St Piran's: The Fireman and Nurse Loveday. Kate Hardy

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СКАЧАТЬ on the gravel and glanced across at Banjo, who was standing guard over the child asleep on the beanbag. ‘All right, boy. I heard him. Shh, now. Let Joey sleep. ‘

      She’d opened the kitchen door before Tom could ring the doorbell. ‘Joey’s asleep in front of the fire,’ she whispered. ‘Come in. ‘

      He’d showered and changed; out of his uniform, and with his face no longer covered by a mask and soot, Tom Nicholson was breathtakingly handsome. When he smiled at her, her heart actually skipped a beat.

      Which was ridiculous, because he was way, way out of her league. He probably had a girlfriend already; though, even if he didn’t, Flora knew he wouldn’t look twice at her. Looking the way he did, and doing the job he did, Tom was probably used to scores of much more attractive women falling in a heap at his feet. He wouldn’t be interested in a shy, plump nurse who spent most of her time looking like a beetroot.

      ‘He’s absolutely sound asleep,’ Tom whispered, looking down at his nephew, who was lying on the beanbag with a fleecy blanket tucked round him.

      ‘It’s been a long day for him—and a scary one.’ She glanced at Tom. ‘Um, I’ve already fed him. I hope that’s OK.’

      ‘That’s great. Thanks for being so kind,’ Tom said.

      ‘I could hardly let him starve.’ Flora shrugged it off. ‘Poor little lad. He’s had a lot to cope with, losing both his parents. I know what that’s like.’ She’d had to face losing both her parents, the previous year, so she had an idea what he was going through—though, being twenty years older than Joey, at least she’d had an adult’s perspective to help her cope. She looked more closely at Tom and saw the lines of strain around his eyes. ‘You look exhausted.’

      ‘Once the immediate danger’s passed, the real work starts—making sure we keep the site damped down so the fire doesn’t flare up again.’ Tom grimaced. ‘Sorry I’ve been so long. And I took time out for a shower, because if I turned up covered in smuts and stinking of smoke it might scare Joey. ‘

      He’d put his nephew first; and no doubt the shower had been at the expense of taking time to grab a meal. It was good that he could put Joey first, but the poor man must be starving as well as tired. And if she made him something to eat, she could keep herself busy doing something practical—which was a lot easier than sitting down and having a conversation where she’d end up blushing and stumbling over her words and getting flustered. She’d learned the hard way that being practical and doing something was the best way of dealing with her hated shyness. ‘He’s perfectly safe and comfortable where he is, so why don’t you sit down and I’ll make you a hot drink and something to eat?’ Flora asked.

      ‘I can’t impose on you like that.’

      ‘You’re not imposing. I made a big batch of spaghetti sauce this afternoon. It won’t take long to heat it through and cook some pasta—that’s what Joey and I had.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      The next thing Tom knew, he was sitting at the table with a mug of coffee in front of him and Flora was pottering round the kitchen.

      The kindness of a stranger. Tom was used to women offering to cook him things—it was a standing joke at the fire station that, almost every day, someone dropped by with a tin of home-made cookies or cakes or muffins for Tom. Old ladies whose cats he’d rescued, young mums whose toddlers he’d got out of a locked bathroom—and even the hard-nosed local reporter had seen him in action, rescuing someone from a burning building, and had joined what his crew-mates teasingly called the Tom Nicholson Fan Club, turning up with a batch of cookies for him on more than one occasion.

      Even though he’d explained gently that he was simply doing his job, he could hardly be rude enough to turn away things that people had spent time making personally for him. So he accepted them with a smile on behalf of the fire crew, wrote thank-you notes—again on behalf of the entire fire crew—and secretly rather enjoyed them making a fuss over him.

      But Flora Loveday was different.

      There was something about her—a kind of inner peace and strength that drew him. Here, on her home ground, she glowed. He’d been too frantic with worry about Joey to notice properly earlier, but she was beautiful. Soft, gentle brown eyes; her hair, too, was soft, all ruffled and curly and cute. And the warmth she exuded made him want to hold her close, feel some of that warmth seeping into him and taking the chill of the fear away…

      And then he realised what he was thinking and slammed the brakes on. Yes, he found her attractive—dangerously so—but he couldn’t act on it. In his job, it wasn’t fair to have a serious relationship with someone. He worked crazy hours and did dangerous things; he’d seen too many friends die and leave families behind. And there was Joey to consider, too. He’d had too many changes in his young life, just recently. The last thing he needed was his uncle being distracted by a new girlfriend.

      But Tom also knew that he could do with a friend. Flora was the first person who’d seemed to understand or who had managed to start to reach Joey. And he really, really needed help reaching his nephew.

      ‘So what have you and Joey been up to?’ he asked.

      ‘I took him to see the chickens.’

      ‘Chickens?’ He hadn’t expected that.

      She went pink again. ‘My dad started Loveday Eggs.’

      He’d seen their boxes in the shops. ‘So you have chickens here?’

      She nodded. ‘The hens are free range, so we went and collected some eggs. And then we made some brownies.’ She smiled. ‘There are some left. But not that many.’ She placed a bowl of pasta in front of him.

      ‘This smells amazing. Thank you.’ He took a mouthful. ‘Wow. And it tastes even better than it smells.’

      ‘It’s only boring old spaghetti and sauce.’ She looked away.

      ‘It’s wonderful.’ He ate the lot and accepted a second bowl. And then he grimaced. ‘Sorry. I’ve just been horribly greedy.’

      ‘You’ve just spent hours sorting out a fire. You must’ve been starving.’

      ‘I was,’ he admitted. And then he accepted her offer of helping himself to the brownies. ‘Wow. These are seriously good. And you made them with Joey?’

      She fished her mobile phone out of her handbag, fiddled with it and then handed it to him. There was a picture of Joey, wearing a tea-towel as a makeshift apron, stirring the chocolatey mixture in a big bowl—and there was almost as much chocolate round his face.

       And he looked happy.

      Tom couldn’t speak for a moment. Then he gulped in a breath. ‘I didn’t know Joey liked cooking.’

      ‘Most kids love messy stuff,’ she explained, her colour deepening. ‘And cooking’s better still because they get to eat what they make.’

      In one afternoon, she seemed to have got far closer to his nephew than he’d managed in a month. And he knew he needed help. Flora might be the one to help him reach Joey—and there was just something about her that made Tom sure that she wouldn’t judge him harshly. ‘It never even occurred to me to try doing something like that with Joey.’ He raked a hand СКАЧАТЬ