This time, something in his tone struck a note that made Maggie think there was more to his words than what was on the surface. It took her back to that look of horror on his face when he’d realised she was thinking of him as a potential baby daddy and she knew, instinctively, that it was the cause of how awkward it had felt between them afterwards. Maybe it also had something to do with that bitterness that had crept into his voice when he’d said he didn’t believe in true love.
As Joe had reminded her, they were good friends. And friends cared, didn’t they, when they learned about things that could affect their quality of life?
‘What makes you say that?’ she asked gently.
‘Kids get caught in the flak,’ Joe said quietly. ‘They can grow up thinking that it’s their fault. That, no matter how hard they try, they can never fix things.’
Maggie blinked. Yep...there was something deep and dark beneath those words. She’d never thought of her tall, confident, outgoing crew partner as a small child who might have had a less than happy upbringing but right now she wanted to find that little boy and give him a cuddle. To tell him that things were going to be okay one day.
The best she could do, however, was to simply sit there beside him and offer a sympathetic ear and encouragement to talk about it if that was what he wanted.
‘You’re talking from personal experience?’
Joe drained his glass. ‘Yep. I was that kid.’
Maggie swallowed hard. ‘I’m so sorry, Joe... Didn’t anybody try and help you?’
The slow shake of his head was heartbreaking. ‘From the outside, I doubt that anybody even guessed. My mother got pregnant, so my father did “the decent thing” and married her. Maybe they believed it might work out okay in the end but it didn’t. He walked out when I was about five and my mother never stopped telling me that it was my fault. That I was an accident. That he hadn’t wanted a kid and she was far too young and hadn’t had the chance to get a good job or meet someone special. Bottom line was that I’d ruined her life.’
‘She told you that? When you were so little? That’s...’ Maggie shook her head with disbelief. ‘That’s just awful...’
‘She apologised for it later. She met someone else eventually and I think she’s happy enough but it was more than enough to put me off the whole business of marriage and kids.’
Maggie was almost cringing. ‘And then I go and start talking about sperm donors and baby daddies. I’m really sorry, Joe.’
‘It’s me that should apologise. You’re right. I’m raining on the parade here. I don’t know why I even told you any of that crap.’
Maggie did. There was an apology of some kind hidden in there, for how he’d reacted the other day.
‘If I’d known,’ she told him, ‘I would never have started that conversation. Not in a million years.’
‘What conversation?’ Joe flashed her a grin and the glimpse of that unhappy little boy faded away. ‘I can’t remember any of it.’ He got to his feet. ‘They’re playing my song in there. You coming in or do I have to go and find a new dance partner?’
Maggie felt a sudden need to shake off anything negative to do with weddings and babies. She wanted to be happy for her friends and she did, genuinely, believe that Cooper and Fizz were perfect for each other and that they were going to be happy together.
And maybe it hadn’t been the best time for Joe to tell her about his unhappy history but there’d been a reason for that, hadn’t there? He was offering her an explanation of why she had shocked him so badly and it was enough of an apology for her to believe that they could really put that conversation behind them. By the time they were working together again, it would all be forgiven and forgotten.
‘Wait for me...’ Maggie jumped to her feet to follow Joe. ‘That’s actually my song, not yours...’
* * *
Why on earth had he told Maggie so much about his childhood?
Joe closed his locker door and headed upstairs.
‘You’re an early bird.’ Shirley was busy in the kitchen area of the staffroom. ‘There’s been a couple of late calls so the night shift crews aren’t back yet.’
Joe glanced at his watch. He was very early. He’d woken up feeling an echo of the tension that had been between himself and Maggie when he’d arrived at the wedding two days ago and he couldn’t just lie there and think about it. He’d needed to get up and get moving but even a run hadn’t quite dealt with that note of tension.
He had ended the night of the wedding feeling like he and Maggie had not only mended any crack in their friendship but had strengthened its foundations considerably, but that had been flavoured by a party atmosphere of music and fun and a few beers. How different was it going to be when they were working together again? Now that Maggie knew something about him that nobody else did?
‘I could smell those sausages,’ Joe told Shirley. ‘It was irresistible.’
Shirley smile was delighted. ‘We’ve got bacon as well. And I’m going to grill tomatoes. Want a piece of toast while you’re waiting?’
‘No, thanks, Shirley. I won’t spoil my appetite for one of your awesome breakfasts. I’ll have a coffee and read the paper.’
He sat down at the table but he was reading headlines without taking much notice because he was still wondering whether his working relationship with Maggie might have changed after telling her something so personal.
Joe had never told anyone about how unhappy his childhood had been. He didn’t even think about it, if he could help it. It was past history. Okay, it had shaped the way he lived his life now but why he might not want to get married was his own business. He was quite happy for other people to see him as being so committed to his career he didn’t have the time or inclination to complicate his personal life by having his own family. He knew that some people considered him to be self-centred by making his life all about himself—his career, his hobbies, his parade of female companions—but he’d never cared about that, either.
Until Maggie had asked him to father a baby for her.
