Loe raamatut: «Their One-Night Twin Surprise»

CHAPTER ONE
Three months later

THE MINUTE THE call came in Izzy knew it was going to be a tough one for her.

‘We have a thirty-one-year-old pregnant woman badly hurt after a car accidentally reversed through a shop window.’ She paused to clear her throat before she continued relaying the harrowing details to the rest of the crew on board the air ambulance. ‘The patient was shunted through the glass and has suffered severe lacerations and potential crush injuries. Her wrist and main artery have been severed but police on the scene have applied a tourniquet to her arm and require immediate medical assistance.’

‘What about the driver of the car?’ Cal’s voice came over the headset and she knew, as the attending doctor, he was concerned for everybody’s safety at the scene.

‘Superficial injuries and shock, as far as we can tell. The ambulance can take him to hospital by road, but time is of the essence for our pregnant lady.’ Depending on how much blood she’d lost and how long it took for them to get her to the hospital, there was a chance both mother and baby might not make it. Unfortunately, death was a part of the job but under current circumstances this one felt a bit close to home when Izzy’s hormones were already all over the place.

Once the pilot found a clear place to land they hurried towards the melee of people and flashing lights. Thankfully the police had cordoned off the area so they could get to work without interference from the general public who were watching the drama unfold.

‘This is Tara Macready. She’s four months pregnant and has sustained substantial wounds to her left arm. We’ve been applying pressure to the wound since we arrived on scene.’ One of the young police officers talked them through events as his colleagues did their best to stop the patient bleeding out. With their first-aid training they’d known to elevate the arm and apply pressure to reduce the flow of blood and had probably saved her life in the process. They’d done their part and now it was up to Izzy and Cal to get her transferred to the hospital as soon as possible.

Despite the police officers’ good work, the ground was heavily stained with the scarlet evidence of the patient’s trauma and Izzy had to fight against the unexpected emotions welling up inside her. ‘Tara, we’re with the air ambulance crew. We’re going to take over now and get you transferred to the hospital.’

‘What about my baby?’ she mumbled, battling against unconsciousness.

‘We’re going to monitor you both, but we need to do a few things first, Tara. Izzy, she needs a bilateral cannula as quick as you can.’ Cal set to work getting a pressure bandage on to replace the makeshift tourniquet that had been applied to Tara’s arm and Izzy inserted the cannula so they could administer fluids. Once she was at the hospital they could do the blood typing necessary for a transfusion.

‘I’m giving you some morphine for the pain, Tara.’ With the bleeding halted Cal went ahead with pain relief. In this situation, even though they wanted to save both lives, the mother took priority.

Their portable kit enabled them to monitor Tara’s blood pressure and heart rate and Izzy made sure everything was in place before they transferred her to the helicopter. They both climbed into the back with their patient so they could keep a close eye on her for the duration of the flight.

‘I’m going to take a listen to your baby while the doctor checks your progress. Okay, Tara?’ Izzy kept talking her through what was happening, reassuring her everything was going to be all right, even though she was slipping in and out of consciousness.

With a special stethoscope she was able to put her ear down to Tara’s belly and listen for the baby’s heartbeat. Hearing that faint rhythm felt like winning the lottery and Cal mirrored her smile when he realised the baby was still hanging in there too.

‘Your baby is fighting right along with you, Tara. We’ll get you both to the hospital as quickly as we can.’ It was all down to timing now and Izzy was taking this one more personally than anything she’d ever witnessed before. Apparently, the prospect of becoming a mother made a woman fight harder than ever and that was one symptom of pregnancy she could get on board with.

* * *

Izzy could have kissed the tarmac when the helicopter touched down back at their Belfast base after transferring their patient into the hands of the emergency staff at the hospital.

‘Are you okay, Fizz? You’re looking a little green around the gills there. Don’t tell me you’ve developed a sudden fear of flying? We’d have to ground you and then who would I have to wind up on a daily basis?’

She rolled her eyes at a grinning Cal. He knew she hated that nickname he’d foisted on her when they’d first met at air ambulance training and she’d let her temper get the better of her, striving to prove she was better than any of the men there.

At least, she used to hate it. In the five years of working together it had grown on her and she’d missed it of late when things between them had become awkward, to say the least. Things weren’t going to get any easier between them once he heard her news.

They’d both been hurt by people who’d purported to love them. Cal’s pregnant fiancée, Janet, had run out on him with the man who was apparently the real father of the baby she was carrying, leaving double the void in his life and double the hurt.

