The Australian's Proposal. Alison Roberts

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      ‘Of course I can talk and pass things,’ she said, immediately regretting the assurance when his smile broadened and he threw a conspiratorial wink at Jack.

      ‘I thought so,’ he gloated. ‘Most women can talk and do other things, can’t they, mate?’

      Jack smiled back while Kate glowered at the pair of them. She’d walked right into that one.

      ‘Local anaesthesia is in the green box,’ Hamish continued, ‘and sterile swabs in the white one with the red writing. You might pass me the sharps container and a plastic bag out of that pack as well, so I can put the soiled stuff away as I use it.’

      Kate handed him what he needed, then checked the contents of the pack again, trying to anticipate what Hamish would want next. A scalpel, no doubt, to cut away some of the infected tissue, and more swabs to mop up blood as he got down to clean flesh.

      Sutures? Would he stitch it up or leave it open until they got back to the hospital where further surgery would be necessary?

      She set out what she thought he’d need immediately, placed them on a large flat stone and lifted it across Jack so it was within Hamish’s reach.

      ‘You’re supposed to be talking to me,’ Jack reminded her, but his voice was weaker than it had been earlier. Seeing them had probably prompted a surge in his adrenaline levels which had now waned. Did Hamish want her talking to the young man to distract him, or to keep him awake and stop him slipping into unconsciousness?

      Not that the reason mattered.

      ‘I will,’ she promised, checking his blood pressure, pulse and respirations. He had the mask across his mouth and nose, but was talking easily through it. His breathing was still far too fast, but his pulse, though still tachycardic, was more regular than it had been when she’d automatically felt it earlier. ‘You start. Tell me all about yourself.’

      ‘Not worth talking about,’ he muttered weakly. ‘In fact, I’d have been better off if you hadn’t come.’

      ‘And here I thought you were pleased to see us,’ Kate teased, aware a little self-pity was quite normal in someone so ill.

      ‘Well, I was at first,’ Jack grudgingly admitted, ‘but only because I was feeling so lousy. Really, though, I’d be better off dead.’

      ‘Don’t we all feel that at times?’ Kate sighed.

      ‘I bet you don’t,’ Jack retorted, buying into the argument she’d provoked, although he was so weak. ‘Look at you—pretty, probably well dressed under those overalls, good job. What would someone like you know about how I feel?’

      ‘I would if you told me.’ Kate smiled at him. ‘In fact, you tell me the Jack story and I’ll tell you the Kate story, and I bet I can beat your misery with my misery—hands down.’

      ‘I bet you can’t.’

      ‘I bet I can.’

      ‘Bet you can’t!’

      ‘Can!’

      ‘Children, just get on with it.’

      Hamish’s voice was pained, but Kate heard amusement in it as well. He knew they had to find out Jack’s background, and had guessed this was her way of goading Jack into telling it.

      ‘My family didn’t want me,’ Jack began, anxiety and pain tightening the words so they caused a sympathetic lurch of pain in Kate’s chest. ‘They all live in Sydney and they sent me right up here to work. Can you imagine a family doing that?’

      ‘Not to a nice boy like you,’ Kate told him, taking his hand to offer comfort even while she tried to stir him into further revelations. ‘But mine’s worse. My father died, then my mother, then my brother told me they weren’t my parents at all. They’d just brought me up because they’d felt sorry for me. So I didn’t really have a family at all. Beat that.’

      Jack frowned at her, but had his comeback ready.

      ‘Mine’ll disinherit me when they find out about this,’ he said.

      ‘Well, 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.’

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