‘So we’ll give him a bath. We couldn’t leave him behind. Bastard Bill was on his way to have him put down.’
‘Hmm.’ Further conversation had revealed that Bill’s mother had gone into a rest home recently and her dog, a six-year-old motley cross between a Labrador and a poodle, had been locked up in Bill’s garage because his wife refused to have him in the house. His messy search for food or a distraction in the rubbish bags that morning had been the last straw and Bill had been summoned home from work to deal with it. The SPCA would have been an alternative to having the dog destroyed, but Jason and Oscar had clearly formed a bond.
‘A dog is a big responsibility,’ Laura felt obliged to remind him. ‘Might not be easy keeping one with shift work.’
‘Be a darned sight easier than looking after a baby,’ Jason declared. ‘And kids need a dog around.’
Again, they both ignored the obvious and Jason sat in the back seat with the smelly dog while Laura drove them home. Oscar had to stay outside until later that evening, but as soon as Megan was settled Jason unearthed all the old towels he could find and ran a bath full of warm water.
‘Will dishwashing liquid be OK?’
‘I think baby shampoo might be better.’
‘Hey, good idea! I should have thought of that for your bath.’
‘You didn’t!’
‘Didn’t what?’
‘Put dishwashing liquid in my bath.’
‘It needed bubbles. Worked quite well, I thought.’
‘No wonder my skin’s been feeling so dry all week.’
‘Bet it was squeaky clean, though.’
‘You’re impossible.’ Laura laughed. ‘But never mind. Let’s see if we can get Oscar squeaky clean, shall we?’
Oscar didn’t take kindly to being bathed. He shook the offending substance off frequently enough to soak the walls, floor, Jason and Laura. It took six towels to get him reasonably dry, and by then the dog was so tired out by the trauma of it all he curled up on the pile of damp towels and went very firmly to sleep.
‘I know how he feels,’ Jason groaned. ‘I’m heading for bed as soon as I’ve dried off as well.’ He stripped his soaked T-shirt off and was about to drop it on the floor when he caught Laura’s stare. She had taken her glasses off because of the rain effect of Oscar’s shaking, but even the depth of colour in her brown eyes wasn’t enough to conceal the dilation of her pupils. The sight of a pink tongue tip running over her lower lip confirmed what Jason was thinking. The heavy T-shirt slipped from his fingers, unheeded. His mates were right. Laura did fancy him.
His gaze didn’t stop at her face. Laura’s T-shirt was as wet as his had been and it clung to her breasts. Jason dragged his gaze back up to her face and the moment the eye contact was renewed he realised the truth. Any attraction here was mutual. For a long moment they simply stared at each other. And then Jason reached out.
‘You’d better get that T-shirt off,’ he murmured. ‘You’ll catch a cold.’
He helped her. It was Jason that dropped the damp garment. This time as their gazes caught Jason was much closer, and it was so easy to bend his head and kiss Laura’s upturned face.
One kiss was not enough. It could never have been enough. Jason could taste things he’d never thought it was possible to taste. All the things he liked about Laura were there—her kindness and loyalty, her intelligence and warmth. Her humour and strength. And he learned something new about Laura Green. Despite anything that appearances might have suggested, she was capable of a passion that blew his socks off.
One kiss and then another…and another. Jason’s tone when he spoke might have been cheeky but the question in his eyes was very serious.
‘I think you might catch a cold, wearing that damp bra. You’d better get it off.’
He helped her. The lacy garment went the same way as the T-shirt and this time Jason could explore the delicious softness of a body type he’d never had the pleasure of tasting before.
‘You’re gorgeous,’ he told Laura. ‘Did you know that?’
‘You’re not half bad yourself,’ she responded shyly. Then she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. ‘But I think you should get out of those damp jeans before you catch a cold.’
She helped him and Jason didn’t even bother to stifle a groan of pure desire as she tackled the button and zip. He caught her hands. ‘If you want this to stop,’ he warned, ‘it had better be now.’
