The Christmas Swap

CHAPTER TWO

FELICITY WAS CONSCIOUS of his gaze as it followed the press of her lips then lowered to the bob of her throat as she swallowed. She was grateful for the cold, crisp martini cooling her suddenly parched mouth.

‘So...what’s a young ’un—’ he injected Jock’s Scottish brogue into the words and Felicity smiled ‘—like yourself doing on a train with the cast from Cocoon? Lots more people your age down in the cheap seats. Unless... Wait, are you some kind of heiress or something?’

‘No.’ Felicity laughed at the apt description of their travelling companions and at the thought of her being some little rich girl, although she had inherited enough money from her grandfather to buy a small cottage. ‘I’m not. And you don’t look like you’re of retirement age either. You’re, what? Thirty-five?’

She’d been wondering how old he was all night and this seemed like as good an opener as any.

‘Close,’ he murmured. ‘Thirty-four. And you?’

‘Twenty-eight.’

‘Ah...’ He gave a long and exaggerated sigh. ‘To be so young and carefree again.’

Felicity laughed at his teasing but was struck by the slight tinge of wistfulness. ‘Oh, no,’ she teased back. ‘You poor old man.’

He grinned at her and every fibre of her being thrilled at being the centre of his attention. ‘Seriously, though,’ he said, sobering a little, ‘why the train?’

‘My grandfather was a railway man through and through. Fifty years’ service as a driver and he never got tired of trains. Of talking about them, photographing them and just plain loving everything about them. We’d go on the train into the city every day when I used to stay with them in the school holidays and he’d take me to the train museum every time without fail.’

He frowned. ‘Didn’t that get boring after a while?’

Felicity shook her head. ‘Nah. He always made it so exciting. He made it all about the romance of train travel and I lapped it up.’

‘Romance, huh?’ He raised an eyebrow as his gaze dropped to her mouth. ‘Smart man.’

Felicity’s belly flopped over. ‘That he was.’

If tonight was anything to go by, her grandfather was a damn genius.

She stared into the depths of her frosty glass as her fingers ran up and down the stem. ‘He spent his entire life saying that one day he was going to take my grandmother on the Indian Pacific for a holiday of a lifetime. Then, after my grandmother died when I was twenty, he used to tell me one day he and I would go on it together. He died last year, having never done it, but he left me some money so...here I am.’

The backs of Felicity’s eyes prickled with unexpected tears and she blinked them away.

‘Hey.’ His hand slid over hers. ‘Are you okay?’

‘God, yes,’ she said, shaking her head, feeling like an idiot. Way to put a downer on the pick-up! ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to get so maudlin. I’m stupidly sentimental. Ignore me.’

‘Nothing wrong with that.’ He smiled, removing his hand. ‘Better than being cold and hard.’

Felicity returned his smile. She appreciated his attempt to lighten the mood. Sometimes, though, she had to wonder. If she was a little more hard-hearted she probably wouldn’t fret so much about her patients or become so personally involved. It would make it much easier to leave it all behind at the end of the day.

‘What about you?’ she said, determined to change the subject. To get things back on track. ‘Why the train?’

‘I guess I’m a bit like your grandfather. Always loved trains. Doing all the great train journeys of the world is a bucket-list thing for me and when I had to travel to Adelaide I thought, Why not?’

It was stupid to feel any kind of affinity with a man—this man—because he was a train guy. Especially when up until about eight hours ago she hadn’t even known him. But somehow she did. Her grandfather had always said train people were good people and, even though he’d been biased, right at this moment Felicity couldn’t have agreed more.

Callum was ticking all her boxes.

‘So...’ He took a sip of his whisky. ‘Felicity...’

Goose-bumps broke out on her arms and spread across her chest, beading her nipples as he rolled the word around his mouth. She’d never heard her name savoured with such carnal intensity. It sure as hell made her wonder what it would sound like as he groaned it into her ear when he came.

Lordy. Another box ticked.

‘Is that a family name?’

She cleared her throat and her brain of the sudden wanton images of him and her twisted up in a set of sheets. ‘Nope. My mother just liked it, I think. And I don’t really get called that anyway.’

‘Oh?’ He frowned. ‘You get Fliss?’

Felicity grimaced. ‘Flick, actually.’

‘Flick.’

He rolled that around too but it didn’t sound quite the same as when he’d used her full name. She didn’t hate the nickname, she’d never known anything else, but she didn’t want to be a Flick tonight.

Tonight she wanted to be Felicity.

She shrugged. ‘My cousin couldn’t pronounce my full name when she was little and it stuck.’

He lazed back in his chair, his long legs casually splayed out in front of him, the quads moving interestingly beneath the fabric of his trousers. ‘You don’t look much like a Flick to me,’ he mused.

