The Australian's Proposal (Mills & Boon By Request): The Doctor's Marriage Wish / The Playboy Doctor's Proposal / The Nurse He's Been Waiting For by Alison Roberts, Meredith Webber Read Free Book Online Page B

Wetherby.’
    ‘Kate Winship,’ Kate replied. ‘And no gratitude required. I was only doing my job.’
    ‘And doing it very well, from what I hear,’ Charles told her, a warm smile lighting up his craggy face. ‘Thanks, Kate. I haven’t seen much of young Jack lately, but as a kid he often holidayed up here and I’m very fond of him. I didn’t know he was at Wetherby Downs let alone that he’d fallen out with Philip and left. Silly young ass—he should have known he could come here. I’d have found him another job somewhere in the area.’
    ‘He might have thought you’d side with your brother.’ Hamish’s voice made Kate look up to find he’d come in through another door and was standing behind Jill. Kate smiled at him, then realised she shouldn’t have. Not that smiles meant anything. Not hers, nor the warm, friendly one Hamish bestowed on her in return. ‘Now, Kate, shouldn’t you have returned to your unpacking and settling in?’
    ‘I promised Jack I’d stay until he goes to Theatre,’ Kate told him, and Charles laughed.
    ‘I notice Jill’s standing guard over him as well. The young rascal wormed his way into her heart when he was a kid, always heading for her place if he was in trouble with me or his grandmother.’
    Kate wished Jack could hear the affection in Charles’s voiceas he spoke of his nephew. Jack’s fears he’d be disinherited were obviously baseless. She was relieved for him, of course, but somehow it made her own aloneness more acute.
    And her desire to find her father even stronger—her father and perhaps some other family. Both her parents—the ones she’d known—had been only children, in their forties when they had taken Kate in, so though she’d known and loved her mother’s father, there were no other relatives.
    ‘The wound’s infected but the X-rays don’t show any nasty surprises, apart from a groove along part of his femur and some serious blood pooling further up around his hip.’ Cal appeared from the curtained cubicle to deliver his good news. ‘I want to get the clotting time down in his blood. I’ve got cryoprecipitate running into him now in a rapid infusion, and I’ll give Alix more blood to test when that’s done. I spoke to a haematologist after Hamish radioed in and described the patient, and Charles confirmed it was his nephew. The haematologist says minor surgery is OK once we get the blood-clotting factors up to thirty per cent of normal. The cryoprecipitate should do that.’
    ‘Do you want us to thaw some FFP just in case?’ Charles asked, and Kate realised just how sophisticated this country hospital was, to have fresh frozen plasma on hand.
    Cal thought for a moment.
    ‘It’s such a waste to thaw it if we don’t need it within twenty-four hours. What’s thawing time?’
    ‘Twenty minutes.’
    An attractive young woman with a long plait of dark hair swinging down her back answered the question as she came briskly into the room. She nodded at Kate then turned to Cal.
    ‘His clotting time is up to fifty per cent of normal. You can go ahead.’
    ‘Thanks, Alix.’
    Cal disappeared back behind the curtain.
    ‘Alix, this is Kate. Kate Winship, meet our pathologist, Alix Armstrong.’
    ‘Hi,’ Alix said. ‘You’ve had an exciting introduction to Crocodile Creek. I’d love to hear about the gorge some time, but right now I need to talk to Cal about what he’ll need in Theatre.’
    ‘Alix is bush-crazy,’ Charles explained to Kate. ‘All her time off is spent bush-walking. She’s serious about wanting to hear about the gorge.’
    Kate shivered, memories of the echoing gunshot sending icy tentacles along her spine.
    Had Hamish noticed, that he put his hand lightly on her shoulder?
    ‘I’d better go in and see Jack before he goes to Theatre,’ she said, moving away from Hamish as swiftly as she could, but Charles was before her, shifting the curtain aside and wheeling silently towards the bed. He reached out and touched