place to park up until he got another call. Central city and covering a patch well away from the nearest ambulance station. A young man in a wheelchair went past amongst the crowd.
There was a disability that couldn’t be disguised. And he knew what it was like to attract the intrusive attention of people who felt they had the right to ask personal questions. They’d often been directed at him over the years—as if Nathan’s brain didn’t work any better than his legs did.
‘Why’s he in a wheelchair, then?’
‘Oh, the poor boy. Can he feed himself?’
‘How does he go to the toilet?’
The guilt was always there, welded onto his soul, and the curiosity of strangers turned the screws painfully for Aiden, but Nathan had developed a resilience in his teenage years that had astounded him. He could deal with any situation now with a humour that often shocked the nosy people. Like those awful jokes he kept adding to.
‘What do you call a quadriplegic under your car? Jack.’
Despite himself, Aiden found his lips quirking. What did it matter what other people thought? Nathan had it sorted. He was happy. In fact, he was happier than he’d ever been right now. The way he’d been looking at Sam the other night … Was something going on already and, if so, how badly could that end? He needed to have a serious talk with his younger brother. Try and get him prepared for something that would hurt more than public scrutiny or pity.
His radio crackled into life.
‘Code One,’ Dispatch told him, giving him an address not far away. ‘Twenty-four-year-old female with severe abdominal pain.’
‘Copy that.’ Aiden tilted the bike off its stand and kicked it into life. He activated the lights and then the siren. Traffic was building up but he’d be able to weave through it fast. He loved a code one response and the freedom it allowed. With a bike, he got way more freedom than an ambulance to break a speed limit or use the tramlines. He just had to be a bit more careful. Hitting tram lines at the wrong angle and the ambulance would have to stop for him instead of getting to the job.
It took less than four minutes to arrive on scene. Another thirty seconds and he was in the room with the young woman who was bent over a chair and groaning loudly.
‘It’s the fish I had last night. Ohhh…. It really hurts and I’ve been sick.’
Aiden blinked. Dispatch hadn’t bothered mentioning that his patient was pregnant.
‘How far along are you?’
‘Thirty-seven weeks.’
‘And how far apart are the pains you’re getting?’
‘I dunno. It’s happening every five or ten minutes, I guess. But I’m not in labour. It’s that fish … I knew I shouldn’t be eating prawns.’
It took very little time to convince his patient that this was, indeed, labour.
‘I’m not going to hospital. I’m having a home birth. Can you call my midwife?’
‘Sure. What’s her name?’
‘Sophia Toulson. Her card’s on the fridge.’
The phone in his hand seconds later, Aiden found himself smiling again. It was surprising how strong the hope was that Sophia would be available and able to get here fast.
For his patient’s benefit, of course …
Flick was excited. This was the first home birth she had been to since starting to shadow Sophia.
‘But what if something goes wrong? Like a postpartum haemorrhage or something?’
‘We call for back-up. The Melbourne ambulance service is fabulous. And we’re not far from the hospital. In most cases, if there’s going to be trouble, we get enough warning.’
‘You didn’t the other day, with that cord prolapse, did you?’
‘No.’
And her pager hadn’t warned her that the paramedic on scene had been riding a motorbike. She could see it parked outside Gemma’s house.
‘Nice bike,’ Flick murmured.
‘Mmm.’
Those butterflies were dancing in her stomach again. How many SPRINT paramedics rode bikes in the city? It didn’t mean that she was about to have another encounter with the man her friends were all now referring to as ‘the hot paramedic’.
Except it appeared that she was.
‘Hey …’ Aiden Harrison was grinning. ‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this. Rumours will start.’
Flick gave a huff of laughter and Sophia gave her a warning glance before letting her gaze shift back to Aiden, her lips curling into a smile.
‘You did say that babies were your favourite thing but you don’t have to take over my job, you know.’ She moved past him. ‘Why didn’t you call me when the pains started, Gemma?’
‘I didn’t think it was labour. I thought I had some dodgy prawns last night because I started getting cramps just after I’d eaten. They went away for a while this morning and then one was so painful I screamed and my neighbour called the ambulance.’
‘Contractions are four to five minutes apart,’ Aiden told her. ‘Lasting about ninety seconds. Vital signs all good. Gemma’s been happy to keep walking around.’
‘Let’s get you on your bed for a minute,’ Sophia said. ‘I want to check how baby’s doing and what stage of dilatation you’re at. This is Flick, by the way. Our student midwife. Are you happy to have her assisting? It’s very valuable experience for her if she can be hands-on.’
Gemma nodded as she let Sophia guide her towards the bedroom.
‘I can stay until I get another call,’ Aiden said. ‘Unless I’m in the way.’
It was entirely unprofessional to get distracted by noticing how much she didn’t want him to disappear. Even worse to take another look at him and find it so hard to look away. Those eyes were just as warm and interesting as she’d remembered, and that smile made it impossible not to smile back.
Oh … help. How long had they been staring at each other? Long enough for Flick and Gemma to exchange a surprised glance and then a complicit grin.
‘It’s fine by me if you stay,’ Gemma said. You know you want to, her tone suggested. ‘My mum’s on her way but I told her not to hurry. This is going to take ages, isn’t it?’
‘Let’s find out. Flick, get some gloves on and you can examine Gemma and find out what her stage of dilatation is.’
Keeping her voice low, it was possible to use this opportunity as a teaching and practical experience session for Flick.
‘Tell me how you’ll make the assessment.’
‘At two centimetres I’ll be able to fit one finger loosely through the cervix but not two fingers. Two fingers will be loose at four centimetres. There’s two centimetres of cervix palpable on both sides at six centimetres, one at eight and there’s only an anterior lip or a bit left laterally at nine centimetres.’
‘And what are you feeling?’
‘Nothing.’ Flick’s eyes widened. ‘I can’t feel any cervix at all. Am I doing something wrong?’
Sophia smiled as she double-checked Flick’s findings, shaking her head at her student, who had been correct in her evaluation. ‘You’re fully dilated, Gemma,’ she told their patient. ‘Let’s check the baby’s position and then get set up. What do you need to do now, Flick?’
‘The four Leopold’s manoeuvres. First one checks the upper abdomen to make sure