Rescue Heat (7 page)

Two days later, Brigid woke up to see the dawn light softly illuminating the golden cane palm outside her bedroom window. This Sunday was the beginning of her weekend, but she could rarely manage to sleep in. Two solid days of transferring critically ill patients from hospital to hospital, left her feeling wired and wrung out.

Knowing that any chance of shut-eye was over, Brigid stumbled out of bed. If she wasn’t going to relax, she might as well work out. As soon as she opened her bedroom door, Moby rushed her legs. She wasn’t the only one seeing in the early morning.

“Hey baby, I’ll take you out but then I’m going to do some training,” she crooned to the large dog. “Don’t give me a sad look, you know I’ll take you for a long run when I get back.”

Brigid yanked on a pair of tights as she let out the dog. She then grabbed her water bottle and scooped up her car keys. It was only a short drive through the empty Cairns streets to the climbing centre.

Walking through the cavernous space, Brigid went to the centre’s office. Damon, the centre’s offbeat owner, was slumped in his seat and barely looked up as she put her fifteen-dollar climbing fee on the table.

“Someone beat you here this morning,” Damon said, coming alive for just a moment. “Looks like you’ll have to share the wall with someone as crazy as you.”

Brigid went out into the main area, staring curiously up to see who else had decided that climbing was the best thing to do at six-thirty, on a Sunday morning. The man was facing the wall, but even slightly baggy pants and a t-shirt couldn’t disguise a truly magnificent male physique. He was tackling the most difficult section of the grade-ten free climb wall and was dealing with the awkward overhang with a catlike flexibility and grace. His quick climb came to a halt as his muscular left leg started probing fruitlessly for a foothold.

“Damn…”

A light curse rang out, sounding surprisingly loud in the echoing silence.

It was the distinctly American twang in his voice that alerted Brigid to the climber’s identity.

“Hey Matt,” she called out, regretting the words almost as soon as they had passed her lips. So much for keeping her professional distance.

“Brigid?” Matt asked. He was wedged awkwardly against the wall and couldn’t turn to see her.

“Yeah, it is, and the foothold you want is about ten inches above where your foot is now.”

“Climbing’s one of the sports where being six-two is a disadvantage,” Matt said wryly.

He turned at the top and Brigid was amazed to see a genuine smile light up his sometimes blank features. The warmth of his expression kept her in a momentary thrall and she found herself looking up at him for a long noticeable beat.

Brigid dropped her gaze away and started fiddling with her ropes, giving her suddenly nervous hands something to do.

“Don’t tell me you’re a climbing addict too?” Matt asked, as he slid down the rope back towards her spot on the ground.

“I learnt to climb back when I decided I wanted to be part of rescue,” said Brigid. “Now I’ve found it hard to give up.”

“So, is climbing a solo thing or do you want to do a dual run up the wall?”

Brigid looked towards Matt’s now familiar face. As she saw his expression was still relaxed and enthusiastic, she found it impossible to say no.

“You’d think we spend enough of our time attached to ropes,” Brigid commented as she clicked together her harness connection.

“Yeah, but the best thing about this is that there’s no patients to worry about. It’s just the fun of the ropes,” said Matt.

“I have to admit harnesses are more fun when you don’t have to worry about dropping a patient into the ocean,” Brigid replied, as she tilted her head to look up at him.

“There’s nothing like having access to this kind of facility. We didn’t have many of these in the desert,” Matt laughed. “Any gym equipment our unit had, we were on it like a pack of scavenging wolves, one treadmill to every hundred soldiers.”

“And here I come ruining your solo run here,” Brigid commented wryly.

“I think it’s more like I crashed what was ultimately your party.”

Matt gestured to the massive empty space around them. “I think we can manage to share.”

When Matt slid down the wall and came to stand close beside her, Brigid’s skin prickled to awareness. There were not many men whose mere presence exerted physical dominance. As always, around Matt, she had to tilt her chin upwards to meet his gaze.

