It was a roller-coaster ride like no other.
A ride that had all the excitement of the kind of adrenaline rush that a brush with danger could deliver. But it was so much more than that. So much deeper.
It was like the thrill of danger while being wrapped up in the safest place imaginable. Within the circle of strong arms that could protect you from anything and gentle hands that could coax a thrill into pure ecstasy. It tapped into longings that Fizz would never admit to having, even to herself. And she didn’t need to, because this kind of closeness, despite being only temporary, was enough to satisfy any unspoken longing.
* * *
Once wasn’t enough for either of them so it was no real surprise when Fizz eventually caught a glimpse of her digital clock and found it was nearly three a.m.
‘Oh, no...’
‘What?’ Cooper lifted his head from the pillow at her tone.
‘I have to be on base at six a.m.’
‘Me, too. Hey...maybe we’ll get crewed together.’
Fizz wriggled out of the circle of Cooper’s arms enough to be able to prop herself up on one elbow.
‘People can’t know,’ she warned.
‘They might notice,’ Cooper said. ‘If we’re, like...on the same helicopter together.’
‘I don’t mean work. I mean what happens out of work stays out of work, okay? I don’t want anyone thinking I jumped on the new guy two minutes after he arrived. That’s hardly professional. You never know, I might want to apply for one of the full-time HEMS positions one day.’
‘I think the truth is more like we jumped on each other.’ Cooper smiled. ‘And it’s been two weeks, not two minutes.’
‘And that makes it okay?’
‘I reckon.’ Cooper was smiling again.
‘What are you looking so pleased about?’ Fizz frowned. ‘I mean it, Coop. I don’t want people talking about us. Speculating that this is anything more than what it is.’
‘Which is?’
Fizz sighed. ‘An inexplicable but apparently irresistible attraction between two adults who are entitled to do what they like as long as they’re not hurting anyone else.’
‘Ah... That sounds like an eloquent description.’
‘Why are you still smiling?’
‘Because...’ Cooper reached out to brush a long lock of Fizz’s hair back from her face and tuck it behind her bare shoulder. ‘I thought it might be a one-off kind of thing for you and I’m happy that you’re not using the past tense when you’re talking about it. You said “happens” out of work, not “happened”.’
‘I don’t do one-night stands,’ Fizz told him. ‘That’s tacky.’
‘But you don’t do long term, either.’
‘Define long term?’
‘A relationship.’
‘No, that’s true.’ Fizz lay back against her pillow with another sigh. ‘I don’t do relationships. They imply a shared future. Making plans. I did that, once. I have the T-shirt. The one that says “It doesn’t matter what anybody promises you even when you trust them to keep those promises—the future’s not a given, and it can disappear in the blink of an eye”. And it can make your whole life feel like it’s disappeared along with it. I’m not about to go through that again. Ever.’
‘So...’ Cooper sounded thoughtful. ‘If this wasn’t a one-night stand and it’s not the start of a relationship, what is it?’
‘Does it need a label? It is what it is. Living for the moment and enjoying something while it lasts. Moving on with no regrets when it stops being fun.’ She rested her head against his shoulder. ‘That’s not a bad thing, is it?’
‘Hell, no...sounds like every man’s dream.’
‘Because you don’t do relationships, either?’
‘I didn’t say that, exactly. I said I wasn’t looking for one.’
‘But you’ve had them before? You’re not like some international playboy type? Breaking hearts left, right and centre all over the world by delivering fabulous sex and then moving on?’ Not that she believed a word of what she was suggesting. Cooper Sinclair was in no way a playboy type. He was too solid. Too sincere.
His laughter was a deep rumble in his chest that Fizz could feel as much as hear.
‘Fabulous, huh?’ His hand moved to slide across her body, brushing her breasts gently. Fizz should have been sated to the point of total exhaustion but the tendrils of sensation that his touch created told her that she was wrong. She might have had enough for one night but, overall, she hadn’t had nearly enough of being with this man. ‘And there I was, thinking that you were the fabulous one.’
‘Hmm... Are you trying to avoid answering my question?’
‘About relationships? No. I’ve moved around too much for anything to get serious. I’m nowhere near ready to settle down. Or maybe I’ve just got a short attention span. I’m always looking for a new adventure. A new challenge.’
A beat of something like anxiety caught Fizz. She had no idea how long it might take for the novelty of this new and astonishing type of physical adventure to wear off because she’d never experienced it before. How long would someone with a short attention span want it to continue before they were off looking for a new challenge?
‘As long as they’re safe, huh?’ Fizz murmured. ‘I wasn’t a bit surprised that you carry condoms in your wallet, you know.’
‘You wouldn’t take risks with sex, would you?’ He sounded worried.
‘Of course not.’ Fizz could feel her eyes starting to drift shut. ‘I don’t take stupid risks, you know. They’re always well calculated.’
‘Hmm...’
‘You really got affected by that guy, didn’t you?’
‘What guy?’
‘The one you worked with that you told me about. The partner who didn’t follow the safety rules and got killed?’
‘Ah...yeah, you could say that. He wasn’t someone I worked with, though.’
