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CHAPTER THREE

IN THE END, the airlift was completed safely, though delayed for several hours, Rex insisting the three on the ground remain in their cave until the rescue helicopter from Townsville arrived with armed police. Two of this contingent, carrying serious ‘don’t mess with us’ rifles, were lowered to the ground to escort Jack, Hamish and Kate to the retrieval area. The second helicopter then flew surveillance while Hamish, the patient and finally Kate were winched aboard the Crocodile Creek chopper.

‘Now everyone in the whole world knows I’m in trouble,’ Jack muttered to Kate an hour later, as he was lifted from the helicopter at Crocodile Creek, TV news cameras capturing the scene.

‘I doubt the whole world will know,’ Kate retorted. ‘North Queensland maybe, if it’s a slow news day, but this kind of footage never makes the national news. They’re taking it for a local station.’

‘Big deal,’ Jack grumbled. ‘Both my mother’s brothers are locals.’

He closed his eyes as he had done back in the cave, and Kate, tired as she was, felt a wave of sympathy for him. She took his hand. ‘It will be OK,’ she promised. ‘We’ll work it out. You’re not on your own, you know. Even if your family is upset with you, Hamish and I will stick by you.’

Having made this promise on Hamish’s behalf, she glanced around. The man in question had spoken briefly to the two orderlies who’d met the chopper, then walked away. Ah, there he was—over on the edge of the gathered crowd, squatting down so he could speak in confidence to a man in a wheelchair.

Still holding Jack’s hand, she was moving further and further away from the pair, and as they approached the hospital she felt a sense of … Surely it wasn’t loss? No way. She hardly knew the man, so why should he stick around? Escort her into the hospital? Introduce her around?

Because he seemed so nice, that’s why.

You don’t need nice, she reminded herself, dredging up a smile for a good-looking man with burnt red curls who was coming towards them now.

‘You must be Kate!’ the man said, holding out his hand towards her, though she knew most of his attention was on Jack. ‘I’m Cal Jamieson, the surgeon who’ll be digging the bullet out of your patient’s leg.’

He introduced himself to Jack and gave directions for the orderlies to take him into the emergency department first. The men wheeled their charge onto a wide veranda, turning right and entering through a door into a long, bright room, with curtains hanging from ceiling racks to divide off cubicles.

Kate undid the straps and the orderlies lifted Jack onto an examination table.

‘We’ll take a good look at it here,’ Cal explained to Jack, then he looked across at Kate. ‘You can stay if you want—meet some of the staff—but I imagine a shower and a sleep might be more of a priority.’

‘Is that a tactful way of telling me I’m on the nose?’ Kate lifted her arm and sniffed at her T-shirt. Not too bad, considering.

Cal laughed.

‘Definitely not. I just know how those overnighters can be.’

‘Stay with me, Kate.’ Jack decided for her. ‘You promised.’

‘I didn’t promise to stay with you for ever and ever,’ she told him firmly. ‘But just for now, I will. Until Dr Jamieson puts you under for the op. Then I’ll go home and shower and be back when you wake up. That’s if I’m not rostered on duty.’

‘I think they’ll let you have the rest of today to yourself,’ Cal said. ‘And here’s someone who can confirm that. Jill Shaw, Director of Nursing, meet Kate Winship, new nurse and local heroine.’

‘I’m not a heroine!’

Kate’s protest cut across Jill’s quiet, ‘How do you do, and a belated welcome to Crocodile Creek.’

Jill held out her hand, and as Kate shook it she sensed a quiet strength in the older woman. Here was someone, she knew immediately, who would stand firm in crises, and who would be there for her staff should they ever need her.

‘We were giving you today to settle in,’ she said, confirming Cal’s words. ‘And tomorrow we thought you might like to go on the clinic run to Wygera, so you can see a bit of the countryside and meet some of the people out there.’

Kate opened her mouth to ask about this place, but Jill was already bent over Jack, talking quietly to him. Did she know him?

‘Uncle Charles’ll kill me!’ Jack protested, and Kate realised Hamish’s surmises had been correct.

