The Paramedic's Unexpected Hero

‘She’s tachycardic,’ Kelly noted. ‘And look…’ She pointed at the screen, where the bizarre shapes of ectopic beats were interrupting a trace that was rapid enough to have tripped the alarm. She silenced the alarm but it seemed like it had triggered a new wave of tension. Chaos, even?

The kitchen door was flung open behind them.

Ari could feel the surge of adrenaline that made every muscle in his body tense as he started to get to his feet. He could sense the same reaction from Kelly as she gathered her inner resources to face whatever new threat might be coming. After what he’d seen earlier, Ari had every confidence that she could deal with it but, this time, he was going to be the one in front. Protecting her.

Or maybe he didn’t need to. He could hear a commotion coming from the hallway of this small house. Loud shouting that told him that the police had apparently responded to the neighbour’s call—perhaps because they knew an ambulance officer had been dispatched and might be in need of back-up?

He could also tell that the arriving officers were both male because it felt like the wave of testosterone arrived in this room before they burst in, and although their equipment like telescopic batons, pepper spray and handcuffs were still attached to their belts or stab-proof vests, it felt like they were demanding attention and advertising their ability to enforce authority. Ari found himself turning his glance towards Kelly again. She’d had the authority to command respect without any kind of weapon, hadn’t she?

Except…

She looked different now that these male officers had arrived. Okay, her head was probably dipped because she leaning in to try and calm Vicky, who was trying to sit up and pull her oxygen mask off at the same time, but, for a split second, it almost seemed to Ari that Kelly was ducking her head for another reason. Trying not to be seen, even?

‘Brendan…’ Vicky was still trying to push past Kelly’s hands. ‘Don’t do anything stupid…’

Ari moved to help Kelly keep Vicky still. The last thing they wanted was an increase in the rate at which she was losing blood.

‘It’s really important that you keep still, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘We’ve got this, okay?’

Even if Brendan hadn’t been drunk enough to make it difficult to stand up straight, he would have been incapacitated within seconds by the two police officers.

Ari wondered if one of them, in particular, was enjoying the opportunity to use physical force to restrain someone a little too much as he flourished his baton and raised his voice. He was a big man with buzz-cut blond hair that accentuated uncompromising features, including a very square jaw. Kelly was watching as well as the officer twisted Brendan’s arm behind him with enough force to make him cry out in pain.

Kelly’s expression made Ari suspect that she shared his opinion that too much force was being used here. It certainly looked like her desire to protect an underdog was automatically overriding any desire to remain in the background. She jumped to her feet, although her words were almost tentative.

‘H-he hasn’t hurt anybody,’ she told the police officers. ‘He’s drunk, that’s all. Noisy. He was just…making some verbal threats.’

She was being ignored as the officer issued a rapid, almost bored-sounding caution.

‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court…’

What Kelly had said wasn’t exactly true, Ari thought as he reached for Vicky’s wrist to feel for her pulse again. Throwing a full beer can as a weapon was definitely assault. But ambulance staff often got to know local police officers pretty well when they were working in the same area of a city. Was she minimising what had happened here as a form of protection because she knew what this officer might be capable of in the heat of the moment?

Finishing the caution, the big, blond officer pushed Brendan towards his partner and then stepped closer to Kelly. Rather too close in Ari’s opinion. Any further and he would have been able to touch her ear with his lips but Ari could still hear what he said.

‘You called for us, Cowbell. So why don’t you just let us do our thing and look after you, okay?’

Oh, man…

How humiliating was this?

Kelly could actually feel the bright flash of colour that was heating her cheeks. She certainly couldn’t miss the way Ari’s jaw dropped as he heard that patronising tone and the dismissive nickname either. Or the expression in his eyes, even though his gaze only grazed hers for a heartbeat. He didn’t understand, did he? He’d seen her stand up to an aggressive, obnoxious drunk with no more than her voice and determination as weapons so why was she letting another bully take charge?