Izzy knew the heart-stabbing pain of betrayal, thanks to Gerry, the man she’d thought she’d spend the rest of her life with. She’d put all her hopes and dreams into their relationship, believing he was the one who was going to give her the family and stability she’d never had growing up in the foster system, only to have everything cruelly snatched away from her when he’d been killed in a motorcycle accident.

The only thing worse than losing someone she loved had been discovering he hadn’t been who she’d thought he was at all. A parade of nefarious debt collectors and loan sharks who’d bankrolled a gambling addiction she’d been oblivious to and a bank account emptied as a result of his addiction had merely fuelled the notion that she would never have anyone in her life who loved her unconditionally. The realisation that had sent her running to the one person in her life she knew she could trust.

In Cal she’d found a kindred, wounded soul and she’d needed him to comfort her. They’d shared that one incredible night together but they both knew it could never be more than that when they were too raw to even think of getting involved in any sort of relationship. It was difficult enough going back to work as though nothing had happened between them when every erotic memory of sharing his bed was still so vivid in her mind.

And that one night of seeking solace in Cal’s arms had ended in the life-changing consequences she was yet to tell him about. She didn’t know how he was going to react to the news he was going to become a father so soon after his break-up and, to be truthful, she didn’t want to lose his friendship if he resented the fact she was pregnant with his baby instead of Janet.

‘I’m perfectly fine,’ she bristled, as they ducked under the still spinning blades of the air ambulance.

This pregnancy might have come as a shock, but she wasn’t going to let it get in the way of doing her job. The time would come soon enough when her bump would encroach on the limited space inside the chopper and prevent her from being as physically involved in the rescues as she was used to. At which point in time she’d probably have to become more involved in ground operations and hospital transfers, but not before then.

She was sure the odd bout of nausea would pass soon now she was reaching the end of her first trimester. Although she’d been unaware of the little person growing inside her belly for most of that time. Since she and Cal had agreed to put their indiscretion behind them, it hadn’t entered her head that she might be pregnant and had blamed the stress of finding out about Gerry’s secret vice as the cause for her missed period. Now everything was going to change between them.

Those tears, which never seemed far away, blurred her vision once more and she rested her hand on the slight swell of her belly to reassure her little bean it still had her, even if Cal decided he didn’t want to be involved. She needed to confide in someone and the closest she had to family was Helen, her childhood friend and the only person she’d had growing up who had seemed to genuinely care for her.

Helen still lived in the Donegal area, where Izzy had spent the last of her teenage years before moving to Belfast to study nursing. She was a shoulder for Izzy to lean on when she needed one and though there was a vast geographical distance between them, hearing her voice would be enough to comfort her. Once she got over the shock herself, Izzy resolved to make that phone call. There was just one other person she had to inform first.

‘Seriously, though, are you sure you’re all right?’ Cal stepped closer, his frown wiping away all traces of joviality, his pale blue eyes full of concern.

Izzy dropped her hand, so he wouldn’t guess her secret.

‘Low blood sugar, I expect. I haven’t eaten all day.’ A complete lie. Her blood was probably ninety per cent sugar due to the number of biscuits she’d been wolfing down lately.

‘Why didn’t you say? I’m sure we can do better than a cup of tea and a stale bun in the canteen. After what we’ve just been through we could probably do with something a lot stronger. Pub?’ He began to unzip his bright orange flight suit and let the sleeves drop to his waist, revealing the lean frame encased in a tight black T-shirt beneath the bulky protective layers.

Izzy told herself it was pregnancy hormones making it impossible for her to drag her eyes away. That was the bonus side of her condition, being able to blame recent impulses, including an apparent spike in her libido, on the changes going on inside her body. Although her intimate knowledge of that hard body and the pleasures it could bring a woman was making her temperature rise steadily with every flashback of that night they’d spent together.

It was a loss to womankind that because one of their sisters had been blind to what a great man he was, all the rest would be denied the privilege of getting close to him. Except her, of course, but then they’d agreed it would never happen again, no matter how physically compatible they’d turned out to be. It was ironic that they hadn’t wanted to complicate their relationship by getting romantically involved when they were now going to be tied together for the rest of their lives.

Izzy watched him climb out of his suit and flash her that cheeky grin of his.

‘Enjoying the view?’

