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And it was a mistake she wouldn’t make again, she decided. He might still be smiling at her, but all trace of warmth had gone from his blue eyes, and a shiver ran down her back which had nothing to do with the icy November wind blowing across the open forecourt.
‘Which of these vehicles is our ambulance?’ she asked, deliberately changing the subject, but, when he pointed to the one they were standing beside, her mouth fell open. ‘But that’s…’
‘Ancient—clapped out—dilapidated.’ He nodded. ‘Yup.’
‘But…’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. The ambulance I passed my LGV C1 driving test on…It was state of the art, with a hydraulic lift—’
‘We had seven of those,’ he interrupted. ‘Unfortunately, five are currently off the road because the hydraulic taillifts keep jamming and, believe me, the last thing you want on a wet and windy night in Edinburgh is your patient stuck halfway in, and halfway out, of your ambulance.’
‘Right,’ she said faintly, and saw his lips twist into a cynical smile.
‘Welcome to the realities of the ambulance service, Brontë.’
Welcome indeed, she thought, but she point-blank refused to believe all those ambulances could have been faulty. She’d read the documentation, the glowing reports. Not once had the hydraulic system failed on the ambulance she had been given to prepare her for her driving test, which meant either ED7 had received five faulty vehicles—which she didn’t think was likely—or the crews were running them into the ground.
‘Top left, breast pocket.’
‘Sorry?’ she said in confusion, and he pointed at her chest.
‘Your notebook—the notebook you’re just itching to get out to report this station for trashing their ambulances—it’s in your top left, breast pocket. Your pen is, too.’
Damn, he was smart. Too smart.
‘Can I take a look round your cab?’ she said tightly. ‘As I’m going to be driving you, I’d like to see if the layout is any different to what I passed my test on.’
‘Be my guest,’ he said, but, as she put one foot inside the driver’s door, she saw him frown. ‘You’ll need to change those boots.’
‘Why?’ she protested, following his gaze down to her feet. ‘I’m wearing regulation, as supplied, boots.’
‘And they’re rubbish. None of us wear governmentissue boots. These boots,’ he continued, pointing at his own feet, ‘have stepped in stuff you wouldn’t even want to think about, had drunks vomit all over them, been run over by trolleys and, on one memorable occasion, my driver accidentally reversed over my feet, and the boots—and my feet—survived. Take a tip. Buy yourself some boots from Harper & Stolins in Cockburn Street. Their Safari brand is the best.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ she replied, but she wouldn’t.
What she would do, however, was make a note of the fact that none of the paramedics at ED7 were obeying health and safety rules if they were all refusing to wear the boots they had been issued with.
‘Your notebook and pen are still in the same pocket,’ he said with a grin which annoyed the hell out of her. ‘Want to note that down, too, while it’s fresh in your mind?’
What she wanted to say was, And how would you like my pen shoved straight up your nose? but she doubted that would be professional. Instead, she clambered into the driving seat of his ambulance, and glanced at the instrument panel.
‘I see you have an MDT—a mobile display terminal—to give you details of each job you’re sent on?’
‘Yup,’ he replied, getting into the passenger seat beside her. ‘It’s a useful bit of kit, when it’s working, but it crashes a lot, which is why this baby—’ he patted the radio on the dashboard fondly ‘—is much more important. Just remember to switch it off when you’ve finished making or receiving a call because it’s an open transmitter which means everything you say is broadcast not only to EMDC but also to every ambulance on the station which can be…interesting.’
It could get a lot more interesting if he didn’t back off, and back off soon, she thought grimly.
‘All your calls come from the Emergency Medical Dispatch Centre at Oxgangs, don’t they?’ she said, trying and failing to keep the edge out of her voice.
He nodded. ‘Seven years ago the powers that be decided to close all the operations rooms, and replace them with one centralised, coordinating organisation.’
‘Which makes sense,’ she said. ‘Why scatter your controllers about Edinburgh when they can all be in one central place, ensuring the ambulance resources are deployed effectively and efficiently while also maintaining the highest standards of patient care.’