Felicity’s pulse fluttered as she suppressed the urge to lean across and kiss him for his observation. The sad fact was, though, in her everyday life she did look like a Flick. Her hair in its regulation ponytail, wearing her nondescript uniform or slopping around in her jeans and T-shirt.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, raising her glass to him and taking a sip.

‘My brother calls me Cal.’

Felicity studied him for a moment. ‘Nope. You definitely don’t look like a Cal.’

‘No?’

Felicity smiled at the faux wounded expression on his face. ‘No.’

‘What do Cals look like?’

‘Cals are the life of the party,’ she said, happy to play along. ‘They’re wise-cracking, smart-talking, laugh-a-minute guys. You’re way too serious for a Cal.’

He laughed but it wasn’t the kind of rumbly noise she’d come to expect. It sounded hollow and didn’t quite reach his eyes. Crap. She’d insulted him somehow. Way to turn a guy off, Flick.

She had to fix it. Fix it, damn it!

‘Anyway,’ she said, hoping like hell she sounded casual instead of panicked. Nothing like ruining their evening before it had progressed to the good bit. ‘I like Callum. It’s very...noble.’

A beat or two passed before he laughed again, throwing his head back. It was full and hearty with enough rumble to fill a race track. It rained down in thick, warm droplets and Felicity wanted to take her clothes off and get soaking wet.

The laughter cut out and he fixed her with his steady gaze. ‘Just so you know, I’m not feeling remotely noble right now.’

Felicity’s belly clenched hard and she swallowed. Eep! This was really going to happen. He downed his whisky and put the glass on the table. ‘Would you like to come back to my compartment?’

She cursed her sudden attack of nerves. But this wasn’t her. She didn’t do this kind of thing. Could she pull it off?

‘Hey,’ he said, leaning forward at the hips and placing his hand over hers. ‘We don’t have to. I just thought...’

Yeah. He’d thought she was interested because she’d practically done everything but strip her clothes off and sit in his lap. God, she must look like some freaked-out virgin. Or some horrible tease.

Felicity could feel it all slipping away. She didn’t want to pass this up, damn it, but she hadn’t expected to feel so...conflicted about it when it came to the crunch.

So she did what she always did in lineball calls. She picked up her phone.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m asking Mike what he thinks I should do.’

A bigger frown this time. ‘Mike?’

‘Yeah. You know, the guy in my phone who talks to me and tells me stuff like why the sky is blue and where the nearest hairdresser is.’

He chuckled. ‘Yours is a dude?’

She shrugged. ‘You can choose and Mike sounds like Richard Armitage so it was a no-brainer.’

‘And do you always let your phone decide such things?’

‘Sometimes. It’s the modern-day coin toss, right?’

He chuckled again. ‘Well, this ought to be interesting.’

Felicity grinned as she pushed a button and brought her phone up closer to her mouth. ‘Mike, should I go back to Callum’s?’

The phone gave an electronic beep then a stylised male voice spoke in a sexy English accent. ‘Is he good enough?’

They both laughed then he grabbed her wrist and brought the phone closer to his mouth. Her pulse point fluttered madly beneath his fingers as their gazes locked. A smile played on his mouth again as he spoke into the microphone, his eyes firmly fixed on her. ‘He’s very good, Mike.’

Felicity’s toes curled in her pumps at the sexually suggestive reply. That wasn’t what Mike had meant.

‘Does he know how to treat a woman?’

He didn’t laugh this time, just eyed her intently as he replied. ‘Oh, yeah. He knows exactly how to treat a woman.’

‘Then you don’t need me to decide, Felicity.’

He released her hand, slowly, still holding her gaze with a red-hot intensity. ‘Looks like the ball is in your court.’

Felicity’s heart tripped as he fixed her with a gaze that left her in no doubt they were both going to be naked within about ten seconds of the door shutting. Her breath hitched but she was aware of Travis, still at the bar, in her peripheral vision.

What would he think if they left together? Would he gossip about it with the rest of the crew? Would everyone know in the morning that she and Callum had spent the night together?

If she was back home in Vickers Hill, everyone would know.

But she wasn’t. Was she? She wasn’t Flick here. She was Felicity and nobody knew her.

Felicity picked up her glass and swallowed the last quarter in three long gulps. She stood, her body heating as his lazy gaze took its sweet time checking her out. ‘Your compartment or mine?’

He smiled, downed the last of his whisky and held out his hand. She took it, smiling also, tugging on his hand, impatient now she’d taken the first step to get on with it.

