The Australian's Proposal. Alison Roberts

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      ‘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 we should know more by nine when the surgeon in Brisbane is due to start the last patient on his list.’

      Brian had moved to her side and was asking if she wanted a drink, and politeness decreed she answer him.

      ‘Something non-alcoholic—I haven’t had much sleep,’ Kate told him, pleased he would have to move away so she could ask Cal about the operation. But to her astonishment Brian simply turned to Hamish and said, ‘Hamish, would you get a squash for Kate?’

      Hamish—Cal, too, for that matter—seemed equally surprised, but Hamish moved obediently away, while Brian, perhaps sensing everyone’s reaction, explained, ‘I don’t live here so don’t want to be poking around in their kitchen.’

      It was an acceptable excuse, yet Kate felt uncomfortable that Brian was sticking to her like Velcro. She knew it was probably kindness on his part—after all, she was the new face in this gathering of friends and colleagues—but the discomfort remained.

      Although being uncomfortable about Brian was certainly distracting her from thoughts of Hamish.

      Setting both aside, she returned to her mission—finding out from Cal what lay ahead for Jack.

      ‘I’m virtually doing a hip replacement. We have prosthetic devices here because we have a visiting orthopaedic surgeon who comes once a quarter, operating in Croc Creek to save the patients travelling to him. It will depend on the damage to the neck of the trochanter. If the bullet is deeply lodged, the orthopod in Brisbane suggests we take if off completely and insert a new-age ceramic replacement and ceramic acetabular socket for it.’

      Cal smiled at her.

      ‘Want to watch?’

      Kate shuddered.

      ‘I had to do a certain amount of theatre work during my training, but the noise of the saws in orthopaedic work put me off that kind of surgery for life.’

      ‘Besides, she needs to sleep,’ Gina put in, arriving with Hamish and the lemon squash. ‘She’ll need all her wits about her to judge the pool entries tomorrow.’

      Hamish handed her the drink, and somehow he and Gina managed to detach Brian from her side. Kate wasn’t sure but she felt it had been deliberate, a sense confirmed when, a little later, Gina whispered, ‘Brian makes a play for all the new female staff and Hamish felt you might be too polite to escape his tenacious clutches.’

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