Fizz was on the verge of falling asleep. ‘Who was he, then?’
‘My brother,’ Cooper said, very quietly. ‘My twin brother.’
The possibility of sleep vanished in an instant. Fizz felt her whole body tense, becoming alert as if a sudden danger had presented itself, but holding very still, as if it was trying to decide between fight or flight as a response to something shocking.
Fizz chose neither of those reactions. Instead, she turned her head to press her face against Cooper’s chest. To feel his heartbeat beneath her cheek and the softness of his skin beneath her lips.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I can only imagine how hard that must have been for you.’
‘I think you know better than most people,’ Cooper responded.
His arm pulled her a little closer and then they both lay there in silence. They should be trying to catch some sleep before they needed to go to work. Cooper needed to get home and be able to go to work in his own vehicle so that people wouldn’t guess he’d hooked up with a work colleague so soon after arriving at a new job.
But this was a connection that Fizz didn’t want to break.
For her own sake as much as for Cooper’s.
No wonder it felt like he ‘got’ her more than other people did. He knew exactly what it was like to lose someone you were that close to. Someone you’d believed would be a huge part of the rest of your life.
This was a connection that was way more powerful than sharing a passion for their careers. Or the fact that sexually they were apparently a perfect match. This went so much deeper. Soul deep, in fact, because they both knew what it was like to have your world destroyed and have to pick it up again, piece by tiny piece. To come out of that process with the kind of scars that made it feel that it would be impossible to ever get that close to anybody else, ever again.
To have that in common made this even more perfect. Neithe
r of them was looking for anything serious because they both had barriers that were too strong to let that happen. They could, however, enjoy each other’s company. Enjoy working and playing together. Living for the moment and enjoying every single one of them.
She didn’t break the silence between them by asking questions about what had happened to cause such a tragedy. If Cooper wanted to tell her, he would. Right now, he seemed content to simply hold her close. She could hear his breathing slowing and his muscles softening. Maybe he was already asleep. Her alarm was set so Fizz decided she could do that, too. Sink into a couple of hours of sheer bliss, sleeping in the warmth and safety of Cooper’s arms.
Content in the conviction that this might have been the first time they had been together like this but it wasn’t going to be the last. Not if she had any choice in the matter, anyway.
* * *
How did Fizz pull that off?
Cooper was onto his second cup of Shirley’s excellent coffee before he’d began feeling like he was totally on top of his game but Fizz looked as if she’d enjoyed a solid eight hours’ sleep instead of the two and half they’d finally managed. Her face positively glowed and her eyes sparkled.
It had been a mad dash in the early hours of this morning so that he could get home and shower and then take his own vehicle to the base, as if nothing untoward had happened last night. As if he hadn’t experienced the most mind-blowing sex of his entire adult life. He could still feel the physical connection between himself and Fizz—a kind of hum in the air that got more powerful the closer their bodies were to each other’s, like when he walked past where she was sitting to put his coffee mug into the dishwasher.
‘Have you had enough to eat, love?’ Shirley asked.
‘More than enough, thanks, Shirley. And you make the best porridge I’ve ever tasted.’
‘Oh, go on with you...’ Shirley flapped her tea towel in his direction but her cheeks were pink with pleasure. ‘I don’t have a drop of Scottish blood in me but I do know to soak the oats overnight.’
Cooper walked back past Fizz, who was reading the newspaper at the table and not taking any more notice of him than she normally would. Nobody here could possibly have any idea what had happened between them last night and if Fizz wanted to keep it a secret, that was fine by him. It made it all the more exciting, in fact.
He paused this time, however. To look over her shoulder and read the headline on the front page of the paper. It wasn’t that he was particularly interested in the news, he was simply enjoying that electric hum in the air between them and wanted to test that crescendo effect. And, yes, as soon as he got a whiff of the scent of Fizz’s hair, it went off the Richter scale. Even better, when he saw Fizz closing her eyes in a long blink and taking in a breath as if she was smelling a particularly pleasant perfume, he knew that she was just as aware of the hum as he was.
It was Maggie she turned to speak to, however.
‘How’s Harrison this morning?’
‘He was still asleep when I left. Poor little guy, he was a bit miserable last night when they got back from the hospital. Laura’s taken a couple of days off work until he can get his light cast on and goes back to school. It’s a stress she really doesn’t need, so I said I’d do dinner tonight for everyone.’ Maggie glanced up at Cooper. ‘Will you be home?’
‘I can’t think of any reason I wouldn’t be.’
One of Maggie’s eyebrows rose and Cooper’s heart sank a little. Had she been aware of him creeping back into the shared house this morning? Laura might well have told her that he and Fizz had gone out to dinner together. But Maggie was smiling as she turned her gaze back to Fizz.
‘You’re welcome, too, of course. I’m thinking tacos. And Mexican beer.’
‘Count me in.’ Fizz reached for her pager as the warning signal of an incoming call sounded in the staffroom.
Cooper’s pager sounded at the same moment and, for the first time this morning, they made direct eye contact with each other that lasted more than a split second.
