‘Bring the backpack to cushion the rock, and sleep on the other side of me,’ Hamish suggested, apparently reading her thoughts with ease. ‘I’m big enough to block Jack’s view of you, and to shade you from the lamplight. Come on. We’ll be warmer if we’re all close together.’
Not too close, Kate warned herself, but she lifted the pack and carried it around to Hamish’s side of the patient, opening it in the light first so he could get out what he’d need during the night, then pushing it into place against the rock wall.
‘I’m not sure that a backpack full of medical supplies makes the perfect pillow,’ she said, as she tried to shift box-shaped lumps around inside it.
‘Try sleeping against a folded aluminium stretcher,’ Hamish countered, but he leaned over and removed some of the boxes from her pack, stacking them neatly on the ledge. ‘Better?’
His face was shadowed but she knew he was smiling, because she could hear the amusement in his voice. He was a nice man, she decided—the kind of man a girl would be lucky to meet should she be on the lookout for nice in a man.
Or anything in a man.
Or a man …
Was it a sound that had woken her? Hamish must have turned off the lamp, for the cave was dark. Kate lay still, knowing any movement would rustle the silver blanket tucked around her body. Someone—or something—was moving out there.
‘Shh!’
She didn’t need the barely breathed warning but it was comforting to know Hamish was awake—comforting to feel his hand find her shoulder and give it a reassuring squeeze.
He’d be a nice man to hug.
Good thing he couldn’t see the eye-roll that was her reaction to the stupid thought. She had to get a grip. What she needed was a big rock to hide behind, not a hug. What use were hugs if whatever was out there was a man with a gun?
‘Look!’
The soft word made her turn, and there, exposed in the moonlight, was a family of wallabies.
‘Rock wallabies,’ Hamish whispered, as the biggest of the three lifted his delicately shaped head and looked around, scenting some alien presence in his domain. The middle one was also curious, but anxious about the youngster, who was braver in his exploration of the world. Kate sighed at the wonder of it.
‘I didn’t know they were nocturnal,’ she murmured, fascinated by the threesome who had paused, as if posed for photographs, right in front of her.
‘It’s nearly dawn. They’ll feed now until the sun gets too hot then rest in the shade for the remainder of the day.’
A shot rang out, then echoed frighteningly back at them again and again. Two of the wallabies had disappeared, but the third lay still in front of them, the long back legs twitching one or twice.
‘That’s Todd! He’s out there. It’s a warning.’
Jack’s voice quivered with fear, and Hamish’s ‘Get back here’ was far louder, but Kate was already bending over the injured wallaby, trying to turn the body to see the wound. Then she was lifted from the ground and carried back into the cave.
‘You stupid woman! He had a clear shot at the ‘roo from wherever he was and you go out there and make a bigger target for him. Are you insane?’
‘It might not be dead.’
Kate couldn’t believe the dampness on her cheeks could possibly be tears. She hadn’t cried when Bill had told her she’d been fostered. She hadn’t cried when she’d found out about Daniel and Lindy. She hadn’t even cried when she’d discovered she’d missed meeting her birth mother by one lousy week—so why was she crying over a dead animal?
‘We’ll check later.’ Hamish was still holding her, but more gently now, brushing his hand over her head and repeating the words as if he knew she needed the reassurance. ‘We’ll check when we hear the chopper overhead. If it’s only injured we can take it out with us, but experienced ‘roo shooters shoot to kill, Kate.’
‘He’ll shoot us all.’ Jack’s panic reminded Kate she had a patient to tend. She pushed away from Hamish, swiped her hands across her face and knelt beside the young man, who was frantically trying to free himself from tubes and bags of fluid.
‘He’s just trying to scare us,’ Hamish said, but his Scottish accent didn’t make the words any less ridiculous.
‘Well, he’s succeeded in that part of his plan. What’s next?’ Kate muttered, holding tightly to Jack’s hand—finding as much comfort as she was giving.
‘I doubt he wants three bodies on his hands. It’s not as if he has the luxury of time to get rid of any trace of us. Having heard the chopper yesterday, he’ll know it will be coming back for us at first light. I’d say the gunshot was a warning to Jack not to talk about what’s been going on.’
‘As if I would!’ Jack muttered, and though Kate wanted to argue with him he was still feverish and they had a difficult time ahead of them, getting him safely out of the gorge.
Which reminded her.
‘Did you find an open space we can use to winch Jack up?’ she asked Hamish, though the thought of how vulnerable they’d be when they left the cave, she and Hamish carrying the stretcher, Jack strapped to it between them, made her shiver.
‘I did, and not too far away. It’s getting lighter by the minute, so Rex will be on his way. Once he’s overhead we’ll have radio contact with him and I’ll let him know there’s some unfriendly person out there. He’ll buzz around and hover over us when we move, but I’m sure this Todd person fired his shot to frighten Jack, then took off.’
‘I should have died. You should have let me die!’ Jack said, and Kate rounded on him.
‘If you moan like that once more I swear I’ll finish you off myself. Think of it as a big adventure in your path to adulthood. As a great story you can tell your kids in the future. How many young men your age have been shot at and had to huddle in a cave in a gorge in the middle of nowhere, and been rescued by …’ She turned to Hamish. ‘Could we be Batman and Robin, do you think? Swooping out of the sky in our Bat Helicopter?’
She looked up at Hamish. ‘Bags I be Batman!’
Hamish was kneeling on the floor of the cave, fitting the long sides of the stretcher together. He turned towards her and smiled.
‘And that would make me Robin?’
‘Or Jack could be Robin and you could be the butler guy who answered the phone at the mansion.’
‘That’s not very fair,’ Hamish protested, moving the now-assembled stretcher over to their patient. ‘I flew in too so I have to be Robin.’
‘I don’t need that. I can walk—or hop—if the two of you support me,’ Jack protested. He sat up to prove his point, and as the colour faded from his cheeks Kate caught him and rested him gently back against the pillow.
‘Not just yet,’ she said, helping Hamish position