‘You wish,’ she shot back with just as much sarcasm before he realised how true his observation had been.

Given the physical nature of their work, it was important to keep up their fitness levels, but Cal was the type who could never sit still anyway. His trim, nicely muscled physique wasn’t the result of hours spent at the gym. He wasn’t the slightest bit vain enough to spend time staring at himself in the mirror whilst he hoisted weights. No, this perfect specimen of the male anatomy was a pleasant result of his busy life as a doctor in the field and the manual labour he did in his vast garden in his spare time.

She shivered as some particularly erotic memories sprang to mind of this handsome man with his tan, sun-bleached mop of hair and that mischievous glint in his eye, lying naked next to her.

‘Are you sure you’re all right? You’ve got that hungry look in your eyes again.’

Izzy blinked away inappropriate thoughts and images of her colleague, her friend, and the one constant she’d had in her life here in Belfast before she’d screwed up and potentially lost him for ever too.

‘Just starved.’ Apparently for more than food. Not that he’d ever shown any interest in her as a woman apart from as another one of his mates until that night.

It hadn’t been planned. Izzy had just needed to be with someone who cared about her. Through the tears and shared stories of heartbreak they’d found themselves kissing and searching for some feeling of peace. She didn’t regret anything. It had been a beautifully raw expression of their affection and compassion for one another. They simply should have taken adequate precautions for their evening as friends with benefits.

‘Let me get the paperwork out of the way and we’ll head to the pub before you get hangry. I know what you’re like when you’re so hungry you turn into a red-headed hulk.’

If she’d had any doubts that he only saw her as a mate, they vanished. She was so completely friend zoned he didn’t expect her to take offence at that comment.

‘Do not,’ she huffed, regardless she knew very well her fiery temper reached boiling point when there was a lack of food close to hand. He hadn’t drawn a pretty picture of her when she’d created a sexy centrefold out of him. ‘I’m not keen on the pub idea either.’

She worried he’d be suspicious if she sat in the bar nursing an orange juice instead of her usual glass of wine.

‘Dinner at that new Italian place, then? Although it’ll probably mean having to go home and get changed first. I’m not sure sweaty work clothes will fit their dress code.’ He was being unnecessarily concerned. Cal always managed to smell amazing no matter how stressful their shift proved or how energetic he’d been.

‘Hmm, I fancy something stodgy and greasy.’ She didn’t.

‘I’ll die of starvation if you make me go home first.’ She wouldn’t. However, if they went to that posh place and Cal changed the habit of a lifetime by not offering to pay the entire bill she’d be mortified because she couldn’t afford it.

Even before she’d discovered there’d be a new mouth to feed in the future, she’d been struggling to cover the bills. Gerry had never officially moved in, but he’d used her place as a base when not travelling around the country as a pharmaceutical rep. It wasn’t that she was missing his financial contributions to household expenses, quite the opposite. He was the reason she had no savings left to furnish her nest now.

She’d invited him into her heart and her home without the knowledge of his gambling habits. Gerry had had no family or friends either to call on for help and the cost of his funeral on top of his other financial mismanagement meant money was tight for her and nothing short of a miracle would change that now. Wages would have to stretch as far as possible and that would mean cutting back on luxuries like fancy Italian restaurants or any sort of social life.

Izzy should have known better than to think she was sitting pretty at any stage of her life and keep herself protected. Being a kid bounced around the care system had taught her never to rely on anyone except herself and never to let her guard down. Once too often she’d imagined she’d found her forever home, only to be returned like an ill-fitting shirt. Too young, too old, too opinionated, too red, she’d been a nineties Anne Shirley, without the lovable Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert giving her a happy ending at Green Gables.

Meals and board had been provided along with whatever basic material possessions she’d needed, but that all-important element had been missing, as it had for most of her life. Love wasn’t something given or received easily for her, even with Gerry.

It had been a slow burn for them but eventually she’d learned to trust, to open up her heart and believe him when he’d promised her a future and a family together.

Even though Cal knew about Gerry’s betrayal since it was the reason she’d been driven to his arms, the extent of her financial struggles was another secret she was keeping from someone she considered a friend. With good reason. He’d insist on riding in on his white steed, waving his fat wallet, to save her and she wasn’t going to be indebted to him or anyone else. She had to get used to managing on her own when she had errands to run or do the night feeds when she was exhausted beyond belief. The stakes were too high now for her to let anyone into that armoured heart again.