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 Read Free Page A

rested it on his chest, unobtrusively counting his respiratory rate. Twenty-five. Far too fast. She’d get him onto oxygen while Hamish completed his assessment.
    The Scottish doctor was already kneeling on the other side of their patient, taking his pulse with one hand while the other released the clasps on the backpack. Kate swung hers to the ground and moved so her light swept over the patient’s body, picking up a rough, blood-stained bandage around the young man’s right thigh.
    ‘There’s a bullet in my leg,’ he said, and the phrasing of the answer made Hamish frown, although he didn’t question how or why, simply repeating part of Kate’s question.
    ‘And your name?’
    The lad hesitated for another few seconds then finally said, ‘Jack. My name’s Jack.’
    He was radiating tension that Kate guessed was more to do with his circumstances than his condition, although he seemed very weak. But if his tension arose from being abandoned, injured, in the middle of nowhere, surely their arrival should have brought relief.
    And the name? Had he opted for Jack as a common enough name or was he really a Jack? Kate didn’t know, but she did know it didn’t matter. Jack he would be while they tended him, and part of tending him would be getting him to relax.
    Hamish was doing his best, chatting as he ran his hands over Jack’s head and neck, asking him questions all the time, satisfying himself there were no other wounds and no reason to suspect internal damage. Where was the pain? Could he feel this? This? Had he come off his horse? Off a bike? Hit his head at all?
    Jack’s responses were guarded, and occasionally confused, but, no, he hadn’t fallen, he’d stayed right on his bike. It was a four-wheeler.
    And where was the bike?
    He looked vaguely around, then shook his head, as if uncertain where a four-wheeler bike might have disappeared to.
    The smell hit Kate as she fitted a mask and tube to the small oxygen bottle she’d taken from her backpack. She looked up to see Hamish unwinding the bandage from Jack’s leg. Necrotic tissue—no wonder the boy was feverish and looked so haggard.
    ‘How long since it happened?’
    Jack shrugged.
    ‘Yesterday, I think. Or maybe the day before. I’ve been feeling pretty sick—went to sleep. Didn’t wake up until Digger moved me here this morning.’
    ‘Where’s Digger now?’ Kate asked, holding the oxygen mask away from his face so he could answer.
    ‘Dunno.’
    Hamish raised his eyebrows at Kate, but didn’t comment, saying instead, ‘His pulse is racing. He needs fluid fast. I don’t want to do a cut-down here, so we’ll run it into both arms. If you open the smaller pack you’ll find a lamp. Set it up first then in your pack there’ll be all we need for fluid resuscitation—16g cannulae and infusers for rapid delivery. You’ll see the crystalloid solutions clearly marked.’
    Kate found the battery-operated lamp and turned it on, a bright fluorescent light pushing back the shadowy evening.Now it was easy to see what they had—sterile packs of cannulas and catheters, bags of fluid, battery-operated fluid warmers, boxes of drugs.
    ‘Good luck,’ she said to Hamish as she handed him a venipuncture kit. ‘We’re going to get some fluid flowing into you,’ she added to Jack, as she found the fluid Hamish wanted and began to warm the first bag. ‘And that means inserting a hollow needle into one of your veins. But because you’re pretty dehydrated, your veins will have gone flat so it won’t be an easy job. I’m betting Hamish will need at least two goes to get it in.’
    ‘I’ll have you know, Sister Winship, I’m known as One-Go McGregor,’ Hamish said huffily, taking the tourniquet Kate passed him and winding it around Jack’s upper arm, hoping to raise a vein in the back of his hand or his wrist.
    The needle slipped in. ‘See, told you!’ Hamish turned triumphantly to Jack. ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t bet?’
    Kate had tubing and