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  She sighed. ‘If a single man has a choice between two women, one with a child to bring up and the other as free and unfettered as himself, it’s not hard to see which one he’s going to choose, is it?’

  ‘Aw, come on, Selina,’ Gavin protested. ‘It’s quality that counts.’ Before she could reply to that pearl of wisdom the bleeper in his top pocket was urging him back to the never-ending demands of A and E.

  * * *

  It was Saturday night and Selina was wishing Kane and herself on call anywhere other than in the city centre.

  None of the squad liked Saturday night duty, but they all had to take their turn and tonight it was theirs. It was when it got to the early hours of Sunday morning that the problems started. When the rowdies and the legless came pouring out onto the streets from the clubs and bars.

  The last time they’d been on duty they’d been called to a club where a young girl had been in a serious condition after taking ecstasy tablets and alcohol.

  Selina had felt like weeping at the stupidity of her actions and Kane’s face had been set in stone as they’d given her what treatment they could and had then driven to hospital with sirens screeching in the summer night.

  They’d discovered afterwards that she’d survived, but with physical and mental damage that wouldn’t easily be repaired. Selina was praying that there wouldn’t be anything like that tonight.

  There wasn’t. But there were other incidents just as distressing.

  A fight that had started in a queue at a taxi rank had resulted in one youth unconscious, having cracked his head on the pavement as he’d gone down, and another bleeding and battered, leaning against a shop window.

  They were there before the police and as Selina and Kane leapt out of the ambulance the fight started up again. As they ran towards the unconscious victim a burly youth stepped back and knocked Selina off her feet.

  The response bag that she was carrying went flying and the next thing she heard was Kane’s voice, loud and furious, above the uproar.

  ‘Stop it, you fools!’ he bellowed. ‘You’ve hurt my partner. You don’t deserve our help if you’re going to carry on like this!’

  He was bending over her, his dark eyes full of concern and outrage, and she gasped, ‘See to the injured, Kane. I’m all right.’

  ‘You sure?’ he asked tightly.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ She got slowly to her feet.

  She’d hurt her back, but it was hardly the moment to mention it, with two injured males and the rest of them still simmering, even though Kane’s outburst had put an end to the scuffling.

  The lad on the pavement was coming round. When he saw them hovering over him he croaked, ‘They tried to push in front of us in the queue, and when we protested they got rough. Where’s Tim?’

  ‘I imagine that’s him, over there,’ Kane told him. ‘It looks as if he’s had some rough handling, too.’ He glanced anxiously at Selina’s pale face. ‘Can you take over here while I see to the other guy?’

  She nodded, hoping that he hadn’t seen her wince.

  ‘Yes. I’m fine.’

  At that moment the police arrived and incredibly the street was suddenly empty, the only thing to be heard the sound of running feet.

  ‘We’ll get ’em,’ a police sergeant told them grimly. ‘We have helicopters up on Saturday nights. They’ll follow them overheard and pick ’em out for us.’

  Kane was only half listening. At that moment all he was concerned about was getting the injured to hospital and finding out from Selina if she was indeed as all right as she said she was.

  Being involved in violent situations were all part of the job for both sexes, but he’d been staggered by the horror he’d felt when he’d seen Selina go down. If it hadn’t been for the fact that they’d had two injured men to see to, he would have felt like sorting out the hooligans himself.

  Why couldn’t Selina have chosen a less dangerous and stressful career? he thought as she drove them through the breaking dawn. But you wouldn’t have met her if that had been the case, he told himself soberly, and you wouldn’t want that.

  She looked tired and ethereal, as if a puff of wind would blow her away. Yet, tranquil as ever, she managed a smile when she found his gaze on her.

  As he gave oxygen to one of the youths, who was having breathing difficulties, for the first time ever Kane wished himself far away from the sick and injured he was committed to save.

  He wanted to take Selina away from the sordid and the stressful, to somewhere where he could show her the tenderness she aroused in him and tell her about the longing that made his loins ache.

  When they’d delivered the two victims of the brawl into A and E, Selina said calmly, ‘I’m going to have my back checked over before we leave, Kane. I jarred my spine when I fell.’

  Alarm flickered in his eyes but she said smilingly, ‘Don’t panic. This sort of thing goes with the job and I’m tougher than I look. That’s what you were thinking as we drove here, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That I’m not sturdy enough for these sort of occasions,’ she said teasingly.

  ‘Yes. As a matter of fact, I was thinking that,’ he admitted without an answering smile. ‘Whatever possessed you to become a paramedic?’

  ‘For the same reason as you, I would imagine. Because it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. And don’t get any wrong ideas. I love the job…just as you do.’

  He managed a smile.

  ‘That’s me put in my place.’

  Now it was her turn to be serious. ‘No. Of course not.’ With a catch in her voice, she added, ‘It’s nice to have someone concerned about me.’

  And because he could no more not have asked it than flown to the moon, Kane questioned, ‘What about that relative of your husband’s? Doesn’t he look out for you?’

  ‘Peter?’

  ‘Yes, I believe that’s his name,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Well, of course he does. He’s family,’ she said immediately.