Jock entered the lounge at that moment and Felicity halted, letting go of Callum’s hand immediately, like a guilty teenager. The older man was in a pair of tracksuit pants and a white singlet.

‘Jock,’ she said, smiling as she walked towards him, aware of Callum close on her heels. ‘Thought you’d be in the land of nod by now.’

Jock gave them a tight smile. ‘So did I but...’ He rubbed his chest. ‘My indigestion is really giving me hell tonight. I thought I’d come and ask Travis for a glass of milk. That usually does the trick.’

Felicity felt the first prickle of alarm as she neared Jock. The subdued night-time lighting in the lounge hadn’t made the sweat on his brow and the pallor of his face obvious.

‘Jock?’ She frowned. ‘Are you okay?’

Callum stepped out from behind her, also frowning. ‘You don’t look very well.’

‘You need to sit down, I think,’ Felicity said, ushering him over to the closest chair.

‘Do you have any cardiac history?’ Callum asked as Jock swayed a little, reaching for the arm of the couch.

‘No. Never had any ticker prob—’

Jock didn’t get to finish his sentence. He grabbed his chest and let out a guttural cry instead, folding to his knees.

Adrenaline surged into Felicity’s veins. ‘Jock!’ she said, throwing herself down next to him.

But it was too late. He collapsed the rest of the way, splayed awkwardly on the floor. Felicity gave him a shake but there was nothing.

‘He’s having an MI,’ Callum said as he helped Felicity ease Jock on his back.

Felicity blinked at the terminology. An MI, or myocardial infarction, was not a term a layperson used. Nonmedical people said heart attack. ‘He doesn’t have a pulse,’ she said, feeling for his carotid.

‘Oh, my God, what’s wrong with him?’ an ashen-faced Travis asked, hovering over them.

‘I’ll start compressions,’ Felicity said, ignoring the bartender as more adrenaline surged into her system and she kicked into nursing mode.

‘He’s in cardiac arrest,’ Callum said as he automatically moved around until Jock’s head was at his knees. Felicity admired the steadiness of his voice and the expert way he tilted Jock’s jaw and gave his airway support.

Technical writer be damned.

‘Do you guys keep a defib?’ Callum demanded. ‘Some kind of first aid kit? We need more help. And we need to figure out how to get him to an ambulance.’

Felicity couldn’t agree more. She had no idea if that was possible but she knew they couldn’t keep him alive indefinitely. Jock needed more than they could give him here on a luxury train in the middle of nowhere.

Things were looking grim for the travelling companion she’d grown fond of in just a few hours.

‘Yes. We have a defib,’ Travis said, his voice tremulous as Felicity counted out the compressions to herself. ‘But I’ve never actually used it on a real person before.’

‘It’s fine. I’m a doctor,’ Callum said, his voice brisk.

Felicity glanced at Callum, not surprised at the knowledge given his use of medical terminology and his total control of the scene.

‘And I’m a nurse.’

He glanced at her but didn’t say anything, just nodded and said, ‘Go,’ to Travis as he leaned down and puffed some breaths into Jock’s mouth.

It was satisfying to see Jock’s chest rise and fall. CPR guidelines had changed recently, focusing more on chest compressions for those untrained in the procedure. But for medical professionals who knew what they were doing airway and breathing still formed part of the procedure.

And old habits died hard.

* * *

Callum’s training took over and all his senses honed as he rode the adrenaline high, doing what he did best—saving lives. Travis was back in under a minute, bringing a portable defibrillator, a medical kit and the cavalry, who arrived in varying states of panic. He tuned them all out as he grabbed the defibrillator, turned it on, located some pads, yanked up Jock’s singlet and slapped them on his chest.

Even Felicity in her dress and heels, pumping away on Jock’s chest beside him, faded to black as he concentrated on Jock. Once this was over—which could be soon if they couldn’t revive Jock—he’d think about her being a nurse. About how they’d both lied. For now he just had to get some cardiac output.

Felicity stopped compressions while the machine was reading the rhythm. Callum opened the medical kit, relieved to find an adult resus mask. At least he could give Jock mouth to mask now.

The machine advised a shock.

‘All clear,’ Callum said, raising his voice to be heard above everyone talking over everyone else.

Felicity wriggled back. So did he as the room fell silent. The machine automatically delivered a shock, Jock’s chest arcing off the floor.

‘Recommence CPR,’ the machine advised, and they both moved back in, Felicity pounding on the chest again as he fitted the mask and held it and Jock’s jaw one-handed.

‘Where’s the nearest medical help?’ Callum demanded of a guy with a radio who appeared to be the head honcho.

‘We’re about twenty clicks out of Condobolin. Ambulance will meet us at the station. A rescue chopper is being scrambled from Dubbo.’