Kelly didn’t understand it herself. It was more than two years since her relationship with this man had ended. She should have been over it long ago. She had proved she was strong enough to keep herself completely safe from any other disastrous entanglement. Stupid nicknames should have lost any power long ago as well but, apparently, they could still sting.

Cowbell… Or maybe Kettlebell, because that’s all you are, sweetheart. A useless lump…

At least it was chaotic enough for anyone’s impressions or embarrassment to be so fleeting that they were unlikely to be remembered. Brendan was being dragged, shouting, from the room at the same moment that paramedics were coming in with a stretcher laden with more equipment. Vicky was crying and another alarm was sounding on the defibrillator. The focus needed on her patient was welcome. Kelly knew that treating a critically ill person was at the top of that list of things she was not useless at and she was going to use every one of those skills right now, for the sake of Vicky and her unborn baby.

Vicky’s heart rate was climbing. Her blood pressure, oxygen saturation and level of consciousness were dropping. They needed to increase the rate of fluid resuscitation with another IV line. They also needed to get this patient to hospital. Fast.

Only minutes later, Kelly was making sure that all her monitoring equipment for continuous measurements of blood pressure, oxygen saturation and heart rhythm were functioning. One of the back-up paramedics was going to drive her SUV back to the hospital so that she could stay in the ambulance with her patient.

Ari had gathered his own equipment while they’d got Vicky ready for transport. He appeared at the back of the ambulance just before the doors were slammed shut. The flashing lights had already been activated.

‘Where are you heading?’ he asked.

‘Kensington. It’s the nearest hospital set up for obstetric and neonatal emergencies.’

‘Great. I’m heading that way myself. I’ll be able to check up on Vicky later, then.’

Kelly could see him kicking his bike into life and starting to follow them before the ambulance reached the end of the street. She cleared her throat as she received acknowledgment from her radio handset that she’d been patched through to Kensington’s emergency department.

‘We’re coming to you with a thirty-seven-year-old woman—Vicky Tomkins,’ she told them. ‘Pregnant, almost thirty weeks gestation, sudden onset of acute abdominal pain and bleeding approximately ninety minutes ago. Suspected placental abruption. She’s on her second unit of saline but her blood pressure’s dropped to ninety over forty and her GCS has dropped from fifteen to twelve in the last ten minutes or so. Estimated blood loss of at least a litre. We’ll be with you in about six minutes…’

Another glance through the rear window showed Kelly that her rapid response SUV was right behind the ambulance. Just beyond the SUV was a large bike with a tall man in a dark leather jacket and a black helmet.

Ari Lawson—the astonishingly different midwife who had unexpectedly dropped into her life less than an hour ago—was riding shotgun.

For some inexplicable reason that she wasn’t going to allow any brain space to analyse, knowing he was close by was making Kelly feel safer. Protected, even.

And it was a good feeling.

CHAPTER TWO

THE FLASHING BLUE lights and the fluorescent red and yellow stripes on the back of the ambulance were easy enough to keep in sight. Weaving his way through the gaps available to a motorbike in the heavy London traffic was so automatic for Ari he was able to think about other things at the same time and, as he noticed the ambulance turning a corner ahead, he was thinking about what was going to happen to Vicky when she arrived at Kensington’s emergency department.

He had plenty of background knowledge to draw on. Ari had trained as a nurse before going into midwifery and he had particularly enjoyed his time in Emergency. His fascination with medicine in general continued to fuel his need for further postgraduate study and so far he’d clocked up qualifications in managing high-risk pregnancies and dealing with complications of childbirth and he was currently enrolled in a part-time course on the out-of-hospital care of premature newborns.

