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 Meredith Webber

  She’d kill him if he talked about her troubles—with a scalpel, he thought, or was that fate reserved for anyone who pitied her?

  ‘Tell me.’

  Two words, quietly spoken, but enough for Hamish to stop pretending to eat the delicious stuffed vine leaves he’d ordered for dinner and forget death by scalpel. He poured out the whole story into Charles’s receptive ears.

  ‘So she came up here to find her father?’

  Charles had somehow found the main issue in the muddled tale Hamish had told.

  ‘Has she found him?’

  Hamish looked at his friend, Kate and her problems for once relegated to a position of lesser importance in his mind. Charles was sounding stressed and anxious. He’d been through some tough emotional crises recently—could they have affected his health?

  ‘Has she?’

  The abrupt demand brought Hamish back to the conversation in hand, though he’d speak to Cal about Charles’s health as soon as he got back to the house.

  ‘Well, no,’ Hamish admitted. ‘I think the shock of finding out she was fostered and then losing her rat of a fiancé propelled her into immediate action. She tracked down her mother first, but she had died. People in the place where her mother had lived mentioned Crocodile Creek. Kate was running on emotion and it wasn’t until she arrived here that she realised a twenty-seven-year-old daughter might not be quite what her father wanted in his life. All the what ifs surfaced in her head.’

  ‘She’s twenty-seven? When is her birthday?’

  Hamish was sure this was the least important part of the conversation he’d had with Charles, but he was now seriously enough worried about the man to go along with it.

  ‘August. I only know because her birthday is the same day as Lucky’s.’

  ‘Of course it would be,’ Charles muttered, making so little sense Hamish wondered about a stroke, although the words were clearly enunciated. ‘What’s her mother’s name? Has she told you?’

  Hamish tried to remember, then shook his head.

  ‘But I’ve seen a photo. She was going to show it to Harry because he’s lived here for ever, then she got cold feet about it all, but she showed it to me.’ Hamish paused, still concerned about his dinner companion, but as Charles wasn’t showing any symptoms of imminent collapse, he continued. ‘Mind you, she doesn’t really need the photo. She’s the dead ringer for her mother.’

  ‘Two years in the country and you’re talking like a native,’ Charles said, pushing his half-eaten dinner away and wheeling back from the table. ‘Come on, we’re getting out of here.’

  He waved to Sophia Poulos, who was used to hospital staff leaving halfway through their meals, apologised when she came over and asked her to put the bill on his tab, then led Hamish out of the restaurant, down the ramp and out to his specially modified vehicle.

  Hamish kept his mouth shut, although the questions he wanted to ask were clamouring to escape.

  ‘Kate at home?’ was all Charles said, as they drove back across the bridge, past the hospital and up to the house.

  ‘She’s not on duty,’ Hamish managed to admit, although he was becoming more and more disturbed by Charles’s behaviour.

  ‘Good! See if you can find her, would you, and ask her to see me in the downstairs lounge. You’d better come, too. Might come as a shock to her to learn I’m her father.’

  ‘What? You? Oh, come on, Charles! You can’t know that! You don’t even know her mother’s name—’

  ‘Oh, yes, I do!’ Charles snapped. ‘It was Maryanne, all one word, no hyphen. And she was, as you said, a dead ringer for Kate, only you said it the other way around.’

  Hamish struggled to absorb this information, and struggled even more with his reaction to it. Loving Kate as he did, surely he should be glad for her if Charles did turn out to be her father. Charles, in fact, would be the perfect choice. No wife or children to cause awkwardness, a loving man who would take Kate into his heart without reservation and give her all the love and security she so badly needed.

  But to Hamish it was the death of his last hope—the one that if Kate decided not to worry about finding her father she might give in to his pleas and join him in marriage, making a family of their own.

  ‘I’ll see if I can find her,’ he told Charles, ‘though I hardly think that room downstairs is the right place for this conversation. There are sure to be some of the staff down there, and Kate’s a very private person.’

