Emma didn't need Simon in her life. Didn't want him. Especially not now, when this new phase of her relationship with Tom had coloured her life with the hope of permanent happiness.
She was confident this hadn't happened simply because she had been in need of the comfort Tom could provide or the reassurance that she was attractive in the wake of any hurtful comments or attitude from Simon. The seeds of this relationship had been planted long ago—when Tom had laid his life on the line to save both Mickey and herself.
Mickey had no need of his birth father in his life either. He was as happy as Emma had ever known him to be. If he'd noticed that his mother was no longer using the other single bed in his room, he made no comment. Emma had always been up earlier and had gone to bed much later so it was possible that the change had not yet registered. Mickey certainly noticed instantly if Max wasn't lying beside his bed ready to watch over him as he slept. When the small boy woke each morning and saw Max waiting to start the new day with him, his face would crinkle into the broadest smile possible.
Everybody seemed to be smiling a lot in Tom's house these days and Emma revelled in the cause. Tom's love-making was as wonderful as everything else about him. She had discovered a depth to a relationship that she hadn't believed possible.
This wasn't just physical attraction, the way it had been with Simon. And it certainly wasn't just having the basis of a close friendship that made it new. Somehow the two factors melded to produce a total that was infinitely greater than the sum the components should have been able to produce.
It was magic.
So was the way the happiness seemed to spread itself around. Phoebe noticed within a week that something had changed between Tom and Emma. She managed to restrain herself from commenting while they were sharing an evening meal but she was clearly excited and kept Mickey amused with incessant chatter.
'I'm going to Australia soon,' she told him. 'I'm having a holiday with my flatmates. Shall I bring you back a kangaroo?'
'What's a kangaroo?'
'A big animal that jumps and it has a pocket in its tummy.'
'What for?'
'To keep its lunch in, of course.'
Tom pointed his fork at his sister. 'Let's try and keep things at least partly accurate, Phoebs. You're warping an impressionable mind here.'
'The pouch is for the baby kangaroo to live in,' Emma said. 'We'll find a book about it.'
'There's lunch in there for the baby kangaroo,' Phoebe said in a stage whisper to Mickey. 'Honest!'
'You're all set for your holiday, then?' Tom asked.
'Almost. We've just got to find someone to feed the cat and water all the plants.'
'Get Mum to do it,' Tom suggested. 'Or I could.'
'I don't trust you,' Phoebe informed him cheerfully. 'And Mum hates driving all the way across town. We'll come back to find everything's dead.'
'I'll do it,' Emma offered. 'I know where you live.'
'Oh, would you?' Phoebe's face lit up. 'That would be fantastic. Are you sure you wouldn't mind?'
'Of course not. You've been wonderful to me and Mickey. I'd be delighted to be able to help.'
'Sold,' Phoebe declared. 'To the highest bidder.' She watched as Tom cleared their empty plates and moved to the sink. Then her gaze moved purposefully back to Emma. 'Are you two.. .you know...?'
The meaningful tilt of her head towards her brother's back made the subject of her question unmistakable. Emma was thankful that Tom swung around before she could decide how best to respond.
'Yes,' he told Phoebe. He gave her an equally meaningful headshake with the direction of his gaze reminding her that Mickey was still at the table.
Phoebe beamed at Emma. 'Excellent! So you'll be coming to Mum's for family dinner on Sunday?'
'Um...' Would Tom want to take the step of drawing her closer to his family? It seemed like a significant step.
'Would you like to come, Em?' Tom's tone was deceptively casual and his expression was unreadable.
Yes. This was a step forward and Emma felt suddenly nervous. While Tom seemed as happy as she had been in the last week with the development between them, their relationship was still very new and possibly fragile. He hadn't made any reference to future plans and Emma wasn't about to broach the subject. This was a time for enjoying each day as it came. Cementing the new bond they had without putting undue pressure on it.
'If it's not going to be a big deal for your mum,' Emma said a little ambiguously, 'that would be lovely.'
