by Amy Andrews
He’d managed to pull the fabric aside slightly, flashing Lawson an enticing glimpse of cleavage. Lawson was mesmerised for a second before pulling himself back into line. He turned away disgusted at himself. He was at work, damn it. She was his colleague—his partner.
Wasn’t it enough that he’d spent the last five days fluctuating between self-loathing and arousal thinking about her and her damn cleavage? That his dreams had been laced with the memory of her mouth, her smell, the taste of her skin?
He’d been afraid this was going to happen because the truth was they’d overstepped a mark and there was no going back.
Jayden barked again like a seal and Lawson pulled himself together. Their patient’s airway, already small enough owing to his age, was inflamed, and that was what he should be concentrating on. Not Victoria. Not how close he’d come to dragging her down on the couch with him and succumbing to crazy.
He forced himself to kneel in front of the chair where Victoria was sitting with Jayden. Ignoring her and the proximity of her still-half-exposed cleavage, he smiled at the little boy, inspecting his face closely, noticing the slight nasal flaring.
‘Whatcha got there, matey?’ Jayden flashed the torch at him. ‘Ooh, you got the spotlight? You’re the man.’ He gently lifted Jay den’s singlet and looked to see if the little boy was using any of his accessory muscles to help him breathe. There didn’t appear to be any recession of his intercostal spaces or any retraction of his sternum.
He turned to Warren and Cindy. ‘I think, just to be sure, we should transport Jayden to hospital where they can monitor him for the night. He still has quite an obvious stridor. I’d like to give him a special nebuliser for that on the way to hospital. It helps to reduce the swelling in his airway and should improve that noise we can hear when he breathes in.’
As an intensive care paramedic Lawson was licensed to administer an adrenaline neb, which should have an immediate impact on Jayden’s stridor. Given in an inhaled dose, adrenaline acted locally on the irritated tissues of the larynx and airway to decrease the inflammation.
Cindy clutched her husband’s hand. ‘I thought he was better.’
Lawson heard the edge of panic return to her voice and nodded calmly. ‘He’s sounding better now he’s settled, but his airway is still inflamed and it can be a long night. I’d feel happier if he was seen by a doctor. I think he may need some special medicine called a steroid, which will also help with the stridor, that they can give him there.’
Warren squeezed his wife’s hand. ‘It’s okay, darl. Better safe then sorry, huh?’
Tears filled Cindy’s eyes. ‘Can I go with him?’
‘Of course,’ Vic hurried to assure the fragile, young mother. ‘We put you on the trolley and him on your lap and strap you both in.’
Cindy sniffed. ‘Okay, then. I’ll just go and throw a few things in a bag.’
Five minutes later, with Cindy and Jayden secured on the stretcher in the back of the ambulance, Vic started up the ambulance. Lawson, who’d taken over as Patient Care Officer to administer the adrenaline, applied the paediatric nebuliser mask to his little patient’s face as Vic pulled into the street.
Vic heard the little boy’s protests at the confines of the mask and the noise made by the flow of oxygen. She could hear Lawson’s low murmurings as he distracted and cajoled Jayden into keeping the mask on, and she adjusted her rear-view mirror so she could surreptitiously watch him in action.
For a guy who was an enigma most of the time he could certainly be animated when he wanted to be. She’d seen that in his interactions with Matilda and now with Jayden. He was rarely that way with her and she’d known him for ever. She watched as he handed over his pen to the little boy and the notebook he kept in his breast pocket. A grin split his face as Jayden obviously took to the offering with gusto.
Lawson really was a sight to behold when he smiled. The neutrality of his features was totally transformed. The craggy planes softened, the tautness disappeared, the grey of his gaze changed from watchful to warm. He looked relaxed and at ease. And very, very desirable.
Lawson’s gaze met hers in the rear-view mirror. The smile he’d been sharing with Cindy died a quick death and a shutter came down as the watchfulness returned. Vic looked away, concentrating on the road, his need to hide himself from her hurting more than his rejection.