The gaze from those chocolate-brown eyes was perfectly steady. ‘I don’t want it to stop,’ she said softly. ‘Do you?’
‘Hell, no!’ Jason grinned, swept Laura up into his arms and carried her towards his bedroom.
For a moment, as she lay on his bed, Jason experienced a flash of panic. Was he out of his mind? This was Laura—a mate, one of the boys, no less, and a friend he was depending on to help him through a period of crisis in his life. And then Laura smiled and reached out, drawing his head down to hers, and at the touch of her lips Jason knew he’d never been more sane in his life.
The blinding clarity with which he could suddenly see the reason for all his past romantic disasters was a revelation, drawing a sigh of contentment that mingled with Laura’s breath as Jason gave up thinking about the wisdom of what he was doing. Gave up thinking full stop, in fact, and simply allowed himself to experience, body and mind, the most wonderful sex he’d ever had.
The revelation came back later as he lay, curled around Laura’s body, listening to her soft, even breathing as she slept. It was as though he’d been trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together in the wrong order for all these years. Sex, friendship and then a lasting love. It had never worked and now he knew why.
With the friendship and trust coming first, it added a dimension to the sex that he’d never known could exist. Even with Donna, and the twelve-month relationship, by the time they’d developed any kind of trust and friendship, that initial mind-blowing lust had worn off and the friendship had faded in much the same way.
This thing with Laura was completely different. To be honest, it scared the hell out of him because, this time, he didn’t want anything to fade. The friendship or the lust. If those held together then he knew that would be the kind of love that could last a lifetime.
He’d told Laura a while back about the attributes he looked for in women. They had to be fun to be with. Adventurous. And at least reasonably intelligent. Laura was fun, no doubt about that, and her intelligence was equally unquestionable. Adventurous? How many women would demand to go slithering down a steep bank to explore a wrecked car for potential victims? Or take on the adoption of a fat, smelly dog? Or move into a virtual stranger’s house to help look after a baby, for that matter? What was any of that if it wasn’t adventurous?
This was scary all right. Jason could recognise what he’d found and, for the first time in his life, he had found something he really, really didn’t want to lose. This was it. For all these years he had been skating on the surface of life—all fun and no responsibility. He wouldn’t have taken on his current situation if he’d had any real choice in the matter, and he had to admit he wouldn’t have looked twice at Laura if he’d been on a mission to find female companionship.
Circumstances had pushed his boundaries and had had the side effect of making Jason grow up a little. He considered the sobering realisation of just how meaningless his love life had been until now. A selection of bimbos who had impressed the hell out of his colleagues, but now he could see himself through Laura’s eyes and he almost groaned aloud. No wonder she had told him he was shallow.
He was shallow. Or, at least, he had been until now. The depth to which he wanted involvement with Laura was terrifying. She had the power to hurt him very badly if she didn’t want what he could offer. And why should she on anything more than a short-term basis? Laura was so far above the kind of women he had always attracted so easily. Maybe she was too good for the likes of him to aspire to.
The fact was that Laura was out of his league i
n any category that really mattered, and Jason knew it. He’d have to work hard to win her and she wasn’t going to settle for second best. She’d walked out on a guy after living with him for two years because he hadn’t measured up. Jason couldn’t bear the thought of giving all he had and still finding he hadn’t made the grade a couple of years down the track.
How could he convince Laura that he was worth being with…for ever?
Darkness hid his smile. He had a bonus that no one else could offer. Something that Laura already loved.
He had Megan.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘WHAT is it, Tim?’ Laura paused in her task of restocking the resuscitation kit. ‘Have I sprouted horns or something?’
‘I’m trying to work out what’s so different about you.’
‘Can’t be my hair. I’ve had it like this for two weeks now.’ Laura pushed her fingers through the soft, loose waves framing her face and then shook them back into place. The pleasure of her new, free style had increased rather than worn off. ‘We need some more lancets for the blood-glucose kit,’ she told Tim. ‘And a couple of high-concentration masks.’