'I want to come, too,' Mickey said.
'Of course you can come.' Phoebe nodded. 'My mum's kept every toy we ever had when we were kids. They're all in boxes, just waiting for a little boy to come and play with them.' She grinned at Tom. 'This might even let us off the hook about producing umpteen grandchildren in the foreseeable future.'
Emma saw the look that passed between the siblings and a faint warning bell sounded in the back of her mind as Tom resumed rinsing the dinner dishes. She remembered Tom's relieved reference to having avoided children so far in his life. He seemed more than happy to accept Mickey but if they stayed together, did that mean her son would never have even half-siblings?
Did that matter?
Did loving someone the way Emma suspected she loved Tom have to automatically include having a baby together? Judging by the disappointment that threatened to spoil the mood of the evening, it seemed to. It was one of probably many things that she and Tom would have to talk about. When the time was tight, though, and that certainly wasn't right now.
'Can Max come, too?' Mickey was demanding.
'No.' Tom shook his head firmly. 'Sorry, Mickey, but Mum's got a little white dog that hates Max. She tries to bite him.'
Mickey looked alarmed. 'Will she try to bite me, too?'
'No way, kiddo.' Phoebe stood up and bent down to Mickey's chair. 'Don't you worry. If it even shows its teeth, I'll turn it into a fluffy white football and kick it out the door.'
'Phoebe!' Tom chided.
But Mickey was giggling and holding his arms up to be carried. 'Playtime,' he ordered Phoebe.
She picked him up and grinned at Emma over the child's shoulder. 'I won't hype him up too much before bedtime, I promise.'
'That's cool.'
'And thanks so much for the offer to feed the cat and stuff. You're great.'
'It'll be a pleasure.'
'I'll give you a key when I see you at Mum's on Sunday.'
Tom filled the kettle and plugged it in. 'You sure about Sunday, Em? You want to meet my mother and her horrible little dog?'
Emma smiled and kept her tone light. 'Only if you're happy about it, Tom.'
Tom didn't smile back but Emma could read the warmth in his eyes. 'I'd love you to come,' he assured her. 'Mum's going to be so pleased to finally meet you. And Mickey.'
Jan Gardiner was indeed delighted to welcome Emma and her son. The family heirloom toys were a huge success and by the end of the evening Mickey was calling Tom's mother 'Nanna' and Jan was begging Emma to let her care for Mickey on at least some of the occasions he would normally go to the day-care centre.
'I know he has friends there,' she said, 'but I have friends who meet when they've got their grandchildren for the day and I've been dying to be included!'
Tom and Phoebe rolled their eyes behind her back but Emma seemed happy to take the offer on board and Mickey was only too pleased with the prospect of opening the boxes of toys again.
Phoebe gave Tom yet another significant look which Tom ignored. OK, so Emma seemed to like his mother and Mickey had been a cute addition to the regular family gathering, but that didn't mean he had to propose to Emma immediately, did it?
It wasn't as if he wasn't thinking about doing exactly that. Rather too much, in fact. The desire to weave Emma and her son into his life on a permanent basis had been fierce ever since he had woken up that morning with the utter contentment of finding Emma still in his bed.
Repeating the astonishing pleasure of mak
ing love to Emma wasn't diminishing the excitement and satisfaction Tom experienced. If anything, it just got better and better. It was infusing his whole life. He couldn't stop smiling and everyone noticed.
'You look happy,' Josh told him accusingly.
'I am happy,' Tom admitted. 'Is that a problem?'
'The weather's awful. We've just had a callout to a boat rescue and a winch job is not going to be fun in these conditions. You can't be that happy.'
'Well, I am.'
'Fine. You can do the dangling, then. You won't look so happy if you break your leg, landing on a rough deck.'
'I'm not so sure about that.' Tom couldn't resist teasing Josh by grinning broadly. 'But I'm happy to do the winch and I won't break my leg. You can stay nice and dry in the chopper.'