He signalled to her to go ahead first and attack the wall. As she lifted her hands to gain traction, she could feel his gaze intent upon her. God, she wished she had put on something other than the singlet she had slept in and tights crumpled off the floor. The razor back of her top made it clear to anyone who cared to look closely that she was not wearing a bra. Brigid had a feeling that Matt was a man who noticed details.

Brigid climbed until the rope between them stretched tight.

“So did you survive your first week with your enthusiasm intact?” Brigid asked, as she paused and waited for Matt to climb up beside her.

Matt took a moment to draw even with her before answering. “My enthusiasm is still there. It has been an interesting week.”

At twenty feet above the gym floor, Brigid began to question her sanity in climbing with Matt. As he leaned closer to grab a handhold, distractingly, a muscular arm was brushing against her outer thigh. They might have had to get close at work, but previously they had been surrounded by colleagues. Now, Brigid was thrillingly aware that there were no witnesses overlooking their actions.

To take her mind off his rather lovely tanned arm, Brigid decided to ask the question that had been intriguing her, ever since she had done the maths on Matt’s age.

“What were you doing professionally before you joined the armed forces?”

“I’d finished my MBA and had planned to enter the family business when I decided I wanted to go somewhere else,” Matt said.

“With an MBA most people would have started trading futures as a career change, not began a decade stitching together blown off limbs in the Middle East,” retorted Brigid.

“I guess I wasn’t just everyone else.”

Brigid could only laugh in reply to the athletic man climbing beside her.

“Race you to the top.” Matt challenged pointing up to the ceiling, fifteen feet above.

Looking at Matt’s sinewy strength, no one would think that a physical contest between them could be even. However, Brigid knew her familiarity with the intricacies of the wall and her physical lightness evened the odds.

Racing a man who you were physically tied to, took a special kind of rhythm. You couldn’t allow the rope to stretch too tight between you, so your path up the wall had to be parallel and in close confines. Just five feet from the top, Brigid had to stretch her arms for a trickly handhold. In the moment it took for her to twist her body, Matt used his superior stretch and propelled himself to reach the roof.

“Touch,” Matt called, as he made contact with the ceiling above the climbing wall.

Brigid touched to wall only a few seconds behind him. Matt waited for her to release the tension in the rope and abseil back down the wall. Cheeks flushed with exertion, she looked younger and more playful then he remembered her looking before.

Brigid’s tight fitting civvies were making it hard for him to concentrate. Luckily, the relative ease of the climb meant he didn’t have to give the physical challenge his full attention.

“Chris and Dave did me a good turn when they recommended this place,” said Matt. “The equipment here is top notch.”

“Yeah they use the gym themselves, although not usually first thing on a Sunday morning.”

Back on the ground, Brigid was making short work of the ropes and straps that were loped on her body.

“Do you want me to give you a tour of the gym?” Brigid offered.

Brigid’s sudden relaxation in his presence surprised Matt. Maybe a week of working closely together had lowered her defences.

“I’d like that,” Matt said. He certainly did not want to repulse her overture.

Brigid made her way across the floor to a clearly marked door. They entered a space that was a bit more alive than the one they had just left. In the gym, there were a few people. They all were exercising with the solo intensity that generally characterized early morning attendees.

The room itself wasn’t flashy, utilitarian functionality seemed to be the décor. However, the equipment looked to be relatively new, solid, and well maintained. Matt could tell this was a gym for those who took exercise seriously, not a place for people who came to be seen.

Brigid walked over to one of the large treadmills that stood against the wall.

“Here is where I start,” she said. “I don’t know why I bother when I’m just going to go home and take Moby for a run.”

Matt took the machine next to her. All the treadmills were available, except the last, which was taken by a woman running intently without a glance for the newcomers.

“What do you do with Moby on the days when you’re working a long shift?”

“All our shifts are long, so I’m lucky that I live next door to a family of teenagers who adore him.” She spoke easily despite her speed. “Moby spends the afternoon with them when I am rostered on, and I pay the thirteen-year-old to take him for walks.”

