The Firefighter's Baby. Alison Roberts

city!’

      Laura’s lips twitched as she gave Tim a warning glance. He grinned and raised his eyebrows as though acknowledging that Laura might have already been provocative enough, especially for this time of day.

      They were all startled at the sound made by the original back door of the house. Not that it wasn’t Mrs McKendry’s normal entranceway, but she didn’t usually open and shut it with quite such purpose. The room fell uncomfortably silent now. Mrs M. wasn’t happy. Someone had upset her and they were all likely to suffer the consequences. Laura was suddenly acutely aware of just how right her colleagues had been not to trespass on their housekeeper’s self-designated areas of responsibility.

      Never mind the culinary and other benefits they all received—letting Jean McKendry think she was indispensable was actually an act of kindness. Looking after Inglewood station was her life and while she could be nosy, grumpy and always opinionated, she was never unfair. If she was this upset there would be a good reason for it.

      The determined tap of sensible, low-heeled shoes got louder as Mrs McKendry traversed the kitchen’s linoleum floor. All eyes were drawn to the arched opening that joined the dining-room end of the lounge to the kitchen that ran along the other side of the house. Those same eyes swivelled in unison to the large cardboard box that Mrs M. deposited carefully on the table. Wiry arms were now folded in front of the small woman’s spare frame. And, in case her body language wasn’t enough to let them know that this time they were in serious trouble, her tone backed it up more than adequately.

      ‘I’m waiting,’ she snapped.

      ‘What for, Mackie?’ Jason’s smile was one of his most winning. It wasn’t even directed at Laura and it was enough to melt her bones. Using the affectionate nickname had to be overkill, surely? ‘What have we done?’

      ‘I know what one of you has done,’ Mrs M. enunciated with precision. ‘What I want to know is, who is responsible?’

      ‘Who is responsible for what?’

      A sound rather similar to a cat’s mew or a gate squeaking was suddenly produced by the box on the table. Mrs McKendry’s lips almost disappeared into a straight, grim line.

      ‘Who is responsible for this puir wee bairn being left on the back doorstep of Inglewood station?’

      CHAPTER TWO

      A SPELL had been cast.

      Laura experienced an odd sensation, as though a wand had actually been waved over the group of people sitting in the lounge of the Inglewood emergency response station. An electric tingle—a feeling she was unable to identify on the spectrum between elation and fear—ran through her entire body, and she knew without a shadow of doubt that the axis of her world was tilting.

      Only an insignificant amount of time followed Mrs McKendry’s startling demand but it marked the transition between normal life and something totally unknown. One minute they had all been slumped in various positions of rest, filling in time and carefully not tempting fate by saying they were probably safe from the disruption of a late callout, and now they were suddenly involved in a disruption that was completely without precedent.

      Laura wasn’t the only one to be stunned. Or to feel nervous in taking that first step of an unknown journey. The whole of Green Watch was moving. Slowly, silently, they approached the box on the table with as much caution as if it contained a live cobra.

      Stick was the first to open his mouth. His nickname had been derived from affectionate ribbing that he’d been hit more than once by the ugly one. Right now, his pockmarked face had softened dramatically and his incredulous smile was almost as large as his nose.

      ‘It’s a baby!’

      The murmur was probably intended to be a personal observation but the silence surrounding him was so profound the words might as well have been shouted.

      ‘Go to the top of the class, Stick.’ Bruce grinned.

      ‘Is it a girl or a boy?’ Tim queried.

      ‘It’s not colour-coded,’ Jason complained. ‘How are we supposed to know?’

      ‘Change its nappy,’ Cliff advised knowledgeably.

      ‘Not on your life!’ Jason held both hands up, palms outwards, and leaned back to emphasise the invisible barrier. ‘I don’t do babies.’

      ‘Someone did,’ Mrs McKendry snapped. Her arms were still folded and she was tapping one foot impatiently. ‘And I’d like to know who.’

      ‘Wasn’t me,’ Jason declared firmly.

      ‘Or me,’ Stick and Cliff said simultaneously.

      ‘Definitely wasn’t me.’ Tim raised an eyebrow at Laura and she smiled. Having a baby dumped on your doorstep certainly wasn’t a boring thing to happen.

      ‘I should be so lucky,’ Bruce sighed.

      They all stared at the infant. Fluffy, dark blue polar fleece fabric with cute yellow ducks on it had been folded to form a mattress in the box. The baby had been wrapped in a blanket of the same fleece but tiny limbs had been active enough to loosen the covering and miniature hands could be seen poking from the armholes of a white stretch suit. A tiny fist threatened to clout its owner’s cheek but somehow it escaped causing pain and settled against a questing mouth instead. Surprisingly loud sucking noises filled the new silence and large dark blue eyes stared up fearlessly at the crowd of faces leaning over the box.

      ‘It’s hungry.’ As a father of three, Cliff was entitled to take the lead as far as experience in such matters went.

      ‘Could be hereditary.’ Stick gave one of his usual cheerful grins. ‘Who’s always hungry around here?’

      ‘Don’t look at me!’ Jason’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘I told you, I don’t do babies. I’m careful, man. Always have been.’

      ‘There’s always one that slips through the net.’

      There was a ripple of laughter. ‘Especially when the catch is that big!’

      ‘It has got blond hair,’ Bruce observed. ‘Except I don’t suppose it means that much at this age.’

      ‘How old do you reckon it is?’

      For some reason everyone looked at Laura. Was she supposed to know the answer due to some feminine intuition? Had she always been lumped in the ‘motherly type’ basket? Or had everybody simply noticed how quiet she’d been so far? Cliff wasn’t about to be outdone in the knowledge stakes, however.

      ‘It’s pretty newly hatched, I’d say. Two or three weeks?’

      Laura caught her breath but her reaction had nothing to do with the thought of such a young baby being abandoned. She had just realised why the baby’s face was so fascinating.

      The eyes weren’t really that dark. They were blue, certainly. A lovely sort of cornflower blue. They gave the initial appearance of darkness because of the edging to the iris, which was a shade deep enough to compete with the pupil. Why had nobody else noticed such an obvious genetic link to a potential parent in this group of men? There was only one person who had eyes like that.

      And they were exactly like that.

      Another frisson of an unidentifiable emotion caught Laura unexpectedly. Jealousy, perhaps? No. It was more like a feeling of connection to that baby. A longing to touch it. To pick it up. When the little fist was suddenly flung free of the sucking mouth and a tiny face crumpled and reddened she had no hesitation in reaching into the box.

      Nobody else was going to do it, she told herself. The men were backing off in alarm at the deterioration in the baby’s mood. At her touch, the screwed-up face relaxed and the tiny fist unfurled to encompass her finger. Laura smiled into a carbon copy of Jason Halliday’s eyes.

      ‘Hello, there,’ she whispered.

      Only