He sounded regretful, but it wasn’t regret that tightened Kate’s stomach when he talked about leaving. It was like the shoulder shrug. The familiarity. And a lot of things she didn’t want to think about.
Except that she did.
Most of the time …
So, she could go to Scotland with him. The offer was there …
But it would take a leap faith and she didn’t have much faith these days.
Except when she was kissing him …
Or he was kissing her …
‘Besides,’ he continued, for once not attuned to her thoughts, ‘you weren’t going to be there and if you ask me which I’d prefer—a rodeo without Kate or a hospital with her—then there’s no choice.’
Uh-oh, maybe he was attuned to her thoughts …
He spread his arms wide and smiled at her.
‘Stop it!’ she snapped, glad the place was as quiet as a tomb so no one heard her. The entire population of Crocodile Creek must be out at the rodeo.
‘Stop what?’
Dark blue eyes projected injured innocence, making Kate madder than ever.
‘Stop smiling at me. And talking like that. You know I don’t want a relationship.’
His smile became gentler.
‘Don’t you, Kate?’ he said, then he put his hands on her shoulders and drew her closer.
‘Don’t you?’ he repeated as his lips closed on hers.
‘Don’t you?’ he breathed, a long time later, when they drew apart to catch their breath.
‘Don’t do this, Hamish,’ she murmured brokenly, shaking her head to emphasise her words. ‘I really, really, really don’t want this.’
‘Only because you’ve been hurt—because everything you knew and believed in turned out to be a lie. But this isn’t a lie, Kate. Deep down in your heart you must know it’s more than a passing fancy—more than physical attraction or lust or whatever other excuse you make to yourself to fend me off.’
She looked at him and shook her head, but before she could reply Mike burst through the door.
‘You two on call for the Rescue Service?’
Kate nodded.
‘Do you need us both?’ Hamish asked.
‘I think so. Multi-vehicle traffic accident up on the pass. The ambulance is on the way. It was at the rodeo and left from there. The rodeo’s over and the hospital staff who were out there are all on their way back here, so this place won’t be short-staffed for long.’
‘I’ll just let someone know we’re going,’ Kate told him. ‘It’s been so slow today I’ve been restocking the dressing cupboard and sent the others off for a second afternoon tea. Mrs Grubb’s been baking chocolate-chip cookies, so they didn’t need to be persuaded.’
Kate whisked away, and Hamish watched her go.
‘Not winning her over?’ Mike said, and Hamish turned back to his friend.
‘What did you say?’
Mike laughed.
‘Come on, mate. You must know the whole hospital is talking about you and Kate. The staff have been laying bets on how long you’d take to—well, to get her into bed.’
‘They’d better not have been!’ Hamish growled. ‘How dare they talk about her that way?’
Mike touched his arm.
‘Relax,’ he said. ‘You know how it happens. It doesn’t belittle you or Kate. If anything, it shows the affection in which people hold you. And sometimes it also shows how stupid we are when it comes to love. Apparently Walter Grubb was running a book down at the Black Cockatoo on when Emily and I would get together—and that was years before we finally did.’
Mike’s lack of concern over the groundsman’s behaviour cooled Hamish’s anger—slightly. Walter Grubb had better not be running a book on him at the local pub.
Though maybe he should take whatever odds Walter was offering on him losing her.
Because, in spite of the passion of Kate’s kisses, and the heat that roared between them, he was losing her. Or maybe not winning her was a better way to put it, as she’d never really been his to begin with.
He followed Mike out to the chopper, wondering what she’d been about to say when Mike had walked in—knowing in his heart it had been another rejection.
So why didn’t he give up?
He couldn’t, that was why. Somewhere deep inside him was a certainty that Kate was his future, and all the avoidance, and denial, and, yes, joking in the world couldn’t kill that notion.
He glared at the woman in question as she arrived at the helipad. She took her overalls from Mike, chatting away as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
Which she had—lots of cares—so it just proved how much better she was at hiding her emotions than he was!
