‘I’m Scottish,’ Hamish protested. ‘We have Highland cows but they’re small, hairy, docile creatures and, believe me, I have no idea how much they weigh, let alone this guy.’
‘Can’t you work it out from people? I mean, a really big fat man might weigh, what? Three hundred pounds? Then you look at Oscar and work out how many big fat men it would take to make one of him—’
‘You can’t be serious!’
‘You have any other ideas?’ Kate demanded.
‘Maybe it is the best way,’ Harry said, cravenly giving in to Kate’s persuasion.
‘And we’re going to give it to him how?’ Hamish asked.
Harry shook his head but Kate turned her head to look at the bull, which appeared to be communing with Lily over Kate’s shoulder.
‘Intramuscularly, I’d say,’ she told Hamish with a smile. ‘I wouldn’t like to mess around looking for a vein.’
Hamish shook his head again, but now a little smile was playing around his lips and Kate knew she’d won.
‘I’ll see what we have,’ he said, then his smile grew. ‘While you work out how to get it into him.’
‘He seems a nice bull,’ Kate said to Lily when the two men had departed.
‘He’s mine,’ Lily told her. ‘My very own. And we’re friends.’
‘I’m kind of glad about that,’ Kate said, eyeing the extremely large animal, which looked as if he ate friends for breakfast. Except he did have soft brown eyes, and now she really looked, he had a friendly face.
‘Does he let you pat him?’
‘Of course he does,’ Lily scoffed, reaching out a skinny arm towards the tear in the trailer.
‘Be careful, you’ll cut yourself,’ Kate warned, but the little arm snaked inside and touched the bull’s soft nose.
‘Would he let me touch him?’ Kate pursued.
Lily turned her head to look more closely at the woman to whom she still clung.
‘If I told him to,’ she said, without a hint of boasting or bravado in her voice.
‘Well, when Dr Hamish gets the injection for him, will you tell Oscar to let me touch him? It’s not going to hurt him, just put him to sleep for long enough for the men to cut him free and lift him into a truck.’
‘Where will the truck take him?’
Lily’s legs and arms tightened around Kate’s body again and Kate knew the little girl must know, at some level where she didn’t want to go, that her parents were dead.
‘Wherever you say,’ Kate told her, rocking her again.
‘He has to come where I go,’ Lily said, her voice breaking and warm tears spilling down Kate’s neck. ‘He has to stay with me. He’s mine, he’s mine.’
‘He’ll stay with you, darling, of course he will,’ Kate promised, knowing the bond she felt with the child was more than sympathy for her loss, but an understanding of how total that loss must be. ‘I promise you he’ll stay.’
Hamish and Harry returned, Hamish holding a big bulb syringe Kate knew was normally used for irrigating ears.
‘You have a needle on that thing?’ Kate asked, and Hamish nodded proudly at her.
‘Never let it be said a Scot can’t improvise,’ he said, showing her his invention, which had a hard plastic cannula attached to the blunt end of the syringe and a hollow hypodermic needle attached to the cannula. ‘You ready?’
‘Me?’
She may have talked to Lily about touching the big bull, but she hadn’t for a minute imagined either Hamish or Harry would allow her to do it. Forget women’s lib, this was a very large bull they were talking about.
But Hamish was offering her the syringe!
No chance. ‘Lily, tell Oscar Hamish is a friend.’
The little girl, apparently unwilling to take Kate’s word for it, wriggled around to look at Hamish.
‘You’re not going to hurt him, are you?’
Hamish smiled and touched her cheek.
‘He’ll hardly feel it,’ he promised.
‘Then I’ll hold him.’
Still clinging with one arm to Kate, she stretched out the other and with an imperious ‘Oscar, come!’ she reached her hand into the damaged trailer.
The big bull stretched his neck, lowered his head and nuzzled her hand, allowing her to pat his nose then reach upward to grab hold of one of his horns.
‘Stay!’ Lily commanded, for all the world as if she were talking to a very obedient dog not an animal the size of a small elephant. Kate eyed the set-up. If the bull moved his head, he could tear off Lily’s arm.
‘I’ll hold him, too,’ she said, and shifted Lily to one hip.
‘You’ll stay right out of it!’ Hamish ordered, placing his body between her and the bull and reaching in to grasp the thick horn above where Lily’s small hand lay.
Then he took the chance, reaching in with his right hand and jabbing the needle into the bull’s neck, then squeezing the bulb hard and fast to inject as much of the sedative as he could while Oscar remained still.
‘It’s not going to work,’ Kate said ten minutes later, as all four of them watched the bull watching them through the tear in the trailer.
