A Mother for Matilda/The Boss and Nurse Albright

by Amy Andrews

  A shard of a memory pierced her consciousness and the scene from last night, kissing his scar, came crashing back in full Technicolor detail. She pressed her finger to her mouth as the memory of his stubble grazing her lips tingled as if it had just happened.

  She shut her eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What must he have thought?

  But even in the cold light of day, his lips within reaching distance, the temptation to do it again was a living, breathing animal inside her. She opened her eyes. His lips were slack, slightly parted, and for a fleeting second her hand actually crept towards him.

  Then she caught herself. In eighty-nine days she was out of here. She’d kept her crush secret for five years—she could certainly go the next few months without blowing it.

  Steadfastly ignoring Lawson and his mouth, she scooped up her shoes and got the hell out of the house.

  A few days later, on their first day shift back from nights, Lawson and Vic were sitting at the station when their pagers activated. They’d not long returned from transporting a dislocated finger from a rather vigorous game of lawn bowls to the mainland and Vic had taken her first sip of coffee.

  ‘“Near drowning at Wattle Beach,”’ Lawson read. ‘“Twenty-year-old male.”’

  Vic looked at her coffee longingly, took another sip and stood. ‘We’d better take the four-wheel drive.’

  The island had three ambulances. Two were standard vans and were the transport of choice on a daily basis. The other was a heavy-duty vehicle expressly used for beach jobs because it allowed them to drive on sand directly to the patient. It stayed at the station ready to go if needed.

  Vic opened the driver’s seat door. It was her turn today to be Patient Care Officer, which would normally mean he would drive, but on cases like this, with Lawson’s intensive care stripes, she happily yielded to his superior experience.

  She didn’t need to consult with him. It was natural, unspoken between them. The patient might need intubating, a procedure she wasn’t yet qualified to perform, so Lawson was the best paramedic for the job.

  In a precisely executed manoeuvre she swung up into the cab. Her short legs made the seat a long way up and she often felt as if she were doing some sort of modified pole-vault routine. She reached under the seat for the lever and hauled it forward. With the twist of her wrist the engine started with a roar, chugging diesel fumes into the ambulance bay, and she inched the vehicle out.

  Lawson pushed the responding button on the vehicle computer system to alert the coms centre to their departure and they were off.

  ‘Do you suppose it’s a tourist?’ Vic asked as she flipped on the siren.

  She’d grown up in this small island community and the downside of being a paramedic here was that, too often, she knew the people she was sent to help. Which was one thing she was looking forward to about her upcoming move to London—in eighty-five sleeps—total anonymity.

  Lawson shrugged non-committally, only half listening. This was her process. He preferred quiet on the way to a Code One, to gather himself, plan for different contingencies. Victoria liked to fill up the silence with nervous chatter. He let her go. He knew by the time they pulled up she’d be in the zone.

  And it certainly beat the alternative. Talking about what had happened a few days ago. So far they’d managed to avoid it completely. But it was there between them—he sensed it.

  ‘It’s not so sheltered around the other side and the wind’s up,’ she mused. ‘Most locals know rips can form in this kind of weather.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘ We have a perfectly good patrolled beach, for crying out loud,’ she said, flicking her eyes briefly from the road to look at him. ‘Why the hell can’t they just swim there?’

  Unlike the island’s most popular beaches, Wattle wasn’t patrolled by surf lifesavers. Those that were had access to a high level of first aid should it be needed. But unpatrolled areas were a wild card and already Vic’s brain was turning to what they might be faced with in a few minutes. Would any first aid have been rendered to the unfortunate victim of Wattle’s rocky shoreline?

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I mean, it’s one o’clock on a Monday for Pete’s sake. It’s not like Banksia Beach’s crowded this time of the day. Why don’t they just go there?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘But oh, no, they have to go where it’s a little more edgy. A little more of a challenge. Dad’ll go nuts when he finds out.’

