The Baby Gift: Wishing for a Miracle. Alison Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ tight and Julia felt like an idiot.

      Repressed anger grew. She was doing her very best to sort this situation out but Mac wasn’t co-operating. At this rate, what had been a perfect partnership would be poisoned. They would end up actually disliking each other. Julia was already feeling the stirring of resentment that could very easily express itself as antagonism. She could feel her own smile freezing and her gaze hardening into a glare.

      The sound of their pagers going off should have been a blessing but it only added fuel to the unpleasant emotional mix for Julia. Good grief! The enjoyment of her job was going down the drain and now she couldn’t even enjoy her food. Scowling, she pushed her chair back and went to the office to get the details of the job they were being dispatched to, ignoring Mac who was following close behind.

      Joe was already in the office, looking at a wall map. ‘Police callout,’ he told them. ‘Incident in a known drug house.’

      ‘Great.’ SERT training involved the kind of specialist work that could come from this kind of police operation. Dealing with gunshot wounds or scenes where tear gas or pepper spray might be used. They usually involved people who had no respect for authority and for whom violence was merely a form of communication. Way down on Mac’s list of preferences any day. Taking Julia into a job like this was even less appealing.

      Working with her at all was losing its appeal.

      He had been doing so well since that visit to Ken. So confident he could handle this. And then she’d dropped that damned piece of chicken and stained her overalls and that mental key had shot out of its lock. He had lost control big time.

      The fabric of those overalls had become invisible and given him such a clear image of what her breast beneath would look like. His body had supplied what it might feel like to touch it. With his fingers…a soft, slow stroke, maybe. Or with his lips…

      The effort it had taken to drag his gaze away had been phenomenal and when he had, it had gone in the wrong direction and collided with hers for just long enough to register the way her pupils had dilated. With alarm, no doubt, because his reaction had hardly been subtle. Her skin had been flushed, too, making her look hotter and more enticing that that spicy sauce she had been throwing around.

      ‘I’m a piglet,’ she’d said, with that winning grin, and Mac had tried to smile back but he knew he hadn’t been forgiven. The look on her face when she’d scraped her chair back. The way she’d ignored him as she’d stomped off to the office. OK, so he’d slipped his control for a heartbeat. It wasn’t going to happen again. It was only a matter of weeks until she packed her bags and disappeared from his life. He wasn’t going to risk another slip and give Julia another opportunity to dismiss him like that. She could stop worrying. He was going to. He wasn’t even going to worry about the potential for this job to be no place for a woman.

      ‘Come on, then,’ he growled. ‘Let’s go and get it over with.’

      It was only a short helicopter ride. They landed in an empty car park between railway lines and the back of a rundown housing estate. Moving to a safe point, Mac was all too aware of how deserted it felt. Dark, blank windows towered menacingly overhead. Tattered plastic bags blew around like tumbleweeds and they walked past a burnt-out car chassis and an off-licence with thick iron bars over its door.

      Mac did his best to ignore it but every instinct was telling him that Julia shouldn’t be here. This was professional, not personal, he decided. For the first time they were in a situation where her size and gender were a liability. He had every reason to order her to stay with the police at ground level until this incident was done and dusted. It was part of being a mentor. It had nothing to do with any desire to drag her away and simply keep her safe because he cared about her in an inappropriate way.

      Not that she’d co-operate, of course. Even him thinking about the possibility had given Julia time to march right up to the police van and wait expectantly for their briefing.

      ‘It was a neighbour who made the call,’ they were informed. ‘Sounds of a fight going on and shots were fired. Then there was a lot of screaming. Still is. As soon as we can be sure it’s safe to enter and we’ve found who’s doing the screaming, we’ll send you guys in.’

      Mac eyed Julia, the words forming that would be an order for her to stay put while he went in alone. Except that he could almost see a balloon over his partner’s head right now. One that enclosed the words ‘I don’t think so, mate!’ They would end up having an argument in public and that would hardly be professional. Not only that, she might think he was trying to protect her for personal reasons.

      The same kind of personal reasons she had just been disgusted with, having caught him staring at the food stain on her chest. Mac stared back at Julia, aware of how frustrating this was. Couldn’t she see that her feistiness only generated problems? If she hadn’t been waiting for him in that car park, that kiss would never have happened and he wouldn’t be struggling to keep the key in that mental box in his head. Or was it his heart? Wherever. It was huge and heavy and dragging him down. And it was more than frustrating. It was infuriating.

      Fine, was the silent message he sent back. Do what you like. If you won’t listen to reason, be it on your own head.

      It took a good thirty minutes for police to gain control of the scene. The occupants of the dwelling, who hadn’t been at all eager to allow the police inside, were hauled out in handcuffs. They were cursing and spitting as they were dragged past Mac and Julia and into the back of a secure van. A police officer close to Mac was kicked in the shins and shook his head in disgust.

      ‘There’s one more up there,’ he told Mac. ‘Have fun.’

      The man lay on a filthy mattress in the corner of a room strewn with empty bottles, overflowing ashtrays, half-empty cans of food and piles of tattered clothing. His features were sharp, his hair long and scraggly and he clearly hadn’t washed or shaved for a considerable period of time.

      ‘Here he is.’ A police officer wearing a bulletproof vest stared down at the man, who was groaning loudly. He gave him a nudge with the toe of his boot and the man stopped groaning and began shouting obscenities.

      ‘Oi!’ The police officer looked unimpressed. ‘Mind your manners or I’ll send the medics away and we’ll just take you downtown. Do you want to get looked at or not?’

      ‘Not by him.’ The man spat in Mac’s direction and then bared yellowish teeth. ‘I’m no poofter. She can look at me.’ He leered in Julia’s direction.

      Julia could see the way Mac’s features hardened. He wasn’t about to be given orders by someone like this. He was on the point of stepping forward and making this situation worse than it needed to be. She didn’t need his protection. She didn’t want it.

      Those flickers of resentment and anger were easy to tap into. He couldn’t make her the bad guy and then step in and get all protective.

      Damn the man. She didn’t need his attitude or his protection. She could look after herself. It was Julia who took the first forward step.

      ‘What’s the story?’ she asked the police officer.

      ‘Says he’s got a pain in his stomach.’

      ‘I have,’ the man sneered. ‘Don’t make it sound like I’m lying. Arghh!’ He groaned convincingly and clutched his abdomen. ‘I think I’m dying. Give me something. Hurry up!’

      Julia СКАЧАТЬ