  ‘The garden, then,’ Charles suggested, as the hoist on his car lowered his wheelchair. ‘Kate’s told me how much she loves the garden, so she’ll feel at ease there.’

  I always seem to be waking her up, Hamish thought as he stood in the doorway of Kate’s bedroom and looked at her sleeping figure. It was only ten, but she’d been on duty at six, then had played with Lily when she’d finished work.

  Hamish sighed, knowing he had to wake her—knowing for her this might be the most wonderful news in the world.

  Knowing it was going to break his heart.

  But he couldn’t yell from the door—everyone in the house would wonder what was going on—so he went quietly into the bedroom, saying her name as he did so, coming to the bed and bending to touch her shoulder.

  ‘Kate, it’s Hamish.’

  She woke as quickly as most medical staff did, used to being on call. She sat straight up, the hippo stretching out across her breasts.

  ‘Hamish?’

  Her voice was muddled with sleep, but full of … well, affection at least, though to Hamish it sounded like love.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said gently, sitting down on the bed and putting his arms around her. ‘I’m sorry to wake you but Charles wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Is it Lily?’

  He tightened his arms around her when he heard the panic in her voice and reminded her that Lily was sleeping over with CJ, reassuring her Lily was just fine.

  ‘But Charles? Me? What time is it?’

  A lot less love or affection now, and who could blame her, considering the broken nights’ sleep she’d been having lately?

  ‘Just gone ten. He’s in the garden. It’s important, love.’

  ‘It had better be,’ his love snapped, shrugging away from his embrace so she could get out of bed. ‘It had bloody well better be! Jack’s OK, Lily’s OK, I was looking forward to the first good night’s sleep I’ve had since I arrived in this place.’

  She was pulling on her sweatpants as she grumbled, then she ran a brush through her hair, slipped her feet into sandals—this time pink ones with a rose between the toes—and left the room.

  Once again, though cravenly this time, Hamish wanted nothing more than to slide between her body-warmed sheets and stay there at least until morning—possibly until he had to leave Australia.

  But he followed her out of the house, catching up with her on the back steps.

  ‘What on earth’s this about?’ she demanded, slightly less aggrieved now.

  ‘It’s personal,’ he said, slipping an arm around her shoulders and holding her close.

  Wrong move. She stopped abruptly and turned towards him, and though it was dark he could see the flare of anger in her eyes.

  ‘Personal? How? Don’t tell me you asked him to intercede on your behalf? Asked him to talk to me about going to Scotland with you? And woke me up!’

  Then she answered her own questions with a decisive shake of her head.

  ‘No, you wouldn’t do that. I’m sorry. But personal?’

  ‘It’s about your family.’ Hamish made the admission reluctantly, knowing the anger she’d just quenched could so easily flare again. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to tell him anything, but he wanted to know why you wouldn’t consider coming back to Scotland with me and somehow the bit about looking for your father came out.’

  But Kate’s only response was a sigh, then she lifted her hand and touched his cheek.

  ‘What a mess of a person you got involved with,’ she said quietly.

&nbs
p; He forgot about Charles waiting in the garden and the bizarre turn events had taken, and took her in his arms and kissed her.

  Though sure she was strong enough to handle Charles’s revelation on her own, Hamish went with her. This was personal—between her and Charles—but he wasn’t going to let go just yet.

  Charles was waiting by the garden seat and Hamish could see his tension in the way white-knuckled hands gripped the wheels of his chair.

  Maybe he should stay for Charles …

  ‘Kate!’

  Charles said her name and nodded to the garden seat. Hamish guided her towards it, sitting her down but keeping his arm firmly fixed around her shoulders, though Charles reached out to take both her hands in his.

  ‘I don’t know where to start, my dear, but when Hamish told me—’

  He broke off and turned to Hamish, who knew full well he shouldn’t be there—yet Charles seemed to need support now as much as Kate would later.

  ‘Charles thinks …’ Hamish paused then saw Charles nod for him to continue. ‘He thinks he knew your mother.’