Until—for a split second—he’d actually imagined the reality of that. Of Maggie becoming pregnant. Of him feeling the pressure of being forced to do the ‘decent’ thing, even if that meant being involved in a child’s life rather than marrying the mother. Of another child in the world who could end up without a father or feeling like his existence was some kind of horrible mistake.
‘And here’s another early bird.’ Shirley’s voice cut through his thoughts. ‘Don’t tell me you could smell the sausages halfway across town, too, Maggie?’
Joe’s gaze flicked up and caught Maggie’s instantly. Was she arriving at work early due to the same hint of nerves that had been bothering him? If so, it didn’t show. Maggie looked just the same as ever, with that ready smile and palpable eagerness for whatever challenges lay ahead that day. She was one of those people who could brighten a room simply by walking into it.
‘Morning, Shirley.’ Maggie went to give their volunteer housekeeper a hug. ‘How are your feet after all the dancing the other evening?’
Shirley sighed happily. ‘Wasn’t it just the best wedding ever?’
‘It was. I haven’t had so much fun in a very long time.’
‘You and Joe were the stars of the dance floor,’ Shirley said. ‘Everybody knew that you could dance, Maggie, but Joe surprised us all.’
‘I know. Talk about hidden talents... Who knows what else he’s hiding? Maybe he’s good at knitting?’
Both women laughed and then Maggie’s smile was being directed at Joe and he found himself releasing a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
That was why he’d told her something so private the other night. Because he wanted her to understand why he could never do something like casually fathering a baby. Because he didn’t want her to think he was being selfish or that he didn’t value their frie
ndship. Because he didn’t want the ‘dream team’ to break apart.
Now he could relax. It was all good. Neither confessing something so personal about his childhood nor the step Maggie had taken onto totally unwelcome territory with the sperm donor conversation mattered any longer. Nothing had changed.
‘Just wait till Christmas,’ he warned them. ‘You’ll be first on the list for my homemade knitted slippers.’
* * *
Nothing had changed.
So why did it still feel like something had changed?
Responding swiftly to their first helicopter callout that day, getting airborne and getting as much information as possible about the scenario they were heading into was the same as it always was.
‘Twenty-six-year-old male. Fall from height.’ Joe read his pager message aloud as he got himself into the kind of head space he needed to be when heading towards a potentially major trauma.
‘What height?’ Nick, the crewman, sounded curious.
‘Not clear,’ Maggie put in. ‘He was putting up scaffolding on a high level of an industrial building but nobody actually saw that he was falling until he bounced off a platform about three metres off the ground.’
‘Landed on concrete?’
‘Yep.’
‘Ouch...’
‘You said it.’ Joe was thinking of just how serious this could be. A major head injury, serious fractures, chest trauma. Would their patient still be alive by the time they got on site?
He was not only alive, he was conscious.
Maggie got to the man’s side first, although they hadn’t had any discussion about who was going to lead this case. Not that it mattered and that was something that hadn’t changed, either.
‘Hey, Sean... I’m Maggie and this is my partner, Joe. We heard you had a bit of a fall...’
The young man groaned. ‘It hurts really bad,’ he told Maggie.
‘Where does it hurt the most?’
‘Legs...belly...’
‘Were you knocked out?’
‘Dunno...’
‘He was out of it for a few minutes.’ One of the group of builders clustered around the injured man was keen to help Maggie get the answers she needed. ‘But he was breathing okay. We knew he wasn’t dead.’
‘And we didn’t move him,’ another man told her. ‘We knew he might have hurt his back.’
‘Good work.’ Maggie nodded.
Joe glanced up from where he was getting a set of vital signs. Sean’s airway was clear and his breathing was rapid but not shallow enough to suggest a serious chest injury. His heart rate was up and his skin was pale and clammy, which made it more likely that he was losing blood from somewhere and going into shock. Joe was reaching for the IV roll to get a line in and some fluids started when he glanced up at the circle of men around them and noticed that every set of male eyes here was focussed on Maggie.
Because she was leading the assessment of their workmate?
Or was it because she was blonde and cute?
And there it was. Bang. The ‘something’ that had changed. Not that he was going to spend more than a split second to take the information on board right now but he was aware of it.
He was thinking of Maggie as more than his paramedic partner. A part of his brain had stepped back to give him a bigger picture and he was observing her as a woman. As a potential mother. Or wife, perhaps, if she got over being so picky about trying to find the non-existent perfect man. For heaven’s sake, she clearly had no trouble attracting male attention.
‘I’ll get some fluids up,’ he muttered.
Maggie nodded. She was into her secondary survey now, having checked that there was no visible major bleeding going on.
‘No external sign of head injury.’
‘He had his hard hat on,’ someone told them. ‘But he pulled it off as soon as he woke up.’
‘Ow...’ Sean’s cry was almost a scream as Maggie’s hands reached his lower abdomen.
‘Is that pain in your tummy? Here?’
‘No...it’s in my back...my legs... Ow...’
