The Firefighter's Fiance

CHAPTER TWO

‘HARVEY MITCHELL, aged thirty-two. Cut out of a car at RTC.’ Matt went through the rest of the handover to the registrar on the way through to Resus, detailing the action they’d taken at the scene and the pain relief they’d given already. ‘Query c-spine injury, complained of pains in leg, and his foot was trapped under a pedal.’

‘OK, we’ll take it from here.’ Janice Horton, the registrar, smiled at him. ‘Cheers, Matt.’

‘Pleasure.’ He smiled back. ‘And this time I’m crossing my fingers that I actually get to drink my coffee before the next shout.’

‘Come and sneak into our rest room and I’ll get you a mug of coffee. Just let me know how you take it,’ the nurse walking out of Resus said. She smiled at him. ‘I’m Shona Barton, by the way. Staff nurse. I started here yesterday.’

‘Matt Fraser, and this is Dale Lewis.’ He smiled back at her. ‘Thanks for the offer, love, but it’s Friday afternoon so I reckon you’re just about to be rushed off your feet.’

‘Maybe we could have a drink later, then?’

Was it his imagination, or had she just wiggled her hips at him?

Shona was pretty, in a pocket Venus sort of way. Blonde hair that she’d pinned back but which obviously fell almost to her waist if she wore it down. And the trousers and tunic she wore did absolutely nothing to disguise her curves. Lush curves. Curves that would have most of the ambulance crew on their knees and panting.

And she’d just asked him out.

Oh, hell. How could he say no without sounding snotty? And he had to be very careful what he said—rumours ripped through the hospital like wildfire, so if he claimed he was already spoken for there would be all kinds of speculation. Speculation he could do without. He didn’t need a love life. He had his job, and that was enough for him. ‘Thanks for the offer, Shona, but I’m afraid I’m already doing something tonight.’ Sleeping. On his own. But she didn’t need to know that.

‘Another time?’

‘Yeah, maybe. You know how it is.’ He gave her an apologetic smile. ‘Shifts never matching up.’ Though his happened to match Kelsey’s exactly. Two days, two nights and four off. His shifts weren’t quite the same as hers—seven in the morning until six at night for days, whereas she worked from nine until six. He worked six at night until seven in the morning for nights, whereas she worked from six until nine—but they were a pretty good fit.

‘I could always swap shifts to match yours,’ Shona suggested.

Damn. He hadn’t thought of that. ‘Yeah. Maybe.’ Like not. ‘I’d better sort out my paperwork. Catch you later.’

‘Paperwork?’ Dale asked softly, once they were on the way back to the ambulance station.

‘Uh. Yeah.’ Matt ignored his crew partner’s raised eyebrow. And Dale let him change the subject—but the rest of the crew at the station had plenty to say when they heard the gossip.

‘You’ve got to be kidding! He turned Venus down?’ Kirk asked.

Matt frowned. Had he missed something? ‘Who’s Venus?’

Dale rolled his eyes. ‘You know. Long blonde hair. All curves. Sweet, sweet smile. Has all the single male paramedics on their knees begging for a date—and probably half the doctors in the hospital as well.’

Obviously he still looked blank, because Kirk sighed. ‘The new nurse in the emergency department,’ he added. ‘The gorgeous one. The one that started yesterday. The one that apparently asked you out this afternoon.’

‘Oh. Shona, you mean.’

‘And you said no?’ Kirk shook his head. ‘Oh, dearie me. Maybe Dale should hook you up to the ECG before your next shout.’

Matt took a swig of his coffee. ‘What are you on about?’

‘Someone needs to check you still have a pulse,’ Kirk retorted.

‘Course he’s got a pulse,’ Dale said.

Kirk scoffed. ‘I dunno. If he’s turning down gorgeous women like that…’

‘Look, not everyone wants to date six different women a week,’ Matt said.

‘Better than not dating at all,’ Kirk sniped.

Matt knew if he responded, the situation would escalate and turn ugly. So he ignored the comment and carried on going through his paperwork.

But Kirk was clearly spoiling for an argument. ‘What’s the matter? Doesn’t Venus match up to the girl of your dreams?’ he asked.

‘Probably not,’ Matt said coolly.

Kirk started whistling the theme from Trumpton, a classic children’s animated TV series about a fire brigade, which had given the paramedics an affectionate nickname for their local fire service.