‘Well done,’ he said, his lips curving into what even the most charitable would have described as a patronising smile. ‘That must be word for word from the press cuttings.’
‘Which doesn’t make it any the less true,’ she retorted, and saw his patronising smile deepen.
‘Unless, of course, you happened to be one of the unfortunate callers they decided were surplus to requirement,’ he observed, and she gritted her teeth until they hurt.
So much for her being worried she would fall for his charm. The only thing worrying her at the moment was how long she was going to be able to remain in his company without slapping him.
‘What’s our call sign?’ she asked, determinedly changing the conversation.
‘A38.’ He smiled. ‘My age, actually.’
‘Really?’ she said sweetly. ‘I would have said you were much younger.’ Like around twelve, given the way you’re behaving. ‘According to government guidelines, you should reach a code red patient in eight minutes, an amber patient in fourteen minutes and a code green in just under an hour. How often—on average—would you say you hit that target?’
‘How on earth should I know?’ he retorted, then bit his lip as though he had suddenly remembered something. ‘Look, can we talk frankly? I mean, not as an employee of the ambulance service and an employee of a government body,’ he continued, ‘but as two ordinary people?’
She was pretty sure there was an unexploded bomb in his question. In fact, she was one hundred per cent certain there was but, having got off to such a bad start, the next seven nights were going to seem like an eternity if they didn’t at least try to come to some sort of understanding.
‘Okay,’ she said.
He let out a huff of air.
‘I don’t want you in my cab. I don’t mean you, as in you personally,’ he added as she frowned. ‘I don’t want any time-and-motion expert sitting beside me, noting down a load of old hogwash. There are things wrong with the ambulance service—we all know that—but what it needs can’t be fixed by number crunching. We need more money, more personnel, and more awareness from a small—but unfortunately rather active—sector of the public that we’re not a glorified taxi service for minor ailments.’
‘And what makes you think I’m going to be noting down nothing but a load of old hogwash?’ she asked, and heard him give a hollow laugh.
‘Because it’s what you bureaucratic time-and-motion people do, what you’re paid for, to compare people and how they perform in given situations, and then find fault with them.’
She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again, and stared at him indecisively. How honest could she be with him? She supposed he’d been honest with her, so maybe it was time for her to be honest with him. At least up to a point.
‘Would it reassure you to know this is the first time I’ve been sent out on an assessment?’ she said. ‘I’ve done all of the training, of course, but you’re my first case, so the one thing I can promise is I won’t be comparing you to anyone.’
He met her gaze in silence for a full five seconds and then, to her dismay, he suddenly burst out laughing.
‘Dear heavens, if it’s not bad enough to be stuck with a number cruncher, I have to get stuck with a rookie number cruncher!’
‘Now, just a minute,’ she protested, two spots of angry colour appearing on her cheeks, ‘you were the one who said we should be honest with each other, and now you’re laughing at me, and it’s not funny.’
He let out a snort, swallowed deeply, and said in a voice that shook only slightly, ‘You’re right. Not funny. Definitely not funny.’
‘Thank you,’ she said with feeling, and he nodded, then his lips twitched.
‘Actually—when you think about it—you’ve got to admit it is a little bit funny.’
She met his eyes with outrage, and it was her undoing. If the laughter in his eyes had been smug, and patronising, she really would have slapped him, but there was such genuine warmth and amusement in his gaze that a tiny choke of laughter broke from her.
‘Did you just laugh?’ he said, tilting his head quizzically at her. ‘Could I possibly have just heard the smallest chuckle from you?’
Brontë’s choke of laughter became a peal. ‘Okay, all right,’ she conceded, ‘it is funny, but it’s not my fault you’re my first victim. Someone has to be, but I promise I won’t bring out any manacles or chains.’
‘Actually, I think I might rather like that.’
His voice was liquid and warm and, as her eyes met his, she saw something deep and dark flicker there, and a hundred alarm bells went off in her head.