  Lawson couldn’t agree more. Bob took every drowning on the island to heart. Luckily the station OIC had decided to take the rest of the week off to be home with a recovering Ryan. But Lawson knew the latest near-drowning news would be around the small island community within a few hours and, even though he was away for the weekend camping with the twins, Bob was still on the island and so would be one of the first to know. ‘Yep.’

  The one-sided conversation continued for the next two minutes as the ambulance raced through the sleepy streets, lights and siren blazing.

  As they approached the beach a teenager was waving at them wildly from the car park and pointing down the beach to a huddle of people. Vic used the nearby boat ramp to access the beach and drove the vehicle straight to where the action seemed to be going down.

  The wind had whipped the waves up into choppy peaks and they were crashing against the shore. In the distance she could see the rocky headland where she’d spent many a summer holiday as a child exploring the caves that riddled the area.

  Vic hadn’t quite pulled up when Lawson exited. He was at the back doors, opening them and grabbing equipment as Vic turned off the engine. He retrieved the life pack containing the portable monitor, defibrillator and oxygen.

  ‘Grab some blankets,’ he threw over his shoulder as he slapped his cap on his head and headed for the small group of people nearby.

  Vic, pulling her ponytail through her own cap, strode to the back of the ambulance and grabbed two blankets. She didn’t bother to shut the doors, following her partner as fast as she could with significantly shorter legs.

  When she reached the patient, Lawson was kneeling in the wet sand, hooking up an oxygen mask while five girls all in wet bikinis and various stages of hysteria spoke to him at once.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Vic raised her voice to cut through the emotion. The group parted and she knelt beside her partner. The patient was lying supine in his boardies, wet and cold and gasping like a fish out of water. And about as grey as one. His mouth was ringed with sand, his lips tinged a dusky purple.

  But he was conscious, if a little stunned. And he was breathing, although it seemed somewhat laboured. Lawson had already placed a collar on his neck.

  ‘Just popping some oxygen on, Michael,’ Lawson said as he applied the mask.

  Vic threw the blanket over the patient using the cotton weave to dry the teenager’s chest to ensure the electrodes she was applying would stick. A green squiggly line spiked to life on the monitor. His heart rate was a little on the slow side. She placed a peg-like device on Michael’s finger and watched as his oxygen saturations registered in the high eighties—far from satisfactory.

  Vic got a cobbled history from Jacinta, who identified herself as Michael’s sister. ‘He just got dumped by this massive wave. He didn’t come up again,’ she wailed. Vic marked everything down on the large patient care sheet, including the observations and his personal details.

  Lawson watched as his patient’s lips pinked up and the oxygen saturations climbed steadily. Michael moaned and then coughed, which changed quickly to spasmodic retching as it continued. Lawson removed the mask, quickly helping the teenager roll on his side as his patient spewed up a bellyful of sea water onto the sand. He flicked on the portable suction.

  ‘It’s okay, mate,’ he murmured, resisting Michael’s feeble attempts to push the Yankeur sucker away as he cleared his airway. ‘Better out than in.’

  Michael stopped retching and Lawson pulled the mask back over his patient’s nose and mouth. He placed a steth
oscope in his ears and listened to the shallow breath sounds.

  ‘Let’s scoop him and go,’ Lawson murmured.

  Ten minutes later Michael was in the back of the ambulance with Lawson and Vic had radioed Coms of their twenty-minute ETA at hospital. Jacinta rode in the front seat with Vic, a blanket draped around her shoulders.

  An hour later Vic put her signature to the completed paperwork she’d finished up in the privacy of the accident and emergency staff room. She handed it over to the nurse in charge and headed back to the ambulance bay and their vehicle.

  Lawson was lounging against a wall near the exit, the five girls from the beach, still in their tiny bikini tops and brief boardies, gathered round him. They were obviously now sufficiently recovered from their shock and ever so grateful to the big, strong paramedic.

  Vic grinned as she heard them asking him about how many people he’d saved with the kiss of life. She pulled up behind them and winked at him. His loose stance was deceptive. His jaw muscle was clenched as he shot her a get-me-out-of-here look. ‘Ready?’