‘Don’t overdo the drama,’ Jill said, but she was smiling fondly at the young man. ‘Besides, his job is to save people from death, not cause it. You’re in trouble, yes, but Charles and Philip will both stand by you. You should know that.’

‘Charles might, but Philip certainly won’t,’ Jack muttered.

‘I think we should get this bullet out of your leg and worry about who kills who later,’ Cal said. He nodded towards a young woman who’d wheeled an X-ray machine into the room. ‘Right thigh, top and side views. Everyone out.’

Kate gave Jack’s hand an extra squeeze and left the cubicle.

‘He’s really worried about the repercussions of whatever he’s been up to,’ she said to Jill.

‘He should be,’ Jill replied, frowning in the direction of the wounded young man. ‘Hamish radioed Charles from the helicopter. Cattle duffing—if that’s what he’s been involved in—is a serious business up here—anywhere in outback Australia really. The sentences and fines have recently been increased. Oh, here’s Charles now.’

Kate looked around to find the man in the wheelchair had silently joined them.

‘I believe I owe you a debt of gratitude,’ he said. He, too, held out his hand. ‘Charles Wetherby.’

‘Kate Winship,’ Kate replied. ‘And no gratitude required. I was only doing my job.’

‘And doing it very well, from what I hear,’ Charles told her, a warm smile lighting up his craggy face. ‘Thanks, Kate. I haven’t seen much of young Jack lately, but as a kid he often holidayed up here and I’m very fond of him. I didn’t know he was at Wetherby Downs let alone that he’d fallen out with Philip and left. Silly young ass—he should have known he could come here. I’d have found him another job somewhere in the area.’

‘He might have thought you’d side with your brother.’ Hamish’s voice made Kate look up to find he’d come in through another door and was standing behind Jill. Kate smiled at him, then realised she shouldn’t have. Not that smiles meant anything. Not hers, nor the warm, friendly one Hamish bestowed on her in return. ‘Now, Kate, shouldn’t you have returned to your unpacking and settling in?’

‘I promised Jack I’d stay until he goes to Theatre,’ Kate told him, and Charles laughed.

‘I notice Jill’s standing guard over him as well. The young rascal wormed his way into her heart when he was a kid, always heading for her place if he was in trouble with me or his grandmother.’

Kate wished Jack could hear the affection in Charles’s voice as he spoke of his nephew. Jack’s fears he’d be disinherited were obviously baseless. She was relieved for him, of course, but somehow it made her own aloneness more acute.

And her desire to find her father even stronger—her father and perhaps some other family. Both her parents—the ones she’d known—had been only children, in their forties when they had taken Kate in, so though she’d known and loved her mother’s father, there were no other relatives.

‘The wound’s infected but the X-rays don’t show any nasty surprises, apart from a groove along part of his femur and some serious blood pooling further up around his hip.’ Cal appeared from the curtained cubicle to deliver his good news. ‘I want to get the clotting time down in his blood. I’ve got cryoprecipitate running into him now in a rapid infusion, and I’ll give Alix more blood to test when that’s done. I spoke to a haematologist after Hamish radioed in and described the patient, and Charles confirmed it was his nephew. The haematologist says minor surgery is OK once we get the blood-clotting factors up to thirty per cent of normal. The cryoprecipitate should do that.’

‘Do you want us to thaw some FFP just in case?’ Charles asked, and Kate realised just how sophisticated this country hospital was, to have fresh frozen plasma on hand.

Cal thought for a moment.

‘It’s such a waste to thaw it if we don’t need it within twenty-four hours. What’s thawing time?’

‘Twenty minutes.’

An attractive young woman with a long plait of dark hair swinging down her back answered the question as she came briskly into the room. She nodded at Kate then turned to Cal.

‘His clotting time is up to fifty per cent of normal. You can go ahead.’

‘Thanks, Alix.’

Cal disappeared back behind the curtain.

‘Alix, this is Kate. Kate Winship, meet our pathologist, Alix Armstrong.’

‘Hi,’ Alix said. ‘You’ve had an exciting introduction to Crocodile Creek. I’d love to hear about the gorge some time, but right now I need to talk to Cal about what he’ll need in Theatre.’

