Rescuing the Paramedic's Heart
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Emily Forbes
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CHAPTER ONE
‘EASY? KEEP AN eye on Backpackers’ Express, I reckon we might have trouble.’
Jet Carlson’s voice came through the radio, catching Ryder’s attention as he stood beside the lifeguard buggy. Jet was up in the circular lifeguard tower that overlooked Bondi Beach, keeping watch over the one-kilometre curve of white sand, issuing updates to the lifeguards on patrol. Ryder reached into the buggy and picked up his binoculars and scanned the beach, looking towards the troublesome rip to the south. He picked out a dark-haired man swimming alone where the first waves were breaking as the Pacific Ocean rolled into the shore.
He picked up the walkie-talkie, certain he was looking at the same man Jet had spotted. ‘Copy that, Central, I see him,’ he responded.
He stood by the buggy as he kept his eyes on the swimmer. The water to the man’s left was deceptively calm between two sets of rolling waves. Ryder knew the tide was turning and the calm water indicated a passage of water flowing out to sea. If the man got any closer, he’d be pulled out to sea with the tide.
It was the danger period, after lunch on a hot Sunday. It wasn’t peak season yet; it was only the middle of spring and school hadn’t finished for the year but the beach was still busy. Holidaymakers, shift workers and backpackers all flocked to Bondi at any time of the year. The tide was going out and the notorious rip was going to cause grief. Most likely to an unsuspecting tourist.
No matter how hard the lifeguards tried, it was impossible to get all the beachgoers to swim between the flags. Ryder knew it was sometimes because they didn’t understand English or the dangers or where to swim, at other times they just chose to ignore the lifeguards and the risks, thinking their swimming ability was better than it was or that the warnings were some kind of joke or scaremongering tactics and the treacherous conditions wouldn’t affect them. It didn’t help matters that the main access point to the beach was closest to the dangerous southern end.
But no matter what the reason was for swimmers ending up in the wrong place, the lifeguards’ job was to look after them all. The drunk, the stubborn, the unlucky.
Life was precious and Ryder felt a strong sense of responsibility and, at the end of the day, a strong sense of satisfaction in a job well done, whether that had been saving a life or just preventing a disaster. Not every day brought an emergency, although there was always some excitement, but a quiet day on the beach was preferable to one filled with drama.
Either way he enjoyed the work. It was interesting and varied and he met people from all over the world and from all walks of life and he reckoned that would hold him in good stead for his future career as a psychologist. If he could cope with the Bondi beachgoers, he could cope with anything.
He hadn’t worked at Bondi long. It had only been a couple of months since he’d been offered a position and had become one of several lifeguards employed by the local council to patrol the popular beach three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. It was a highly coveted job and usually went to qualified Sydneysiders who had grown up surfing the waves at the local beaches and had years of experience of the conditions.
He’d had years of experience as a surfer and as a lifeguard at Cottesloe Beach in Western Australia but that was on the opposite side of the country, on the shores of the Indian Ocean. But the Pacific Ocean was familiar to him—he’d spent his childhood surfing the breaks at Byron Bay, on the coast north of Bondi. The ocean on Australia’s east coast had been home to him until one fateful day, just before his eighteenth birthday, when he’d been uprooted from everything that was special to him and moved thousands of kilometres away to the other side of the continent.
Eventually he’d settled in his new home and when he’d arrived in Bondi, part way through his transcontinental road trip, he hadn’t planned on staying but he’d been offered a temporary position and it had been too good to refuse.
He’d landed in Bondi at just the right time. Two lifeguards had sustained serious injuries that would keep them off the beach for several months over the busy summer period and the council had been desperate to employ qualified replacements. Ryder had fitted the bill and, fortunately for him, he also had a personal reference from his childhood friend, Jet Carlson, the lifeguard who was currently manning the tower and giving Ryder his instructions.
He was happy with temporary. He knew he couldn’t stay for ever as he was needed back west, but for the moment this was good. Casual work would allow him to extend his break and make sure he was refreshed and energised when he went home.
It was a perfect situation, he thought as he had a quick glance along the beach, trying to figure out if there was anyone else keeping an eye on the man he had under watch. Was anyone else aware of his position? In situations like this it could be helpful to speak to someone who knew the swimmer. It could help determine how competent they were in the water.
