The Australian's Proposal. Alison Roberts

stay,’ she said, but Jill, on the other side of Jack’s bed, shook her head.

      ‘I’ll order you to bed if I need to,’ she said, smiling to soften the words. ‘But common sense should tell you, you need to sleep.’

      Kate nodded her agreement but as she walked away she wondered why she felt a little lost now Jack had so many other people to be there for him. This wasn’t how someone who depended solely on herself should be feeling.

      She made her way back to the house, pleased Hamish was still over at the hospital with Cal, then, as she heard voices in the kitchen, contrarily wished he was here so she wouldn’t have to face a roomful of strangers alone.

      ‘Here she is—the elected judge,’ someone said, and Kate looked helplessly around the smiling faces, catching sight, eventually, of Gina’s.

      And CJ’s.

      CJ and Rudolph and another little boy were cutting and pasting something in a corner where the kitchen opened onto the back veranda.

      ‘Elected judge?’ Kate echoed weakly. What on earth were they talking about?

      Gina took pity on her, coming forward and introducing her to Mike—the paramedic chopper pilot Hamish had spoken of—and Marcia, a fellow nurse. There was also Susie, a pretty woman with short blonde curly hair and blue eyes who was apparently the hospital physiotherapist, and Georgie Turner, O and G specialist, a stunning young woman with very short shiny black hair and long legs encased in skin-tight jeans. The only other man there was someone called Brian—someone Kate realised she should have met earlier, as apparently he was the hospital administrator.

      ‘Poor Kate, I bet she doesn’t even know about Wygera and the swimming pool,’ Georgie said. ‘And here we are appointing her judge of the designs.’

      ‘Judge of the designs? I’m a nurse, not an architect.’

      The others all chuckled.

      ‘We don’t need an architect—well, not yet. We need an unbiased person, someone who doesn’t know any of the people of Wygera, to choose the best model or design then we’ll pass it on to an architect to draw up the plans for us.’

      Kate was about to protest that surely the architect should be the judge when Susie spoke.

      ‘We’ve been arguing about it for ages, then decided you’d be the best, not only because you don’t know anyone and can’t be accused of bias but because you’re going out there tomorrow. Doing the clinic run. Jill always puts new nurses on the clinic run to give them an idea of the area we cover.’

      As everyone was smiling encouragingly at Kate, she couldn’t argue, so she accepted the dubious honour of being the judge of the Wygera Swimming Pool Competition.

      ‘Is there a prize? Do I have to give someone something?’ she asked, sitting down in the chair Mike had brought over for her.

      ‘The prize is free entry to the rodeo for the entrant and his or her family—within reason, the family part,’ Mike explained. ‘The company who brings a truck to all the rodeos, selling clothes and rodeo equipment, is also donating a western shirt and hat, so whoever wins gets that as well.’

      ‘We want to win the hat,’ a small voice said, and Kate turned to see CJ looking up from his task. ‘I’ve got a hat, but Max hasn’t.’

      ‘Max is mine,’ Georgie explained, but then everyone was talking again—this time about the barbeque they were planning for dinner—so Kate couldn’t ask on what criteria she should judge the contest.

      ‘Are there rules for this contest? I don’t want to choose some stupendous design whoever’s paying for this pool can’t afford.’

      ‘We’re paying for the pool,’ Georgie said, and Kate looked around the group, arguing amiably about who would do what for the barbeque. None of them looked as if they had fortunes tucked away.

      ‘We’re running fundraising events like the rodeo,’ Brian explained, ‘and soliciting donations from local businesses. The local council has guaranteed to match us on a dollar-for-dollar basis so I think we can afford to build something fairly special.’

      Kate smiled to herself. The ‘fairly’ in front of special showed Brian up as a number-cruncher. Hospital administrators had to be cautious in their spending—after all, it was their job to see the place ran within its means.

      The group had by now delegated tasks, and were scattering in various directions, although Gina, Susie and Marcia remained in the kitchen, pulling things out of an old refrigerator and starting work on salads.

      ‘Can I help?’ Kate asked, but once again Brian had spoken over her, offering to show her around the hospital, saying they may as well get her paperwork in order.

      Kate’s apologetic smile at Gina was greeted with a grimace, but directed more at Brian, Kate thought. Was he one of those administrators who insisted on all the paperwork being perfect and always up to date? She’d worked with ward secretaries who’d thought paperwork more important than patients, and it had driven her to distraction.

      But she followed Brian out of the house—through the front door this time—and across to the hospital, while he talked about bed numbers, and clinic flights, and retrievals, and how expensive these ancillary services were.

      ‘But people living in isolation five hundred miles away can’t rely on an ambulance getting to them, surely,’ Kate reminded him, and although he nodded agreement, he didn’t seem very happy about it.

      ‘Ah, Kate. I was coming to get you. Jill tells me you’re off to Wygera tomorrow so I thought I’d show you around.’

      Hamish loomed up as Brian was explaining how much it cost to run the emergency department, giving Kate figures per patient per hour that made her mind close completely. Maths had never been her strong point.

      So Hamish was a welcome relief—he, at least, would make the grand tour patient-oriented.

      Providing she concentrated on what he was saying, not what she was feeling. The feeling stuff was to do with having spent a fraught night together, nothing more. She knew that, but at the same time knew she should be on her guard.

      Feelings could be insidious. Creeping in where they were least wanted.

      ‘No, no, we’ve paperwork to do. You go on back to the house and help the others with the barbeque. I’ll bring Kate when we finish here.’

      Brian’s assertions cut across her thoughts, so it seemed that even if she’d wanted Hamish as her tour guide, she wasn’t going to get him.

      By the time they’d seen the hospital, met dozens of staff, completed the forms Brian required for insurance purposes and walked back to the house, the party on the back veranda was in full swing. The smell of searing meat hung in the air, while sizzling onions tantalised Kate’s taste-buds.

      ‘After a dry biscuit for breakfast and some sandwiches for a meal at afternoon teatime, that certainly smells good,’ she said to Brian, who had put his arm around her waist to guide her into the crowd.

      Cal was there, so she headed towards him, anxious to know when Jack’s operation would take place, only realising who he was with as she drew closer.

      ‘So, seen all you need to of the hospital?’ Hamish asked, frowning at a point over her shoulder.

      ‘More than I could take in,’ Kate told him, feeling a new touch on her back and realising Brian had followed her. ‘It’s far bigger than I thought and I’ll be getting lost for at least the first week.’

      ‘I’m sure you won’t,’ Cal said kindly. ‘Did you look in on Jack?’

      ‘He was still sleeping and Charles was with him so I didn’t go in. When’s the op? Have you heard?’

      Cal shrugged.

      ‘Between ten and twelve’s the best timing we’ve got so far,’ he said. ‘Though