of one family to the hospital. Or about a baby called Lucky who was now called Jackson who had a form of haemophilia known as von Willebrand’s disease.

Or about the search for the baby’s father—a young man called Jack.

‘I’ve got them here,’ she said, putting ice into her words in case he hadn’t caught the frown.

‘Then fill them out. You and Jack can manage all the personal stuff then I’ll do the medication and dosages when you get down to that section. And while you’re doing it, I’ll take a look around to see if there’s a patch of clear ground from which we can winch Jack up in the morning.’

He found a stronger torch in the equipment backpack, turned it on and walked away, hoping his absence might help Jack speak more freely. If he’d talk to anyone, it would be to Kate. Nothing like a baring of souls to create a bond between people. But had she really been through so much emotional trauma or had she made it all up to keep Jack talking? He had no idea, which wasn’t surprising, but what did surprise him was that he wanted to find out.

Hell’s teeth! He’d been in Australia for nearly two years, and while he’d enjoyed some mild flirtations and one reasonably lengthy and decidedly pleasant relationship, he’d remained heart-whole and fancy-free. So now, three weeks before he was due to return home, was hardly the time to be developing an interest in a woman.

Yet his mind kept throwing up the image of his first sight of her, a slight figure, dressed all in brown, except for those ridiculous purple sandals, standing in the gloomy hallway, with a stray sunbeam probing through the fretwork breezeway above the door and turning the tips of her loose brown curls to liquid gold.

‘Is he a good doctor?’ Jack asked, when Hamish had disappeared into the darkness.

Kate looked in the direction Hamish had taken, but already she could see nothing but inky blackness beyond the glow of the lamp.

‘I’ve just started work so I don’t know, but from the way he treated you I’d have to say he is.’

Jack closed his eyes and lay in silence for a while, but just when Kate had decided he’d drifted off to sleep he opened his eyes again and looked at her.

‘So you don’t know anything about the hospital?’ he asked.

‘Not a thing, except its reputation is excellent. Apparently the boss, Charles Wetherby, insists on hiring top-class staff and only buying the best equipment, so it has a name for being far in advance of most country hospitals.’

But her words failed to reassure Jack, who had not only closed his eyes but had now folded his lips into a straight line of worry.

Seeking to divert him, she pulled out the pad of assessment forms.

‘You must be tired, but before you drop off to sleep, how about we fill this out. There aren’t many questions.’

Jack opened his eyes and looked directly at her.

‘I should have died,’ he said, then he closed his eyes again and turned his head away, making it unmistakably clear that the conversation was over.

‘Full name?’ Kate asked hopefully. ‘Address? Come on, Jack, we have to do this.’

But the young man had removed himself from her—not physically, but mentally—cutting the link she’d thought she’d forged when they’d played their ‘whose life sucks the most’ game earlier.

She lifted his wrist and checked his pulse then wrote the time and the rate on the form. She filled in all the other parts she could, remembering Jack’s initial respiration rate, systolic blood pressure—she’d taken that herself before Hamish had started the second drip—and pulse, writing times and numbers, wondering about all the unanswered questions at the top of the form.

‘Asleep?’

Hamish’s quiet question preceded him into the light. She stood up, careful not to disturb their patient, and moved a little away.

‘He wasn’t—just closed his eyes to avoid answering me—but I think he’s genuinely asleep now. I’ve just checked him. His pulse is steadier but his systolic blood pressure hasn’t changed as much as I’d have thought it would, considering the fluid we’re giving him. Do you think there could be internal bleeding somewhere?’

‘It’s likely, and though I’ve sutured part of the wound and put a pressure pad on it, I’d say it’s still bleeding.’

‘That’s more than a guess, isn’t it?’ Kate looked up at the man who sounded so concerned. They’d moved out of the lamplight, but a full moon had risen and was shedding soft, silvery light into the gorge.

‘It’s a long story but we’ve time ahead of us. If you dig into the equipment backpack you’ll find a space blanket to wrap around Jack—there should be a couple of inflatable pillows in there as well. Put one under his feet and one behind his head and cover him with the blanket while I get a cuppa going and find something for us to eat.’

‘And then you’ll tell me?’

Hamish smiled, but it was a grim effort.

‘I’ll tell you what I’m guessing.’

Kate cupped her hands around the now empty mug and looked out at the broad leaves of the cabbage palms that filled the gorge. Hamish’s story of a newborn baby found at a rodeo, the dramatic efforts that had saved his life, the finding of his dangerously ill mother, and the fight to save her life, was the stuff of television medicine, while feuding neighbours and heart attacks turned it into soap opera.

Maybe she’d got it wrong.

She turned to Hamish, sitting solidly beside her at the entrance to the cave.

‘So you think Jack is Charles Wetherby’s nephew, sacked from the family property, run by Charles’s brother Philip, for consorting with the Cooper girl, daughter of the Wetherbys’ sworn enemies who live next door. And you’ve put all this together because his wound is bleeding and you think he has von Willebrand’s disease.’

‘Lucky—the baby—has von Willebrand’s disease and it runs through the Wetherby family,’ Hamish said patiently. ‘Originally, back when Lucky was found, Charles had no idea his nephew had been working at Wetherby Downs, because Charles and Philip rarely spoke to each other. But since Jim Cooper was admitted to hospital with a heart attack, Charles has been anxious about the Coopers’ property and that forced him to speak to Philip—’