With a beat of what had to be relief, he realised that the hum had been switched off as effectively as if someone had pulled a plug from a socket. The awareness of being so close, along with the memories of that unbelievable physical connection they’d discovered, had been dismissed. This was work, and he was lucky enough to be crewed with Fizz, who was one of the best in this business. That tiny instant of eye contact before they both headed towards the helipad told him that Fizz was in exactly the same frame of mind. A totally professional space where anything personal that could interfere with their performance was simply not allowed. Didn’t exist, even.
* * *
The call was to a small coastal community isolated enough for the first response emergency team to have been the local fire service. The house was so close to the beach that the damp sand was the obvious place to land.
‘Tide’s well out but we’ll need to keep an eye on time,’ Andy warned them.
One of the fire officers was waiting for Cooper and Fizz as they scrambled through sand dunes and tussocks on the edge of the beach.
‘Sorry to call you all the way out here,’ he said. ‘There may not be much you can do.’
‘Oh?’ Fizz frowned. ‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s tricky. Ken—who runs a grocery store in the nearest town—made a delivery for them this morning and he was the one who called for help.’
They were almost out of the dunes now, heading for a small house that looked like a typical New Zealand bach, or holiday house, with bleached wooden cladding and a corrugated-iron roof.
‘So what’s the problem?’ Cooper asked.
‘It’s a young couple living here. Tim and Sarah Poulson. He’s terminal. Pancreatic cancer. Apparently he’s got a legally drawn-up “Do Not Resuscitate” order but Ken decided it’s not right and something needs to be done. The local doctor got called but both he and the district nurse are tied up with a woman having a baby at the moment. The doc said if Tim’s as bad as Ken seems to think he is, then maybe some extra help is needed.’
Fizz could now see a van parked in front of a fire engine on an unsealed road behind the tiny house and a man who was pacing back and forth, flanked by another two fire officers. She caught Cooper’s glance as they got closer.
This was not like any job she’d been to before. She couldn’t just rush in, geared up to save a life, because that clearly wasn’t going to be possible. Even prolonging the life of this patient might not be the right thing to do. Disconcertingly, Fizz felt a little unsure of how to tackle this job.
Cooper didn’t seem the least bit unsure. He went straight to the pacing man and put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Ken?’
‘Yeah... Thank goodness you got here so fast. He can hardly breathe, man...and it’s...pretty horrible.’
Cooper nodded. ‘Thanks for letting us know. We’ve got this now, okay? You don’t need to worry. We’ll do whatever’s needed to help.’
Ken rubbed his forehead with his hand. ‘Thanks... I... I couldn’t just leave them like that, you know?’
‘I know.’ Cooper patted his shoulder. ‘It’s okay. You did the right thing.’
‘But there’s nothing more you can do, Ken,’ one of the fire officers put in. ‘Time you went home now, eh?’
Ken turned to stare at the front door of the house.
‘It’s okay,’ Cooper said again. ‘We’ve got this.’
Did they? Fizz followed Cooper through a garden of seaside plants, decorated with driftwood sculptures, and onto a porch that had a veranda festooned with windchimes made of shells. Normally, she would lead a crew into any scene she’d been called to, but this time she stayed half a pace behind Cooper because he seemed so calm. Confident. In complete control.
He took off his backpack of gear and left it on the veranda before tapping lightly on the door. F
izz followed his example with her pack. A quick glance over her shoulder, as she did so, showed her the delivery van was leaving and that the fire officers were all staying near their truck. She and Cooper were being left to deal with this situation alone.
‘Sarah?’ Cooper’s call was quiet as he stepped inside. ‘Air Rescue here. I’m Cooper and I’ve got Fizz, who’s a doctor, with me.’
‘Oh, no...’ A young woman, probably only in her early twenties, appeared at an internal door. Her long blonde hair was hanging loose and her pale face was streaked with tears. ‘I told Ken not to call anybody. Please...we just need to be left alone...’ She covered her face with her hands and started sobbing.
Without hesitation, Cooper stepped forward and took her into his arms.
‘It’s okay,’ he said softly. ‘We’re here to help you. And Tim, if he needs it, of course, but you as well. Have you got someone here supporting you?’
She shook her head. ‘We...we decided that we wanted it to be...to be just the two of us when it came to the end...’ She tried, and failed, to stifle another sob. ‘But Ken told me it wasn’t right. That I had no right to just...to just let Tim suffer like this...’
Cooper kept his arm around Sarah’s shoulders. ‘Where is he?’ he asked. ‘We can check him for you. We can see if he’s in any pain and do something to help that.’
‘He’s been on a morphine pump for weeks now. And fentanyl patches. He was awake a while ago and we watched the sun come up together and he said he wasn’t in any pain but...he’s not awake now and his breathing sounds awful...’
The main room of this small house had sliding doors that made the whole wall glass and it provided a view across the sand dunes and out to sea. The doors were open a little and the wash of the waves breaking created a gentle background song. A big bed had been positioned in the centre of the room where Sarah’s husband, Tim, was propped up on pillows.
Resisting Her Rescue Doc Page 9