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‘I can’t move. My back’s too sore.’
Laura caught Tim’s eye. Their patient weighed at least a hundred and forty kilograms. They would be lucky to fit Mrs Pearce onto a stretcher with both sides down, and a scoop stretcher would probably buckle under the strain.
‘We’ll need to get some help to move you, in that case,’ Tim said tactfully. ‘That might take a while.’
‘Are you saying I’m fat?’
Yes! Laura wanted to shout. You are grossly overweight and we’re not going to wreck our backs when you’re probably perfectly capable of walking. You’re wasting our time and we’re not going to be popular when we hand you over to emergency department staff who have far better things to do than spend time on someone who has no intention of taking responsibility for their own health. Instead, she smiled, albeit somewhat grimly.
‘You have a choice here, Mrs Pearce. You can stay home and ask your GP to make a house call, you can let us help you walk out to the ambulance or you can wait for us to get assistance to move you.’
‘Oh, get lost,’ Mrs Pearce snapped. ‘I’m not having a bunch of firemen tramping around my house and sniggering because you’re not capable of doing your job and carrying me. You’re just as bloody useless as anyone else, aren’t you?’
* * *
‘At least she signed the paperwork.’
‘Mmm.’ Laura was negotiating the rush-hour traffic through the central city. ‘Thank goodness we didn’t have to transport her.’
‘She’ll probably call another ambulance in the middle of the night.’
‘Won’t be our problem.’ Laura grinned. ‘If she keeps it up she’ll go on the blacklist.’
‘Doesn’t mean we don’t have to respond, though.’
‘No.’
Even people who abused the emergency services to the point that everyone knew them to be time-wasters had to be seen. They couldn’t afford to let a genuine incident go unattended. Laura let her breath out in a long sigh.
‘It’s been quite a day, hasn’t it? I’ll be glad to get home.’
‘You’re going home?’ Tim sounded surprised. ‘Have you decided to let Jase fend for himself, then?’
‘No.’ Laura felt the heat in her cheeks. ‘I meant home to Jason’s place.’
It hadn’t even occurred to her it wasn’t ‘home’. How could it feel like that when she’d only been in residence for four days?
‘Don’t let him get too dependent on you, Laura.’
‘I won’t. This is only temporary. And there’s no way he’d manage on his own.’
‘Exactly. Don’t let him use you.’
‘I’m enjoying it,’ Laura said sincerely. ‘Megan’s gorgeous.’
‘What about Jason?’ Tim seemed to be choosing his words carefully.
‘He’s gorgeous, too,’ Laura said lightly. Then she caught Tim’s glance and laughed. ‘I was joking, Tim.’
Good grief, had somebody other than Mrs McKendry guessed her motivation?
Happily, Tim joined her laughter and her confession was dismissed.
‘I meant, is he enjoying it? He was pretty horrified at the prospect of trying out fatherhood.’
‘I’m not sure about enjoying it exactly,’ Laura admitted. ‘But he’s getting used to it. He can change a nappy all by himself now and feed her.’
She thought about the laughter that had been provoked by teaching Jason how to bathe his daughter last night and smiled. ‘Actually, I suspect he is starting to enjoy it – he just doesn’t want to.’