‘Alix is bush-crazy,’ Charles explained to Kate. ‘All her time off is spent bush-walking. She’s serious about wanting to hear about the gorge.’

Kate shivered, memories of the echoing gunshot sending icy tentacles along her spine.

Had Hamish noticed, that he put his hand lightly on her shoulder?

‘I’d better go in and see Jack before he goes to Theatre,’ she said, moving away from Hamish as swiftly as she could, but Charles was before her, shifting the curtain aside and wheeling silently towards the bed. He reached out and touched Jack’s cheek with the back of his hand.

‘Silly young fool,’ he said gruffly, and Kate swallowed hard. It wasn’t that she begrudged Jack this familial affection, just that once again it emphasised her own lack.

She took Jack’s hand, promised to see him later and left the cubicle, assuring herself it was lack of sleep and a letdown after the tension of the night that was making her so stupidly sentimental.

A small boy who looked just like Cal was sitting on the top step when she arrived back at the house. Beside him, spreadeagled like a fireside rug, was the weirdest dog Kate had ever seen. Part cocker spaniel and part something spotty, she guessed, greeting both boy and dog with a smile.

‘Hello, I’m Kate. Who are you two?’

‘I’m CJ and this is Rudolph, and his nose isn’t red because he’s not called after a reindeer but after a dancing man. I’m hiding.’

‘I thought you might be,’ Kate said easily. ‘From anyone in particular?’

‘I’m supposed to be at that stupid child-care place, but Rudolph followed me and sat outside so I decided to take him home, and he won’t stay home on his own so I’m here, too.’

‘Of course,’ Kate said, not understanding much of the conversation. ‘Do you think the people who mind you at the child-care place will be worried?’

‘They won’t notice ‘cos they don’t know me ‘cos I’m new. Or they might think I’m sick.’

‘Well, that’s OK, then,’ Kate said, climbing the steps and sitting beside the pair.

Rudolph raised his dopey head and soft brown eyes looked deep into hers, then he dropped his head onto her leg and went back to sleep. Going to child care and back must have been a tiring business.

‘I’m waiting for Hamish, he’ll know what to do.’

‘I’m sure he will,’ Kate agreed. This was obviously a job for Robin rather than Batman.

Fortunately, the top of Hamish’s dark head appeared above the foliage in the garden, and the dog, perhaps sensing his presence, woke up, then loped off down the steps, the huge grin on his canine face making him look even dopier.

The boy followed the dog, disappearing round a bend in the path then reappearing on Hamish’s shoulders, the dog lolloping around his legs.

‘You’ve met CJ, then?’ Hamish greeted her, and Kate nodded. ‘He’s absconded from child care again,’ Hamish continued, apparently unperturbed by the child’s delinquency.

He set CJ back down on the top step, then sat himself down in the space between the child and Kate. Rudolph found this unacceptable and proceeded to spread himself over all three of them.

‘Off! Sit!’ Hamish ordered, and the dog looked at him in surprise, then, to Kate’s astonishment, obeyed.

‘I’ve been teaching him to sit, like you told me,’ CJ said, giving the dog a big hug and kiss. ‘He’s a very clever dog, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, he is,’ Hamish told him. ‘It’s just a pity he’s going to have to go and live somewhere else.’

‘But he can’t go somewhere else to live,’ CJ protested. ‘He’s my dog!’

He gathered an armful of dog to his chest as he spoke, and glared at Hamish over the spotty head.

Hamish nodded.

‘He is, but if he keeps causing trouble, like making you run away from child care, your mom will just have to give him away.’

Silence, and Kate, who thought Hamish’s chiding had been unnecessarily harsh, reached around behind his back to pat CJ on the arm.

‘They laugh at me.’

The whispered words were barely audible, but understandable enough to make Kate’s stomach clench.

Hamish, however, seemed unmoved.

‘Who?’

‘Some of the kids. They say I talk funny.’

‘Bloody kids,’ Kate muttered under her breath. OK, so CJ appeared to have a slight American accent, but did that make him so different? At child-care level? What age would the kids be? Four? Five at the most?