‘He’s got outward rotation of his left foot.’ Joe finished securing the IV line he’d just put in. ‘Hip or pelvic fracture?’
‘And/or femoral. He’s in a lot of pain.’
‘Fentanyl and ketamine?’ As usual, the lines of who was the lead medic in this case were blurring. They were well into their ‘dream team’ zone, where they could work as a single unit that had the advantage of two brains and two pairs of skilled hands.
‘Please. I’ll get a collar on. And a SAM?’
Joe nodded his agreement.
The SAM was a pelvic splint, a wide belt that Maggie slid beneath the hollow in Sean’s lower back so that Joe could catch the strap on the end and help her position it low on Sean’s hips.
‘Hang on a tick... I haven’t checked his pockets for anything like keys.’
Maggie double-checked the pockets on the other side. ‘Clear.’
‘Same.’ Joe fed the long strap through the buckle on the belt and then applied tension on his side as Maggie pulled on a loop on the other side of the buckle. The belt tightened until it clicked into a locked position.
They had pain relief on board for their patient, oxygen and fluids running, and a neck collar as well as the pelvic splint. They still needed to get him securely onto their stretcher with his neck further protected by the cushions and straps that would prevent his head moving and then get him into an emergency department as quickly as possible where he could get the scans that would reveal any injuries and the surgery that was highly likely to be needed.
It wasn’t until a long time later that they had the opportunity to do what they always tried to do after a scene like that, which was to think about the job as a whole, tick off the things they had done well and to discuss anything that they thought could have been managed better.
Except that when Joe took that mental step back to look at the job as a whole, he found he was still looking at Maggie in that different way.
‘Ooh, look...’ Maggie had opened the fridge in the staffroom kitchen. ‘There’s some left-over sausages from breakfast. Fancy one rolled up in a slice of bread with some tomato sauce?’
‘Make that chilli sauce and I’m in.’
‘Oh, great idea...’ Maggie’s grin was as good as applause. ‘You’re not just a pretty face, are you, Joe?’ Her grin widened as she straightened, a container of sausages in her hands. ‘Oh, that’s right...you’re actually not a pretty face at all.’
Maggie was, though. From this new and speculative viewpoint, as he watched her ferry the supplies they needed to the big table, Joe was rating his colleague as if he were a man who was seeing her for the first time—like those men on the building site this morning. Petite in height but a bit curvy in all the right places, blonde curls that refused to be restrained in any meaningful manner and big, blue eyes. Joe had never actually realised quite how blue they were until he’d seen her wearing that dress at the wedding the other day.
What was wrong with him that he’d never been attracted to his partner? Or had he been attracted when he’d first met Maggie and simply put it into the ‘off limits’ basket because they had both been in long-term relationships at the time? No, it had to be a chemistry thing, like Maggie had suggested, because from this viewpoint he’d give her a ten out of ten on an average male’s attractiveness ratings chart. He also had the advantage of knowing how smart she was. How skilled. How kind she was to animals and small children. She’d be the perfect wife—for someone who wanted to be part of a big family.
Joe picked up a slice of bread, buttered it, put a sausage in the middle and slathered it with chilli sauce before rolling it up and taking a big bite.
‘Mmm...’
Maggie made the same full-mouth mumbling noise of pleasure and Joe caught her
gaze.
And then it really hit him...
He wasn’t just thinking about Maggie in general terms of her attractiveness and why she was still single.
A very deep part of his brain was thinking about her in a much more specific way. Joe dragged his gaze free of Maggie’s so fast it had to be impossible for her to have guessed what was going through his head. He certainly hoped that was the case, anyway, because he couldn’t quite believe what it was he was thinking about.
If he’d been open to her crazy idea about finding a baby daddy, how would it have played out?
With an impersonal sample bottle and a turkey baster? Or would Maggie have thought a more natural form of conception might have been preferable? Maybe it had been the sound she’d made expressing her pleasure in the food she had in her mouth that had been the catalyst for going down this particular track. Joe could hear an echo of it again. It was just the kind of sound he could imagine her making in bed, if she was really enjoying some company...
Oh...man... He suddenly found it too much of a challenge to swallow the mouthful of food he had finished chewing. Maybe it wasn’t a part of his brain that was responsible for what had changed between Maggie and himself.
At this precise moment, it felt like it was a deep part of his body that had been shocked into life by the whole episode of having to think about Maggie and baby-making. And it was putting two and two together and coming up with a total that was as unexpected as it was inappropriate. It felt like some sort of chemical reaction was taking place and it was...appalling...
Forcing himself to swallow was actually painful. Slamming both mental and physical doors to what was going on in his head and his body was also almost painful but it had to be done. Quickly and conclusively. And it could never be allowed to happen again.
Ever.
‘I think you used too much sauce,’ Maggie told him. ‘You look like you’re breaking out in a sweat.’
‘Doubt it.’ Joe didn’t dare look up to catch her gaze again. Instead, he took another bite of his sausage and, this time, it was much easier to swallow.
Pregnant with Her Best Friend's Baby Page 5