  Lawson, grateful for the interruption, crushed his empty polystyrene coffee cup in his hands and pushed away from the wall. ‘Remember,’ he said, tossing the cup in the nearby bin, ‘next time swim on patrolled beaches, between the flags.’

  ‘Oh, we will, Lawson,’ Jacinta said. ‘And thank you again so much for saving my brother’s life.’ She touched his sleeve. ‘I’m never going to forget you or what you did for Michael.’

  Vic rolled her eyes. Had Jacinta deliberately dropped the blanket a little lower? And hello? What was she? Chopped liver? Lawson hadn’t exactly been Robinson Crusoe down on the beach. ‘Coms had a patient transport job for us,’ she lied.

  ‘Right.’ Lawson extricated himself from the circle. ‘Bye.’

  ‘Bye,’ they said in unison.

  Vic looked back over her shoulder to see them all twinkling their fingers at his back and looking at him as if they wouldn’t mind giving him a little mouth-to-mouth of their own.

  Oh, please!

  Strangely it irritated her. Her lips tingled again with the memory of her kiss. Although they’d studiously avoided talking about it, it was always there, in the back of her mind, and she was beginning to think of it as the elephant in the room. She’d kill to know what he was thinking.

  Had he put it down to her being a little tipsy or excused it as one of those strangely intimate moments between people who had known each other for ever that was almost inevitable after an emotional event? Or was he just not thinking about it at all? Was that why he hadn’t mentioned it?

  Somehow that was an even more disturbing thought…

  She waited till they climbed back in the cab before she commented. ‘Ooh, Lawson, you’re so-o-o brave,’ she cooed, and turned to him to bat her eyelashes in an exaggerated fashion. She kept it light but couldn’t deny there was a degree of the green-eyed monster involved.

  Lawson frowned. ‘Cut it out.’

  Vic laughed. ‘Oh, but, Lawson,’ she said breathily, touching his sleeve, ‘I’m never going to forget you.’

  He jammed his seat belt buckle into its clasp, shaking her hand aside. ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  She pulled out into traffic with a smile on her face, comfortable now with their familiar patter. She knew where she stood with the banter that was the hallmark of their relationship. The grizzled veteran and the rookie. She didn’t know where she stood after the kiss. She didn’t know how to talk to him about that.

  ‘You won some hearts there.’

  ‘Please. I’m old enough to be their father. Speaking of which.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Looks like we’ll make Kids Quiz today.’

  Vic nodded enthusiastically. She enjoyed the day-shift ritual almost as much as Lawson. And at least with Matilda’s endless prattle she didn’t have time to think about her error of judgement. ‘One dose of PG TV coming up.’ She grinned.

  ‘Daddy!’

  ‘Tilly!’ Lawson grinned, holding his arms out to his daughter, who’d run out of the front door the minute the ambulance had pulled into the driveway.

  Matilda hurled herself into her father’s arms and squealed, clutching his big shoulders as he spun her around and around, her blonde curls flying behind.

  ‘What’d you learn at school today?’ he asked as he gave in to her ‘stop Daddy’ giggles.

  ‘Miss Simpson taught us the eight times tables.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? What’s eight times zero?’

  Matilda giggled again. ‘Daddy, that’s the easy one.’

  Vic, who was lounging against the side of the van, shook her head as she watched father and daughter with a big grin. Lawson’s kid was great. And an absolute credit to him. Deb had literally left him holding the baby and he hadn’t blinked. Just totally changed his lifestyle and committed every cell he owned to the raising of his daughter.

  Vic smiled as Lawson tickled his daughter, feeling a strange affiliation with the little girl. Matilda too was growing up without a mother and it clutched at Vic’s heart, resonating deeply. Sure, Matilda hadn’t known any different, but it didn’t make it any less sad that she would never know that special bond. The type of bond Vic had had with her mother.

  It was a credit to Lawson that, despite Deb’s desertion, Matilda was a happy, secure child. ‘Eight times nine,’ she said, entering the game.

  Matilda’s face, noticing her father’s partner for the first time, lit up. ‘Vic,’ she cried, running around Lawson to launch herself at Victoria. ‘Vic, Vic, Vic.’