Josh handed him the harness. 'Cool.' He zipped up his overalls over the thermal undergarments they needed for a job at sea. 'It's that woman, isn't it? The one who's living with you.'
'What is?'
'The reason you're looking so damned pleased with yourself all the time.'
'Could be.' Tom jammed his helmet on and followed Josh towards the helicopter pad. His smile was inward this time because he didn't want to irritate his partner any further. 'Could well be.'
Winching onto a relatively small yacht on a moderately heavy sea was certainly not fun. It was fraught. Fortunately there were enough people on board the pleasure craft to help make the process a little safer.
A weighted 'Hi-line' was deployed first from the helicopter and the skipper of the yacht knew not to attach it to any part of his vessel.
Tom attached a supply kit and nappy harness to an extension on the winch hook. It would be a lot faster to evacuate their patient with the harness rather than a stretcher, and from the information they'd been given it sounded like the middle-aged man had suffered a heart attack. He had severe chest pain and nausea. He might have had heart failure going on already by the sound of symptoms like swollen ankles and difficulty breathing. The sooner they could get him on board the helicopter and on the way to hospital, the better.
Emma was working today as well, so a trip to transfer a patient to the emergency department was more than welcome as far as Tom was concerned. He loved seeing her at work. Checking the attachment to the items he was carrying before he leaned out on the skids, Tom had another reminder of Emma. The last time he had used a nappy harness had been during her rescue.
It had been way too big for Mickey. He'd ended up holding his tiny victim during that rather unconventional rescue mission. Tom could remember the feel of holding him very clearly. Was that because the rescue had been so dangerous or was it because he was so used to picking the small boy up and carrying him around now? So used to hearing that infectious gurgle of laughter and living in the chaos and noise children could create. His house would seem dead without Mickey now.
Maybe he and Emma could have some children of their own. Brothers and sisters for Mickey. Tom was sure Mickey would love that. And Max would be in heaven, but this was not the time to be thinking in terms of anything more than the very immediate future. The deck of the yacht was looming steadily nearer, rolling with the sea, which made the wooden deck recede and then move upwards again in a disconcerting fashion.
'Minus twenty...' he told Josh as he estimated the distance left to travel downwards. 'Fifteen...'
'Back and left to target,' he heard Josh telling Terry, the pilot.
The weighted line that had been initially deployed from the helicopter was used to pull Tom in slowly from where he hung a safe distance from the side of the boat, timing the final part of his descent with care.
'Minus four,' he warned Josh. 'Wait for the next wave... Right, minus three.. .two...' And then his feet connected to the deck and he staggered forward, reaching to unclip his winch hook at the same time.
'Where's the patient?' he asked the skipper. 'And is he still conscious?'
'Yes, but he's not looking too flash.'
'What's his name?'
'John.'
Tom eased his gear through the door to the sleeping compartment. 'Hey, John, I'm Tom,' he introduced himself. 'How are you feeling?'
'Not so good.'
Tom was still adjusting to the dimmer light of the yacht's cabin. 'Have you got any history of cardiac problems?'
'No. Never had a sick day in my life.'
'You're forty-nine, yes?'
'Yes.'
'How's your breathing at the moment?'
'I'm feeling pretty puffed.'
Tom could see the rapid respiratory rate his patient's chest movement was advertising. With his fingers on John's wrist he could also feel how hard his heart was working. And he noticed something else.
'Have you been scuba-diving in the last forty-eight hours, John?'
'Yes.'
'We all went diving.' John's wife was sitting on the opposite bunk. 'That's what this cruise has been about. We've been down almost every day. Nothing too deep and the last dive was only to about fifteen metres.'
'DCI can occur even during shallow dives,' Tom said. 'We certainly can't rule it out as a cause for John's symptoms.' He looked again at the mottled skin on his patient's arm. 'Is your skin itchy?'
'It's driving me nuts.'
'How long has it been this blotchy?'
'Is it?' John lifted his arm. 'I hadn't noticed. Mind you, my eyes don't feel right.'
'In what way?'
'Everything's kinda blurry.'
