Free Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit by Meredith Webber Page A

still hadn’t offered them the use of her first name, shook her head.
    ‘Maybe all the horror stories we hear about health care are exaggerated,’ she said, and Kate knew it was an apology for her anger of the morning.
    ‘I don’t think the news channels would attract an audience if they didn’t exaggerate a bit,’ she said, then she said goodnight to the couple, including Angus in the farewell, and left the PICU.
    Angus caught up with her in the elevator foyer, and though he’d told himself he should linger with theStamfords until Kate was well away from the hospital, he felt uncomfortable about her walking home on her own this late at night.
    ‘Oh, I do it all the time,’ she said when he mentioned the folly of a woman walking the streets on her own. ‘There are always people around near the hospital. Cars and ambulances coming and going, police vehicles—we’re not quite in the middle of the city, but we’re close enough and the streets are well-lit.’
    ‘There’s that dark park across the road,’ he told her, stepping into the elevator beside her and wondering if it was the enclosed space, or her presence within it, that was making him feel edgy.
    ‘The park’s well-lit, as well,’ she told him, smiling up at him. ‘I’m not totally stupid, you know. I wouldn’t take any risks with my personal safety, but around here, well, you’ll see.’
    And see he did, for there were plenty of people around as they walked down the street towards their houses. People, cars, ambulances and, yes, police vehicles.
    Too many people really.
    Far too many!
    The thought jolted him—hadn’t he just decided that Kate was nothing more than a neighbourly colleague? But the light steps of the slim woman by his side, the upright carriage and slight tilt of her head when she turned towards him…something about her presence was physically disturbing. So much so he wanted to touch her, to feel her skin and the bones beneath it, to tilt her head just a little bit more, run his fingers into the tangled red hair and drop a kiss on lips so full and pink they drew him like a magnet.
    Attraction, that’s all it was. He could cope with it, ignore it. And tomorrow he had a full day of appointments, no operations, so he wouldn’t see her. All he had to do was walk her home, say goodnight and that was that.
    Except that Hamish was sitting in her front yard on the discarded yellow couch!
    Admittedly Juanita was beside him, but still Angus felt the anger rise inside him.
    ‘You should be in bed,’ he told his son, his voice stern enough to make the child slide closer to his nanny.
    ‘McTavish is sick,’ Hamish whispered, and the woman Angus was ignoring reacted far more quickly than he did. She knelt in front of his child and took him in her arms.
    ‘It’s probably just the water here in Sydney,’ she assured him. ‘I get sick when I go to different cities and drink different water. But the sickness doesn’t last. It’s always over in a day or two.’
    Was this why children needed a mother?
    Because women reacted more instantly—instinctively perhaps—to a child’s misery?
    His mind had gone to McTavish’s health, to wondering what could be wrong with the dog. And to the other puzzle Hamish’s presence presented. He went with that because it was useless to speculate about the dog’s illness.
    ‘And just why does that mean you’re sitting in Dr Armstrong’s yard, not at home in our living room?’
    ‘Because Kate has a car and she said I could call her Kate!’
    For a very biddable little boy there was a touch of defiance in the words and Angus found himself frowning, though at Juanita this time.
    ‘What exactly is going on?’ he demanded.
    She shrugged her thick shoulders.
    ‘It’s as he says. The quarantine office phoned to say McTavish wasn’t eating and there was nothing for it, but Hamish had to visit him, although I told him we couldn’t see him tonight. He insisted he come and wait for his friend, sure