A Mother for Matilda

They went inside and sat around the kitchen table while Lawson tried to get to the bottom of his daughter’s heartbreak.

Vic had an inkling of what might be wrong. “Is it a boy?” she asked gently.

Lawson’s head shot up in alarm. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “She’s only eight!”

But when Matilda wailed yes and dissolved into another puddle of tears, he was forced to reassess.

“Okay.” Vic stood. “I know exactly what we need.” She went to the freezer and pulled out a tub of ice cream. The perfect salve for man problems. God knew she’d eaten gallons of the stuff in the past fortnight.

She retrieved two spoons from the drawer and sat down next to Matilda.

Lawson watched as Victoria and Matilda sat and savored the ice cream together. Vic was handling this beautifully, and Matilda was hanging on every word. She’d always been great with Matilda. But she had sworn off ever being a mother. How fair would it be to expect that of her?

As he watched Victoria with his daughter, though, a rush of something he didn’t want to analyze blossomed in his chest….

Dear Reader,

After eighteen books this is my first “friends become lovers” story. I’m not sure why I’ve never tackled this one before because, as far as story lines go, I’m a bona fide fan! The angst and the yearning in these plots are so tangible you can feel them seething around you as you read.

Lawson and Victoria have known each other for twenty years, having formed a dynamic and vital paramedic partnership on their small island community that neither wants to jeopardize, but now Vic is counting down the days until she leaves the island for foreign shores. And then there’s Matilda—Lawson’s eight-year-old daughter. Though Victoria is great with the little girl, she certainly has no plans to be a mother—ever. She has spent the past seventeen years raising her twin brothers after their mother’s tragic death, and Vic yearns for a freedom that she’s never known.

But sometimes fate has other things in store, and Victoria and Lawson are about to discover that some things just can’t be denied. It’s a bumpy ride, but one that will be well worth the bruises!

Love,
Amy

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

A
N EARLY
morning sea breeze caught the sleeve of Lawson Dunlop’s paramedic overalls as he sat on the wooden picnic table devouring a bacon and egg roll from the nearby twenty-four-hour café. His booted feet were evenly spread and braced on the seat. His elbows propped on his powerful quads. His lean torso angled forward.

The first rays of sunlight reached across the ocean to illuminate the island and in the half-light the water in the passage was a deep velvety blue. The surface was still, millpond still, yet to be fractured by the activities of the day.

Already a steady stream of workers in their cars trundled over the bridge heading to the mainland and Brisbane, one hour’s commute away. A few eager fishermen, their lines hanging over the side, paid no heed to the daily island exodus as the cars rumbled past them.

A gull wheeled and cried overhead as Lawson’s gaze tracked the path of a nearby pelican waddling up the narrow strip of sand ceded by the tide. The breeze blew a faint tang of salt towards him and he inhaled deeply, enjoying the serenity of island life and the respite from a long and busy night duty.

A rustle beside him disturbed the peace and he turned to look down at his partner of five years sitting next to him in much the same fashion, their thighs almost touching. She was also making short work of her breakfast, which at least meant he could enjoy the scenery in silence. Eating was about the only time Victoria Dunleavy was ever quiet.

Vic inhaled, also admiring the view. ‘Don’t guess I’m going to get this in London,’ she said around a mouthful of burger.

Lawson shook his head. ‘Nope.’

‘Did I mention it’s ninety days?’

‘Yep.’
Once or twice
.

‘Nine. Zero. Then I’m out of here. Gone-ski. Vamoosed.’ She ignored the way her gut clenched at the thought of being so far away from her beloved Brindabella Island. It was way past time for her to fly the nest.

‘Uh-huh.’

Lawson took another bite. He’d miss his partner. In a strictly professional way, of course. Good partnerships were rare and, in their line of work, vital. He wasn’t looking forward to having to build a rapport with someone else. He’d miss the synergy that flowed effortlessly between the two of them.

‘I’ll miss the twins. And Dad, of course.’ The thought of leaving her family struck like an ice pick to her heart as she sat and absorbed the scenery already embedded in her DNA.
She was twenty-six, for crying out loud. It was time!

Lawson could hear the wistfulness in her tone and immediately felt selfish for thinking of himself and the impact her leaving would have on his workload. Victoria deserved this. She’d sacrificed a lot for her family and
now the twins were grown she was free to get out and explore the world. As he’d done.

‘The twins will be at uni when you leave and probably too busy chasing girls to notice,’ he hastened to assure her. ‘Bob will be fine. Go and see the world. Sow your wild oats.’

Lawson was surprised at the catch in his chest as the old-fashioned saying pinged a nerve ending or two—the thought of her with the opposite sex not sitting well.

Vic nodded. He was right. Of course he was. Still, every now and then, the decision to leave her family, leave the island and everything she’d ever known and loved, had the power to stop her in her tracks.