The chest pain and nausea could well have a cardiac cause. So could the swollen ankles and difficulty breathing but mottled, itchy skin didn't fit. Decompression sickness was more likely. Tom spoke to Josh through his radio.
'We need the stretcher down here, mate. I don't want to position John upright in the harness. Looks like DCI.'
He turned to the skipper. 'I'll need your help. We'll have to send the lines down again and bring a stretcher on board.'
'Isn't it more important to get John away to hospital?' his wife asked anxiously. 'It's going to take a lot more time with the stretcher, isn't it?'
'It's important we keep John completely flat.'
'Why?'
'Did they teach you about decompression sickness in the diving course you did?'
'I guess. I don't remember.'
'Well, the reason people get sick is that the gases they breathe underwater get absorbed into the bloodstream. Nitrogen gets transformed into little bubbles as the diver comes up to the surface and those bubbles can lodge in body tissues and enter the bloodstream.'
'But we didn't come up too quickly. We followed all the rules really carefully.'
'Yeah. We sure did.' The skipper was looking as worried as John's wife, now.
'It can happen anyway,' Tom told them. 'And the reason we need to keep John flat and use the stretcher is to stop any of those nitrogen bubbles getting into his brain.' He listened to the message he was receiving and , nodded at the yacht's skipper. 'Josh is sending down the stretcher. I'm going to get some oxygen going for John and then we'll go and get it.'
High-flow oxygen was the main treatment Tom could offer his patient until they could get him to a hyperbaric chamber. IV fluids were also important to counteract the damage nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream could be causing. Apart from that, there was little Tom could do apart from giving pain relief. He would be happier once he was on board the helicopter and could add cardiac monitoring to his investigations, but he was confident they were dealing with a case of the 'bends.'
And that meant they had an issue in flying John to hospital. An altitude of greater than three hundred metres above sea level could exacerbate the condition by making the gas bubbles expand, but flying really low was only possible until they got to shore.
'We'll need road back-up,' Tom warned Terry.' Can you co-ordinate landing at the nearest beach to the hospital?'
'Sure. No problem.'
And it wasn't a problem. Just a disappointment because it meant that Tom would be handing ov
er their patient to a road-based crew and he wouldn't have any time in the emergency department on this job. He'd probably have to wait until he got home to see Emma again.
It was on the beach, a commendably short time later, when Tom watched the ambulance pull away with its beacons flashing, that the desire to see Emma became unbearably powerful.
Not just to catch a moment or two during working hours, to share a look or a smile that no one else could share. Tom wanted to see Emma every day...for the rest of his life.
He wanted to make a commitment. To let her know how much he loved her. To find the only way he could think of that could offer some security for their future together.
Tom was going to ask Emma to marry him.
Today.
As soon as he finished his shift.
Emma was rostered on until a little later than he was for once and Tom had already arranged to collect her from the hospital. With a bit of luck they would have enough time together on their way to pick up Mickey for Tom to tell Emma exactly how he felt about her.
To propose marriage for the first, and hopefully only, time in his life.
Being nervous about taking such a big step was only to be expected, but Tom was surprised by his level of trepidation by the time he walked into ED a little after 6 p.m.
What if Emma said no? If she needed more time to trust him and what they had together? What if this relationship was a rebound phenomenon for her and she still hadn't given up on Mickey's father?
Emma was nowhere to be seen in the department, which served to fuel Tom's nervousness. It wasn't until he spotted her coming from the direction of the sluice room that the knot in his gut began to loosen. When she saw him waiting, Emma's face lit up with surprise and then pleasure and she smiled at him so happily Tom felt a wash of love that took him to a place he'd never been before. He knew his plan of action was the right one to take.
The only one.
And surely he couldn't feel this strongly if he had any genuine reason to doubt that Emma felt the same way.
Tom smiled back. He waited until she was close enough for any conversation they might have to be private and then he broke their unspoken rule of not making their relationship too obvious during working hours.
A Father Beyond Compare Page 10