have earned some kind of nickname, they didn’t even see her as being female.
‘That wasn’t helpful, Stick,’ Jason said firmly. He gave Laura one of his killer smiles. ‘What he meant was that you’re one of us.’
‘One of the boys,’ Bruce put in kindly.
‘No.’ Jason sounded even firmer. ‘Laura is most definitely not a boy. Heck, even I’m not that blind.’
Laura couldn’t help smiling. Or help the pathetic little glow that started somewhere inside at the thought that Jason had not only noticed her femininity, he was defending her. Then her smile faded. What had the comment really meant…that it was really so hard to see anything attractive about her?
‘We’re not really chauvinistic,’ Bruce said a little defensively. ‘But this job requires people with pretty assertive personalities. So does yours. You wouldn’t expect a firefighter who’s risked life and limb to pull someone from a burning house or cut open a wrecked vehicle to extricate the injured to go home and bake a cake or clean a toilet, would you?’
‘Why not? You’d expect me to,’ Laura told them. ‘I’ve just been squished inside a car wreck looking after the injured, but I bet you wouldn’t put up too much of a fight if I offered to go and make you all coffee or throw some bacon and eggs together.’
‘Mmm.’ The sound was a frustrated groan. ‘Bacon and eggs!’
‘Don’t worry, Laura,’ Tim said. ‘We all know you’re just as much of a hero as we are.’
‘Yeah.’ Cliff winked at her. ‘Maybe you need a wife as well.’
Laura gritted her teeth. She knew they were teasing her but it was easy to think that her protest had not made the slightest impression on any prejudice held by these men. And what did it matter, anyway? She couldn’t imagine being attracted to a man who was keen to bake cakes or clean toilets. She’d never wanted to find a sensitive New Age guy. She was just twisted and bitter because John had never really wanted her for herself. Apart from the freely available sex, he would probably have been happier being married to Jean McKendry.
Jason seemed to have picked up at least part of her thoughts by telepathy.
‘You should also know,’ he said seriously, ‘that we don’t consider Mrs M. to be the perfect woman.’
‘No.’ Stick grinned. ‘She’s about forty years past her use-by date.’
‘And she’s grumpy as hell.’
‘Yeah.’ Jason rubbed his elbow reflectively. ‘She hit me with a wooden spoon the other day.’
‘Well, you were sticking your dirty, fat finger in her gravy.’
‘I was only tasting it.’
The mention of food provoked another general glance towards the clock and yet another short silence.
‘What was that?’ Laura frowned at the faint but noticeably unusual sound.
‘Just a cat.’
‘Gate squeaking?’ Cliff suggested hopefully. ‘Mrs M. arriving for breakfast?’
‘Jeez, we’d better not get another callout,’ Jason said unhappily. ‘I’m starving.’
‘You’re always starving, Jase.’
‘Can’t help it. I’m a growing lad.’
‘We’ve noticed.’ Stick leaned over the side of the chair and poked Jason’s midriff. ‘You’d better watch out, mate. Pot belly city!’
Laura’s lips twitched as she gave Tim a warning glance. He grinned and raised his eyebrows as though acknowledging that Laura might have already been provocative enough, especially for this time of day.
They were all startled at the sound made by the original back door of the house. Not that it wasn’t Mrs McKendry’s normal entranceway, but she didn’t usually open and shut it with quite such purpose. The room fell uncomfortably silent now. Mrs M. wasn’t happy. Someone had upset her and they were all likely to suffer the consequences. Laura was suddenly acutely aware of just how right her colleagues had been not to trespass on their housekeeper’s self-designated areas of responsibility.
Never mind the culinary and other benefits they all received—letting Jean McKendry think she was indispensable was actually an act of kindness. Looking after Inglewood station was her life and while she could be nosy, grumpy and always opinionated, she was never unfair. If she was this upset there would be a good reason for it.
The determined tap of sensible, low-heeled shoes got louder as Mrs McKendry traversed the kitchen’s linoleum floor. All eyes were drawn to the arched opening that joined the dining-room end of the lounge to the kitchen that ran along the other side of the house. Those same eyes swivelled in unison to the large cardboard box that Mrs M. deposited carefully on the table. Wiry arms were now folded in front of the small woman’s spare frame. And, in case her body language wasn’t enough to let them know that this time they were in serious trouble, her tone backed it up more than adequately.
‘I’m waiting,’ she snapped.
‘What for, Mackie?’ Jason’s smile was one of his most winning. It wasn’t even directed at Laura and it was enough to melt her bones. Using the affectionate nickname had to be overkill, surely? ‘What have we done?’
‘I know what one of you has done,’ Mrs M. enunciated with precision. ‘What I want to know is, who is responsible?’
‘Who is responsible for what?’
A sound rather similar to a cat’s mew or a gate squeaking was suddenly produced by the box on the table. Mrs McKendry’s lips almost disappeared into a straight, grim line.
‘Who is responsible for this puir wee bairn being left on the back doorstep of Inglewood station?’
CHAPTER TWO
A SPELL had been cast.
Laura experienced an odd sensation, as though a wand had actually been waved over the group of people sitting in the lounge of the Inglewood emergency response station. An electric tingle—a feeling she was unable to identify on the spectrum between elation and fear—ran through her entire body, and she knew without a shadow of doubt that the axis of her world was tilting.
Only an insignificant amount of time followed Mrs McKendry’s startling demand but it marked the transition between normal life and something totally unknown. One minute they had all been slumped in various positions of rest, filling in time and carefully not tempting fate by saying they were probably safe from the disruption of a late callout, and now they were suddenly involved in a disruption that was completely without precedent.
Laura wasn’t the only one to be stunned. Or to feel nervous in taking that first step of an unknown journey. The whole of Green Watch was moving. Slowly, silently, they approached the box on the table with as much caution as if it contained a live cobra.
Stick was the first to open his mouth. His nickname had been derived from affectionate ribbing that he’d been hit more than once by