‘Sure. How’s the Entonox cylinder looking, seeing as you’re up that end?’
Laura leaned over the end of the stretcher she was sitting on and then laughed as her shirt came adrift from her trousers.
‘Oops. I wish my new uniform issue would come through.’ She tucked the shirt tail firmly back into place. ‘I’m getting sick of these baggy pants.’
‘You’ve lost weight.’ Tim nodded slowly. ‘Maybe that’s it.’
‘It’s not so much the weight,’ Laura told him. ‘I’ve just changed shape a bit. Toned up. It’s all the exercise I’m getting.’ She leaned more carefully towards the regulator valve of the Entonox cylinder, hoping that Tim wouldn’t notice the faint colour she could feel heating her cheeks. Jason had claimed all the credit for keeping her levels of physical activity up enough to burn off a few kilograms. He’d even looked worried.
‘You’ll turn into a stick insect in six months at this rate. Maybe we should have a night off.’
But they hadn’t because neither of them had wanted to. Laura would be quite happy to keep up her steady weight loss but it really didn’t matter. She was far happier with the thought of still being with Jason in six months’ time.
‘It’s probably walking Oscar every night that’s done the trick.’ Laura tried to sound offhand. ‘Everybody should adopt a very fat dog when they want to get in shape.’
They both looked out of the window of the ambulance to the fire engine parked beside them in the huge garage. The back passenger window was open and hanging out of it was the curly black head of a happy-looking dog. Oscar had been adopted as readily as Megan had been at the station. He wasn’t allowed inside, of course, but even Mrs McKendry had to acknowledge that he was a well-behaved animal. He sat guarding the fire engine during his family’s working hours unless it was required for active duty, when he was happy to sleep on the old coat that now had a permanent place on the floor by the locker-room door.
The smile Laura gave on seeing Oscar was imperceptible. Maybe everybody should bathe a very smelly dog when they wanted to kick-start the love affair of their lives. Who would have thought that an unwanted Labradoodle could provide such a romantic catalyst? The dog might have made its intention to worship Jason for the rest of its life obvious by now but he would always have Laura’s gratitude and affection. Except possibly when he indulged his passion for exploring rubbish bags.
Laura twisted the key on the regulator and watched the needle flick up the dial. ‘Three quarters full,’ she informed Tim. ‘Enough laughing gas to keep a whole busload of patients happy.’
‘That’s it,’ Tim said in a satisfied tone. ‘That’s what’s so different about you. You’re happy.’
‘I am,’ Laura admitted. Happy was a very pale adjective for how she felt but it would do under the circumstances. She was rapt. Her dream had come true. Jason had got to know her well enough to find her attractive and, judging by their love-making over the last two weeks, he found her very attractive. And she felt attractive, for the first time in her life. The weight loss had very little to do with it. Neither did the new hairstyle. Laura felt wanted and appreciated for far more than what she could offer in bed, and she was loving every minute of it. They had welded into a tight team, she and Jason, and it didn’t matter that their focus was so much on Megan—not when they could find the private moments that made every shared sleeping time so memorable.
Laura wouldn’t even allow herself the niggling concern that the main reason Jason wanted her to still be there in six months’ time might be because he was coming to like the idea of keeping his daughter. She didn’t care. She loved both of them too much to let that be a problem. If Jason asked her tomorrow to marry him and be a mother to Megan, she wouldn’t hesitate in saying yes.
‘Yeah,’ Laura said softly, as she caught the look Tim was giving her. Suddenly she wanted to share a little of her joy with her partner. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy before in my life.’
Tim’s smile was wistful as he caught her meaning. ‘I’m happy for you, Laura. You make a wonderful couple. What with Megan and that funny-looking dog you found, you’ve turned into an instant family.’
Laura watched Tim disappear into the stockroom to find the supplies they needed. The almost imperceptible slump of his shoulders confirmed what she already knew. Her partner wanted a family of his own. He could see the magic that had been wrought in Laura’s life and knew that it was never going to happen that easily for him.