Growling quietly to himself because, distracted, he’d stepped into the wrong leg of his overalls, he turned his mind from Kate to what lay ahead.
‘Where’s the accident?’ he asked Mike. ‘Right at the top of the pass, or further down?’
‘Further down. There’s a lay-by about a kilometre from the top where I can land. Apparently a fully loaded cattle road train lost its brakes coming down, and as it crossed the road to go up the safety ramp it struck a vehicle coming from the other direction.’
‘A fully loaded cattle train? You’re talking three trailers? A hundred head of cattle, many dead or injured, the others loose on the highway? Anything could happen.’
‘And probably will,’ Mike said.
The flight was short, but as they came into land in the fading daylight they could see the chaos beneath them. Dead and dying cattle lay across the road, policemen with rifles shooting those beyond saving.
‘Pity we’re not vets,’ Kate muttered, wincing as Mike opened the door and another shot rang out.
‘We’ll have enough injured people to worry about,’ Hamish said, but Kate, seeing the mangled cabins of two semi-trailers, was doubtful. The fire brigade’s crash unit was already on the scene and men with giant tin snips were cutting at the tangled metal.
‘Have you got anyone out?’ Hamish asked, as Harry joined them by the side of the road.
‘Not yet,’ Harry said, his voice not hopeful. ‘The smaller semi is the Alcotts’—the people who supplied the rodeo bulls. They had four bulls at the rodeo so presumably there are four in the trailer. We haven’t looked at them yet—too busy trying to clear the cattle from the other wreck off the road.’
He shook his head then left, answering a call from one of his men.
‘Let’s see what we can in the cabins,’ Mike suggested, and the three of them headed for the centre of the action, Kate and Hamish carrying bags, while Mike had the lightweight stretcher.
The prime mover of the cattle train had ridden right over the smaller vehicle so it was hard to see where one ended and the other began.
‘One more cut and you’ll be able to get at the bloke up the top,’ one of the fire crew told them, and they stood back to let the experts work. ‘Once he’s out, we can cut through to the other vehicle, though it doesn’t look too good for anyone in it.’
The cattle train driver was barely conscious but responded both to Hamish’s voice and to sensory stimulation. Aware they had to get him out before attempts could be made to rescue anyone else, Hamish worked swiftly, starting oxygen, protecting the man’s neck with a cervical collar, sliding a short spine board behind him and securing it so they could lift him out in a sitting position without moving his spine more than necessary.
Within minutes they had him on the ground, well away from the firemen who were continuing their efforts to untangle the two vehicles with the jaws of life and a small crane attached to their unit.
Hamish worked with his usual thoroughness and Kate thought what a loss he’d be to emergency services when he began his paediatric specialty.
In Scotland …
‘Breathing OK, carotid pulse strong, BP 149 over 80, high but not disastrous, no sign of tension pneumothorax or flail chest, minor contusions without too much blood loss, no facial
injuries indicative of hitting the windscreen, no obvious damage to his skull—but he’ll need scans—damage to left patella, broken right tib and fib.’ Hamish was listing the injuries while Kate did the documentation and Mike started an IV infusion. ‘That’s all I can see, and he’s stable enough to move. Let’s get him to the chopper. Mike can take him back to town while we wait to see if they get someone out of the other vehicle. The ambulance should be here soon. We’ll ride back in that.’
Kate looked over at the flattened cabin and wondered if it could be possible for someone to have survived. She carried the bag of fluid while the men carried the stretcher back to the helicopter, then waited while Mike and Hamish secured their patient inside.
‘Get Harry to radio if you need me back here,’ Mike said, then he shut the door and Hamish steered Kate away before the rotors started moving. A tow truck had arrived, its winch lifting dead cattle off the road, but back at the scene of the accident a very much alive animal bellowed for release from the trailer that held the rodeo bulls.
‘We’ve checked,’ Harry said. ‘Although the Alcotts had four bulls at the rodeo, the only passenger in the trailer is this huge fellow—I think he’s the one they call Oscar. He’s stamping and pawing and bellowing like crazy, but I daren’t let him out without someone here who knows how to handle him.’ He frowned in the direction of the cranky bull. ‘I guess the other option is to shoot him.’