Matt, knowing exactly what his colleague was getting at, sighed. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘He’s right,’ Dale said to Kirk. ‘Sure, he lives with Kelsey—but, nah, he doesn’t fancy her. She’s like his sister.’

‘Best friend, actually,’ Matt pointed out. ‘Off limits.’

Kirk rubbed his chin. ‘She’s not like Venus—too skinny, too tall, too serious—but, yeah, I’d buy the Trumptons’ charity calendar this year if Kelsey was on it.’ He grinned and waggled his eyebrows. ‘Especially if she was topless. Or better. I wouldn’t mind seeing her in nothing but a fire helmet.’

The reflex that had Matt’s right hand balling into a fist shocked him. He made an effort to relax his hand. ‘Kels wouldn’t do that sort of thing.’

‘Pity.’ Kirk’s grin broadened. ‘They’d sell truckloads if she did.’

‘Hmm,’ was all Matt trusted himself to say. And if Kirk ever asked Kelsey out, Matt would make damned sure that Kelsey said no. Kirk wasn’t good enough for her. Wasn’t anywhere near good enough for her. He didn’t want Kirk’s grubby paws touching Kelsey. Didn’t want anyone touching Kelsey, actually. But he shoved that thought to the back of his mind.

To his relief, there was a call on his intercom. ‘We’d better get going. I’ll drive so you can finish your coffee,’ he said to Dale. He climbed into the driver’s side of their ambulance and radioed back to Control. ‘On our way.’

‘You OK?’ Dale asked as Matt drove off.

Matt shrugged. ‘Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?’

Dale shifted in his seat. ‘Teasing you about Kelsey.’

‘Doesn’t bother me.’

‘I saw your hands,’ Dale said softly, ‘when Kirk made that remark about the calendar. Look, cut him some slack. He’s still hurting about his divorce. That’s why he’s desperate to date as many women as he can. To prove he’s not a complete loser.’

‘Hmm,’ was all Matt said.

Dale sighed. ‘Ow. I know. You’ve already been there. Not a loser, I mean. And not divorced. But you were as good as married to Cassie. And I’m putting my size twelves in it today, big time. I’m sorry.’

‘No worries. I’m over it now.’ It had taken Matt nearly eighteen months to lick his wounds. They’d healed. He and Cassie hadn’t been right for each other anyway. She hadn’t understood his job or why he didn’t mind the unsocial hours; and he hadn’t wanted to change and fit into her world, swap the job he loved for one where he didn’t feel alive and as if he was making a difference.

‘As for Kelsey—I mean, I like her. We all do.’

Matt heard what Dale wasn’t saying. ‘But?’

‘But you’re storing yourself up a hell of a lot of heartache if you’ve fallen for her, Matt. She doesn’t do serious relationships. She parties hard—she’s the first one at the end of a pizza night out to suggest going on to a club—but she doesn’t let anyone close. You know the score.’

Nobody serious since Danny. Most of the time Matt and Kelsey didn’t talk about it. But on the rare occasions when they did, Kelsey was adamant. She liked her life just as it was. And Matt could understand that. Life as it was suited him, too.

‘I haven’t fallen for her,’ Matt said.

Dale’s response was a measured ‘Hmm’.

And then they were at the shout so the conversation was lost.

By the time they’d checked out the woman who’d called 999 with chest pains, taken an ECG and then brought her into the emergency department for further tests and observation, it was forgotten about. All the same, Matt was thoughtful as he cycled home at the end of his shift. Had he fallen for Kelsey? Was she the girl of his dreams?

She was his best friend. His housemate. They swapped horror stories at the end of their shifts and they knew when the other needed a hug and a shared tub of ice cream. They shared the same set of friends, went out with the same crowds—the crews at the ambulance station all knew her, and the crews at the fire station all knew him. As Dale had said, Kelsey partied hard but she almost never dated—and when she did date, she didn’t stay out all night or bring anyone home.

Matt didn’t date much either, but it went with the job. Long hours, tough calls and a social life that sometimes had to take second place to your job. If you were in the middle of a shout when your shift ended, you couldn’t just dump your patient and tell them to wait for the next crew. That was the whole thing about being an emergency service. And if there was a major incident, even if you were off shift you’d go in and do your bit. It went with the territory. He’d already learned that the hard way when he’d had to make the choice between his fiancée and his job.