By the time he had the ambulance in his line of sight again, having turned the same corner, Ari had decided that Vicky would have as much time as needed in Emergency to support her circulation with aggressive fluid resuscitation and she might be given a blood transfusion as well. If a placental abruption was confirmed, the specialist obstetrician might want to take some fluid from her uterus to reduce the pressure but it was more likely that they would go ahead and deliver the baby by Caesarean section as quickly as possible and then deal with any complications that might follow.

Yvonne would want an update on her client and Ari should have just enough time to duck into the delivery ward on his way to the outpatient department of Kensington’s maternity ward where he was due to start an antenatal clinic at three p.m. It was going to be a busy one, with about six women at various stages of pregnancy who needed clinical assessment, any questions answered, reassurance given if needed and advice for the next stage of the journey they were on.

If there was anything abnormal found, he would need to arrange further care and he’d be fielding phone calls as well—from an obstetrician who’d decided to induce a client, perhaps, or from someone who needed to cancel or change an appointment or home visit. Like Yvonne, he could have a client who went into labour unexpectedly and that would throw his schedule into complete chaos, but the prospect didn’t bother Ari. He thrived under that kind of pressure and somehow making it work.

Something was bothering him, however, as he had to wait and watch the ambulance go through the red light of an intersection ahead of him. As the emergency vehicle got further ahead, Ari realised what it was that was niggling at the back of his head. Something about Kelly—the paramedic in that ambulance—had got completely under his skin.

He’d been blown away by her courage in subduing an angry, intoxicated man who outweighed her enough to have been dangerous. He’d already felt a beat of connection with her when Brendan had been so dismissive of any authority or skill either of them might have in their chosen professions. The recognition of the kind of determination to protect the vulnerable that, given the right circumstances, could make you much braver than you might think you were or that others might think you were was another connection that tapped into parts of Ari’s life that nobody he worked with knew about.

He’d also been seriously impressed with her calm confidence and obvious skill in her job to stabilise a patient whose condition was clearly deteriorating. But—and this was what was really bothering him—the way she’d visibly shrunk into herself when that macho idiot of a cop had turned up. He knew the type. A big ego, a bit of a bully. Capable of making sure the people around him behaved the way he wanted them to and to use whatever means necessary to do so.

But Ari had also learned long ago what even the faintest smell of fear was like. He’d seen, all too often, the effects that were the aftermath of trauma, whether it was physical or emotional, and he also knew, all too well, what it was like to feel vulnerable. And he’d been aware of all of that in Kelly’s body language when that cop had pushed himself into her personal space and put her down with such biting efficiency.

What had Kelly ever done to provoke that kind of treatment? And calling her Cowbell? What the heck was that about? Not that it mattered, anyway. The man had been unprofessional to the point where an official complaint might be justified but that hadn’t entered his head at the time. No…the only thing that Ari had wanted to do in that moment was to protect Kelly. The way he would always want to protect someone who was vulnerable and under threat.

The urge had been so powerful that, if Vicky hadn’t started crying at that moment, he would have been on his feet and by Kelly’s side. Telling that cop just how she had taken control of a situation that had been a lot more threatening than the one he and his colleague had arrived into. And that Kelly had gained control by using nothing more than her voice and her determination. She hadn’t needed to wave weapons around or cause physical pain.

His intervention hadn’t been required, of course. He might have caught a glimpse of the other side of the coin that was Kelly but it had only been momentary. She’d gone right back to doing her job without her focus being compromised one little bit. Strength had won out over vulnerability. That glimpse had been enough, however. Especially given the connection he was already aware of.

Ari was intrigued.

He wanted to know more.

And, yeah…he knew he should just let it go because that kind of interest had created problems before. He’d never had the space for a woman in his life who wanted to depend on a long-term relationship and he didn’t have the space for another woman in his life for any reason right now.

The ambulance carrying Kelly and Vicky was turning into the bay right outside Kensington’s emergency department. Ari couldn’t park his bike there so he had to go further down the road to access the staff car park. He’d have to walk back this way to head towards the maternity wing, though. Well…okay, it was a bit of a detour and he didn’t exactly have the luxury of time to be making detours but…

…but the pull to do that was so strong he knew it might well prove to be irresistible.