‘Of course you do—that’s because you’re half-American—and it’s not funny, it’s just an accent, like mine is. But kids love to pick on anyone who seems different. The trick is to ignore them and eventually they’ll get tired of it and pick on someone else.’

‘Then that someone will be sad,’ CJ pointed out, and Kate glanced at Hamish, wondering how he’d handle that one.

‘Why don’t you make your difference count?’ he suggested, ignoring the bit Kate had wondered about. ‘Think of all the great things that have come from the United States of America—spaceships and astronauts and all the movies those kids at school go to see, not to mention most of the television they watch, and X-Boxes and video games.’

‘Could I tell them my father was an astronaut?’ he asked, and Kate looked at the burnt red curls and raised her eyebrows at Hamish.

‘It’s complicated,’ Hamish said in an aside to her, before tackling CJ’s question.

‘I wouldn’t tell a lie,’ he said mildly. ‘Lies are hard because you have to remember what you said the first time you told it, and then they grow bigger and bigger and it all gets very complicated. But you could tell them that you’re going to be an astronaut when you grow up, and you could take spaceship stuff along to child care to show them.’

‘I don’t have any spaceship stuff.’

Kate smiled. The kid had Hamish now.

‘Cal will help you make some,’ he said. ‘Cal knows all kinds of things about space and the solar system and other solar systems. You ask him to help you.’

CJ considered this for a moment, then he nodded.

‘He does know a lot of stuff. I like Cal. But he’s working and so’s Mom, so would you take me back and tell the teacher I was late because the man with the gun made the helicopter late?’

Hamish sighed.

‘I’ll take you back to child care and tell the teacher you had trouble getting Rudolph to stay home,’ he said. ‘Remember what I told you about lies?’

CJ nodded, and lifted one of Rudolph’s silky ears.

‘I’d like child care a whole lot better if he could come with me.’

The wistful statement made Kate smile, but Hamish was getting to his feet, giving orders for Rudolph to stay and sending CJ to wash his hands and face before they departed.

‘Mom, Dad, Cal?’ Kate asked him, when the boy had disappeared.

‘I’ll explain later,’ Hamish promised. ‘In the meantime, would you mind seeing that Rudolph doesn’t follow us? The dopey dog once chased my car right up the main street of the town, just because I had CJ with me. I’ll get his lead—Rudolph’s, not CJ’s, although maybe he needs one too—and if you can just hold him while we get going, then tell him to stay, he should be OK. The child-care centre is just the other side of the hospital, so I won’t be long.’

Hamish disappeared inside the house, reappearing with CJ a few minutes later. He waited patiently while CJ kissed the dog goodbye, clipped on the lead and handed it to Kate, then he herded CJ through the house and out the front door.

Kate shifted from the step to an old settee set back in the shade of the back veranda. Rudolph needed no invitation to climb up and flop beside her.

‘Dog-minding duties? I assume you’re Kate and no doubt Hamish roped you in to hold that hound.’

A woman with a cascade of deep brown curls and a soft American accent was taking the steps two at a time.

‘Is CJ with Hamish? Did Hamish take him back to child care?’

Kate nodded, and the woman pushed the dog to one side and flopped down on the couch.

‘I’m Gina,’ she said, ‘CJ’s mother, in case you hadn’t guessed. I don’t think it’s the child-care place that’s bothering CJ so much as not being here. From the day we arrived, he’s been petted and spoilt by everyone in the hospital, so now he thinks he might be missing out on something if he’s not here. What was his excuse this morning?’

Kate stared at the woman who was frowning at the spectacular view beyond the garden.

‘He had to bring the dog home,’ Kate offered, and Gina gave a scoffing laugh.

‘This dog could find his way to Mars if he had to,’ she said, patting the head of the dog in question with absent-minded affection. ‘I keep wondering if it’s because of Cal. CJ’s more or less had me to himself since my husband died, and now he has to share me with Cal, but he seems to love Cal and the two did boy things together all weekend, so …’

She sighed, then added, ‘I don’t know! Perhaps I should stop work and be a full-time mother, though I know I’d hate not working and the hospital needs a cardiologist.’

She stopped again, and flashed a smile at Kate.