No, Brontë, no, she told herself as her heart rate accelerated. Just a moment ago you wanted to hit him, and now he’s most definitely flirting with you, and any woman who responds to an invitation to flirt with Elijah Munroe has to be one sandwich short of a picnic.
‘Shouldn’t…’ She moistened her lips and started again. ‘Shouldn’t we be hitting the road? Our shift started at ten-thirty, and—’ she glanced desperately at her watch ‘—it’s already ten-forty.’
‘We can certainly go out,’ he agreed. ‘But, strange as it might seem, we don’t normally go looking for patients. Normally we wait for them to phone us, but if you want to go kerb crawling with me…’
Oh, hell, she thought, feeling a deep wash of colour stain her cheeks. Of course they had to wait for calls, she knew that, but did he have to keep on looking at her with those sun-kissed, Mediterranean-blue eyes of his? They flustered her, unsettled her, and the last thing she needed to feel in Elijah Munroe’s company was flustered so, when the radio on the dashboard crackled into life, she grabbed the receiver gratefully.
‘ED7 here,’ she declared, only to glance across at Eli, bewildered, when she heard a snicker of feminine laughter in reply. ‘What did I do wrong?’
‘This station is ED7,’ he said gently. ‘We’re A38, remember?’
Great start, Brontë, she thought, biting her lip. Really tremendous, professional start. Not.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘A38 here.’
‘Pregnant woman,’ the disembodied voice declared. ‘Laura Thomson, experiencing contractions every twenty minutes. Number 12, Queen Anne’s Gate.’
Brontë had the ambulance swinging out of the forecourt and onto the dark city street before the dispatcher had even finished the call.
‘Should I hit the siren?’ she asked, and Eli shook his head.
‘No need. We’ll be there in under five minutes despite the roads being frosty but, with contractions so close, I wonder why she’s waited so long to call us?’
Brontë wondered the same thing when they arrived at the house to discover the tearful mother-to-be’s contractions were coming considerably closer than every twenty minutes.
‘I’ve been trying to get hold of my husband,’ Laura Thomson explained. ‘He’s working nights at the supermarket to earn us some extra money, and this is our first baby, and he’s my birthing partner.’
‘I’m afraid he’s going to miss out on that unless he arrives in the next five minutes,’ Eli replied ruefully as the young woman doubled up with a sharp cry of pain. ‘In fact, I’d be happier if you were in Maternity right now.’
‘But my husband won’t know where I am,’ the young woman protested. ‘He’ll come home, and I won’t be here, and he’ll be so worried.’
Brontë could see the concern on Eli’s face, and she felt it, too. A quick examination had revealed Laura Thomson’s cervix to be well dilated and, if they didn’t go, there was a very strong possibility she was going to have her baby in the ambulance.
Quickly, she picked up a discarded envelope from the table, scrawled, ‘Gone to the Pentland Maternity’ on it, then placed the envelope on the mantelpiece.
‘He’ll see that, Laura,’ she declared, and the woman nodded, then doubled up again with another cry of pain.
‘Okay, no debate, no argument, we go now,’ Eli declared, and before Brontë, or Laura Thomson, had realised what he was going to do he had swept Laura up into his arms as though she weighed no more than a bag of flour. ‘Drive fast, Brontë,’ he added over his shoulder as he strode out the door, ‘drive very fast!’
She didn’t get the chance to. She had barely turned the corner at the bottom of Queen Anne’s Gate when Eli yelled for her to stop.
‘This baby isn’t waiting,’ he said after she’d parked, then raced round to the back of the ambulance and climbed in. ‘How much maternity experience do you have?’
‘Not much,’ Brontë admitted. ‘We didn’t tend to get mums-to-be arriving in A and E.’
‘Well, welcome to the stork club,’ he replied. ‘The baby’s head is already crowning, and the contractions are coming every minute.’
‘I want…my husband,’ Laura Thomson gasped. ‘I want him here immediately.’
‘Just concentrate on your breathing,’ Eli urged. ‘Believe me, you can do this on your own.’
