chugging split the air. No time for vanity.
What am I supposed to do?
She ran through the protocols in her head and hoped she’d remember them under stress. But the Intensive Care Paramedics and crew knew what they were doing; she’d learnt that much over the last few months. She’d met them all and been impressed with every one so far.
Soon enough the chopper door slid open and a man dressed in bright red paramedic dungarees jumped down. Shane, the town’s senior paramedic and old family friend, wrapped her in a hug, said something she couldn’t hear over the chopper blades and bundled her towards the helicopter.
Through the open door she could see more crew. Oh. A new one. He had a shock of dark hair. Celtic colouring, like her late grandad. Irish heritage, maybe? Perfect skin. Blue eyes. Nice mouth. A smattering of stubble, which made him look rugged and a little dangerous.
Back to his eyes—because she wanted to take a second look—they really were quite the brightest of blues, like the Queenstown sky on a crisp winter morning.
Where the hell had that thought come from?
Mr Nice Eyes raised his eyebrows as he met her gaze. Out of nowhere she felt a strange fluttery feeling in her stomach.
A medivac! Exciting! She was moving up in the world!
Shane coughed, nudging her forward, and she drew her eyes away from the new guy. Now...what the hell was she supposed to do?
* * *
With the touchdown being as choppy as a protein shake in a blender, Intensive Care Paramedic Callum Baird’s stomach had been left somewhere ten metres above Queenstown hospital. He breathed in the rush of cold air blasting through the open door.
November. New Zealand spring, apparently, and it was still freezing; as cold as a Scottish winter and windier than the top of Ben Nevis.
A diminutive girl had appeared in the doorway. Her face was almost covered by earmuffs and a bright red woolly hat with huge pompom, plus a matching scarf pulled up over her mouth. All Cal could see was her eyes. A dark penetrating brown that showed her to be at once apprehensive and excited. A common rookie air ambulance reaction. She pulled down her scarf and grinned. ‘Hi, I’m Abbie. Staff nurse in ED. I was told to hitch a ride, see what you do out in the wild.’
‘Er...hello.’ Cal shifted over in the tiny space, glancing over at his companion, Shane, who was leading this shift.
Shane nodded back and smiled at the girl; clearly he knew her and liked her.
‘Where should I sit?’ Her eyes danced around the cabin, her hands moving as she spoke, a vibrancy he hadn’t seen before in anyone.
Shane lumbered up into the chopper, wheezing as he sat down. Poor bugger was just at the back end of the flu and letting everyone know about it. ‘Shift over, Callum, make some room for our guest.’
It was none of Cal’s business, but there was barely enough room in here as it was. Plus they’d have to fit the patient on the gurney and work on him if necessary. ‘Going to be cosy.’
‘It won’t be for long. We can see Ben Lomond from here.’ Abbie shuffled in next to him and buckled her belt. ‘So, be gentle with me, eh?’
He looked at those dancing eyes and couldn’t help smiling at her. ‘First time?’
‘First medivac. Not first time in a chopper. Don’t you know, it’s the only way to travel in Queenstown?’ She bit her lip and explained, ‘There’s a lot of heli-sport here; heli-skiing, heli-hiking, that kind of thing.’
With a lurch they ascended. Helicopters didn’t usually lurch. ‘It’s blowy, that’s for sure.’
‘Coming off the Remarkables. Along with snow, I reckon. There’s a southern blast coming up from Antarctica.’ She nodded and looked away, gripping her hands together. From this angle he could see the fine shape of her jawline and some tiny wrinkles by her eyes. Not as young as he’d first thought, then. Hair sticking out at all angles from under her hat. Long eyelashes. Geez, it was real cosy in here if he was paying attention to her eyelashes.
Kind of cute, too.
He gave himself a mental telling-off. He had no business thinking any woman was cute. Not when he had responsibilities elsewhere.
Still, a bit of window-shopping never harmed anyone...
‘Great view, isn’t it? I wouldn’t live anywhere else on earth.’ Having raised her voice a notch above the chopper blades’ racket, Abbie pointed to the town below them. The deep blue lake stretched out as far as he could see, fringed on one side by the bustling centre of Queenstown. A string of gondolas swung directly beneath them, slowly scaling one of the mountains that framed the town. A zigzag luge was hundreds of feet below, where kids and adults alike risked life and limb—and had a lot of fun in the process—racing on go-karts down curved tracks to the valley. The girl grinned. ‘You’re not from here, right? Have you been on the luge yet?’
‘Nah. But I’ve scooped a kid up from it and taken him to ED. Nasty grazes and a fractured elbow.’
‘Makes you wary, then, does it? The adrenalin capital of the world?’ Her eyes danced again.
If only she knew. Adrenalin was his best friend, and his worst enemy. Before he could answer, the earth started to come up to meet them and the pilot was saying something about a body at two o’clock. Cal scanned the snow, the steep ridge, the jutting rocks and thought he saw something that looked out of place. A flash of blue. Then, yes... ‘He’s over there. I can see him.’
‘Yes. Yes. Watch out, it’s going to be slippery,’ the pilot shouted back, his words barely audible under the chug, chug, chug of the helicopter rotor blades. He’d made a spectacular landing on the only flat bit of mountainside—it took some skill to do that. ‘Got your crampons?’
‘Och, yes. I’ll be fine, no worries.’ If there was one thing Callum Baird knew it was snow. Every kind. The wet, seeping-through-your-clothes kind. The fluffy make-a-decent-snowball kind. And this, the melted and frozen again ice that meant getting a foot grip was challenging. Especially in the sixty-knot winds and poor visibility at the top of Ben Lomond. That last kind of snow was why he was here in the first place. To learn how to make amends, to try to fix things that probably couldn’t be fixed, but to make things better, at least.
He hoped.
Funny, how he’d travelled halfway around the world and found himself on the top of a mountain bearing the same damned name as the place he’d left. Almost as beautiful, too. If the clouds disappeared, and with a bit of spring sunshine it’d be stunning...but he wasn’t here to admire the view.
Bracing against the wind, he jumped from the helicopter then turned and grabbed his paramedic backpack. The crampons slipped on as easily as the memories. He shook the latter off. He was used to doing that. Some days they did as they were told and slunk away, and he managed to get through twenty-four hours before he was drawn back to that fateful night of cold and wet and ice. Other days they hung around him, a sopping, freezing bone-deep helplessness he couldn’t shake. ‘From what I could see, our guy’s up there, to the right—it’s fairly rocky, so we’ll have to do a bit of scrambling. He told Dispatch he’d heard a snap, so we’d best take the scoop with us, too. Hope you enjoy a bit of