  But before she could explain that was all he was—Dave’s family, not hers and never would be—the triage nurse called her over to assess how urgent her requirements were and Kane was left to his thoughts.

  An X-ray showed that though there was much bruising Selina hadn’t suffered any damage to her spine. As she walked stiffly back to the ambulance she said in fervent relief, ‘Thank goodness for that. Any health problems on my part could be financially and physically disastrous.’

  ‘Yes. I do realise that,’ he said, still with an edge to his voice.

  He was realizing something else as well. He was travelling on a road that he’d had no intentions of going along, and that he might have to turn back sharply if Selina ever found out about a certain nasty little incident in his past.

  The sickening memory of Eve Richards’s accusations had been pushed to the back of his mind, but he felt as if the taint of it would never leave him.

  He’d always been popular with the opposite sex, never needed to chase a woman. But the Richards woman had made him sound like some sort of propositioning groper, and all because of her hurt pride.

  As he brought his thoughts back to the moment Kane saw that Selina’s gaze was on him, and with a swift change of subject he said, ‘So where are we taking Josh and his two cousins over the weekend?’

  Her face lit up and he thought whimsically that there was no guile in Selina.

  ‘You haven’t forgotten!’

  ‘Of course I haven’t. Did you think I would?’

  ‘Er…well, no, not exactly.’

  ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I thought that you and Denise might—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Be making arrangements.’

  He almost laughed out loud. Denise was the last person he intended getting involved with. But he supposed that they had been spending a lot of time together when they were waiting to be called out at the ambulance station. It was one way of taking his mind off the
woman seated beside him.

  Denise had even suggested that they ask the station officer if she could ride with him instead of Selina, but he’d soon nipped that idea in the bud. Even if he hadn’t been happy with Selina as a partner, Denise was the last person he would want to replace her. One oversexed female in his past was enough.

  Just being with this young widow, who was observing him with violet eyes full of questions, seemed to be calming the turmoil past events had left inside him.

  For the present he dared not think any further than that, and it might have been the reason why he didn’t make it as clear as he could have done that Denise was of no interest to him.

  Instead, he said casually, ‘At the present time I’m not involved in making ‘‘arrangements’’, as you so delicately describe it, with Denise Hapgood. But I’ll keep you informed.’

  He saw a shadow cross her face and cursed himself for being a procrastinating fool. It wasn’t in his nature to beat about the bush, but there was the garage fellow hovering in the background of Selina’s life and the tender memories of her husband that were ever with her.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question about the children,’ he reminded her.

  Her expression lightened. ‘No, I didn’t, did I? How about a drive to the coast?’

  ‘Mmm, sounds great. Blackpool maybe? The world-famous resort? I’ve always wanted to go there.’

  Selina laughed.

  ‘You might be disappointed. Kiss-me-quick hats, candy-floss and the tower.’

  ‘That alone should be worth seeing. Let’s go!’

  ‘All right.’ She sparkled. ‘Blackpool it is.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘SO HOW’S the back?’ were Kane’s first words when he arrived to pick them up for the Blackpool trip.

  Selina thought she saw anxiety in his glance and once again she was warmed by his concern. Yet perversely she brushed it to one side and said lightly, ‘Much better, thanks.’

  ‘Good,’ he said impassively, as if aware that she was backing off. Turning his attention to Josh and the twins, he said, ‘So, are we all ready to go to the seaside?’

  ‘Yes!’ the three young ones chorused.

  Kane and Selina exchanged amused glances when Josh said, ‘I don’t want to sit in the back with those dolls. Can I be at the front with Kane?’

  ‘All right,’ Selina agreed. ‘Men at the front and women in the back.’

  The dolls he’d referred to were being held lovingly by Katie and Kirsty, and as they set off Selina thought that anyone seeing them would think they were a family out for the day—and how wrong they would be.

  The little girls with the neat brown plaits belonged to Jill and Gavin. And Kane—who did he belong to? Nobody, she hoped. Or was there someone he was keeping under wraps? Yet he would hardly want to spend his day off with her and the three children if there was.

  As the miles sped past along the M60 she could hear Josh chattering away to him and she wondered if her small son was remembering who had always been in the driving seat before.

  But she was realistic enough to accept that children lived for the day and if Josh was happy to have Kane there, so was she. Very happy!

  In fact, she felt as if she was coming alive again and it was all because of the man in front of her. Her gaze was on the tanned skin at the back of his neck beneath hair dark as ravens’ wings. Suddenly she wanted to touch him, to feel the warm strength of him beneath her fingertips.

  She clasped her hands tightly together in sudden panic, as if afraid they might develop a will of their own, and for the rest of the journey she looked steadfastly out of the window.

  * * *

  They’d motored through Lytham with its lifeboat house and huge windmill by the seashore, past the exclusively sedate frontage of St Anne’s-on-Sea, and now Blackpool, crowded as always, was upon them.

  The huge Pleasure Beach was looming up, with the metal framework of the famous tower pointing heavenwards behind it. As the three children gazed around them, wide-eyed, Selina said, ‘What would you like to do the most?’

  With their glances on the miles of golden sand stretching as far as the eye could see, they chorused, ‘The beach!’