Lawson looked away too. He’d managed to forget about their indiscretion for a few minutes as he’d focused on Jayden, but it all came crashing back again. Her mouth, the huskiness of her voice, how her naked breasts had felt against his chest. How could they work together when every time he looked at her all he could think about was the perfection of her body?
He was a professional, for God’s sake. So was she. And she deserved to be treated like one. Not as some object of desire. Up until recent months in their working relationship he’d thought of her as a paramedic first and a woman second. Which was as it should be. But he knew he couldn’t go back now.
He was always going to see her as a woman first.
It actually ended up being past midnight by the time they got back to the station. A baby post-ictal from a febrile convulsion, an overdose of sleeping tablets and a suspected stroke kept them on the hop transporting all three patients to the mainland hospital.
Lawson made her a cup of coffee and plonked it down in front of her at the staffroom table. He pulled up a chair opposite and sat. ‘Before I leave in the morning I’m going to request a new partner.’
Vic was so startled she sloshed her coffee all over the table. ‘What?’ Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been this.
‘I think you heard me the first time.’
‘But…why?’ she spluttered. Their personal stuff aside, she didn’t want to work with anyone else.
Lawson shot her an impatient look. ‘I would have thought that was obvious.’
‘I think that’s a slight overreaction, Lawson.’
‘Victoria. We almost slept together.’
Vic felt heat rise in her face. ‘Almost being the operative word.’
Lawson pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘Victoria, do you think the degree matters?’
Well, obviously not to him. But it sure as hell mattered to her. Being left high and dry in a highly aroused state mattered a lot. Her body had ached, throbbed, for him ever since. Her dreams had been haunted by their kisses and she’d woken each morning with a fire roaring out of control deep down low. Even looking at him now at his most distant and forbidding she wanted to reach out and touch.
She took a steadying breath. ‘I think it does if you’re talking about busting up a highly successful team, especially when we’ve only got sixty-five days remaining until we split anyway.’
‘Maybe now’s the perfect opportunity for it. I was always going to get a new partner when you left anyway. This will just be moving it forward slightly. Give me an adjustment time.’
‘And what the hell do I do for the last couple of months while you’re adjusting? It makes no sense for me to be partnered with someone new for such a short period of time and you know it.’
Lawson sighed. He did know it. ‘Yes, you’re right. But what happened between us changes everything, Victoria. It was wrong. I should never have let it get out of hand. It was a mistake.’
Inexplicably, the barb hurt and she clutched her mug hard while she took a moment to recover from its impact. A moment in which she realised that was what all this was about. Lawson Dunlop didn’t make mistakes. Not since he’d been sixteen and a mistake had nearly killed him. All she was going to be from now on was a painful reminder of their indiscretion. Their mistake. Day after day.
‘Well, guess what? We’re grown-ups. And grown-ups just have to live with their mistakes and get on with it.’
Lawson shut his eyes and turned away from her. He wandered over to the window that overlooked a large parkland area. ‘You don’t get it.’
Vic watched the breadth of his shoulders. Admired the w
ay his overalls fitted glove-like around his magnificent physique. Framed against the window, he looked such a lonely figure and she was standing before she knew it, her feet moving towards him before she could question the wisdom of it.
She drew level with him, her hands wrapped around her mug. She looked out over the view for a moment or two, took a sip of her coffee and said, ‘So explain it to me.’
‘Do you know what I was thinking about tonight at every job we did?’
She glanced at his stern profile, his jaw clenching reflexively. ‘I’m guessing it wasn’t D,R,A,B,C?’
Lawson gave a half-smile at her attempt to lighten the mood. Then the reality of what he had been thinking about returned. He daredn’t look at her as he gathered the courage to be frank.
‘I was thinking about your kiss, and your smell and the way you make that moaning noise at the back of your throat when you’re turned on and how perfect your breasts are and how much I wished I hadn’t been noble and just lay you on the couch and had my way with you.’
