The Australian's Proposal. Alison Roberts

its warmth.

      ‘I should hope not,’ Kate retorted, edging backwards because the warmth was dangerous. ‘You can’t go around kissing all your colleagues. And that includes me. Apart from anything else, with me, anyway, it’s impractical. Think about it, Hamish! Starting something would be idiotic. You’re going home in less than three weeks and I’m here on a mission. It’s a perfect example of the wrong time and the wrong place.’

      She was trying hard not to look directly at him—looking at Hamish being something more safely done from a distance—but she knew for sure he’d greeted this prime example of common sense with a frown.

      Knew for sure he’d closed the gap between them once again!

      ‘Wrong time? Wrong place? Is there such a thing with kisses?’ he demanded, then, without waiting for her answer, his lips closed on hers, warm and firm and all-encompassing, claiming her mouth like a trophy, tempting her lips open with an inciting tongue, luring from her a response she knew she shouldn’t give.

      The kiss lasted until her knees gave out and she slumped against his body.

      ‘Hamish!’

      The word she’d intended as a protest came out more like an endearment, encouraging him to lock his arms around her body and draw her close against him, supporting her, so he could continue to plunder her mouth at will.

      The sweet invasion warmed the lonely places in her heart, seducing her with its promise, and although her head knew kissing Hamish was not at all a good idea, her heart longed for more—her body demanded more.

      No! Kate broke away, frightened by the intensity of whatever it was between them.

      ‘I’m going back,’ she said abruptly, and ran away, heading down towards the house—hoping she might find her lost sanity along the way.

      CJ was on the top step again, but as Kate drew close Cal appeared, hoisting the child onto his shoulders and carrying him down the steps.

      ‘I’m taking a spaceship to child care,’ CJ told her, waving a cardboard contraption in the air above Cal’s head. ‘And Mr Grubb’s taken Rudolph to get his shots so he won’t follow me today.’

      Kate congratulated them both on the excellent spaceship, wished CJ a happy day then took the steps two at a time, crossing the veranda and finding Emily in the kitchen with Mike.

      ‘Hi, Kate. Have you met Mike? Our second chopper pilot and paramedic.’

      Emily had a possessive hand resting on Mike’s shoulder, and the same sheen in her eyes that Kate had noticed in Gina’s the previous day.

      The love epidemic?

      ‘We met last night,’ Kate explained. ‘Jack OK?’

      Emily beamed at her.

      ‘More OK than he was earlier. We’d thought of bringing Megan in, but we had no idea if he’d want to see her or not. He hadn’t been in touch with her for six months, so we thought maybe he’d be more upset than he already was.’

      She paused for breath, then added, ‘Hamish said Jack told you both how he felt about his girlfriend, and how he’d tried to go and visit her.’

      ‘It’s often a case of whatever works in medicine, isn’t it?’ Mike said, patting Emily’s hand, which still rested on his shoulder. ‘How was your run?’

      The change of subject was somewhat abrupt and Mike’s question was innocent enough, yet Kate felt colour surge into her cheeks. Could people see the headland from the kitchen? Or had Mike been outside and seen her kissing Hamish?

      ‘It was fine,’ she said, ‘but I’m very sweaty. I’ve got to change for work.’

      And with that she escaped to her room.

      It didn’t matter who saw what, she told herself, but she knew it did. After the public humiliation she’d endured with Daniel and Lindy, Kate was determined her private life would be just that—private.

      Not that she intended having a private life with Hamish.

      She’d have a shower, grab a bowl of cereal—she would have to find out about cooking and shopping rosters—then go over to the hospital well in time for the trip to Wygera.

      If she was early enough, she could get her roster from Jill. Maybe she could get the doctors’ rosters as well. Then all she had to do was make sure she was always busy if she and Hamish happened to have corresponding time off.

      Avoidance—that was the answer.

      The white station wagon with the 24-hour-rescue emblem she was beginning to recognise as belonging to the hospital, pulled up in front of her, the driver—from his sheer size—unmistakable.

      ‘Charles or Cal usually do Wygera clinics,’ Hamish said cheerfully, reaching across to open the door for her, ‘but Cal’s got a theatre list today and Charles wants to stay close to Jack, so you’re stuck with me again.’

      Kate eyed him with suspicion. It wasn’t so much that he might have engineered this togetherness—after all, he didn’t know about her avoidance decision—but the way he was acting so … well, colleaguey!

      Weird!

      Uncomfortable, even.

      But two could play at pretending they hadn’t exchanged heated kisses on a headland a bare hour earlier.

      ‘Will you be helping me judge the swimming pool designs?’

      ‘Oh, no, not me! That’s your job, Sister Winship. Yours alone, although remind me when we get there, I’ve got young Shane’s model in the back of the car. He came in a few days ago with a burst appendix and as he had to finish his model in hospital we gave him an extra couple of days to get his entry in.’

      Kate remembered the talk about the competition she’d heard the previous evening. And CJ’s words as well.

      ‘And CJ and Max’s entry? They were working on it last night. Have you got that on board?’

      Hamish turned and smiled at her, and she forgot swimming pools, and models, and a small boy who needed a cowboy hat.

      This could not be happening!

      ‘Cal has already ordered a cowboy hat for Max and he and CJ will get it as a consolation prize,’ Hamish said. ‘That was arranged after Rudolph ate the dressing sheds which they’d made out of dog biscuits.’

      Kate had to laugh, but Hamish’s tone made her feel uncomfortable.

      He was either far, far better at this colleague stuff than she was, or his words about needing to kiss her had been just that—words.

      Or maybe he tested women with a kiss.

      Maybe he’d tested her and she’d failed.

      The thought made her so depressed she remembered she was going to Wygera so she could see something of the countryside, and she looked out the window at the canefields through which they were passing, seeing nothing but a green blur, while her mind wondered just what the man beside her might have expected from a kiss.

      Kissing ineptitude—was that why Daniel had chosen Lindy?

      ‘Aboriginal community.’

      Kate tuned back in to Hamish’s conversation but it was too late. Not a word of it could she recall.

      ‘I’m sorry, I missed that,’ she said, facing him again, although that was dangerous when he might smile at any time.

      ‘Canefields are fascinating,’ he said, eyes twinkling to let her know he knew she hadn’t seen them.

      He knew too damn much!

      ‘I was saying that as well as a swimming pool, Wygera needs some kind of industry. Perhaps industry is the wrong word, but a number of aboriginal communities like it are self-supporting. They run cattle stations, or tourist