Matt was somewhat relieved to find that Brigid was not a woman who treated her pet as an accessory, which could be put away when not in use.

“So did you grow up in Cairns?”

“No, I grew up in Sydney. It’s like a different country up here. Sydney is more restrained, more cosmopolitan. At least the private schools and university I attended were.”

Matt wasn’t surprised to hear that Brigid also came from a privileged background. There was an indefinable elegance and confidence about her. What intrigued him was that she seemed to have somewhat left it behind.

“Why come to Cairns?”

“God, that‘s what my father said,” Brigid laughed. “From his reaction when I told him about this job you’d think Cairns was the end of the earth. But I can practise some of the most interesting pre-hospital care in the world here. Because the distances are so long, what we do in getting medical care to outlying areas quickly, really matters.”

Matt could hear the genuine passion in her voice.

“I’ve got one more question but I’m wondering whether it’s cruel to ask while you’re running,” he asked, as he was very aware of the fast pace she was setting.

Brigid turned her head and shot him a cheeky grin, “Are you casting aspersions on my fitness?”

“Not at all,” Matt protested.

“Well they say the right pace is when you can talk with a little effort. So ask away,” Brigid said.

“Is rescue just a pit stop in a career on the rise?”

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Matt surprised himself with the boldness of his question.

Brigid, however, seemed unperturbed.

“No, this is a job where I can grow. There are always new techniques to learn and unique situations to deal with.”

An escalating soundtrack of beeps signalled that their twenty-minute run was over.

Matt lifted his free weights and, out of the corner of his eye, watched Brigid on the legs machine. The way he constantly focused his gaze on her thighs was making him feel, frankly, like a voyeur. Normally he could concentrate on a woman as a person, but having closely watched her while she climbed, he was only too aware that the only thing shielding her long limbs was a thin pair of tights and small scrap of something. There hadn’t been anyone for a long time whose body had held him in such thrall. Why was he so attracted to the one woman, in the entire city, who was so clearly out of bounds?

Now relatively silent, Matt and Brigid rotated through their individual exercise routines. Matt couldn’t deny he enjoyed their moment of solidarity, in a smile they shared, when a fifty plus gym junkie started grunting loudly as he attacked the bench press.

“Nothing like a special Australian gym soundtrack,” Brigid dropped her comment in Matt’s ear as she changed equipment.

“I think that soundtrack’s more international than you think,” Matt whispered back.

Almost exactly an hour after they had entered the gym area, Brigid finished her exercise. Matt had been impressed, once again, by her fitness and the focus she brought to everything she did.

Collecting her water bottle and towel, Brigid turned briefly before heading out the glass doors. “See you back at work,” she called.

Matt nursed his beer as he sat alone at a bar counter and cursed his decision to come out. Top 40 music pumped loudly and another giggling group of eighteen-year-old girls stood too closely, bumping into him, in what he assumed was an attempt to gain his attention.

Matt now bitterly questioned the impulse that said he must, as a single man, go out and meet other people. He didn’t think he’d ever felt quite so old as now; surrounded by women who must be fifteen years his junior.

A soft touch to his back made him restrain a violent flinch, but the accompanying soft voice in his ear was one he recognised.

“I might accuse you of stalking me, but it’d be a hard case to make when you’re always there before me.”

Matt turned to see Brigid standing behind him. Shoulder-length, straight hair sleekly framed her face and she had encased her well-shaped legs in denim. A V-neck, black T-shirt and heavy silver chain completed the outfit.

Matt raised his hand from his beer glass in greeting. “I know you told me that Cairns was like a small town, but with the frequency we’re meeting, I’m starting to think it’s actually closer to village proportions.”

“A population of 150,000 makes it quite a large village. So I think it’s rather more likely you’re getting your social suggestions from the same people I did when I moved here. Chris and Dave,” Brigid said. “Here, let me introduce you to Jennifer.”

Matt was embarrassed to realise that he had been so focused on Brigid, he hadn’t noticed the curvy blond standing next to her.

“Nice to meet you,” said Matt, offering the shorter woman his hand.