‘He looks sleepy,’ Lily told her. ‘Soon he’ll lie down.’
And within moments she was proved correct. The big animal started looking confused, then shook his head, before his legs gave way and he sank down onto what was now the base of the trailer.
The firemen moved in immediately, cutting through the metal shell then calling the tow truck closer and wrapping ropes around the inert body.
‘Where am I taking him?’ the truck driver asked, when Oscar was settled into the back of a cattle truck.
‘To the hospital,’ Kate answered, and all the men involved in the rescue turned to stare at her.
‘He’ll be OK when he comes round,’ Hamish assured her, his voice the kindly one he probably used to people who were off the planet.
‘He needs to stay with Lily,’ Kate explained, resting her head against the head of the now dozing child. ‘Or she needs him to stay with her. And we have to take her to the hospital to check her out and contact relatives. There’s that paddock at the back of the Agnes Wetherby Garden—I asked Charles about it one day and he said in the old days the hospital had its own cows. Oscar can go into the cow paddock.’
Harry shrugged and turned to the driver.
‘You heard the lady,’ he said, while Hamish came over and gave her and Lily a hug.
‘And how long did it take you to work out all of that?’ he asked, his arm around the pair of them, leading them away from the damaged trailer then stopping abruptly within sight of the ambulance.
Kate shifted Lily so the little girl’s weight was on her hip and smiled at Hamish.
‘You’d have worked it out just as quickly if you’d heard Lily talk about her bull,’ Kate replied, then she checked to make sure the little one was still sleeping. ‘She’s lost so much, Hamish. How could we not keep her bull close to her?’
He hugged her again and she realised it wasn’t just shoulder shrugs and kisses she’d miss. She’d miss Hamish’s hugs …
But he wasn’t thinking about hugs. Or, if he was, they weren’t happy thoughts for he was frowning and looking around as if he’d lost something. Then he turned her and Lily round again and walked back towards the accident.
‘Wait here a moment,’ he said, sounding so definite Kate didn’t argue, though Lily was growing ever heavier in her arms.
He returned, this time with Harry.
‘I’ll send you back in the second police car,’ Harry said, and Kate, glancing back towards the ambulance that was to have been their transport, looked at Hamish and understood. He hadn’t wanted Lily travelling with the vehicle that held her parents’ bodies.
This was the Hamish that got under her defences. He might joke and make light of things most of the time, but underneath his detached exterior there was a heart that felt the pain of others and a steely determination to do whatever was possible to all
eviate it.
‘You’ll go straight to the hospital?’ Harry asked.
‘Yes, we need to check her out and the staff there can start a search for relations,’ Hamish told him.
‘Good luck with that,’ Harry said, still frowning, though Hamish felt the frown was directed at him, not at the task that lay ahead of them. ‘Brad was a runaway and although a whole crowd of locals and rodeo folk turned out for Jenny’s mother’s funeral, I don’t know that any of them were relatives.’
‘We’ll do our best, and in the meantime there are plenty of people at the hospital who can keep an eye on Lily.’ Hamish wasn’t sure why he was getting such negative vibes from Harry, who was usually an extremely positive person. Though maybe having to deal with two dead people and an untold number of dead animals might destroy anyone’s positivity.
‘So, tomorrow?’
It took a moment for Hamish to realise the question hadn’t been directed at him. And that Kate was already answering it!
‘I don’t know,’ she was saying hesitantly, looking down at the blonde head on her shoulder. ‘I’ll stay with Lily while ever she needs me. I’ll let you know.’
Harry gave Hamish another disgruntled look and walked away.
‘You were going out with him tomorrow?’ Hamish demanded of Kate the moment the policeman was out of earshot.
‘He was going to take me out on the river,’ she said, ‘but now …’
They were in the middle of the highway—mercifully still closed to traffic—halfway between the wrecked vehicles and the second police car, but Hamish wasn’t moving another step until he’d sorted this out.
‘Take you out on the river? I’ve asked you to dinner at Athina’s, to a beach barbeque, to the movies and to the Black Cockatoo for a drink, and every single time you’ve given me the same excuse—you don’t want to get involved. Yet you had a drink with Harry at the pub on Wednesday and now a second date?’
Somewhere deep inside him a voice Hamish didn’t recognise was suggesting he was making a fool of himself—that maybe the woman just didn’t like him, or liked Harry better. But he was sure the voice was wrong about her not liking him. Hadn’t she kissed him—or at least returned his kisses—just that afternoon?
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.
CHAPTER TEN
‘NORMAL SATURDAY 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.’
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 15