Feisty Firefighters Bundle

‘Good. Thanks for that.’

Laura was slipping her cannula into place on Jillian’s other arm. ‘Could you draw up an extra flush for me, please, Tim?’

‘I could do that,’ Kathryn offered eagerly.

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ The irritated snap came from Kathryn’s well-dressed partner. ‘I’ve had about enough, Kathryn. Our dinner has already been ruined and now you’re making a spectacle of yourself, crawling around on the floor. I’m leaving.’ He proved his intention by turning and walking away. ‘If you want to stay and play doctors and nurses that’s fine, but you’ll have to find your own way home.’

Kathryn bit her lip, hesitated fractionally but then scrambled to her feet. ‘OK, Sean. I’m coming.’ Hurriedly, she reached down to grab an empty syringe packet and a pen. She scribbled down a telephone number.

‘Could you…? I mean, would you mind ringing me, please?’ she asked Tim. ‘To let me know how she gets on?’

‘Sure.’

Kathryn turned but walked only a step or two before turning back. ‘What do you think it is?’ she asked quietly. ‘An MI?’

Tim shook his head. ‘She’s presented with acute abdo pain, rapid deterioration to shock and she’s hypotensive but hasn’t developed a rise in her heart rate. My pick is a dissecting or ruptured aortic aneurysm.’

‘I think you’re right,’ Laura said seconds later as Kathryn vanished through the front door of the restaurant. ‘There’s no palpable femoral pulse on the left side.’

‘BP’s coming up.’ Tim pulled the stethoscope from his ears. ‘Let’s see if we need to get some morphine on board and then we’d better load and go.’

An hour later, Laura was again restocking the resuscitation kit. She removed empty packaging and a full sharps container so she could see what was missing. ‘Amazing how much of a mess we can make, dealing with a medical emergency.’

‘Great job, though, wasn’t it?’ Tim sounded happy. ‘And we were right. It was a dissecting aneurysm. I’ll wait till she comes out of Theatre and then ring Kathryn to tell her about it.’

‘She’s been lucky,’ Laura said. ‘If she hadn’t been so close to a hospital she would have been in serious trouble.’

Tim didn’t appear to be listening. He was hunting in his pockets. ‘You didn’t throw that package away, did you? The one with her phone number?’ He tried his shirt pocket and sighed with relief. ‘No, here it is.’

Laura bit her lip. She had never seen Tim look rattled about something so minor. ‘So you’re going to call her, then?’

‘Are you kidding? The woman of my dreams just gave me her phone number and asked me to call her.’

‘But, Tim…’ Laura frowned. ‘She wasn’t exactly alone.’

‘I don’t think she liked her dinner date any more than anyone else did. What a jerk, complaining about having his meal interrupted because Kathryn’s trying to help someone who’s seriously sick.’

‘But…’ Laura cleared her throat. ‘She was wearing a wedding ring, Tim. So was he.’

‘Was she?’ Animation died from Tim’s face. ‘How on earth did you have time to notice that?’

Laura shrugged. Maybe her subconscious was tuned to noticing things pertaining to weddings at present. Like the silver and white theme in the restaurant. And the plain gold bands on other people’s fingers. After all, her dream of Jason putting one on her own finger was a great deal closer than it had been a month ago. Tim turned away with a sigh.

‘Why am I not surprised?’ he muttered. He screwed up the packaging and dropped it onto the little pile Laura had collected. ‘Even if she wasn’t married, she probably wouldn’t have been interested. I hope you realise how lucky you are, Laura.’

‘Oh, I do, don’t worry,’ Laura murmured. She felt sorry for Tim but his turn would come one of these days. He was a lovely guy and he deserved the same kind of happiness she had found. One that would last a lifetime.

A couple of days might be a lifetime for some kind of insect but it was the blink of an eye for Laura Green. And when she answered the late-evening knock on the front door of Jason’s house in Crighton Terrace, she knew instantly that she was in trouble.