Vic felt heat flare from her toes and scorch a path right up to her face. She gripped the mug hard, clamping her lips together as a moan fought to escape. His words stoked the fire that had been smouldering since he’d rejected her the other night.
She swallowed. ‘Oh.’
Lawson nodded grimly. ‘Yes. Oh.’ He turned to face her and put his hands on her shoulders, holding them firmly. ‘Even now I want to push you hard against this window and kiss you until you’re moaning into my mouth.’
Catching his breath with difficulty, Lawson let go of her shoulders, and turned back to face the view again, firmly crossing his arms across his chest.
Vic reached for the window sill as she swayed forward when he released her. She wanted to kiss him so badly now everything in front of her was a red haze. She was trembling and her pelvic floor responded shamelessly to his blatant description.
‘I can’t afford to be thinking about this on the job, Victoria. Putting aside the whole other issue of our long association and how it impacts that, it’s just not appropriate. Not when I should be thinking about things like danger and the ABCs. It’s not safe. I should be focusing on what I’m doing, not on what you look like out of your uniform.’
He was right. She knew he was. But his husky voice was taking her back, trailing verbal fingers over her skin like the silken caress of cobwebs.
With a mammoth effort she pulled her mind away from the contractions of her internal muscles to the most pressing issue coming from his decree. ‘How exactly are you going to explain that to my father?’
Lawson sighed. Victoria had put her finger directly on the problem. Bob Dunleavy, his old mentor and dear friend, wasn’t going to be fooled by any old explanation.
‘Are you going to tell him we made out? On his couch?’
Lawson hadn’t quite figured that out yet. He didn’t know how to tell Bob, the man who’d shown him how to be a man, that he’d been fooling around with his daughter. The daughter Bob had entrusted him with.
From the minute Victoria had taken an interest in the opposite sex, Bob had wanted all of them dead. And while he might not have been a horny teenager after only one thing, he wasn’t sure Bob would see the difference.
And he didn’t think he could bear to see the disappointment in the older man’s eyes. Bob’s faith and trust in him meant a lot to Lawson. Bob Dunleavy had been more of a role model to him than his own father had ever been. He didn’t want to lose the man’s respect. Losing his own had been bad enough.
‘He won’t be happy about splitting us up and you know it, Lawson. Unless you’re prepared to tell him the truth, he’s not likely to even agree. Not with my departure so close.’
Lawson nodded. Unfortunately Victoria was right.
But he didn’t see any way out of it. He owed Bob one-hundred-per-cent honesty. ‘Then it looks like he gets the truth.’
Vic screwed her face up, not quite believing what she was hearing. ‘Are you kidding? He’ll have apoplexy,’ she spluttered. ‘His blood pressure will hit the roof and he’ll probably stroke out.’
While Bob was hardly the healthiest specimen of manhood, Lawson did feel that was a slight exaggeration. ‘I’m not going to lie to him, Victoria.’
Vic put her hand on his arm. ‘I don’t want my father knowing my personal business.’
‘When we crossed the line, we made it his business.’ He turned away from the window and moved back to the table, her hand falling away.
Vic looked out of the window for a moment as a helpless feeling of things spinning out of control enveloped her. She couldn’t believe that only five days ago her life had been on track. Now a whole other dazzling world had been opened up to her for a brief moment and then the door had been firmly shut in her face again and things just weren’t the same since.
She needed to get back control.
Vic straightened her spine and marched back to the table. ‘I don’t want to be palmed off to a new partner in my last two months at the station. Let’s make a pact.’ She stuck her hand out. ‘Let’s agree to pretend what happened didn’t. Let’s go back to what we were before. Strictly partners.’
Lawson glanced at her hand, then up into her face. He shook his head. The memory of what happened the other night was going to fuel his dreams till the day he died. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to say. There’s a thing between us now. Our relationship has changed irretrievably. We can’t go back. What happened the other night…that’s all we’ll be able to think about while we’re out there.’