But he didn’t really need confirmation, he’d bet his next pay cheque on the fact that this guy wasn’t a strong swimmer. He could see him pushing off the bottom, not wanting to get out of his depth, but the outgoing tide was already taking him further from the beach and the minute he got washed off the sandbar he’d be in deep water.
As Ryder watched, a wave broke over the man’s head, submerging him. That second or two when he went under was long enough to make him lose his footing. As he surfaced, he was swept into the channel and away from the beach.
He was in trouble.
‘Easy?’ Jet’s voice came through the radio, using Ryder’s nickname.
‘I’m on it.’ Ryder leapt out of the buggy, whipped off his distinctive blue lifeguard shirt, grabbed the rescue board from the rack on the side of the all-terrain vehicle and sprinted into the surf. He threw his board in front of him and dived onto it. He paddled strongly out past the small waves that were crashing onto the shore, past the swimmers who were oblivious to the drama unfolding a few metres off the beach, past the break.
He scanned the sea as pulled his board through the water and caught a brief glimpse of the man’s head as it appeared behind a wave before he lost sight of him again. He dug deep, paddling harder, knowing time was of the essence. His shoulder muscles bunched and already he could feel the burn but he was used to that. He was breathing deeply, his lungs straining, and he could feel his heart racing but he wouldn’t stop. He was getting close now.
He crested a small wave just in time to see the man go under again.
Two more strokes.
He reached over the side of the board, plunging his arm into the water up to his elbow. He scooped his arm through the water but came up empty. He could see the man’s dark hair. He leaned over further, plunging his whole arm into the ocean, the sea reaching to his armpit, and this time his fingers grabbed hold of the man’s head. He pulled him to the surface by a fistful of hair. He knew it would hurt but having your hair pulled was a small price to pay in exchange for your life.
He dragged the man from the water, holding him by one arm. He wasn’t breathing. Ryder needed to get him securely onto the rescue board and back to shore. The man was of slight build and probably weighed no more than seventy kilograms. Ryder was six feet three inches tall, fit and strong, a muscular ninety kilograms with no excess weight, but even so he strained with the effort of pulling a dead weight out of the water.
He grabbed his patient under his armpits and hauled him up, draping him across the board. He pulled his legs out of the ocean and waited to see if he would start breathing on his own.
The man coughed twice, expelling sea water, and began breathing. Now Ryder just had to get him back to the beach.
He got the man balanced, getting him to lie on his stomach in front of him. It was a long paddle back to shore and he didn’t want the board tipping. He didn’t want to lose his patient and have to go through the process of getting him out of the water a second time.
As Ryder brought his board onto the beach two dark-haired women hurried down to the water’s edge. His patient fell off the board into the shallow water as the rescue board hit the sand. Ryder grabbed his board with one hand and hooked his other hand under the man’s armpit, helping him to his feet. His legs were shaky, the small waves almost knocking him off balance, and Ryder kept hold of him, helping to keep him upright.
‘Thank you. Thank you.’ The man had recovered enough to speak but his English was heavily accented.
‘No worries,’ Ryder replied, even though it was a worry. Beachgoers needed to be aware of the dangers. He didn’t want to be rescuing the same man again today, something that had happened many times before.
‘Do you see those flags?’ he said as he pointed north along the beach. ‘Red and yellow? You must swim between the flags.’ He gave the warning, even though he doubted he would be understood, but he had a duty to explain the risks and to attempt to get them to follow the rules.
‘Yes, yes.’ The man and his friends all nodded but Ryder suspected none of them fully comprehended his caution.
‘Here—very dangerous,’ he emphasised as he waved his hand out to sea in the direction of the rip and tried one last time to stress the need to avoid this area, but he didn’t have time to repeat himself, or to give any other advice, before he heard Jet’s voice again from the radio in the buggy.
‘Easy? There’s another one in Backpackers’. I’m sending the jet-ski out but you’ll be faster.’
Backpackers’ Rip hadn’t finished creating chaos yet and the day was going downhill fast.
‘No worries,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got it.’
The Asian tourists were still thanking him as he picked up his board, turned and sprinted back into the water.
‘Hello! I’m here. Anyone home?’
Lily jumped as she heard the front door slam and her sister’s voice calling for her.
Poppy had arrived and the energy in the house kicked up a notch, swirling around Lily as the serenity of the day evaporated. From the time she could walk Poppy’s life had moved at a million miles an hour. She was loud and fast and hectic. By comparison, Lily and Daisy, the eldest and youngest Carlson sisters, were quiet. Only their brother, Jet, could give Poppy a run for her money in the volume stakes and that was only at certain times. Jet had two settings—quietly monosyllabic or loud and boisterous. Poppy constantly operated at full volume and top speed, as if there were too many things to get done, no time to stop.