His job had won.

All the same…A picture of Kelsey flashed into his mind. Short hair, cheeky grin, sparkling grey eyes. Kirk had called her tall and skinny—no, that wasn’t true. Matt had trained in the gym with her enough times when they had been on nights and wanted to wind down at the end of their shifts. Tall, yes; slender, yes; but Kelsey definitely had curves. And the way she looked in a plain black swimsuit was enough to make any man’s blood pressure rise a couple of notches.

He shook himself. He was not about to wreck a seriously good relationship by dating her. Kelsey was his sounding board. The person he’d listen to at three in the morning if she needed him—and he knew that she’d do exactly the same for him. His best friend. His housemate. Dating each other would be a disaster. One of them would end up having to find a new place to live. No, it was best to keep things as they were.

The open windows told Kelsey that Matt was home. Good. So she wasn’t going to have to juggle her briefcase and the carrier bag full of take-away Indian food and use her frontdoor key at the same time. She pushed down the handle of the front door with her elbow and swung her hip to open the door. Perfect. She closed the door with another swing of her hips.

Matt appeared in the living-room doorway. ‘A normal person would ring the doorbell. Or at least accept help.’

‘You can help if you want to.’ She grinned and handed him the carrier bag. ‘Dinner is served, m’lord.’

‘Good. I’m starving. I nearly raided your chocolate stash.’

‘You’d better not have done.’ She set her briefcase on the floor and followed him into the kitchen. ‘I’m studying tonight.’Although the fire service had changed their training so you didn’t have to sit a raft of promotional exams any more, you still needed to know the theory and technical details, so you could prove that you knew what you were doing and met the competencies to go up to the next grade. Which meant studying. ‘I need that chocolate,’ she added. ‘It’s Friday night. Aren’t you going out?’

‘Not tonight. I want to do a couple of hours’ studying and then just chill.’ She smiled inwardly when she saw the neatly set table in their kitchen-diner. Typical Matt. All the other people she knew in the emergency services would just take the cardboard off the take-away foil container and dig in with a spoon. Matt was much, much more domesticated. Though, to look at him right now, with his shaggy hair and the fact he needed a shave, nobody would guess it. He looked more like a guitarist in a rock band than a paramedic. He looked sexy as hell.

And she really had to stop thinking about that before she screwed up their friendship. Matt was off limits.

‘So how was your day?’ he asked, taking the lid off the pilau rice and spooning the rice onto their plates.

‘OK. We had a quiet afternoon after that RTC—just a kitchen fire that was out by the time we got there. Did you know, there was a newspaper report today that most RTCs happen between four and seven on a Friday afternoon?’

‘I can believe it. Mixture of the “thank God it’s Friday” feeling and people being physically tired at the end of the week. Their concentration goes.’ Matt beamed when he opened the next lid. ‘Oh, you star. Chicken kashmiri. My favourite.’

‘And far better than if I’d cooked it for you.’

‘Yep. Means we don’t have to call your lot to put out the flames in the oven—or my lot to rescue us from the food poisoning afterwards,’ he teased.

‘Oh, ha, ha.’ She walked over to the fridge. ‘Two nights, then four blissful days off.’ Luckily their shifts were pretty much the same. Her night shifts were slightly longer than Matt’s, but at least one of them didn’t have to creep around the house on days off while the other was on nights.

‘Nearly twenty-four hours until I’m due back in at the station. I could go wild and have a few beers tonight. But I need a clear head to work on my fire management stuff. So I think I’ll stick to just the one.’ She uncapped two bottles and brought them over to the table. It had taken her six months to persuade Matt that cold beer tasted better from a bottle than a glass. And why make extra washing-up?

He finished dishing up the curry, then lifted his bottle in salute. ‘Cheers. Here’s to us. Top team.’

‘Top team,’ she echoed.

Which they were. Since she’d shared the house with Matt, she’d always felt she was coming home, not just going back to rented digs.

Not that she and Matt had that type of relationship. They were just friends. Best of friends. Had been ever since he’d moved into the house eighteen months ago, when his engagement to Cassie had broken up and Sarah—the paramedic who’d originally shared the house with Kelsey—had asked her if Matt could use their spare room for a few nights.