Vic left her hand out. ‘Speak for yourself,’ she said calmly. ‘I’m a professional. Taught by you. Another professional. I hide lots of things on the job. My distaste for men who assault women. My annoyance with people who ring up for an ambulance who just need a Band-Aid. My dislike of Saturday-night drunks. We can do this. I know we can.’
‘Victoria.’
The exasperation in his voice was mildly arousing and she quashed the thought as further proof she could put this stuff between them aside. She pulled up a chair beside him and placed her hand on his forearm. She looked into his eyes even though she felt too exposed.
‘Please, Lawson. I don’t want to have to spend the next two months with someone I don’t respect as much as you or having to explain to all and sundry why we’re not partners any more.’ Least of all her father.
Lawson could feel himself wavering. This close he could smell the same perfume she wore the other night and it triggered another potent memory.
‘Come on, Lawson, all we have to do is make a concerted effort. Yes, it’ll probably be awkward at first but we’ve got twenty years of history between us before this.’ God knew, she’d kept her crush a secret for all that time. ‘All I’m asking is that you put up with me for another two months. Compartmentalise what happened and lock it somewhere at the back of your head. That’s what I’m going to do. You’re a strong person, Lawson. If anyone can do it, you can.’
He was strong. He knew that and, sure, she was probably right, he could do it. But what if he didn’t want to? With a new partner he wouldn’t have to compartmentalise anything and when she left for distant shores in a couple of months what was in his head wouldn’t matter.
‘I’ve never asked you for any special favours or considerations. Ever. But I am asking for this.’
That was true—she hadn’t. She’d taken what he’d thrown at her and never questioned him or shirked her responsibilities on the job. She’d been an excellent paramedic and a perfect partner. ‘Okay.’ He moved his arm so hers slipped off.
Vic grinned at him on a surge of relief. ‘Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.’
‘But at the first sign this isn’t working, for either of us, I’m pulling the plug.’
Vic nodded wildly. ‘It’ll work. I promise.’
Lawson wasn’t so sure as she leapt from her seat to make them another coffee and his gaze travelled straight to the contours of her butt.
It had o
nly been a few seconds and already he was compartmentalising like crazy.
Chapter Seven
‘HEY, Vic, how many days now?’
Vic smiled at Carl and his partner, who were vacating the lunch table as they sat down. It was the first time she’d seen the other team working the same shift with them. She and Lawson had been called to an incident as soon as they’d come on so there’d been no time to chat with the other crew.
‘Thirty.’ She grinned. Even though all the excitement had gone for her. It was more about relief now. Only thirty more days to put up with the polite civility that had become her relationship with Lawson.
‘Where are you off to?’ she asked, her heart sinking that she would be left alone with Lawson. She’d been hoping for a buffer.
‘To the nursing home. Ninety-year-old female, suspected fractured neck of femur.’
‘You guys going to the pub after work tonight?’ she asked hopefully. It was a weekly ritual, one that Vic had quickly embraced. Being the only female at the station, she’d felt the need to integrate. To be one of the boys.
’Sure.’ Carl nodded. ‘It’s Saturday, isn’t it? You want to join us?’
She slid a glance Lawson’s way. He was munching on a sandwich, reading the paper. ‘Why not?’
‘Lawson?’ Carl asked.
‘No, thanks.’ Being a single father made it hard to socialise. But his daughter had always come first and as far as Lawson was concerned it was no sacrifice.
Vic felt her mouth tighten as Lawson didn’t even bother to look up from the paper. Given that he rarely joined them it was no surprise, but he could have at least acknowledged Carl.
The other crew left and Vic went to the fridge and retrieved her lunch. She sat opposite Lawson, who didn’t look up when she joined him. She reached for the latest gazette that was on the table and feigned interest in it.
The last month had been difficult. More difficult than she’d first appreciated. Compartmentalising was easy for her—she’d had five years of practice with her crush. But it obviously hadn’t been so simple for Lawson. He’d become distant—emphasising his already famous reserve further—and businesslike, careful not to share any of himself other than what was required from him professionally.