Feisty Firefighters Bundle

‘She’s got high blood pressure,’ her husband responded. ‘Has done for years. She’s not having a stroke, is she? Oh, God!’ He covered his face with his hands and they could all hear a sob.

The restaurant manager was almost wringing his hands with anxiety and Laura caught his eye. ‘Could you take care of Jillian’s husband for the moment? It’ll be a few minutes before we’re ready to leave.’

The manager looked relieved to have a task. He put his arm around the man’s heaving shoulders. ‘Come with me, sir. Let’s get you sitting down just for a minute. Jillian’s in the best hands possible right now.’

‘It didn’t look like a stroke.’ Kathryn shook her head. ‘She was quite alert earlier and she didn’t complain of a headache. I didn’t notice any speech difficulties or obvious neurological deficit.’

Tim released the valve on the sphygmomanometer and the air rushed out of the cuff with a hiss. ‘BP’s 70 over 40,’ he reported grimly. ‘What’s her rhythm like?’

‘Sinus,’ Laura said. ‘Seventy beats per minute.’ Oddly normal, in other words.

‘I’ll get an IV in.’ Tim reached into the kit for supplies and Laura picked up a penlight torch and lifted Jillian’s eyelids.

‘Pupils are equal but both dilated and sluggish.’

‘Kathryn.’ The clipped word from somewhere behind Laura was a command for attention, but the blonde woman had her gaze fixed on Tim.

‘Is there anything else I can do to help?’

‘You’re a nurse, you said?’

‘Yes. I used to work in Emergency, though it’s been a while. I’m just a general practice nurse now. Part time.’

‘Could you do a blood sugar for us maybe? That is, if…’ Tim’s raised eyebrow was intended to question the advisability of her staying to help.

‘That’s fine.’ Kathryn raised her head only for a moment. ‘Just give me a minute or two, Sean. Please?’

‘I’ll get a second IV in,’ Laura decided. ‘She needs fluids, stat. What are you using, a 14 gauge?’

‘Yeah. The wider the bore the better right now.’

Kathryn had opened the BGL kit. She held one of the woman’s fingers, used the lancet to elicit a drop of blood and then deftly collected the tiny sample on the end of the Glucocard. The meter beeped as it started its calculation.

‘You’ve done that before.’ Tim glanced up as he secured a luer plug to the IV cannula he’d just inserted.

‘It’s one of the few invasive procedures I get to do these days.’ The blonde woman’s smile was wry. ‘I envy you guys.’ The meter beeped again and she picked it up. ‘BGL’s in normal range. It’s 5.6.’

‘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.’