‘Maybe I can help with that...’ He walked closer to Jenna and reached for the button at the top of her shirt. ‘I’m not feeling that confident in my button undoing skills. I think...maybe I need a bit of practice?’
He was watching her face as his fingers brushed her skin while fumbling with the small button. He saw the way she caught her bottom lip between her teeth but that didn’t quite stop the delighted smile trying to break out. He felt the way she came up on tiptoe as that button popped free and dipping his head to respond to that invitation to kiss her was enough to drive any other thoughts from his head.
Almost...
Maybe he was trying to find justification for keeping his personal life so private because the thought that occurred to him in that split second before his lips covered hers was that people who respected the privacy of others often preferred to keep their own lives private and maybe that was a part of the trust that had made a connection with Jenna so easy.
Perhaps they knew enough about each other as it was so he didn’t need to feel that he was being dishonest in some way.
They’d both turned their backs on the possibility of significant relationships and there always a reason why people did that. A big reason, usually.
They’d chosen each other—or fate had done it for them—to step out of a sexual desert they’d been in for a long time and they’d discovered something amazing.
Mitch was kissing Jenna again now. And she was kissing him back. He could taste that deliciousness that had been haunting him ever since last time. He could feel her fingers on his belt—and the buckle—and the touch created an anticipation that was just as delicious. Until her fingers brushed lower as she undid the buckle and anticipation got blindsided by an irresistible need to get a whole lot closer.
It was way too tempting to stop thinking and give in to simply feeling...
He would tell her the truth at some point, of course he would.
But not now. Because it was totally irrelevant.
CHAPTER FIVE
THERE WERE A huge number of towns and cities that Jenna had been to during the years of establishing the FRAME network and she’d always loved the travelling—the disruption of a normal routine and the distraction of exploring new places.
Until now.
She wasn’t loving being away from London this time, despite being in York, one of her favourite cities, and this being a five-day initiation course that provided enough time to really get to know an interesting group of mostly nurses who had come from small villages and remote communities to upskill in careers they were all passionate about. Not only that, she was also doing one of her favourite things in that she was training a trainer.
Rob was a skilled paramedic in his fifties, who’d been an APP like herself but had moved into teaching due to a bad back injury and, to his surprise, found he was loving his new direction. He was engaging, often funny and his students were responding in a way that told Jenna their new instructor was going to be one of their best. He’d been sitting in on her taking most of the sessions for the first couple of days but was gradually taking over. By Day Five and the assessments, he would be running this intake alone.
Right now, Rob was wrapping up a session that had never been a favourite for Jenna.
Paediatrics.
In the early days these sessions had, in fact, provided one of the biggest hurdles she’d had to overcome but also one of the biggest incentives to train people to the very best of their abilities in the hope that it could prevent another person having to go through what she’d endured.
The anatomical and physiological stuff was easy enough, covering the major differences from adults that influenced assessment and treatment, like the larger head and shorter necks, larger tongues and higher larynx, and normal ranges for vital signs like respiration and heart rates. The harder stuff was what Rob was teaching now and Jenna automatically found herself taking a mental step backwards. Distancing herself from the session’s content enough to make it impersonal.
Trying to ignore that awareness like a soft drumbeat in the back of her head. Or was it in her heart?
‘So, there you are.’ Rob had a scene on the screen of a small, crumpled figure lying on a patch of grass. The background was blurred but you could see it was a child’s playground. ‘You’re first on the scene and you’ve got an unresponsive kid. Before we get into how we’re going to assess and treat this little guy, let’s run over all the possible causes of paediatric collapse.’
It was just a single word, that drumbeat. A name that Jenna could hear again and again and again.
Eli... Eli... Eli...
Even now, as year after year had ticked past, it was still there. Nothing like as painful, of course, but she knew it was never going to disappear. She didn’t want it to. Memories were precious. It wasn’t something she was ever going to experience again but it was a part of her history. Her story. She had once been a wife. And a mother.
Rob was doing a great job eliciting the correct answers before revealing the next line of text on the screen. Under the heading of hypoxia, there were now bullet points of airway obstruction—with secondary headings of foreign body, croup, epiglottis and asthma—anaphylaxis, near drowning and cardiac causes that also needed a breakdown into areas like congenital heart disease, arrhythmias and heart failure.
‘We’re missing a couple, guys. Have a think.’
An older nurse spoke quietly. ‘I went to a family in our village once. Their toddler had got himself all caught up in the strings for the venetian blind. He’d suffocated.’
Rob’s nod was solemn. ‘That’s one of them, all right. Sadly not that uncommon, either.’
‘Asphyxia’ came up on the screen.
‘There’s another condition that is not uncommon in children. It can start at any age and someone with Down syndrome, metabolic disorders or autism may have this as well. Causes can include infection, brain injury, a tumour—’
‘Epilepsy,’ someone called. ‘They’re unresponsive due to a seizure.’ The answer was accompanied by a headshake. ‘I should have thought of that straight off. My nephew used to get them all the time. Seems to have grown out of them, though.