But it had worked so well that Matt had stayed. And although Sarah had moved out to live with her boyfriend in London a few months ago, Matt and Kelsey hadn’t bothered replacing the third person in the house. It was comfortable, just the two of them.

Cassie had been crazy, Kelsey thought. She really couldn’t have had any idea what she had missed. What she had given up. A smart, funny guy who was good at his job, respected by everyone—and was domesticated into the bargain.

Mr Perfect.

Except Kelsey wasn’t going to let herself take that last step. Been there, done that. She wasn’t giving herself the chance ever again to lose anyone who mattered to her. Besides, why wreck the best relationship she’d ever had for a short-term fling?

‘Penny for them?’ Matt asked.

Oh, no. She wasn’t going to tell him that. She smiled. ‘Nothing much. How was your day, by the way?’

‘Usual summer Friday. One case of heatstroke in the park; one bad back from someone who’d overdone it in the garden yesterday and couldn’t even get out of bed; then a maternataxi case.’

Paramedic jargon for a pregnant woman who’d left it way too late to ring the maternity unit to say she was having contractions, then had to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance—and Kelsey knew that Matt had delivered a few babies in his time.

‘Then it was your RTA—’

‘RTC,’ Kelsey corrected.

‘RTA,’ Matt continued with a grin. ‘I’m using ambo terminology, not fire. After you, there was a possible heart attack, and then it was the end of my shift. Did you have a lousy day before the RTA?’

‘School safety visit this morning, one out-of-control barbecue at lunchtime—can you believe that people actually think it’s a good idea to throw lighter fuel on top of a lit barbecue?’ She flexed her shoulders. ‘I enjoyed doing the safety visit.’

‘You always do. It’s the teacher in you,’ Matt said.

‘Well, I’m not a teacher any more. Never was, really.’ She shrugged. ‘I walked out before I qualified.’

‘Ever regret it?’

She shook her head. ‘I love what I do now. Same as you. You never know what you’re going to face when you go on shift. Could be absolutely anything. Could be quiet, could be rushed off your feet—and I wouldn’t swap it for anything.’

Sometimes she thought that she got a buzz from the danger—the risks she took were calculated, but her job was still dangerous. Like Matt’s. It was one of the reasons Cassie hadn’t been able to handle Matt’s job—as well as the unsocial hours, there was the fact that he could always be hurt on duty. He had to deal with Friday or Saturday night callouts in the middle of the city, where people had been drinking or doing drugs—the wrong word at the wrong time, and they could react badly. Lash out or put a knife through his ribs.

Then again, Kelsey routinely had to face explosions, flashovers, clearing up dangerous chemicals…It would take someone special to understand why the danger was never uppermost in her mind when she was at work. Her focus was rescuing someone from a bad situation, putting their life back together again. Mending the hurt. Just like Matt did.

When they’d finished dinner, they cleared the table. Kelsey picked up the teatowel, ready to dry the dishes, but Matt took it from her with a smile. ‘Leave this. You’re studying. Two hours, you said.’

‘Ye-es.’

‘So why don’t I go to the video shop and hire us a good film? We can start watching the film at half-nine—you’ll still be in bed by midnight.’

Typical Matt: this was his way of making sure she didn’t work too hard, but without nagging her. Thoughtful. She adored him for it. ‘Sounds just about perfect,’ she said with a smile. ‘Thanks, Matt.’

‘No worries.’ He flapped the teatowel at her. ‘Go do your studying. I’ll sort this.’

Two hours later, there was a rap on her door.

‘Come in.’

‘Hey. I have popcorn, a tub of ice cream and that new thriller that went on release today.’

‘What flavour ice cream?’

‘Strawberry cheesecake.’

Her favourite. Kelsey saved her file and shut down her laptop. ‘I’m there.’ She followed him downstairs and flopped on the sofa next to him.

The perfect Friday night. A good film, her best friend and her favourite munchies.

‘If you guess who did it, just don’t tell me,’ Matt said.

‘As if I would,’ she teased. She rolled her shoulders, easing the kinks out of them.

‘You study in the wrong position, you know. Slumped over your desk. It’s hardly surprising you get backache. Come here and I’ll sort that out for you.’ He nudged her round so that her back was to him, and began massaging her shoulders.