‘I know,’ Laura exclaimed, turning bright red as she bore down again. ‘I just want him here so I can kill him because, believe me, if this is what giving birth is like, this baby is never going to have any brothers and sisters!’
A small muscle twitched near the corner of Eli’s mouth.
‘Okay, when your son or daughter is born, you have my full permission to kill your husband,’ he replied, carefully using his hand to control the rate of escape of the baby’s head, ‘but right now work with the contractions, don’t try to fight against them.’
‘That’s…easy…for you to say,’ Laura said with difficulty. ‘And…I…can…tell…you…this. If there is such a thing as reincarnation…’ She gritted her teeth and groaned. ‘Next time I’m coming back as a man!’
‘You and me both, Laura,’ Brontë declared, seeing Eli slip the baby’s umbilical cord over its head, then gently ease one of its shoulders free, ‘but if you could just give one more push I think your son or daughter will be here.’
Laura screwed up her face, turned almost scarlet again and, with a cry that was halfway between a groan and a scream, she bore down hard, and with a slide and a rush the baby shot out into Eli’s hands.
‘Is it all right?’ Laura asked, panic plain in her voice as she tried to lever herself upright. ‘Is my baby all right?’
‘You have a beautiful baby girl, Laura,’ Eli replied, wincing slightly as the baby let out a deafening wail. ‘With a singularly good pair of lungs. Are there two arteries present in the cord?’ he added under his breath, and Brontë nodded as she clamped it.
‘What about the placenta?’ she murmured back.
‘Hospital. Let’s get them both to the hospital,’ he replied, wrapping the baby in one of the ambulance’s blankets. ‘Giving birth in the back of an ambulance isn’t ideal, and I’ll be a lot happier when both mum and baby are in Maternity.’
Brontë couldn’t have agreed more and, by the time they had delivered Laura and her daughter to Maternity, the young mother seemed to have completely forgotten her pledge to kill her husband if her beaming smile when he arrived, looking distinctly harassed, was anything to go by.
‘That’s one we won tonight,’ Eli observed when he and Brontë had returned to the ambulance.
She smiled, and nodded, but his good humour didn’t last. Not when they then had several call-outs for patients who could quite easily have gone to their GPs in the morning instead of calling 999. She knew what Eli was thinking as she watched his face grow grimmer and grimmer. That as a government assessor she must be noting down all of these nonemergency calls, would be putting them in her report as proof positive that ED7’s services could be cut and, though part of her wanted to reassure him, she knew she couldn’t. Assessing, and criticising, was supposed to be what she was here for, but she felt for him, and the depth of her sympathy surprised her.
‘Coffee,’ Eli announced tightly when he and Brontë strode through the A and E waiting room of the Pentland Infirmary after they’d delivered a city banker who confessed in the ambulance to having twisted his ankle two weeks before, but had been ‘too busy’ to go to his GP. ‘I need a coffee, and I need it now.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Brontë agreed, but, as she began walking towards the hospital canteen, she suddenly realised Eli was heading towards the hospital exit. ‘I thought you said you wanted a coffee?’ she protested when she caught up with him.
‘Not here,’ he said. ‘The coffee they serve here would rot your stomach. Tony’s serves the best coffee in Edinburgh, and it’s where all the ambulance crews go.’
‘But—’
‘Look, just drive, will you?’ he exclaimed. ‘Buccleuch Street, top of The Meadows, you can’t miss it.’
Just drive, will you. Well, that was well and truly putting her in her place, she thought angrily, and for a second she debated pointing out that she was a government assessor, not a taxi driver, but she didn’t. Instead, she silently drove to Buccleuch Street, but, when she pulled the ambulance up outside a small building with a blinking neon sign which proclaimed it to be Tony’s Twenty-four Hours Café, she kept the engine running.
‘Eli, what if we get a call?’ she said as he jumped down from the cab.
‘Hit the horn, and I’ll come running. Black coffee, café au lait, latte or cappuccino?’