‘And other kids have seizure activity that’s very well controlled with medication. So when would you be more likely to get called in, do you think?’
‘When the medication’s not working. When the seizure doesn’t stop.’
Rob gave the student a ‘thumbs up’ sign and then the last line of text appeared. Status epilepticus. And that was the point that Jenna let her focus drift completely, even turning her head enough to look out of the window. She could see a section of the ancient city walls that York was so famous for. She’d go and walk there again when classes were finished for the day. The sights were all familiar but she loved them. She might stop and have a coffee in the little shop in Barker’s Tower and she’d never miss the highlight of Clifford’s Tower, the largest remaining section of York castle.
But even the prospect of revisiting a place she enjoyed so much wasn’t enough to squash the nagging feeling that she wanted to be somewhere else and Jenna knew exactly where it was she wanted to be. In Croydon. More specifically, in her own flat. Or out on the road. Because, even more specifically, she wanted to be with Mitch.
She was missing him.
She’d only known him a matter of weeks. They’d only been working together in the rapid response unit a handful of times and they’d been to bed together on even fewer occasions but his company had become an important part of her life.
Jenna really liked him.
Okay...she really, really liked him. She admired his professional skill and his impressive intelligence but there was a lot more to his company that she was appreciating more every time they were together. He had a compassion and gentleness with his patients that was completely genuine and he was, quite probably, t
he nicest man she’d ever met. Apart from Stefan, of course. But he wasn’t so nice he was too good to be true. She’d seen him deal with unpleasant people in no uncertain terms and he still had that air of mystery about him that was intriguing. Why had he left such a prestigious position at St Barnabas?
She would have enjoyed Mitch’s company—the satisfaction of working together and the stimulation of having a professional conversation—without the bonus of the sex but, if she was really honest, that was a huge part of this pull she was feeling to be back home. She knew that she’d been missing that physical closeness with another human being but she’d had no idea how much more than something purely physical it could be. Those times with Mitch could make the world stop turning for a while. Could make it impossible to have the head space to include anything from the past. Or the future. For as long as it lasted, that connection—that exquisite tension and pleasure—was all that existed. In nearly a decade, Jenna had never found anything else that came close to giving her even a temporary belief that life could be as perfect for her as for the luckiest people alive.
Rob was moving on, directing the class into exercises for assessing and treating paediatric emergencies and he was managing so well that Jenna knew she could excuse herself from the room for a few minutes. Enough time to check her rosters for the coming week or two and see what days she might be back on the road in South London. And to send a text message to see if Mitch was available to share that time with her?
Yes... Even knowing when she was going to see him again would prevent that knot of tension from growing any more disruptive. What was it, exactly? A worry that this new dimension in her life might vanish as unexpectedly as it had arrived in her life? Maybe Jenna just needed to be more confident that this arrangement she had with Mitch was providing something they both wanted. That they both needed, even.
Just to be on the safe side, though, she would send that text. Holding her hand up to indicate a five-minute interval, she tilted her head to acknowledge Rob’s smile and nod and slipped out of the classroom.
When his text came in response to hers, almost instantly, to say that he’d look forward to coming out on the road with her next Friday, Jenna found herself holding her phone against her heart, leaning back against the corridor wall and closing her eyes as she let her breath out in a sigh.
She felt like a teenager who’d just been asked on a date by the boy she’d had a crush on for ever.
It felt a lot like she might be falling in love with Andrew Mitchell which was most definitely not supposed to be happening.
But what if it was?
A new thought occurred to Jenna and it seemed like her entire body wanted to consider it. What if Mitch felt the same way she did about not wanting children in his life? They wouldn’t need to consider anything as formal as marriage or anything but it was quite possible to imagine their connection lasting...well...for ever...?
* * *
One look at the sky as Mitch headed towards London early on a Friday made him think that if he was sensible, he’d be staying at home on his day off. It was clearly going to be stormy and the forecast had warnings of possible thunder-or even hail-storms. He could have caught up on some shopping and housework and then had a fire going so that the house was lovely and warm for when Ollie got home from school but no...he was on his way to spend a day with Jenna and there would probably be a spate of the kind of road accidents that always came with bad weather. He remembered the chaos that could accumulate back in his days in the emergency department but he’d been working inside where it was nice and dry.
Today he’d be working outside and could be getting miserably cold and wet where it would be so much harder to do something like inserting an IV or splinting a fracture and...and he hadn’t felt this happy in a very long time.
