wrist, making it look like a particularly inept suicide attempt.
Or was it, and the fish hook just an excuse?
She glanced at Hamish, who was now probing the wounds carefully and competently, talking quietly to Pete about fish and fishing.
He was obviously a doctor who saw his patient as a person first while his easy camaraderie with the women at lunchtime had suggested they saw him as a friend.
‘Ah, I can see it now. Forceps, Kate.’
Recalled to duty, Kate passed the implement but, try as he might, Hamish couldn’t pull the hook free.
‘I’ll have to cut down to it,’ he said, and Kate produced a packaged scalpel for him, carefully peeling off the protective covering and passing it to him.
‘Soluble sutures for inside and some tough thread for the skin—these guys don’t treat their wounds with any consideration,’ Hamish told her, as he cut into the man’s wrist. ‘And check Pete’s card for his tetanus status.’
Kate found the sutures Hamish would need, prepared a tetanus injection and another of penicillin, certain Pete would need an antibiotic boost even if Hamish gave him tablets. Another check of his card showed he’d had penicillin before so they had no need to worry about allergies.
But it was the need for his last dose of penicillin that drew Kate’s attention. A fish hook in his foot?
‘Was Pete plain unlucky or are fish hooks particularly aggressive up here in North Queensland?’ she asked Hamish as, three hours later, they drove away from Wygera. ‘He had one in his foot only six months ago.’
Hamish turned to smile at her.
‘Pete’s mad keen on fishing. He took me out once, but once was enough. I know the boat we were in was bigger than the crocodiles I kept seeing lazing on the bank, but not by much. In fact, it got flimsier and flimsier the longer we stayed out, especially when some of the crocs got off the bank and started swimming towards us.’
‘Real crocodiles?’
Kate knew it had been a stupid question as soon as she’d asked it, but she’d just blurted the words out.
‘Too, too real,’ Hamish said, ‘although before that day I thought Crocodile Creek was just a name. You know, like Snake Gully. Maybe someone once saw a snake there, but it doesn’t mean there are dozens of the things in the gully.’
‘But there are dozens of crocodiles in the creek?’
Kate looked nervously out the car window. How far from creeks did crocodiles travel? And hadn’t she heard they could run faster than a horse?
Could a horse run faster than a car?
‘Hey, we’re safe,’ Hamish said gently, slowing the car and resting his hand on her shoulder.
‘I know that!’ Kate snapped. Now she compared the two experiences, thinking of crocodiles in a creek not far from where she’d sat and looked at babies was freaking her out far more than the man with the gun had.
Then she’d been able to snuggle close to Hamish for protection. Now she’d look stupid if she straddled the gear lever to get close to him, which, from other points of view, would not be a good idea anyway.
‘I can see why they need a swimming pool. I wouldn’t want to swim in a creek with crocodiles.’
Somehow talk of swimming pools and crocodiles kept them going for most of the journey, though tension built inside Kate until she wondered if she’d burst with it.
But when Hamish pulled off the road into a parking area that gave a view over the town and the cove and the sea beyond it, she guessed she wasn’t the only one feeling the crackling in the air between them. He was just better at hiding it.
He turned towards her, his eyes looking black in the shadowy car.
‘Is it the wrong time and the wrong place, Kate?’
He kissed her gently, but even a gentle kiss fired her heartbeats.
‘Can you deny there’s something special between us? Can you deny you feel what I feel when we’re together—deny there’s magic in our kisses?’
Kate tried, she really did, but she couldn’t, and in the end she had to shake her head.
‘But it’s not about magic, Hamish, it’s about trust.’
He kissed her again.
‘I know that, which is why we don’t need to hurry things—don’t need to put the pressure of a three-week time limit on getting to know each other. I know you want to find your father, but there’s every chance, particularly if we involve people from the hospital, you can do that in a few days. Then why don’t you come to Scotland with me? No pressure or promises. Just come, to see how things might work out.’
The strength of his hands, and the warmth they generated, seeped deep into Kate’s body, but it was all too soon, and taking warmth from someone else was far too dangerous.
‘I don’t think so, Hamish,’ she said quietly, and sat back in her seat.
At least now crocodiles weren’t the main worry in her mind.
Hamish paused for a few seconds, then reversed out of their parking space and pulled out onto the highway, starting up a conversation about the necessity to watch out for kangaroos on the roads around dawn and dusk.
It was, she was learning, typical of this kind, caring, empathetic man—not play-acting at being a colleague but genuinely trying to set her at ease.
She was beginning to admire Colleague Hamish.
Back at the hospital, they unpacked the car then, as Hamish went to report to Charles, she walked through to the ICU to visit Jack.
Jack was lying with his eyes closed, and though he opened them when Kate said hello, his eyelids soon drooped, but the smile on his face, even as he slept, told Kate all she needed to know.
She dropped into the chair beside Megan, who was anchored to the bed by Jack’s hand clasping both of hers.
‘Are you OK?’
Megan nodded, a tremulous smile on her lips.
‘Dad came to see him,’ she whispered to Kate, ‘before they transferred him to Townsville for his bypass. He told Jack he’d better hurry and get better, because he was needed out at Cooper’s Crossing.’
Megan’s smile improved as she added proudly, ‘That’s our place. Dad wants him there, but not right away. Dad and Charles have been talking. They think Jack and I should get agriculture training—they say we should spend a few years at university so we’re sure we know what we’re doing. Charles says there’s enough money to fund it and that there’s child care at university.’
She paused and her smile, if possible, grew even more radiant.
‘University, Kate! Can you imagine? Then we’ll come home and with water we’ll