Poppy was standing just inside the front hall. She had two bags slung over her shoulders but she dumped them on the floor to hug her sister.
Lily hugged her tightly before stepping back to look at her younger sibling.
Poppy was a mixture of her older and younger sisters physically but there wasn’t much of either of them in Poppy’s personality. Lily wondered momentarily how disruptive Poppy’s arrival was going to be. But when Poppy had called and said she needed a place to stay, Lily hadn’t hesitated. They might be like chalk and cheese in many ways but they were family and, as the eldest of the Carlson tribe, Lily had always made her siblings her priority. Poppy could be exhausting but Lily would deal with the logistics of her arrival just like she dealt with everything else—almost everything else, she amended silently, knowing there was one issue she was continuing to ignore. Having Poppy stay might turn out to be a bonus—someone else’s drama might be a good distraction from the mess of her own personal life.
‘Why don’t you put your things in here?’ Lily pointed to the bedroom off the hall on their right. ‘And I’ll put the kettle on.’
Poppy threw her bags onto the bed. This room was at the front of the house that Lily used to share with her husband. Poppy wondered if Lily had spoken to Otto recently or if she was still struggling with what had happened between them. She’d had a difficult time and she had Poppy’s sympathy.
Thinking about Lily’s love life reminded her to try calling Craig. Again. She took her phone out of her bag and brought up his number but, for the second time in as many hours, her call went to voice mail. This time she left a message, letting him know she’d arrived safely and asking him to call her back. She ended the call, annoyed that he hadn’t phoned her after the last message. He would have checked his phone. Surely, he’d want to know she’d reached Sydney safely?
She sighed, knowing there was nothing she could do about it. She kicked off her shoes and headed for the kitchen.
Lily’s house was tall and narrow, it spanned four levels but was only one room wide, and it was in a magnificent position, perched on the hill at the southern end of Bondi with an incredible view looking east over the ocean and north over the famous beach. The kitchen opened onto a deck and Poppy stepped out and tipped her face to the sky, letting the sun warm her skin. She inhaled and let the scent of the sea wash over her. She’d missed the beach.
She had spent most of the past nine years living in Brisbane, which, despite it being the capital of Queensland, was severely lacking in beaches. Having grown up in Byron Bay on the New South Wales north coast, the ocean was in her blood and it was good to be able to step outside and see the waves and smell the salt air.
‘Where’s Daisy?’ Poppy asked as Lily handed her a mug of tea and sat beside her on a high stool that afforded them a view over the sea. The kitchen was on the entrance level but the ground sloped away below the deck and Poppy could look down into the garden or out over the ocean.
‘She’s at work, she’s on an early and I have to go in shortly as there are a couple of patients I need to check.’ Both Lily and Daisy worked at Bondi General Hospital. Lily was a first-year resident and Daisy was a paediatric nurse. ‘I thought we could have a family dinner tonight, though, I’ve asked Jet, too. He’s on duty today but finishes at seven.’
Their brother, Jet, who was sandwiched between Lily and Poppy in the family order, worked as a lifeguard, employed by the local council to patrol Bondi Beach and neighbouring Tamarama and Bronte beaches. It was a full-time job and one that Poppy knew he loved. Jet’s personality was perfectly suited to the role—every day was different, the job kept him fit, he was surrounded by blokes but had plenty of female attention. Some of the aspects appealed to Poppy—namely the excitement and variety—but it wasn’t a career she wanted. The financial reward wasn’t generous enough for her and job security was another factor. Jet had to prove his physical fitness every year—that wasn’t a problem for him, he was a professional athlete as well and trained hard, but while Poppy maintained her fitness for her career as a paramedic she felt that having to pass a test every year to keep her job would be stressful.
‘So, how was the drive?’
‘Fine.’ Poppy had split the long drive south from Queensland to New South Wales over two days to make it manageable. ‘I didn’t have any dramas but it was a little lonely. It would have been nice to share it with Craig.’ Craig’s employer was transferring him to Sydney and Poppy had applied to join the New South Wales Ambulance service in order to move with him. But Craig was currently busy on a large project that had delayed his move and Poppy had found herself relocating to Sydney ahead of him.