‘How long will it take to get to Condobolin?’

‘The driver’s speeding her up. Fifteen minutes tops.’

Callum wasn’t sure Jock had fifteen minutes, especially if he wasn’t in a shockable rhythm. He wished he had oxygen and intubation gear. He wished he had an IV and access to fluids and drugs. He wished he had that ambulance right here right now. And a cardiac catheter lab at his disposal.

But he didn’t. He had a defibrillator and Felicity.

He glanced at her. He didn’t have to ask to know she was thinking the same thing. Fifteen minutes was like a lifetime in this situation, where every second meant oxygen starvation of vital tissues.

‘Piece of cake,’ she muttered, a small smile on her lips, before returning her attention to the task at hand.

He smiled to himself as he leaned down to blow into the mask. There was controlled panic all around him, with orders being given and radio static and the loud clatter of wheels on the track as the train sped to Condobolin. Somewhere he could vaguely hear poor Thelma sobbing. But amidst it all Felicity was calm and determined and so was he. Fifteen minutes? He’d done CPR for much longer.

‘Check rhythm.’

Felicity stopped so the machine could do its thing. When it recommended another shock they followed the all-clear procedure again and once more the entire lounge fell silent, apart from Thelma’s sobs.

Jock’s chest arced again but this time it was successful.

‘Normal rhythm,’ the machine, no bigger than a couple of house bricks, pronounced.

Felicity gasped, a broad smile like the rising sun breaking over her face. ‘I’ve got a pulse,’ he confirmed, grinning back. ‘Jock?’ Callum pulled the mask away. ‘Can you hear me, Jock?’

Jock gave a slight moan and made a feeble attempt to move a hand. ‘Jock? Jock!’ Thelma threw herself down beside them.

‘Is he okay?’ she asked, looking first at Callum then at Felicity through puffy red eyes.

‘We got him back,’ Callum said. Both of them knew he wasn’t out of danger but it was something.

Felicity reached across and squeezed Thelma’s arm. ‘He’s still very unstable,’ she said gently. ‘But it’s a good sign.’

Callum was relieved when the train pulled into the station, even if the strobing of red and blue lights around the iron and tin structure of the roof created a bizarre discotheque. Very quickly a drowsy Jock was transported out of the train to the ambulance, accompanied by a paramedic, Callum, Felicity, Thelma and the rail guy with the radio.

Finally Callum had access to oxygen and a heart monitor. It was worrying to see multiple ectopic beats and runs of ventricular tachycardia, though, and Callum crossed his fingers that Jock’s heart would hold out until he got the primary cardiac care he so urgently needed.

Callum and the paramedic whacked in two large-bore IVs and then Felicity was helping Thelma into the ambulance and he was getting in the back with Jock. There was no question in his mind that he’d stay with the old man and hand over to the medivac crew when they landed at the airstrip in approximately fifteen minutes’ time.

He glanced out the back window as the rig pulled away, the siren a mournful wail in the deserted streets of the tiny outback town. Felicity was framed in the strobing lights, staring after the ambulance. She looked exactly the way he suspected they all probably looked. A little shell-shocked as the adrenaline that had ridden them hard started to ebb.

But also strong and calm. As she had been throughout.

This was not how he’d pictured tonight would end, and as the mantle of regret settled into his bones he knew their moment had passed.

He watched her with a heavy heart until she faded from sight.

CHAPTER THREE

FELICITY LAY AWAKE on her bed an hour later, staring out the window. The train was still stationary at Condobolin station, which was in darkness after the ghoulish flashing of emergency lights. Her compartment was also in darkness, except for the slice of light coming in from the hallway through her open door.

Callum hadn’t returned and she couldn’t sleep.

After the ambulance had disappeared she’d gone back to her compartment and showered, standing beneath the spray shaking like a leaf as the adrenaline that had sustained her during the emergency had released her from its grip.

She’d waited around in the lounge for a while after they’d gone, thinking Callum would be back soon. Some of her fellow passengers joined her, curious to know what was happening, but they didn’t linger and eventually Donald had urged her to go back to her compartment and try and get some sleep.

But she couldn’t. It was hard to shut her brain down after what had transpired.

She was about to give up, switch her light on and grab a book out of her bag when Callum strode by her door.

‘Oh...hi,’ he said, obviously surprised to see her awake and her door open as he pulled up short. She’d deliberately left it ajar because she didn’t want to miss his return.

Felicity sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. ‘You’re back.’ She stood and took a couple of paces towards him, conscious, as he took up all the space in her doorway, of how different she looked now in loose yoga pants and T with bare feet, compared to the high-heeled, little-black-dress woman he’d been flirting with earlier.