He’d found himself thinking about Jenna rather a lot between the times they spent together. Sometimes he’d remember how much he enjoyed a particular conversation with her or how impressive it was to watch her work. Other times, he could remember just an expression on her face, the way a brief glance had made him feel so good or...oh, help...the feel and taste of her skin in those secret places. Mitch had to blow out a slow breath as what was becoming a very familiar shaft of sensation came from nowhere and obliterated any other coherent thought.
Fortunately it only lasted for as long as it took to blink but the echoes were still astonishingly strong. He must have felt the same way with Tegan but it was so long ago he couldn’t really remember. This—with Jenna—felt completely new. Amazing enough to remind him of what it had been like to discover sex as a teenager. Important enough to create a hint of something that felt like nervousness because he didn’t want it to stop anytime soon.
Anytime at all...?
The first spots of rain spattered his windscreen as Mitch merged with Greater London commuters. The red traffic lights ahead took so long to change from red to green that he could allow his thoughts to wander again. There was no real reason for this ‘no strings’ relationship with Jenna to end, was there? Not if Jenna was getting as much out of it as he was. Maybe...one day...he might even be able to introduce her to Ollie.
Mitch knew she might not want children to interfere with her career and that was fair enough, but he also knew that she was good with them—he’d seen the way she’d been with that little girl, Kirsty, the granddaughter of the man who’d been so badly injured in that hit and run. He’d been caught, not only by how easily he’d seen her win the trust of that frightened child but the way she’d looked with Kirsty in her arms. That moment when Jenna had given her a cuddle and the expression on her face when she’d looked up and caught his gaze.
It had only been for a heartbeat but, for that instant, Jenna had looked more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her. As if she’d been spotted doing something she didn’t want anyone else to see. It hadn’t been the first time that Mitch had wondered if there was a reason other than her career that had shaped Jenna’s decision not to have children but now, sitting here at a traffic light, was the first time it occurred to him that she might feel differently about having a child that wasn’t her own in her life.
That it was just possible she might welcome it?
Ollie would adore Jenna. She was funny and smart and clever and she could connect with children effortlessly.
Good grief...was he actually thinking the unthinkable? That there might be a future for him and Jenna?
Mitch brushed the thought aside as the line of cars ahead of him started to move and it was raining hard enough for his automatic wipers to speed up. One step at a time, he told himself. This thing could fizzle out as quickly as it had begun. But if it didn’t...well...who knew?
* * *
It wasn’t the first time that Jenna and Mitch had been despatched as first responders to a cardiac arrest and they both knew they could work seamlessly for the intense period of trying to resuscitate someone who was hovering much closer to death than life. To do it in the middle of a building site, with the man’s employees trying to hold tarpaulins over the medics, certainly made it more of a challenge as they performed CPR, got the electrodes in place and then defibrillated their patient but it also made it more satisfying to have brought him back to a perfusing rhythm by the time the first available ambulance back-up arrived to transport the man to hospital.
Cranking up the heat in the rapid response vehicle to full strength helped dry Mitch and Jenna’s wet clothing and warm them up on the way to their next call which was a multi-vehicle crash. The traffic was backed up for miles around the scene by the time they got near the area and even Jenna’s inventive driving tricks couldn’t have got them through without the assistance of police units forcing a way through for a fire truck.
They got wet again all too quickly as they moved between the vehicles involved to triage at least a dozen people but, while some people involved in the accident would need transport to hospit
al for moderate injuries, nobody was seriously hurt which meant that the rapid response vehicle could leave the scene and be available for the next call.
Jenna’s dark curls were plastered against her forehead as she climbed back into the driver’s seat and she could feel drips rolling down her neck.
‘The weather’s vile,’ she declared, reaching to unclip the microphone on the dashboard to radio through their availability. ‘Had enough yet?’
‘Nope.’ He was grinning back at her. ‘I’m loving it. Bit of rain has never melted anybody that I’ve heard of.’
He held her gaze when he’d stopped speaking and, for some reason, Jenna’s finger resisted pushing the button on the microphone to open communication. Mitch clearly was loving this but there was another very clear message in his eyes and it wasn’t just the challenging work conditions that were making him so happy.
It was because he was with her.
That briefest of moments was enough to let Jenna know she felt the same way. More importantly, that this was what she’d wanted all along and that, despite convincing herself that it was only something physical missing from her life, she was actually ready for a lot more than that.
As scary as it was, she was ready to embrace life again. Because holding Mitch’s gaze for another heartbeat was long enough for questions to be both asked and answered.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Yes.
Can we trust this?
Yes...
They both broke that eye contact then, as if they needed privacy to absorb that something huge was changing here. Jenna sucked in a breath and pushed the button on the side of the microphone.
‘Rapid Response One to Control. We’re available.’
‘Roger that’ came the response. ‘You can head back to station.’
‘Yay...’ Jenna started the engine. ‘Let’s stop at that nice coffee shop on the way and get some cake as well. I reckon we deserve it, don’t you?’
Stolen Nights with the Single Dad Page 7