The Australian's Proposal. Alison Roberts

that sounds as if they haven’t already done it. You’ve still got time to redeem yourself. And now you’re hurt, you can play the sympathy card. My brother—or the louse I thought was my brother—is contesting my mother’s will because he says I wasn’t ever properly adopted. How’s that for the ultimate disinheritance?’

      ‘That is a lousy thing to do,’ Jack agreed, but he was thinking hard, obviously not yet ready to concede in the misery stakes. ‘My uncle kicked me off his property.’

      ‘I traced my birth mother but found out she’d died the week before I got there.’

      ‘Wow! That’s terrible. So you don’t know who you are?’

      ‘Nobody—that’s who I am,’ Kate said cheerfully. She didn’t feel cheerful about it, but that wasn’t the point. Keeping Jack talking was the point. ‘Beat you, didn’t I?’

      He looked at her for a moment then shook his head.

      ‘I lost my girl.’

      His voice broke on the words and Kate squeezed harder on his hand.

      ‘That’s why my uncle kicked me out.’

      ‘Ah, that’s terrible, but can’t you get in touch with her again even if you’re not working for your uncle?’

      Jack shook his head.

      ‘I tried. I really tried. I worked on another property. It didn’t pay much so I got this other job, then I had some time off so I thought I’d go and see her—tell her what was happening. But I couldn’t get a lift—I tried, I really tried—and I had to get back, and it turned out—Anyway, if I had got to her place, her dad would probably have killed me. It was her dad broke us up. He rang my uncle and told him we’d been seeing each other. Apparently he went mental about it and that’s why my uncle sacked me.’

      The story had come tumbling out in confused snatches, but Kate was able to piece it all together.

      ‘Love problems are the pits,’ she sympathised, ‘but, really, yours are chicken feed, Jack.’

      ‘Chicken feed?’ He perked up at the challenge she offered him. ‘I’m shot and I lost my girl.’

      ‘OK, but what about this? I stop work to nurse my mother—’

      ‘Who wasn’t your mother,’ Jack offered.

      ‘That’s right, but I loved her.’ It was only with difficulty Kate stopped her own voice cracking. This wasn’t personal, it was professional, and Jack was sounding much more alert. ‘Anyway, I took two months off to nurse her at the end and my ever-loving fiancé and my best friend began an affair right under the noses of all our colleagues. OK, so I didn’t lose my job, but can you imagine going back to work with the pair of them billing and cooing all over the place, and everyone laughing about it?’

      ‘More swabs.’

      The gruff demand reminded Kate that Jack wasn’t the only one hearing the story of her recent life, but Hamish had told her to distract Jack, and her strategy was working. She opened a new packet of swabs and passed them over, giving Hamish a look that warned him not to say one thing about her conversation.

      ‘No, I wouldn’t have gone back to work there either,’ Jack said. ‘But you’ve got another job now, haven’t you? I’ll never get another job.’

      ‘Piffle! Of course you will. Young, healthy, good-looking chap like you. You’ll get another job and another girl, both better than the ones before.’

      Silence greeted this remark, a silence that stretched for so long Kate checked his pulse again. Then he said quietly, ‘I don’t want another girl, and I don’t know how to get … the one I want back now I’ve messed things up so much.’

      ‘We’ll help you,’ Kate promised rashly. ‘Won’t we, Hamish? We’ll get you better then we’ll help you find your girl.’

      Hamish looked up from the business of debriding infected tissue from Jack’s leg.

      ‘We can certainly try,’ he said, but the frown on his face was denying his words.

      Did he think they wouldn’t find the girl?

      Or … Kate’s heart paused a beat … did he think they wouldn’t get this young man better?

       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘OKAY, THAT’S ABOUT as clean as I can get it without actually removing the bullet,’ Hamish announced. ‘I’d like to go in and get it, but without X-rays to show us exactly where it is and where I’d have to cut, I wouldn’t risk it. You’re also losing a fair bit of blood, Jack. Had any problems with bleeding before?’

      Jack ignored the question, closing his eyes as if the effort of talking to Kate had exhausted him.

      Which it might have, though Hamish was thinking otherwise.

      ‘At least, doing it back at the hospital, we’ll have blood on hand should you need it. The helicopter will be back at first light, and we’ll have you in Theatre in Crocodile Creek a couple of hours later.’

      Jack’s eyes opened at that, and he tried to sit up straighter.

      ‘Shouldn’t I go to Cairns? Or what about Townsville? That has a bigger hospital, doesn’t it?’

      ‘Bigger but not better,’ Hamish told him. ‘Besides, it’s too far for a chopper flight. Something about Crocodile Creek bothering you? We don’t really have crocodiles in the creek—well, not where it flows past the hospital.’

      Jack didn’t answer, but turned his head away, as if not seeing Hamish might remove him from the cave.

      And the prospect of a trip to Crocodile Creek …

      Hamish watched Kate bend to speak quietly to the young man, no doubt reassuring him he’d have the very best of treatment at Crocodile Creek, but Hamish was becoming more and more certain that Jack had reasons of his own for avoiding that particular hospital.

      But how to confirm what he was thinking?

      He walked around to the other side and squatted beside the open pack, delving through it for what he needed. Then, from this side, he looked directly at Jack.

      ‘I’ll add some pain relief to the fluid now, so you should be feeling more comfortable before long, and then I guess we should do the paperwork. You up for that, Kate? Did you see the initial assessment forms in the pack?’

      Kate’s frown told him she disapproved of the change in his attitude from friendly banter to practical matter-of-factness, but she didn’t know about a feud between two neighbouring families up here in the north, or the connection of one family to the hospital. Or about a baby called Lucky who was now called Jackson who had a form of haemophilia known as von Willebrand’s disease.

      Or about the search for the baby’s father—a young man called Jack.

      ‘I’ve got them here,’ she said, putting ice into her words in case he hadn’t caught the frown.

      ‘Then fill them out. You and Jack can manage all the personal stuff then I’ll do the medication and dosages when you get down to that section. And while you’re doing it, I’ll take a look around to see if there’s a patch of clear ground from which we can winch Jack up in the morning.’

      He found a stronger torch in the equipment backpack, turned it on and walked away, hoping his absence might help Jack speak more freely. If he’d talk to anyone, it would be to Kate. Nothing like a baring of souls to create a bond between people. But had she really been through so much emotional trauma or had she made it all up to keep Jack talking? He had no idea, which wasn’t surprising, but what did surprise him was that he wanted to find out.

      Hell’s