Up here in North Queensland anything might be possible.
‘Go through the town, over the bridge, past the hospital to a big house on a bluff.’
The directions the director of nursing had given on the phone last night had been clear enough. The road led through the town and over another rather rickety bridge. Looking out her side window, Kate was tempted to stop again, for there, virtually in the middle of the town, was a sandy beach, lapped by lazy waves that frilled the edge of a blue-green sea. Hot and sticky from this final day of a five-day drive, she looked with longing at the water, but someone called Hamish was expecting her at the house.
The house!
Could that be it?
The one perched on the bluff at the southern end of this magical cove?
As a child she’d dreamed of living in a house by the sea, a longing frustrated rather than satisfied by holidays at the beach.
Excited now, she drove on. Yes, that was definitely a hospital on her right. Low set and relatively modern, it was surrounded by palms and bright-leafed plants, but still had the usual signs to Emergency, Admittance and parking areas.
Past the hospital she went, to the house on the hill—by the sea—parked the car in a small paved area to one side, unloaded her suitcase and climbed the steps to the wide veranda.
The front door was open, but she tapped on it anyway, then called out a tentative hello before venturing slowly down the wide hall that seemed to lead right through the middle of the old building.
‘Have you any idea how difficult it is to organise a rodeo?’
The big man appeared at the far end of the hall, waving the handset of the phone as he spoke. A soft Scottish accent spun the question from bizarre to fantasy and when he added, ‘You’ll be Kate, then?’ in that intriguing voice, Kate smiled for the first time in about six months.
Well, maybe not quite six months.
‘I will be, then,’ she said, dropping her suitcase and coming towards him with her hand held out. ‘Kate Winship. When I phoned last night the DON said Hamish would show me around the house, so you’ll be Hamish?’
His large firm hand engulfed hers and the voice said, ‘Hamish McGregor,’ but something apart from the accent made Kate look up—into eyes so dark a blue they looked almost black, here in the shadowy hall of the big old house she’d been told was called ‘the doctors’ house’.
She removed her hand from his and backed away. One step. Two. Then she realised she must look stupid and backed far enough to turn her panicky retreat into a suitcase retrieval.
‘I’ll take that.’
He only needed one long stride, lifting it from her unresisting fingers.
‘We’ve put you in here. This was Mike’s room, but he and—Well, you’ll get to know everyone soon enough. Suffice it to say there’re more people sharing rooms these days than there used to be, which is why we’ve room for some of the nursing staff while the nurses’ quarters are renovated.’
He turned a teasing smile on Kate.
‘Fair warning, Nurse Winship. There’s been an epidemic of love racing through Crocodile Creek these past few weeks, so watch how you go.’
‘Love! That’s the last thing I’ll catch,’ she assured him. ‘I’m immunised, inoculated and vaccinated. The love bug won’t bite me.’
He set her suitcase on the bed and turned to look at her, dark eyebrows rising to meet brown-black hair that flopped in a heavy clump over his forehead. The eyebrows were asking questions, friendly questions, but there was no way she was going to answer them. The hurting was too new—too confusing—too all-encompassing. She had to learn to cope with it herself before she could share it with anyone—if she could ever share it.
But he was still watching her.
Waiting …
Diversion time.
‘Why are you organising a rodeo?’
His smile returned, softening his rather austere features, parting lips to reveal strong white teeth.
All the better to eat you with, Kate reminded herself as a niggle of something she didn’t want to feel stirred inside her.
‘It’s for the swimming pool.’
‘Of course—a swimming pool for bulls and bucking horses.’
A deep, rich chuckle accompanied the smile this time. Had she not been immune …
‘We’re raising funds for a swimming pool at Wygera, an aboriginal community about fifty miles inland. The kids are bored to death—literally to death in some cases—sniffing petrol, chroming, drag racing, killing themselves for excitement.’
The smile had faded and his now sombre tone told her he’d experienced the anger and frustration medical staff inevitably felt at the senseless loss of young lives.
‘And when’s this rodeo?’
‘Weekend after next. That’s why the house is deserted. Whoever’s off duty is out at Wygera, organising things there—not so much for the rodeo as for the competition for a design for the swimming pool. Entries have to be in by today and the staff available are out there registering them and sorting them into categories. All the locals are involved. I’m on call for the emergency service. Did you know we have both a plane and a helicopter based—?’
The phone interrupted his explanation, and as he walked out of the room to speak to the caller, Kate opened her suitcase and stared at the contents neatly packed inside. But her mind wasn’t seeing T-shirts and underwear, it was seeing young indigenous Australians, so bored they killed themselves with paint or petrol fumes.
You’re here to trace your mother’s life, not save the world. But the image remained until Hamish materialised in the doorway.
‘Look,’ he said, brushing the rebellious hair back from his forehead. ‘I hate to ask this when you’ve just arrived, but would you mind doing an emergency flight with me? There are fifteen kids from a birthday party throwing up over at the hospital so the staff there have their hands full.’
Kate closed her suitcase.
‘Take me to your aircraft,’ she said.
‘When you’ve put something sensible on your feet. Nice as purple flowery sandals might be, they won’t give much protection to your ankles if we have to be lowered to the patient.’
‘Are you criticising my footwear?’ she said lightly, embarrassed that he’d even noticed what she was wearing on her feet. Embarrassed by the frivolous flowers.
She opened her case again and dug into the bottom of it to find her sensible walking boots. The rest of her outfit was eminently practical. Chocolate brown calf-length pants, and a paler brown T-shirt with just one purple flower decorating the shoulder. But a woman couldn’t be sensible right down to her toes—especially not when these delicious sandals had called to her from a shop window in Townsville the day before.
Pulling off the sandals, she sat down on the bed to put on her boots, uncomfortably aware that Hamish hadn’t answered her.
Uncomfortably aware of Hamish.
‘You don’t have to wait—just tell me where to go. Is it to the airport? I passed that on the way in.’
‘Regular clinic flights leave from the airport. And retrievals leave from there if the aircraft is being used. But today it’s the chopper.’
He didn’t move from the doorway and Kate was pleased when she finally had her boots laced tightly and was ready to leave.
She