‘You can’t shoot a healthy animal,’ Hamish protested, and Harry shrugged.
‘You want to try calming him down?’ he said, nodding towards the trailer that had jackknifed and tipped onto its side in the middle of the road.
Kate walked towards it, seeing the tear in the top that had allowed Harry to check for dead or injured animals. A huge head, grey-black, with curved horns and, below them, floppy grey ears looked back at her. Somehow, the animal had managed to turn himself so he was upright, stamping and bellowing with either pain or frustration.
Knowing there was no way he could get out, she moved closer, talking softly to him, but he refused to be placated and kept up his complaints, his roars an accompaniment to the awful screeches of tearing metal.
‘We’re in, Doc,’ one of the men called, and Kate left the irate bull to follow Hamish to the cabin.
Both its occupants, a man and a woman, were dead.
‘It doesn’t matter how often I see it, I hate the waste of life road accidents cause,’ Hamish said, as he straightened after examining both bodies. ‘Is the ambulance here?’
Kate nodded and waved the vehicle closer.
‘It can take them into town. We’ll do all the formalities at the hospital. I guess Harry will know who they are and who we need to contact.’
‘It’s Jenny and Brad Alcott,’ one of the ambos said gruffly. ‘They met on the rodeo circuit when they were young kids. Brad was a runaway who somehow hooked up with a rodeo stock contractor, and Jenny’s mother ran a food van at rodeos for years. She died about six months ago from pancreatic cancer. These two nursed her to the end.’
After a fortnight in a country town, Kate was no longer surprised about how much people knew of each other’s business, but she was saddened by the regret in the ambo’s voice as he talked of the young couple.
‘They were making a good job of providing quality rodeo stock. Their Oscar is one of the best bulls on the northern circuit,’ the man was saying to Hamish as they lifted the second body from the wreck. ‘Dunno who’ll take over from—’
He stopped abruptly, looked around, then said, ‘Cripes, where’s Lily?’
‘Lily?’ Hamish and Kate both echoed the name.
‘Little ‘un,’ the ambo explained, holding out his hand to measure off about three feet from the ground. ‘She was at the rodeo.’
Hamish and Kate looked at each other, but Kate was the first to move, scrabbling into the blood-covered seat from which they’d taken the adults, searching desperately through the twisted metal.
Although it hadn’t been immediately obvious, the truck was a dual cab, with a second row of seats behind the front ones. Hamish pulled Kate out, explaining the crane would lift the damaged front seats out of the way.
‘She might be alive. She might be injured and moving the seats will harm her.’ Kate knew her anxiety was unprofessional, but the thought of a child trapped in the twisted mess of metal had her heart racing erratically.
The firemen hooked a chain to the less-damaged passenger seat and gave the signal for the crane to lift.
The little girl was curled in a foetal position in the footwell behind the seat, which had been tipped backwards on top of her. Blonde hair, a pink dress and blood. Blood everywhere.
Kate broke away from Hamish’s restraining hand and knelt beside the child, talking quietly while her hand slid beneath the girl’s chin, feeling for a pulse—praying for a pulse.
‘Damn it, be alive!’ she ordered, and felt not a pulse but a movement.
‘She moved,’ she cried, as Hamish squatted beside her, resting one hand on her shoulder while reaching out to touch the little girl’s head, then sliding his hand down to the far side of her neck, seeking a pulse where Kate had found none.
It seemed to Kate that he took for ever, then one word.
‘Pulse!’
Kate closed her eyes and uttered a little prayer of thanks. She wasn’t certain anyone was listening to her prayers these days, but it didn’t hurt to say thank you just in case.
‘Lily!’ Hamish’s voice was gentle. ‘Sweetheart, we’re here to help you. My hand is on your back. Can you take a deep breath for me?’
Katie tensed as she waited, then Hamish nodded, shifting his hand so it followed the skinny little arm as it curled inwards.