  ‘It’s crowded,’ Kane said doubtfully.

  ‘Drive a few more miles along the promenade,’ Selina suggested. ‘It will be quieter there.’

  ‘Miles?’ he questioned as dark brows rose. ‘How long is it?’

  ‘Very,’ she told him laughingly. ‘It goes on for ever. It’s what makes this part of the Fylde Coast so popular. That and the air, which is so bracing it blows all the cobwebs away.’

  Kane’s smile was wry. It would take more than fresh air to blow away the cobwebs in his life.

  Soon he was going to start making plans. Was today going to be the first step? he asked himself, only to have the thought die at birth as Josh turned in his seat and said to his mother, ‘I told Uncle Peter that we were going to the seaside and he said why hadn’t we asked him to go with us.’

  Kane watched Selina’s colour rise and wondered why. Was she embarrassed because it sounded as if the other man wasn’t pleased with her? He supposed it was possible that she and the mechanic did have some sort of an arrangement and she was feeling that maybe she’d overstepped the mark by spending the day with a comparative stranger.

  Yet her reply was relaxed enough as she said to Josh, ‘Maybe we’ll ask him to come with us next time, eh?’

  After the marriage proposal of the other night hell would have to freeze over before that happened, she was thinking, but Kane and Josh weren’t to know that.

  It was less crowded at the northern end of the resort and soon they were on the beach, complete with picnic basket, buckets and spades, a windbreak and a plentiful supply of towels.

  As they settled into a spot that was reasonably quiet, Kane eyed the outgoing tide.

  ‘The sea’s pretty rough for such a flat shoreline,’ he remarked. ‘Do people get into difficulties here?’

  Selina’s expression was grave.

  ‘Yes, sometimes. Mostly when the tide’s right in and on the turn. Reckless youngsters start trying to dodge the waves. Or there have been occasions when someone has gone in after a dog that they were concerned about and have lost their own life.’

  ‘And no doubt the dog calmly swam to safety.’

  ‘Something like that. But don’t let’s talk about such things today,’ she protested wistfully. ‘I want to be happy and carefree!’

  And fitting the action to the words, she slipped out of the loose sundress she’d been travelling in to reveal a black one-piece bathing suit.

  With arms uplifted she raised her face to the sun and the man watching felt desire rise in him. But the moment was brief. The children were clamouring to have their shoes off and bathing suits on, and he smiled.

  Selina was safe. She had her own contingent of small guardian angels with her, and he didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry.

  They splashed about at the edge of the sea with the adults keeping a careful watch on their young charges. Made sand pies and decorated them with bright paper flags. Tucked into chicken nuggets, sandwiches, crisps and suchlike, and with the never-ending thirst of the young had drunk all the squash she’d packed.

  And now, overcome by the sun and sea air, Katie and Kirsty had fallen asleep on one of the big beach towels.

  Josh eyed them scornfully and started to make a sand castle, digging with a determination that was meant to show that he wasn’t tired.

  During the brief respite Kane went to swim in the sea, and as Selina watched him walk towards the water in a pair of brief bathing shorts her heartbeat quickened.

  He was attracting attention from both sexes as he strode along, but she could tell by his measured stride and the way he looked to neither right nor left that he was either unaware of the fact or just wasn’t interested.

  As he entered the water she lay back, closed her eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like to ma
ke love with him. She’d moved on now. Her life with Dave had been good, but it was in the past. Nothing could bring him back. She was aware of the appeal of another man. So aware that she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  Kane had erupted into her life on that dreadful day when Josh had been knocked down outside school by a car, and ever since it had felt as if he belonged there.

  Although perhaps ‘erupted’ wasn’t quite the right word. There had been nothing volcanic about him so far. He was cool and contained and, though he knew all about her affairs, she knew little about his.

  Maybe some time today she might get the chance to ask him about his family and his life before joining the city’s paramedics, she thought drowsily.

  As her thoughts drifted she wasn’t aware that there was silence all around her until Kane’s voice cried urgently from above, ‘Selina! Where’s Josh?’

  She was upright in a second, gazing wildly around her. The sand castle was there, only half-made, but of Josh there was no sign.

  ‘He was here a minute ago,’ she faltered. ‘Where can he have gone?’

  The girls were still sleeping and he said, ‘Stay here with Katie and Kirsty and I’ll go and look for him. There are some sand dunes up near the road there. He might be playing amongst them.’

  Without further comment he went striding off, droplets of salt water glistening on his back.

  While he was gone Selina stopped everyone who came by and asked them frantically if they’d seen a small, fair-haired boy in red swimming shorts.

  When every time the answer was no her panic increased and when Kane returned, grim-faced, with the news that he was nowhere to be seen, terror had her in its grip.

  ‘Where can he be?’ she cried tearfully. ‘Josh was there, making the sand castle, when I closed my eyes. He can’t have gone far, Kane.’ Her voice croaking with dread. ‘Unless he ventured after you into the sea while I had my eyes closed, and the current…’

  Her voice trailed away at the thought of something too horrible to contemplate. But an even worse thought had come into her mind and she had to voice it.