‘Has he booked a flight to come down for a weekend?’ Lily asked.
Poppy shook her head. ‘Not yet. He said he’ll come down in a fortnight’s time. I’m hoping that will give me time to line up a few rentals to look at when he’s here.’
‘What does his time frame look like now? Is he still thinking his move will be a few months away?’
Poppy nodded. ‘He doesn’t think he’ll get here for another three months. He reckons he’ll need to work through Christmas and won’t be able to move until the end of January. One or the other of us will travel up or down every two or three weeks.’ Poppy shrugged and added, ‘Lots of couples have long-distance relationships, it’ll be fine.’ It wasn’t until she saw Lily’s stricken expression that she realised what she’d said. ‘Sorry, Lil, I wasn’t thinking.’
Poppy waited for Lily’s response to her apology but Lily was silent, her face blank. Lily and her husband had been living separately for almost two years. Otto was in London, doing his medical speciality training, and Lily should have been there with him, but their plans had gone awry and Lily had come home.
‘How is Otto?’ Poppy asked, filling the silence.
‘Can we not talk about this now?’ Lily said as she stood and picked up their empty mugs. Poppy knew she was using the activity as a means of avoiding eye contact. ‘I need to get to work.’
‘Of course.’ Poppy didn’t want to upset her further. She’d hoped Lily and Otto would have made some progress in healing their relationship or, if that wasn’t possible, at least made some progress in deciding how they were going to move forward. She knew their separation was about more than just physical distance but she also suspected the distance was making things more difficult. She hoped they would eventually be able to resolve their differences and while she wasn’t about to insist that Lily talk to her right now she did make a mental note to broach the topic again. She needed to check on Lily’s well-being.
Poppy changed into her bikini, shorts and a T-shirt as Lily left for work. She’d go to the beach for a quick swim, she decided, say hi to her brother and then come back and make a start on dinner.
She checked her phone for what felt like the hundredth time as she slid her feet into her flip-flops. Still nothing. She tossed it back on the bed. She wouldn’t take it to the beach as she wasn’t planning to be gone for long. If Craig called while she was out, she’d call him back later.
She left her car parked on the road in front of the house and walked down Edward Street towards the beach. After consecutive six-hour days in the car, driving from Brisbane to Sydney, she needed to stretch her legs and the fifteen-minute walk to Campbell Parade would help to clear the cobwebs.
She turned onto the pedestrian path and walked along the promenade past the skate park and the mural wall towards the lifeguard tower.
She stopped before she reached the tower and leaned on the railing and looked out over the beach. The sun was behind her and the sea shone in the afternoon light. The sand was crisp and white and, despite the fact that it was not yet the summer holidays, the beach was busy. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the sea air, and stood for a moment, enjoying the feeling of warm sun on her skin as she watched the water.
The waves were small but she could spot the rips, the deceptively smooth water between breaking waves. She had years of experience as a surfer—growing up in Byron Bay, she and her siblings had learned to surf almost before they could walk—but she could see why the tourists and the locals who weren’t familiar with the ocean could be fooled into thinking the rips were safe spots to swim.
She turned to the south to see if she could pick out Lily’s house perched on the cliff before she spun on her heel and headed for the circular lifeguard tower. She knocked on the blue door and waited, if Jet wasn’t in there someone would be able to tell her where he was.
‘Poppy! You’re here.’ Jet grinned as he swung the door open. His welcoming smile was wide, his perfect teeth white and even in his tanned face. His blond hair was pulled back into a messy man bun but that was all Poppy had time to absorb before he stepped out of the tower and wrapped her in a tight hug. He stood well over six feet tall, and even with his slim but muscular athlete’s build he managed to make her feel small. She was five feet seven inches, not short for a girl, but Jet made her feel petite.
He released her and dragged her into the tower where he introduced her to the other lifeguards.
‘Guys, this is my little sister, Poppy. Poppy, meet the guys—Gibbo, Bluey and Dutchy.’
Poppy smiled at Jet’s use of the guys’ nicknames.
‘Are you going to hang around here for a while?’ he asked as Poppy finished saying hello.
‘No, I just wanted to say hi. I’m going to have a swim and then head home. I hear you’re coming for dinner.’
Jet nodded and looked as if he was about to say something else when the radio on the desk crackled into life.
‘Central, this is Easy. We’ve got a problem down here, south of the flags.’
