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‘I had dinner last night at the top pub so had a front-row seat to the drama. You know that librarian from the school Marty’s been seeing?’
All faces turned expectantly towards her, heads nodding.
‘Well, they’re sitting at the bar, obviously having words, and then she stood up, slapped his face, and stormed out.’
‘Another one bites the dust,’ Angie, the department secretary, said. ‘Wonder who’ll be next.’
They all turned to look at Emma, who had settled into one of the not-very-comfortable chairs and was enjoying her sandwich—especially as she wasn’t expected to share it with two small boys.
Joss shook her head.
‘No way! You know he stays away from hospital staff, besides which Emma’s small and dark, and Marty’s preference is for tall blondes.’
‘I’m not a tall blonde and I went out with him for a while.’ This from a complacently pregnant red-haired woman Emma hadn’t seen before.
‘That’s Helen,’ Angie told her. ‘She’s on the swing shift too, but comes in early to eat our sandwiches because she’s always hungry.’
‘Not true,’ Helen said, although she was eating a sandwich. ‘It’s just that Pete can drop me off so I don’t have to drive, and as for Marty, everyone who goes out with him knows the score. He’s quite open about not wanting a permanent relationship and if you look around the town most of the women he’s been out with are still friends with him. In fact, it was Marty who introduced me to Pete.’
Emma, although curious about this Marty—maybe he was a GP who did visits at the hospital—turned to Helen, asking when the baby was due.
‘Another three months and I’m already so uncomfortable I wonder why I thought it was a good idea.’
She paused, then added, ‘You’ve got twins, is that right?’
‘Small town,’ Joss explained when Emma looked surprised, but she smiled and agreed she did indeed have twins.
‘Three years old, and wild little hooligans already. I’m just lucky I’ve got my father to help with them.’
‘He minds them while you’re at work?’ Helen sounded slightly incredulous as she asked the question, but Emma just nodded.
‘Even does night duty when I’m on night shifts,’ she said.
She didn’t add that it had been her dad’s idea she have the children—well, a child it had been at that time, having two had been a surprise.
Dad had taken very early retirement when she’d all but fallen to pieces—well, had fallen to pieces—after Simon had died, moving in with her and becoming, once again, a carer to her—a role he’d first taken on when she’d been four and her mother had walked out on the pair of them.
A pang of guilt—one she knew only too well—shafted through her. Dad really should have a life of his own…
Perhaps here…
Soon…
But the conversation was continuing around her and she tuned back into it to find the women discussing unmarried men around town who might suit her.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. The remark earlier about her being a possible candidate for the unknown Marty’s new woman told her they already knew she was a single mother—single being the operative word.
Small town, indeed.
But before she could protest that she didn’t want to go out with anyone, the chat swerved off to the fire. Joss lived out of town on a cattle property and although they were always prepared, she thought this time they’d be safe. She was explaining how they kept the paddocks close to the house free of trees or tall grass when Sylvie came to the door.
‘Emma, you’re needed on the chopper. It’ll put down here to collect you. You have about ten minutes. You know where the landing pad is?’
Emma nodded confidently in answer to Sylvie’s question but inside she felt a little nervous. Although, as an emergency department doctor in a small town, she knew she’d be on call for the search and rescue helicopter, and she’d been shown over it by one of the paramedics, she hadn’t had much time to take it all in.
By which she really meant she’d refused to think about it. She’d done the training originally to help her overcome her fear of heights, and although she knew most rescue crews got an adrenaline rush at the thought of a mission, her rush was more one of trepidation than anticipation. Yes, she could do her job and do it well, but no amount of training or practice would ever stop the butterflies in her stomach as she waited to hang in mid-air, suspended from a winch.
‘—party of older children with special needs from the unit at the high school,’ Sylvie was explaining as they left the room together. ‘They were walking the coastal path, just this end of it. Apparently, the wind turned suddenly and the fire came towards them, so you can imagine the panic. We know one child with asthma is having breathing difficulties. No idea about the others but they’re stuck where they are and will have to be evacuated.’
