When the doors were clear, the rotor blades slowed to a halt, Maya patted the door frame next to her twice. ‘Thanks, Hilda, mission accomplished, again.’
As well as a make and model to identify the aircraft, this helicopter had a name – Hilda – an apt choice because the name Hilda meant ‘Battle Woman’ and although they weren’t fighting in a war, it still felt appropriate with a battle to help patients survive and keep the crew safe. The name had been chosen in memory of one of the Whistlestop River Air Ambulance’s first supporters, Hilda Browne, who passed away some five years ago. Hilda had been a dedicated volunteer with the charity-funded organisation and had been in charge of numerous fundraisers over the last twenty years. Her efforts had resulted in an upgrade to the aircraft and the name Hilda was now proudly displayed in white below the identifying wording, The Skylarks, as well as the air ambulance’s logo on the helicopter’s red and yellow body.
Inside the building at the airbase, located on a small airfield solely for their use, Maya put her helmet onto the shelf with the others. ‘It’s hotting up out there.’ And in the aircraft. She pulledout her hair tie and let her chestnut-brown locks free, but only for a moment until she gathered her hair up again and deftly pulled it into a bun off her neck.
Bess shrugged off her bright-red jacket and restyled her hair too, favouring tying her tumble of curls up and well out of the way. ‘You don’t need to tell the pair of us who have been wearing this uniform.’ She lifted her knee to indicate the hard-wearing, red trousers that matched the jackets with fluorescent strips.
‘I’ll consider myself lucky, shall I?’ As the pilot, she wore a less bulky uniform apart from the heavy boots which were nobody’s favourite come summer. Instead of bright-red trousers, she wore a black, all-in-one flight suit with four epaulettes on each shoulder to show captain status.
The shift ended with cake and Carl’s farewell and Nadia, their operational support officer, in a panic that the blue team were one critical care paramedic short.
Maya gathered her things together and as she passed the desk out front in the reception area, Nadia was smiling. She’d found a last-minute fill-in quickly enough so neither Bess nor Carl would have to offer to do a double shift.
Maya smiled, waved goodbye and was about to head out when she spotted the familiar cocky swagger of the man heading for the entrance doors. And it was too late to hide and pretend she’d left already.
She cursed.
Bess came up behind her to pass a file to Nadia with one hand and shovel the remains of a slice of lemon drizzle cake into her mouth with the other. ‘Your ex-husband won’t take no for an answer.’
‘No,’ Maya sighed. She could feel a headache coming on from the frown that always seemed to appear whenever he showed up. ‘I need to leave; I have a wedding to get to.’
And she was tired of having him ruin things time and time again.
‘Saved by the bell,’ Bess declared when the phones situated in various points throughout the airbase all rang out in unison, announcing a call. The pair of them had invented a similar sort of escape plan many a time when her ex thought it a good idea to show up at Maya’s work just to remind her that he was still in her life. Maya shrugged in his direction, read his lips and the swear word, heard him yell, ‘Seriously!’ when she turned her back and she and Bess headed into one of the meeting rooms away from everyone else.
Conrad would assume she’d had to go out on the job and he’d leave.
And Maya only emerged from the meeting room and left the airbase once she knew he had.
2
Maya lived less than a ten-minute drive from the airbase. She got home, showered in record time, fixed her hair into an updo, did her make-up and very carefully pulled her bridesmaid dress on. After one last check in the hallway mirror, she slipped her Skechers onto her feet for driving in and hooked her strappy heels over her fingers. Her sister was getting married and, for now, her own stresses could be pushed into the compartment in her mind labelled,Things to worry about another time.
Or at least they were until she opened the front door and came face to face with Conrad, strutting up the path dressed in his leathers, motorbike parked out front at an angle.
Conrad stopped when he saw her. He whistled between his teeth, looking at her in a way she wished he wouldn’t.
She gave him a ghost of a smile, adequate enough to keep the peace, a smile that wouldn’t put him on the defensive. ‘I can’t stop,’ she said as he came the rest of the way up the path.
But she wasn’t quick enough. Before she could pre-empt it, he was up the steps and leaning against the door frame so she couldn’t close it.
He took in her mocha silk bridesmaid dress, her rich chestnut hair pulled up at the back with ringlets tumbling to frame her face. ‘You look hot. Damn hot.’
She shifted, he still hadn’t taken his eyes off her and he was leaning in so close, she got a heady waft of the woody aftershave he’d worn their entire marriage, a smell she could pick up a mile off and would rather not. ‘How’s Whizzy?’ If in doubt, talk about something other than herself, that was what Maya preferred to do.
In the divorce, their son Isaac might have been old enough to decide who he resided with when he wasn’t at university but their cat, or rather her cat, Whizzy, had had no such luxury. Conrad had somehow got custody of Whizzy, the cat he hadn’t even wanted, the cat Maya had rescued from down by the river. When an owner couldn’t be traced, Maya had given the feline a new home. Maya was pretty sure in all the time Whizzy had lived with them, the cat had never dared to creep onto Conrad’s lap, curl up and purr, never mind dribble when the affection was to her satisfaction. But Conrad had played the game well, told Maya the cat was settled in the house that had always been his since before they were married, and he’d insisted Maya’s erratic hours meant Whizzy might be left wandering outside at all hours, onto the road that ran through the town which, while not busy, wasn’t exactly brightly lit. Maya’s focus had had to go on moving into her own cottage and leaving the marriage behind once and for all.
With a sigh, as though Maya’s question was beyond irritating, Conrad told her, ‘The cat is still alive, still Lady Muck around the house.’
Maya hated it when he called the cat Lady Muck. Whizzy was a cat, for heaven’s sake. What did he expect, for the feline to don an apron and see to the washing up?
While his hackles were up, she told him, ‘I’ve got a handyman coming to fit a cat flap next week. I can take her then.’
‘Good for you. I hope you’re not being ripped off.’ His nostrils flared, the tension in his jaw showing.
‘I trust the handyman; he’s done a few jobs for me.’ And before he could probe more because his mind would definitely be drawing its own conclusions, she added, ‘He went to school with my uncle right here in Whistlestop River, so I’m not worried.’ And that comment would give the man an age, an age that wouldn’t have Conrad seething with jealousy. He had no claims on her in that respect but sometimes it was a case of saying what she needed to for a peaceful life. It had been the same in the latter years of their marriage, something she’d slowly realised was a red flag among several others.
‘I’ll let you know then,’ she prompted, ‘when I can collect Whizzy.’ If he flat-out refused, there wouldn’t be a lot she could do other than go and take the cat herself, which sometimes she was tempted to do.