He held up one hand in Poppy’s direction, asking her to wait as he grabbed the radio. ‘Go ahead, Ryder.’
‘The tourist I pulled from Backpackers’, he’s not looking great. I’m bringing him back to the tower for an assessment.’
Poppy’s ears pricked up as she listened to the exchange. Ryder was an unusual name. She’d only ever known one and he had been Jet’s best friend when they were at high school. He’d also been her first crush. But the Ryder she’d known had moved away when he was seventeen, breaking her young, impressionable heart in the process—although she’d kept that to herself—and she hadn’t seen him since.
It couldn’t be him, though, could it? Surely Jet would have said something.
‘Ryder?’ she said as Jet put the radio down.
‘Yeah, Ryder Evans, you remember him?’
Of course she remembered him.
She could feel herself colouring as she thought about the last time she’d seen him. She hoped Jet didn’t notice the blush she could feel creeping up her neck.
She nodded. ‘You never told me he was in Sydney.’
‘Didn’t I?’ Jet shrugged. ‘Probably figured you wouldn’t care, you haven’t seen him for the best part of twelve years,’ he said over his shoulder as he went to open the door to the tower.
He had a point. He wouldn’t think it was important. It wasn’t important really, although that didn’t stop a frisson of nervousness from shooting through her at the thought of seeing him again. She hadn’t thought about him for years, had finally let the idea of him go, yet at the mere mention of his name all the old feelings rose to the surface along with all the memories of how much he’d meant to her teenage self. She could instantly recall all her teenage fantasies and the memories made her blush.
The lifeguard buggy pulled to a stop at the bottom of the metal stairs that led from the sand to the tower entrance and Poppy’s jaw dropped as a lifeguard jumped out. Tall and muscular, tanned and fit.
Was that Ryder?
She managed to close her mouth as she watched him help his patient out of the buggy and up the stairs.
She hung back, out of the way, as Ryder got the man into the tower and onto the treatment plinth. Jet went to assist, instructing Bluey to keep an eye on the beach. Poppy stayed near the desk by the windows. The lifeguards had a job to do and she didn’t want to be a nuisance but staying out of the way also gave her a chance to check Ryder out unobserved. She knew he hadn’t noticed her, he was too focussed on his patient.
The last time she’d seen him there had been a hint of the man he would become, of the man waiting to emerge, but he’d still been a gangly teenager. He’d been tall but he’d yet to have a fast growth spurt or develop the muscle definition that would come with adulthood. But all traces of adolescence had disappeared now. Now there was no hiding the man. And no ignoring the feeling of warmth that was spreading through her belly and into her groin. Poppy leaned on the desk, taking the weight off her suddenly shaky legs.
Fortunately Ryder had his back to her and wouldn’t be aware of her reaction but she was very aware of him.
He’d grown even taller and he’d definitely filled out. He’d developed muscles where he hadn’t had them before. He wore only a pair of black boardshorts with ‘Lifeguard’ emblazoned across his hips and she had plenty of opportunity to admire the view of sculpted muscles and smooth, tanned skin. His shoulders were broad, his biceps bulging, his waist narrow. He looked fit. He looked healthy. He looked magnificent.
She ran her gaze up the length of his spine and up his neck. She could see where the knobs of his vertebrae disappeared into his hair. He’d always had amazing hair, dark blond and thick, and at almost twenty-nine years of age it seemed he’d lost none of it.
Her gaze traced the line of his jaw. It was strong and square. He looked good, even better than she remembered, and she felt another rush of blood to her cheeks as her heart skittered in her chest.
Her hands gripped the edge of the desk as she observed him, keeping her fixed in place, and she wondered at the involuntary response. Was she stopping herself from crossing the room? While her rational mind might tell her that Ryder’s unexpected appearance was of no consequence, it seemed her body had other ideas. Her palms were clammy and her mouth was dry and she suddenly felt like the sixteen-year-old schoolgirl she’d been when she’d last seen him.
When she had kissed him.
And he had kissed her back.
She knew from talking to her girlfriends that first kisses often weren’t anywhere near as fabulous as they’d dreamed about but the kiss she and Ryder had shared had been everything she’d hoped for and more. It had been the biggest moment of her young life. It had changed her life.
She’d fallen in love.
First love.
She had only been a teenager but that hadn’t made it any less real, any less all-encompassing, any less all-consuming.
And it hadn’t made it any less painful when he’d walked out of her life.