It
was
the right decision, the
only
decision, she just hadn’t realised how hard it was going to be. A year ago when she’d booked the ticket it had been a long way off but with ninety days to go it was suddenly looming. And it was disheartening to think her departure might barely be noticed.

They finished their breakfast in companionable silence. Lawson checked his watch as he screwed up his paper bag. Six-thirty. Another hour and a half before they knocked off. He should just make it home in time to see Matilda before she left for the day.

Victoria was quiet beside him, unusual to say the least but he knew it wouldn’t last long. He’d known her since she was a skinny six-year-old and he’d been fortunate enough to be partnered with her father as a rookie paramedic. She’d been a chatty kid and nothing much had changed over the years.

‘I’ll be missed too, right?’

He glanced at her pensive face as she stared out over
the water, attuned to the slight trace of doubt he heard in her voice. ‘Of course.’

Very few people got to see this side of his partner. To the outside world she was capable Victoria Dunleavy—dedicated daughter, big sister/surrogate mother and ultra-professional paramedic. But having known her for ever and having sat in a vehicle with her four out of seven days a week for the last five years, he’d been privy to the other Victoria Dunleavy. The one nobody got to see. The one who’d had way too much responsibility thrust on her long before she should have and wasn’t always certain of herself.

‘Ryan and Josh and your dad will miss you desperately,’ he assured her. ‘And everyone at the station. I know for a fact that Matilda will miss you like crazy.’

Vic chewed her last mouthful very carefully. So, her brothers would miss her, her father would miss her, her colleagues would miss her, even his eight-year-old daughter would miss her. But what about him? Would he miss her?

The fact that he hadn’t included himself was a little depressing. Vic had had a crush on her partner for as long as she could remember. Given that he’d known her for ever and there was a twelve-year age difference, she’d never expected it to be reciprocated. After all, it was just a harmless crush on an older man who’d been a family friend for ever and her mentor for the last five years.

Things like that happened all the time. It wasn’t as if she was in love with the guy. But surely,
surely
, he’d miss her too? She scrunched up her packet and turned to him. ‘What about you, Lawson? Will you miss me?’

Lawson gave her a startled look. Her steady whiskey
gaze held him captive and he was struck again by that look he sometimes saw in it. He wasn’t sure what it was but it was frank and seemed to reach right inside him.

He nodded and looked back out to sea. ‘Of course. I’ve spent five years training you to do things my way. Your father will probably stick me with a newbie straight out of the academy.’ Bob Dunleavy, his old mentor and her father, was Officer-In-Charge of Brindabella Station. ‘Now I’ll have to start all over again with someone else.’

Vic realised she was holding her breath and she let it ease out slowly.
Of course.
He would miss her as a colleague. Her skills, their teamwork, their synergy. Why had she expected anything else? He’d never been anything other than one hundred per cent professional with her.

Which only proved further how badly she needed to get away from the island. She needed to broaden her horizons, both personal and professional. She needed to experience a variety of working environments, be exposed to different ideas, meet new people. Including men.

Every boyfriend she’d dated had suffered in comparison to Lawson. It wasn’t that she meant to compare or even realised she was doing it half the time. It just happened. Somehow, they’d all been a little lacking. Perhaps if he was out of her life, the silly crush would be forgotten and another man might just stand a chance.

Quite why she felt the way she did was a mystery. It wasn’t as if Lawson had ever given her any encouragement. Or ever treated her as anything other than Bob’s daughter. Just another paramedic at the station.

It wasn’t even as if he were the best-looking man she’d ever known. On the contrary—she’d been out
with some exceedingly good-looking men. Lance Coulter in particular had been so sexy she’d been the envy of the entire island. Everyone from teenagers to grannies had swooned over the locum island doctor.

But there was something about Lawson Dunlop that was compelling. He certainly wasn’t classically good-looking. In fact the features of his face taken individually could best be described as interesting. A freakishly square jaw line, crooked nose and deep furrows lining his brow and around his eyes and mouth.

His eyes were grey. Nothing special. Except they could look warm like the soft folds of a cashmere jumper when he was calming a frightened patient or ominous like a storm-ravaged sea when stupidity caused needless carnage. His hair was dark brown and worn severely curtailed in a closely cropped fashion—not stylish or fussy. Just functional. No nonsense.

And then there was his scar. The one he never talked about. A thin white blemish that slashed from just beneath his nose down through both lips and ploughed a furrow in the stubble covering his chin.

She’d heard mountains being described as craggy and it was the best adjective she could come up with that suited his face. His height also leant to this appearance. He was well over six feet, his broad shoulders seeming to occupy all the space around him.