Different.

That was what was so intriguing about Ari the midwife.

It wasn’t simply that a male midwife was unusual. Or that he wore his hair long enough to need to tie it back to keep it out of the way for work. It wasn’t even the strangely hot contrast between the idea that he had chosen his profession because he loved babies and that obvious gentleness in caring for his clients and the sheer masculinity of a big man who rode around on a powerful motorbike and wore leather.

There was something else that Kelly couldn’t quite nail down and, now that she had the time to think about something other than the patient she’d just accompanied to hospital, her brain didn’t want to let it go. She was in a supply room down the corridor from the emergency department at Kensington Hospital, collecting everything she needed to restock the kit that was in the back of her rapid response car. The task was automatic. And easy, because all she had to do was run back through the scene in her head and pick up a replacement for everything she’d used.

An oxygen mask was first on the list and then it was IV supplies. Kelly added a strip of alcohol wipes to the bag, a sixteen-gauge cannula and a couple of Luer plugs and occlusive dressings. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach the shelf with bags of saline and the packages containing the giving sets.

It wasn’t just the treatment she had given her patient that Kelly was remembering as she collected the items. She was remembering the assistance she’d had. How easy it had been to work with someone who could anticipate what she needed and when. He was probably quite capable of inserting an IV line himself but he hadn’t given the slightest hint of being frustrated at her taking the lead. A lot of men wouldn’t like that, especially if that lead was being taken by a woman. Especially men like Darryn…

And there it was…that thing that had been at the back of her mind that felt important enough to identify. The reason that Ari was so different. It was the contrast between those two men that was almost as blinding as the difference between light and dark. Superficially, that contrast was there for everybody to see. Blond and fair-skinned against a Mediterranean kind of colouring. But the difference that Kelly could now see in retrospect was something only she could be aware of and that was the contrast in how those two men made her feel.

It was pathetic, given that she’d escaped her relationship with Darryn so long ago, that he could still make her feel stupid. Belittled. Afraid of what was going to come next, whether it was something being broken or vicious words or the threat of physical harm that seemed just as bad as any actual violence might have been. Worse, in some ways, because there was no evidence left that might have made others realise that something was very wrong. And why would anyone have believed her when he could be so very charming in public? She wouldn’t have believed it herself back in the early days when he’d set out to capture her heart. Now it was hard to believe that she could ever have imagined herself to be in love with him.

And in contrast to that was the feeling of…of safety…that Ari had given her. She’d only really noticed it when she’d seen him following the ambulance on that huge motorbike but it had been there right from the moment she’d met him, hadn’t it? When she’d seen him crouched beside Vicky as she’d entered that living room. There’d been something in his body language that had made her aware of his total focus on the pregnant woman. Something she could sense in the gentle movement of his hands on her belly that had made her think that if she was his patient she would feel safe.

She’d seen that look on his face when he’d heard Darryn taunting her with that horrible, old nickname. As unlikely as it seemed, Kelly could believe that he knew exactly how she was feeling in that moment and he’d almost looked as if he was ready to leap to his feet and come to defend her, but maybe she’d imagined that. In any case, it had been Vicky who had needed his attention far more than she had.

Remnants of that feeling of safety were still there, however, and it was doing something weird to Kelly’s gut. Making it feel like it did when she was nervous—a fluttering kind of sensation. Stronger than butterflies. More like birds. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling but it was unusual enough for Kelly to prefer that it would go away. Grabbing a handful of ECG electrodes, she headed back to the ambulance bay where her vehicle had been left to one side. She opened the back hatch and then opened her kit to lie flat so that she could slot her replacement supplies into the pouches they belonged in.