It felt exactly like magic. Wave a wand and…poof! An instant family. And it was all going so smoothly. They had developed a routine that seemed to work now and most jobs were shared at least to some degree. Megan was settled enough to sleep through the night sometimes, especially since they’d started their long evening walks. The days were getting longer and it was a pleasant way to end the day even after a busy shift. Laura got to hold Oscar’s shiny new lead because Jason wore the front pack, which allowed Megan to face forward and view her surroundings, not to mention wave her little arms and kick her legs when things got interesting. She was always tired on their return home and a quick feed and nappy change was usually enough to see her out for the count until morning.
Yes, it felt like a well-oiled family unit. Maybe they would have a problem if Mrs McKendry decided she didn’t want to help, but the older woman loved Megan as much as any of them now, and if the worst happened, Laura was quite prepared to consider taking maternity leave to carry on being a surrogate mother.
The fact that Megan was the key to it all shouldn’t be enough to cause that niggle of doubt, should it? Or the fact that everything was falling into place so perfectly? OK, so maybe they would have to fight to keep Megan if Shelley decided to come back for her but surely they could win? They’d be a full family unit, complete with a prime example of a contented dog, against a solo mother who’d been prepared to abandon her child.
They could even have the solid base of owning their own home. Laura hadn’t yet suggested the idea of moving into her house, but it was the logical next step. Charlie had only been intending to live with her until she got settled into her new city and job. Laura had hardly spoken to her in the last couple of weeks and she suspected it had a lot to do with whatever was going on between Charlie and that scary partner she had to work with, so it seemed like she had already settled very well. Laura only hoped that her best friend was half as happy as she was in her love affair. She would never forget the thrill of that first time Jason had said he loved her…not in a million years. Even hearing the echo of his words in her head was enough to create the most delicious tingle that ran the length of her spine.
The latches on the resuscitation kit clicked into place and Laura pushed the box behind the end of the stretcher so it wouldn’t cause mischief with fast cornering. She managed to shut off any latent personal worries as her pager s
ounded to announce a new job. The worst—the very worst—thing that could happen would be that they would lose Megan. It would be hard, awful, but she and Jason could always have children of their own, couldn’t they? If Jason lost full-time custody of Megan, he might be very keen to start a family of his own as soon as possible.
It was Tim’s turn to drive. Laura was checking the map reference as he pulled the door open, dropped the extra supplies on the floor beside the handbrake and picked up the remote to activate the huge roller doors on the garage.
‘Abdo pain,’ he said. ‘What do you reckon? Appendicitis? Ovarian torsion? Or do we get to deliver a surprise baby for someone this afternoon?’
‘It’s at a restaurant.’ Laura said. ‘That posh one on the corner of Frampton and Davies roads. Food poisoning, maybe?’
‘Priority one?’ Tim activated the beacons and siren as they entered the dense stream of traffic heading into the city centre looking for some Friday night entertainment.
‘I imagine the manager of any restaurant would be pretty worried if someone looked sick after eating their food.’
The manager of Framptons looked more than worried. He was waiting on the road for the ambulance and the frantic waving as they approached suggested that the call might be for something rather more serious than food poisoning.
Tim leapt out to open the back doors of the ambulance while Laura slipped out of her seat and straight into the back to start throwing equipment onto the stretcher. They’d take the lot. Life pack, oxygen, resuscitation and suction units. She could hear the restaurant manager’s voice as Tim opened the doors.
‘She’d finished her meal. They stood up to leave and then she just doubled over, clutching her stomach.’
Tim helped lift the stretcher, laden with gear, to the ground.
‘We sat her down and got her a glass of water but she looked terrible.’
They were walking into the restaurant now. Past tables shrouded in crisp, white linen, gleaming silverware and soft, flickering light from small candelabra illuminating bowls of white roses. The venue looked like the perfect setting for a wedding breakfast.
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