  Matilda locked her arms around Vic’s waist and jumped up and down. Vic laughed and hugged the dear little thing tight. She was going to miss Matilda’s zest for life and her unconditional love. The twins had been like that and sometimes she could still feel their skinny arms giving her a double-trouble hug.

  ‘Kids Quiz is starting.’

  Vic looked up to see Dorothy, Matilda’s part-time nanny, a marshmallow-centred ex-schoolmarm, standing at the front door.

  ‘Yippee! Come on, Vic. Come on, Daddy.’ Matilda pulled at both their hands. ‘Miss Simpson says this is her favourite show.’ Matilda looked meaningfully at her father. ‘She’s really pretty.’

  Lawson rolled his eyes at Victoria as his daughter dragged him into the house. ‘Yes, I have met Miss Simpson, remember?’

  For the next half an hour the time passed as it always did on the days their jobs and the pager allowed them to drop in and visit with Matilda in the afternoon. On a day shift Lawson wasn’t home until after his daughter was in bed so if he could get these precious moments with her, he grabbed them with both hands.

  They all huddled on the lounge over coffee and some home-made goodies Dorothy had whipped up, shouting at the television, competing with each other. Vic loved these times. Matilda held her hand and seemed to hang off her every word. It reminded her of the foggy memories she had of sitting on the couch watching television with her own mother and the overwhelming feeling of being loved.

  Lawson was lucky to have a job where he could spend this precious time with his daughter—and he knew it. She guessed it was one of the many advantages of working in a small community. Something else she’d miss in giant, anonymous London.

  Not that she’d miss anything about this life too much, she told herself. After eighteen years of helping raise her twin brothers, shackled through grief and love and an innate sense of responsibility, she was well and truly set to fly the nest.

  This was her time and she was going to live it. Crush or no crush. Kiss or no kiss.

  Their pagers remained silent for the duration of Kids Quiz, for which they were both thankful. Afterwards Matilda rushed off to get ready for her piano lesson and Vic and Lawson got back on the road.

  As they drove away Vic said, ‘I know I say this every time but, jeez, you’ve got a good kid there.’

  Lawson turned to look at her. Victoria and Matilda got on famously. He’d go as far as to say that his daughter worshipped the ground Victoria walked on. Why th
en, he wondered, was it that Matilda, who had tried to set him up with every available female under ninety on the island the last six months, hadn’t ever tried to set him up with his partner?

  Probably because Victoria had just always been around. More like a big sister than a mother prospect. Or maybe Matilda also thought it utterly preposterous.

  Vic could feel his eyes on her as she drove. ‘What?’ she demanded, looking at him briefly before returning her eyes to the road.

  ‘You’re good with her.’

  Vic snorted. ‘I raised my brothers from babies. I have two X chromosomes. I know kids.’ She shrugged. ‘Big deal.’

  ‘You’d make a good mother.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘No way. Never ever. I’ve raised my babies.’

  It was a familiar denial he’d heard fall from her lips numerous times. Not that he could blame her. He just thought it was a shame to discount it for all time. ‘Fair enough.’

  Vic shook her head as she tried to keep up with his ever-changing view of her. Today he could see her as a mother. Other days he saw her as his work partner, as a babysitter for his child, as Ryan and Josh’s sister, as Bob Dunleavy’s daughter. But mostly she was convinced he still saw her as the six-year-old he’d first met.

  Why couldn’t he see her as an adult? Maybe a reminder that she was fully grown and ready to fly the nest would force him to see her in a different light. As a woman.

  ‘Hey, have I mentioned today that it’s only eighty-five more days?’

  Lawson turned away from her and looked out of his window. ‘Once or twice,’ he said dryly.

  Or maybe not.

  Chapter Four

  THE ominous grey breakers rolled onto the beach, slapping against the sand with relentless savagery as the tide clawed its way steadily back. The wind howled around them as they lounged against one of the wooden crossbeams of the fence that formed the perimeter of the Wattle Beach car park.