The movement and change of scene seemed to have done the trick in dispelling that strange fluttering sensation. Maybe now that she had identified what had been niggling at the back of her mind, she could now dismiss that as well. It wasn’t as if she was likely to see Ari again anytime soon and, even if she did, it wouldn’t mean anything. So what if he was the polar opposite of her ex-boyfriend? That didn’t mean that she was attracted to him, did it? She hadn’t been remotely interested in men since she’d broken up with Darryn and that was long enough now to make her think she might remain single for ever.

Zipping her kit closed, Kelly tightened the safety belts that held the defibrillator and an oxygen cylinder in place and then pulled the hatch shut. She was already fishing for the set of keys in her pocket as she turned to see the tall figure walking towards her. The man she hadn’t expected to see again anytime soon. If she’d been trying to subconsciously convince herself that those wingbeats in her belly didn’t have anything to do with attraction, she realised in that moment that it was a totally lost cause because just the sight of Ari made them spiral into an intensity that was a shaft of something rather too close to physical pain.

The pain of a barrier being smashed, perhaps?

‘Hey…just the person I was hoping to see.’

He was smiling at her. She hadn’t seen anything more than the hint of a smile on his face before and it was lovely. Warm. Genuine. Enough to make his eyes crinkle at the corners. Brown eyes, she noticed as he came close enough—just as warm as that smile. It was impossible not to smile back.

‘All good?’ Ari asked. ‘How’s Vicky? I was hoping to get here sooner but I got held up with some calls.’

‘You would have needed to be quick. I was most impressed with how fast they worked. There was a team waiting for us in Resus. An ultrasound confirmed the placental abruption and also revealed that there was quite a lot of blood trapped behind the placenta so what we saw was only part of the volume she’d lost.’

‘No wonder she was going into shock. Did she need a transfusion?’

Kelly nodded. ‘They had the first unit running as they took her up to Theatre.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Her baby should be being delivered right about now. You’ll probably be able to see her on one of the maternity wards later this afternoon. I’m just hoping that they’ll both be okay.’

‘You and me both.’ Ari’s smile was long gone. ‘Especially if she’s going back to that violent thug of a husband.’

‘The police involvement was part of the ambulance report so Social Services has been notified. If Vicky wants help, it’s there for her.’

‘I’ll put something in my paperwork as well. My colleague, Yvonne, will be doing the postnatal house calls so I’ll have a chat to her. I’d hate to have her go back into an abusive relationship.’

‘Mmm…’ Kelly had to look away from Ari’s gaze. It was too intense. As if he really did see more than he should.

‘And what about that cop? I’m tempted to put in a complaint about his behaviour.’

Kelly’s heart missed a beat. ‘What behaviour?’

‘Brendan might be a thug but he was handled pretty roughly. And—’ there was a note of anger in Ari’s voice ‘—I didn’t like the way he spoke to you either.’

Kelly sucked in a quick breath. ‘Don’t say anything. Please. It would only make things worse.’

‘What things?’

‘He’s my ex,’ she admitted. ‘It was over a long time ago and we don’t cross paths very often but… I wouldn’t want to stir things up. You know…’

There was a beat of silence between them. A beat that was so long Kelly had to look back to catch Ari’s gaze.

He did know, she thought. More than she would have been prepared to admit to anyone on first acquaintance. But that wasn’t stopping him from wanting to know more. What was even stranger was that she wanted to tell him more. To tell him everything, in fact, and maybe she would have said more right then but as she opened her mouth, her pager sounded.

‘Uh-oh…’ She glanced at the message. ‘Code Red. I need to go.’

‘Me, too.’ Ari stepped out of her way but didn’t keep going. ‘I finish work about six,’ he told her as she opened her car door. ‘Want to meet for a drink or a coffee or something? I might be able to update you on Vicky by then.’

Kelly slammed her door shut but immediately pressed the button that rolled her window down. Already, her focus was veering towards her next callout but that new twist of her gut was sharp enough to make her catch her breath.