‘Now I’ve got your hand, sweetheart. Can you squeeze my hand?’
Another pause. ‘Great!’
Kate heard the genuine delight in that one word.
‘I can’t reach your toes to tickle them,’ Hamish continued, ‘but can you wiggle them?’
The blonde head moved just slightly but it was definitely a nod, not a head shake.
‘OK, so now we know we can move you a little bit. Do you want to lift your head up so Kate and I can look at you?’
This time it was definite head shake.
Kate, who’d been stroking the blood-matted hair, looked across at Hamish.
‘There’s a scalp wound here, above her right ear, that I think explains most of the visible blood, but if she was wearing her seat belt there could be soft-tissue damage to her chest or abdomen and even organ damage.’
‘I wasn’t wearing my seat belt. Mummy will be cross.’
The muffled words pierced Kate’s heart, and she put her arms around the little curled-up ball of misery and gave her a hug.
‘Maybe this is one case where not wearing a seat belt was lucky. Instead of flying through the windscreen, she’s shot off the seat into that space,’ Hamish said, sliding his arms down under the child so he could lift her out.
‘Lily, we need to get you out of there so we can take a proper look at you. I’m going to lift you now, OK?’
No reply, but as Hamish lifted the little girl, she raised her head and looked at Kate, then put out her arms.
Kate nodded to Hamish and took the child, who attached herself like a limpet to Kate’s chest.
‘Do you think she knows?’ Kate mouthed the words at Hamish above the little girl’s head.
‘Most probably,’ Hamish muttered grimly. ‘She’s been there and conscious all the time and we’ve all been talking about things she shouldn’t have heard.’
Kate rocked back and forth, holding Lily tightly, hoping human contact would help ease the shock and horror the little girl had suffered.
Hamish dressed the scalp wound, then continued his examination, hampered by the fact he could only work on the bits of Lily not clamped to Kate.
‘She seems OK,’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief that the child should have escaped unscathed—although it
was only her physical self that had been lucky. Who knew what emotional toll losing both parents would take on her?
‘That’s Lily! She survived!’ Harry approached, a rifle in one hand. He walked around Kate so he could see Lily’s face—if she’d lift it from where it was burrowed into Kate’s shoulder.
‘Hey, Lily! It’s Harry. How are you, little darling?’
The head lifted and while Hamish watched, Lily registered first the policeman, who was obviously a friend, and then the rifle in his hand.
‘What are you going to shoot, Harry?’ she asked, and Kate smiled at Hamish, sure this interest in Harry’s job signalled the little girl was OK.
But it was Harry’s response that surprised Hamish. The policeman frowned and looked around as if seeking something to distract the child. Then the bull, which had been mercifully silent since they’d found Lily, began to bellow again and the quiescent child who’d clung to Kate became a small tornado, kicking and fighting herself free of Kate’s protective arms and dashing to the trailer.
‘It’s Oscar. You were going to shoot Oscar.’
She flung herself down on the torn trailer, so close to the huge head of the angry bull that Hamish reached out and lifted her away. She kicked and fought and screamed to be let down, while the bull became equally agitated.
‘It’s OK, Lily,’ Hamish said, tightening his hold on the little girl, soothing and comforting her. ‘Harry isn’t going to shoot your bull, darling. No way! We won’t let him.’
He handed her to Kate, who kissed her on the head and murmured, ‘You stay here with me and talk to Oscar while Harry and Hamish work out how to get him out.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ Hamish muttered, looking from Kate to the bull then back to Kate.
‘You’ll think of something,’ Kate told him, hugging Lily closer to her body. ‘Isn’t there a vet? Couldn’t you get a tranquillising dart?’
‘I tried to get the vet, but he’s out on the Coopers’ place, seeing to the cattle Charles wanted checked.’ Harry sounded defensive. ‘And don’t think I like the idea of shooting a healthy animal, but you tell me what else we can do.’
‘We have sedatives in our bags and the ambos will have more,’ Kate said. ‘We only have to do the sums. Hamish, how much do bulls weigh?’
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 Page 14