‘Mmm.’ Kelsey almost purred with pleasure. He knew just the right spot to touch her. ‘If you ever decide you’ve had enough of being a paramedic, you could make a fortune as a masseur.’

‘But then I’d be stuck in one place, and I’d know exactly what I was doing every day. It’s like you said earlier—I get a buzz in never knowing what I’m going to face when I go on shift. Though I don’t need to explain that to you. You’re the same.’

‘Yeah.’ And it was good. Living on the edge. Making a real difference to people’s lives.

‘Better?’ he asked, just resting his hands lightly on her shoulders.

For a moment she was tempted to say no. So he’d continue touching her. And then maybe, if she leaned back against him, he’d let his hands slip lower to cup her breasts and—

No. Oh, hell. She shouldn’t have listened to Joe earlier that day. Having to face a traffic accident and cut someone out of a car had rattled her a bit, stirred up the feelings she normally kept compartmentalised and locked away. And, good as sex would undoubtedly be with Matt, she wasn’t going to mess things up between them for the sake of one night’s comfort.

She shook herself mentally. ‘Much better, thanks. And for that you get first dibs on the ice cream.’

And she wasn’t going to watch the spoon going up to his mouth and wonder what his mouth might feel like against hers.

At all.

CHAPTER THREE

EVERYTHING was fine until the following Friday afternoon. A quarter to four. It had been quiet all day—too quiet—and then there was the familiar warble before the Tannoy message. ‘Turnout, vehicles 5 and 57. Fire at Bannington Primary School. Query trapped people.’

The primary school was about ten miles from the city centre. Kelsey’s crew had talked to the kids there about fire safety only last week. And it was the school Ray’s daughter attended—Finn had been delighted, last week, that her dad had brought his fire engine.

Please, God, let it be minor damage, Kelsey begged silently. Let it be a fire in a wastebin or something. Let it be something we can put out. Let nobody be hurt.

She’d never had to deal with a school fire before. Sure, she’d rescued kids from the back of a smashed-up car or from a small house fire, but she’d never faced anything like this. Even the factory fire she’d attended last year hadn’t worried her that much: although some workers had been trapped, they’d been able to follow instructions and she’d known it would work out just fine. There’d been minor burns and smoke inhalation, nothing too major. But with kids there was always the problem that they wouldn’t understand or they’d be too frightened to do what you told them. And they weren’t physically as able to deal with smoke inhalation and the heat of a raging fire as well as adults did.

Ray looked grim as the fire engine sped on its way out of the city. Kelsey could guess what was going through his mind and leaned forward, resting her hand on his shoulder. ‘Guv, school finishes at three. The kids will all have gone home. Finn will be fine.’

‘There’s after-school club for the kids whose parents are still at work,’ Ray said tersely. ‘I know Finn won’t be there, but some of her friends might be.’

‘Hey. Might even be a false alarm—like it usually is when we get a callout to the university,’ Paul said.

‘Let’s hope,’ Ray said, his voice clipped. ‘Police and the ambo team have been called as well.’

But when they turned into School Road, they could see smoke.

Ray swore. ‘They don’t have a sprinkler system, except in the new block.’

Kelsey remembered that the main part of the school was Victorian, a rambling building that had grown along with the urban sprawl of the town. It was full of corridors and small rooms and with varying levels to the floor. The kind of building that always worried firefighters because the layout wasn’t logical and the access points weren’t always clear. She also knew that Ray, as a school governor, had been agitating to get sprinklers fitted to the main building but the project had been tied up in arguments between the planning authority and the education authority over listed building regulations. There had been holdup after hold-up over the proposed changes to the building while they had tried to reach a compromise that would satisfy both areas. With sprinklers, the fire would be less serious. Without, who knew what they’d face?

‘Guv, they’ve probably got everyone out. The teachers’ll be waiting in the playground, having ticked all the kids’ names off,’ Kelsey suggested.

‘Maybe. But you know as well as I do that the worst time for us is after-school club—the numbers attending vary, and some of the kids there don’t go there full time so they don’t really know the layout of the building. It’s not like daytime where everyone knows exactly what’s going on. Right, everyone. Full PPE on.’ Personal protective equipment—because this could easily turn nasty. ‘Joe, stay with the vehicle.’