  Kate stiffened in his arms and her lips moved, but no words came out so Hamish tucked her closer and dug deeper into his heart, trying to find a way to help two people he loved over such an awesome emotional hurdle.

  ‘He knew and loved—’ he’d bloody better have loved her, a savage voice muttered in his head ‘—a young woman who looked so much like you, you’ve been like a ghost walking through his life since you arrived.’

  Hamish used his free hand to tilt Kate’s chin so he could look into her eyes.

  ‘Her name was—’

  ‘Maryanne!’

  Charles choked out the word then lifted Kate’s hands in his, waiting, waiting, until finally a nod—so small if might have passed unnoticed if she hadn’t at the same time begun to cry.

  ‘My dear! Kate!’ Charles raised her hands to his lips and pressed kisses on them, before looking up at her, his face whitely gaunt as he added, ‘Am I right?’

  Kate nodded again, more firmly this time, then dropped her head to rest on their clasped hands.

  Hamish waited until Charles began to stroke the soft brown curls, then he stood up and moved quietly away.

  He’d not go far—Kate might need him later—but right now these two people needed just to be together.

  Hamish was dozing, his head against the iron lace that decorated the balustrade on the staircase, when Charles brought her back, stopping at the bottom of the steps and holding tightly to both Kate’s hands.

  Later, Kate knew, they would need to talk some more, but right now, in the early hours of the morning, they were both too overwhelmed by a multitude of emotions to do anything but cling to each other.

  ‘You need some sleep,’ Charles told her gruffly, and she bent and kissed his cheek.

  ‘So do you,’ she whispered, then she nodded to her sleeping guard. ‘And so does Hamish.’

  Charles released her hands and backed away so he could turn to go back to his car. Light from the house glinted on the wheels of his chair, and picked up the faint sheen of moisture on his cheeks.

  Kate waited until he was no longer in sight, then she touched Hamish lightly on the head.

  ‘Hey! You should be in bed,’ she said, but instead of continuing on up the steps she sat down beside him, knowing he’d put his arm around her—needing the solidity and comfort of it.

  He didn’t say anything immediately, which was just as well because she was having trouble sorting it all out in her head, but when he finally said ‘Well?’ the words came tumbling out—the story of a young woman who had been working out at Wetherby Downs and a young man home from boarding school, barely a man at seventeen but man enough to fall in love.

  ‘He went back to school at the end of January, promising to keep in touch. They were so in love they’d already talked of marriage when he finished school and returned to the property at the end of the year. He wrote and she replied, until the week before the Easter break. When he didn’t get an answer he phoned home, to be told Maryanne had left. He flew home in the mid-year break and contacted Maryanne’s aunt, who’d brought her up in Crocodile Creek, but the aunt thought she was still at Wetherby Downs. He asked around, but she’d vanished as completely as if she’d never been.’

  ‘Charles’s father, from all I’ve heard, was a terrible man,’ Hamish said quietly. ‘No doubt if he thought she posed a threat to his plans for his son, she’d have had to go. By Easter, the old man would probably have known or guessed that she was pregnant.’

  Kate nodded against his shoulder, too overwhelmed by emotion to say any more. Although, somewhere in her head she was wondering why she wasn’t happier. Why finding her father—knowing she had family—hadn’t brought the joy and ease and peace she’d thought it would?

  ‘Walk on the headland?’

  Hamish’s suggestion eased a lot of her tension. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to sleep, she’d been dreading going back to her lonely room. But Hamish should be sleeping—they were both on duty in the morning—there was no reason she should keep him up.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, easing away from her to stand up and pull her up after him. ‘I could use the walk myself.’

  But walking on the headland where she and Hamish had first kissed was not a good idea. Sure, she’d almost managed to put Charles’s revelations out of her head, but now she was far too conscious of Hamish—of the feel of his bones beneath the flesh of his fingers, of the warmth of the muscles beneath the skin of his thighs. Bits of Hamish she’d never even considered seemed to be calling to her, tempting her, pulling her towards him, so when he stopped at the highest point where the sea broke against the cliff beneath them, she turned into his arms and lifted her head for his kiss.