If she had collated everything she knew about Jason Halliday and invented a prototype for what he would consider to be the perfect woman, the embodiment of that ideal was currently standing on his doorstep. She didn’t need to introduce herself, but that didn’t stop those perfectly painted pink lips from opening. Laura had a wild urge to slam the door shut in her face. Instead, she simply waited for the inevitable.

‘Hi, I’m Shelley Bates.’ Laura found herself stepping back in response to the visitor’s forward movement rather than any desire to issue an invitation. ‘Is Jason home?’

The nerve of the woman! She actually brushed past Laura as though she were some kind of maid and then walked confidently up the hallway to enter the living room. Laura saw the colour leach from Jason’s face as she followed Shelley. He glanced at Laura and the pain of betrayal seemed to be directed at her. It wasn’t fair!

‘She just waltzed in, Jase. I couldn’t stop her.’

Shelley dropped a carry bag, which was large enough to appear ominous, beside the couch. Large blue eyes were regarding Jason. ‘I’m sorry to drop in without any warning,’ she said, ‘but I couldn’t bear to be away from Meggie a moment longer.’

Jason’s jaw sagged. ‘Who are you trying to kid?’ he said incredulously. ‘You dumped your baby on a doorstep and took off. Well, you can just take off again now as far as we’re concerned. We don’t want you here.’

Laura hadn’t realised she was holding her breath until she felt it seeping out now. ‘That’s right,’ she said coolly. ‘Jason is more than capable of caring for his daughter.’

‘So you do accept that she’s yours?’ Shelley smiled for the first time and Laura stared at the perfect teeth in the perfect face. ‘I’m so pleased, Jason. I wasn’t sure that you would.’

‘So that was why you decided to dump her?’ Jason hadn’t returned the smile. His face was set grimly and the hold on the baby in his arms had tightened enough to make Megan squeak softly in surprise.

‘Yes,’ Shelley said surprisingly. ‘I knew if I turned up with the baby you would have no problem in ignoring both of us. Denying fatherhood and simply sending us packing. I knew my only chance was to make sure you had the opportunity to get to know and accept your daughter.’

Only chance for what? Laura stood beside Jason, stony-faced.

‘And now? I suppose you think you can just take her away as easily as you brought her.’ Jason cleared his throat. ‘You might have bitten off a bit more than you can chew, Shelley.’

‘I have no intention of taking her away from you.’ Shelley walked towards where they were standing. Oscar raised his head from where it was resting on Jason’s knee and growled softly. ‘She looks very happy.’ Shelley peered over the edges of the blanket and her blue eyes became very bright. ‘Hello, darling,’ she crooned. ‘Mummy’s missed you so much.’

Laura felt a faint wave of nausea. Surely Jason could see how fake this woman was? He didn’t appear to have thawed yet.

‘What do you intend to do, then, Shelley?’

Go back to England, Laura wanted to suggest tartly. Get the hell out of our lives and stay out.

‘I just want to talk, Jason. We’ve got a lot to talk about, haven’t we?’

‘I suppose so.’ The agreement was grudging. ‘I guess you’d better sit down.’

Shelley didn’t move. She looked directly at Laura for the first time since entering the house. ‘It really is a private matter.’

‘I don’t have any secrets from Laura,’ Jason responded. ‘And she’s as involved in all this as any of us.’

‘Really?’ Shelley’s glance was almost amused. As competition, Laura had just been summarily dismissed.

Seething inwardly, Laura sat on an armchair. Shelley sat on the couch but Jason remained standing, the baby in his arms, the dog pressed firmly against his leg.

Laura watched the longest, most elegant legs she had ever seen cross themselves and display a significant amount more thigh. No matter how toned or thin she herself became, she would never possess legs like that without some kind of transplant. Then Shelley reached up to flick long blonde hair over one shoulder and the movement raised her short top enough to reveal a flat belly with a glinting jewel in her navel. A glance at Jason revealed his gaze was riveted to the woman on the couch and Laura felt something cold and hard form inside