He certainly loomed above her, making her feel strangely fragile. Which was utterly ridiculous. She might have been petite but she was no dainty flower. She was strong, a requirement of her job, and most definitely robust.

An insistent beeping noise interrupted her thoughts,
for which she was most thankful. They simultaneously reached for their pagers. Lawson pulled his off his belt first.

‘Forty-four-year-old female. Chest pain. Borilla Avenue.’

Vic nodded, her brain already switching from her personal life to work mode. ‘Let’s go.’ She vaulted off the table, landing cat-like on her feet, eager to banish the doubt demons and throw herself into what would hopefully be their last job before they clocked off. She headed for the nearby ambulance, not bothering to look back.

Lawson followed her, his gaze drawn to the bob of her auburn ponytail and the way her neat little frame fitted snugly into her navy paramedic overalls. He’d been doing that more and more lately. Noticing how her uniform clung to the contours of her bottom and how the functional government-issued belt she wore at her waist cinched her in, emphasising her curves.

Curves? Up until about a year ago he hadn’t even noticed she owned curves
.

What the hell was the matter with him? He’d known her since she was a six-year-old in pigtails. He had no business noticing how much of a woman she’d become. How her wide-set eyes were balanced by the fullness of her lips. Or how those cute cherubic cheeks and dimples she’d had as a kid were just plain sexy twenty years later. It was just…wrong.

He banished them from his head and put his mind firmly to the job.

A few hours later Vic was in the depths of a sleep so deep that it took several insistent bangs on her bedroom
door to drag her back into consciousness. She surfaced from the pillow she had jammed over her head and yelled, ‘What?’ in the general direction of the door.

Her brothers were in their senior year at high school and were currently in their exam block, which meant unless they had a test they didn’t have to be at school. This afternoon they had a biology paper and were supposed to be using the morning to cram for it.

‘Ryan’s cut his finger.’

Vic’s heavy lids battled to stay open. She’d worked her tail off last night and she was dog-tired. ‘Stick a Band-Aid on it,’ she grouched, placing the pillow back over her head.

‘I think it needs more than that.’

Vic sighed and threw the pillow away as the hesitation in Josh’s voice nagged at her gut. It had to be reasonably bad—both brothers knew a fate worse than death awaited them for trivial interruptions to her post-night-duty coma.

She looked at the clock. She’d been asleep for two hours. No wonder she felt like hell—those first few hours were always the deepest.

She opened the door and a blast of heat pushed into her air-conditioned bedroom. She looked up at her brother towering over her. She was barely five one; everyone towered over her. He was as blond as she was olive, the twins taking after their mother, whereas she had inherited the darker Dunleavy colouring.

‘There’d better be blood.’

Josh swallowed. ‘Oh, there is.’

Vic followed feeling weary to her bones but not overly concerned. She knew non-medical people often
misjudged blood loss and that a small amount of the red stuff could often look like a massacre.

Her eyes felt gritty as she entered the kitchen unprepared for the sight that greeted her. For a brief moment she wondered if Ryan had been shot. Blood was splattered on the bench and congealed on the floor tiles. Her brother was standing at the sink, his wrapped hand hovering above the stainless steel.

‘Bloody hell, Ryan.’ Vic, suddenly very awake, flew across the kitchen. A metallic aroma wafted around her as she disturbed the warm air currents and she half slipped in a patch of smeared blood. ‘What on earth did you do?’

‘I told you not to wake her,’ Ryan said, turning accusing eyes on his brother. ‘I said to get some Steri-Strips.’

Vic unwrapped the wound carefully. The blood-soaked tea towel dripped into the sink. She somehow didn’t think Steri-Strips were going to do the job. ‘What happened?’ she asked, her heart slamming in her chest as her suddenly razor-sharp thought processes calculated his estimated blood loss.

Ryan didn’t look at her and a moment passed before Josh spoke. ‘The knife slipped when he was cutting through his shoe.’

Vic glared at Ryan, always the more daring of the twins. ‘Your shoe?’ she demanded.

He shrugged and winced as her unwrapping became a little rough. ‘They were an old pair.’ When Vic glared at him he hastily added, ‘The ad said you could do it with those knives.’

Vic shook her head, not sure how Ryan had ever made it to almost eighteen alive. This had to go down
as the winner in the annals of dumb Dunleavy males. ‘I bet it also said not to try it at home.’

She finally uncovered the wound. Ryan’s middle finger appeared deeply lacerated, holding on by not much more than a thread. ‘A Steri-Strip?’ she said incredulously. Ryan shrugged. ‘How long ago did this happen?’ she asked.

‘About twenty minutes ago,’ Josh answered, his voice small.

Twenty minutes ago? No wonder it looked as if a massacre had taken place in the kitchen. Vic valiantly tried to recall her anatomy lessons and picture the blood supply to the hand.