  And what happened to not kissing Hamish any more? her conscience demanded.

  Tonight’s different, she reminded it, although she knew that was just an excuse. No matter what had happened, she shouldn’t, definitely shouldn’t, be kissing Hamish!

  The pressure of his lips opened hers, and she tasted his uniqueness, tart yet sweet—addictive, as addictive as the feel of his body against hers and the strength of the arms that held her close. As addictive as the softly accented words he whispered in her ear, and the way his fingers caught a curl and twirled it round and round.

  She sighed and he caught the sound in his mouth and turned it back to her, then the intoxication of the kisses took over and she stopped thinking, simply responding with her lips and hands, exploring more and more of him, knowing she needed to know him with every sense so she could keep the memory for ever.

  ‘I love this place. I could stay—not go back,’ he said quietly, when, sated with kisses, they walked again.

  And knowing just how much the position in the paediatrics team meant to him, Kate understood the magnitude of the offer he was making.

  She turned and put her arms around him, resting her head on his chest.

  ‘Oh, Hamish! That’s the sweetest, kindest, most wonderful thing you could ever have said to me, but it’s not a matter of geography. I know, having just found Charles, that leaving him would be very hard to do, but there are phones and emails and even planes that fly from here to there and back again. So …’

  Knowing she needed words as she’d never needed them before, she searched her tired, over-excited mind.

  But how to explain?

  ‘It’s love that worries me,’ she said in the end. ‘And all that love entails. The giving over so completely of oneself, the responsibility for someone else’s happiness—it frightens me too much, Hamish. Yes, it’s magic when it works—the magic that you’ve talked of, a precious magic. But when it doesn’t?’

  She moved away from him but he drew her back, holding her in his arms as if he’d never let her go.

  ‘It’s love,’ she whispered again, hating the word that was paining her so much. ‘Love’s—love’s so full of hurt!’

  And she pressed her face against his s
hirt and wrapped her arms around him.

  They stood like that for a while, until he moved so they were side by side again. Then arm in arm, with saddened, heavy hearts, they walked back towards the old house.

  Kate leaned against the gate of the cow paddock, watching Lily as she sat on the lush lawn inside the fence, pulling up handfuls of grass and feeding them to Oscar, chatting all the time, telling him she was going to live with Charles and that he’d be going to Wygera with the other bulls but Charles would take her to visit him often.

  The gentle giant stood in front of her, carefully lipping the offerings from her small hand, a look of bemused benevolence on his face.

  Kate felt Hamish’s presence a moment before he joined her, folding his arms on the top rail and resting his chin on them so he, too, could watch the pair.

  He’d asked her so often to go back to Scotland with him but Kate knew that today—the day before he left—he wouldn’t ask again.

  It was up to her.

  She slid a glance towards him—saw the strong, angular planes of his face, the almost arrogant masculinity of this gentle, caring man, and her heart all but seized up when she considered never seeing him again …

  ‘It’s all about trust, isn’t it?’ she said, nodding towards the pair in the paddock. ‘By trusting Oscar, she’s virtually handed him her life, hasn’t she?’

  ‘It is, and she has,’ Hamish replied, and the depth of emotion in his voice told Kate he knew she wasn’t talking about Lily and the bull. ‘But she’s young,’ he continued. ‘She’s never had reason to lose trust—never had it betrayed.’

  Kate turned and looked properly at him, seeing the face she loved so dearly strained and tired.

  ‘But she lost her parents,’ she said, needing to argue with him no matter how tired he looked.

  ‘Death isn’t a betrayal,’ Hamish reminded her. ‘And it shouldn’t be seen that way.’

  ‘It wasn’t my parents’ deaths but that they hadn’t told me,’ Kate whispered, and Hamish took her in his arms and held her close.