‘Heavens, but you’re good! You arrive here and get whisked away on a rescue mission, then get shot at, then left to mind a dog, and now some total stranger is unloading on you—and you’re just sitting there and taking it. Tell me to go get a life!’

Kate smiled at her vehemence.

‘I’m really too tired to tell anyone to do anything,’ she admitted. ‘I’d be inside sleeping only once I go to sleep I might not wake for twenty-four hours and I promised Jack—the young man we brought in—I’d be there when he comes out of Theatre, so I may as well be dog-minding and listening to anyone who wants to unload.’

Gina reached across the dog and gave her a hug.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘But now I know CJ’s gone back—one of the carers rings me as soon as they realise he’d done a bunk. Problem is, they can’t work out how he gets out, with the child-proof locks on the gates. Anyway, that’s my problem, or theirs, really, because they have to stop it happening. For now, this mongrel …’ she brushed his ears with loving hands ‘… can be shut on the side veranda, so why don’t you have a shower and lie down? I promise I’ll come over and wake you when Jack comes out of Theatre. Have you got a room? Did you get that far when you arrived?’

‘I have and I did, but I haven’t unpacked. Maybe I will have a shower and unpack, then see about a sleep.’

Kate looked anxiously at Gina.

‘You will wake me?’

‘Promise!’ Gina said, then she took the lead from Kate. ‘Cal and I have a kind of flat on the hospital side of the house,’ she explained. ‘There are two of them—ours is two-bedroom and the other is a one-bedroom. Mike and Emily are using the other one, though not for long. Mike’s parents are building a place for them beside their house and restaurant on the other side of the cove.’

‘You and Cal, Mike and Emily—is this pairing off to do with the love epidemic Hamish said was happening in Crocodile Creek?’

Gina laughed.

‘I guess you could call it that. You’re lucky Christina and Joe are over in New Zealand, or you’d have three pairs of lovebirds under your feet.’

Kate looked at the still smiling woman, seeing the translucence of love in her eyes and the sheer delight of it in her smile. Gina might be worried about her son settling into the child-care centre, but there was no doubt the rest of her life was richly rewarding right now.

‘See you later,’ Gina added, leading Rudolph away along the veranda.

Kate stayed where she was for a little longer, then decided she really, really needed a shower, and if she didn’t get up and have one right now, she’d fall asleep on the settee and be there until nightfall.

She found the room she’d been allotted, and was surprised to see her case had been unpacked, her clothes hung in the wardrobe and her toiletries set out on a small dressing-table. A plastic folder on the bed held a plan of the house, the rooms or suites marked with the occupants’ names, while the kitchen had a note beside it, giving the times breakfast and dinner were served at the staff dining room at the hospital should the tenants not want to cook.

A second sheet of paper showed a plan of the downstairs area of the old house. This was obviously the rec room—with a bar, pool table and a big-screen TV marked. Below that was a note explaining when and where laundry could be left, and a phone number for her to contact someone called Dora Grubb, should she need any more information.

A place like this, she realised, with resident doctors and nurses working irregular hours, would need someone to keep it running, and from the look of the spotless room Kate had been given, Mrs Grubb did a wonderful job.

Kate set the folder aside, noting as she did so that the closest bathroom was two doors down the central passageway. Gathering up what she needed, she headed straight there. Suddenly a shower seemed infinitely appealing, but she’d get dressed again after it and sleep in her clothes, knowing Gina could return to wake her any time.

Hamish knocked, then opened the door very quietly. Kate was sleeping soundly, fully clothed but with a throw across her legs. He’d called in at the hospital after dropping CJ back at the child-care centre, and Gina, after thanking him for his help, had asked him to wake Kate and tell her Jack was about to be shifted to Recovery.

She couldn’t have been asleep very long, he knew that, but he also knew she’d want to keep her promise to Jack.

‘Kate!’

Not wanting to enter her room, he called her name from the doorway, but when she didn’t stir he ventured inside, telling himself that looking at a sleeping woman wasn’t really voyeurism. Yet looking at her disturbed him and he finally nailed the reason. It was something to do with the total vulnerability of a sleeping woman—anyone asleep, he supposed, though he doubted he’d get knots in his stomach watching Cal sleep.