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Tamping down the panic, he inspected his forearm. Five stings that he could see, already swelling, with hives spreading well beyond the cherry-red bumps. His pulse kicked into overdrive and his face bloomed tight and hot. He recognized the signs of imminent anaphylaxis all too well. He’d been deathly allergic to bees since childhood and had brushed with the life-threatening condition more than once.
This could not be happening.
Not today.
He needed to talk to his son before he was no longer able. Needed help. Needed it damn soon. “Ian!” he choked out, coughing through a tightening throat. Damn. His tongue had already begun to swell, as had his windpipe.
Ian pivoted toward him and froze, instantly on alert by the urgency of his dad’s tone.
Drew fumbled in his cargo pocket for the EpiPen he never left home without … then stilled. Empty.
No EpiPen? He numbed. Dread spread through him as fast as the bee venom.
He always carried his EpiPen.
Panic pushed through his veins and squeezed him; he couldn’t breathe. Shaking, he tore through his other pockets, partially ripping one flap off his hiking shorts. Nothing. He shrugged off his backpack then pawed through it, clumsy and slow, craving oxygen.
Nothing.
Stars burst in his vision as he watched his son run and stumble toward him, the carefully chosen orange wildflowers falling forgotten from the boy’s little hand. “Daddy! Daddy! What’s wrong?”
He wanted to reassure his son.
Wanted to make it all okay.
But couldn’t.
Gasping, choking, Drew sat, then slid back on the rock. He tried to keep the stung arm angled downward, to slow the venom’s attack on his body. The skin on his face and hands seemed stretched to its limit, fire-hot and apt to split open if he moved or spoke. When Ian’s terrified and confused face appeared above him, Drew didn’t have the option of many words. He reminded Ian of the most important ones. “Deer … Track.”
He labored for air, his vision blackening. The last thing he heard was Ian yelling for him to wake up.
Eleven-eleven.
Deer Track Trailhead.
Ian repeated the words in his head as he plowed through his daddy’s belongings looking for the medicine shot that was supposed to save his life if he ever got stung by a bee. But it wasn’t there. It wasn’t there! His heart pounded so hard, he could hear it in his head. His throat had gone dry and sore from his heavy breathing.
The shot was nowhere.
Daddy had always told him, use the shot. But how could he use it if he couldn’t find it?
“Mommy!” he wailed in panic and frustration, fists clenched as he glanced up at the fat white cloud.
No answer.
Why couldn’t she say something?
Wasn’t she supposed to be watching out for them?
He felt so alone. So scared. Tears squeezed out of his eyes. The breeze tilted the orange flowers in the field to one side, then the other. They didn’t look so pretty anymore.
Eleven-eleven.
Deer Track Trailhead.
Unsure what to do without the shot, he choked out a sob and shook his dad by the shoulders as hard as he could. It didn’t wake him up, but Daddy’s cell phone fell out of his shirt pocket just as Ian was about to lapse into full-on hysteria. The cell phone felt like a sign from Mommy.
Help!
He could get help for Daddy. That’s what Mommy was trying to tell him. Snatching up the phone, he pressed the three important numbers he’d had memorized since the police officer came to talk to his kindergarten class.
Nine.
One.
One.
Please, God, Ian prayed, as the phone rang. Don’t take my daddy to heaven, too.
Lexy sat in her glass-walled office overlooking the bustling Troublesome Gulch emergency communications center she managed. The distinctive warble of the incoming 9-1-1 lines carried through the secured room, as did the regular phone sounds, the tones going out to the fire stations and the capable murmurs of the dispatchers she supervised deftly handling calls, emergency and otherwise.
Familiarity.
Her world.
But Lexy’s mind wasn’t on her work. Her mood was thoughtful, perhaps even melancholy, which really wasn’t her style. But she couldn’t seem to shake it and she couldn’t figure out why she felt like this. She tossed her pencil aside and studied the three framed wedding photos that adorned the upper left corner of the desk. Her best friends in the world.
Brody and Faith.
Erin and Nate.
Cagney and Jonas.
Survivors from the horrible prom-night tragedy twelve years ago, all of them. Happy. Glowing. Complete. And with their soul mates, at long last, which was all she’d wanted for them since prom night almost thirteen years ago. She’d dedicated her life to helping her friends forgive themselves and move on. That, and to serving her community through her career in emergency services. Both goals served as a sort of. retribution, and only after reaching them could she even think about finding a way to forgive herself for causing the whole thing in the first place—if one existed.
She’d worked in the comm center for eleven years now, and loved it. Giving back to the community kept her sane. And, although it had taken a decade, all her friends had worked through their own pain, come to terms with the past, fully recovered. Brody and Faith had a beautiful baby girl, Mickie, and a teenage foster son, Jason. Erin and Nate had been blessed with little Nate Jr. Cagney and Jonas were still in that newlywed state and probably would be for a while. But they’d more than earned it.
Lexy had done all that she’d set out to do. Mission accomplished.
So … what now?
She’d always imagined she’d feel a sense of serenity, of closure, of having set things right once all the pieces fell into place. But instead she felt restless and afloat, and she had no clue why or what to do about it. Clearly, she’d been so focused on her original goals, she’d never visualized the what next? part. Now, here she was, smack in the middle of what next? and utterly clueless. Okay, so she’d increased her sessions with the rehabilitation therapist to four times a week—as her sore muscles reminded her—and she felt physically stronger. Emotionally, though, not so much.
She needed something new to strive for.
Like … a hobby? Lame.
A tentative knock on the open door startled Lexy from her contemplative brooding. She shot a glance toward the sound, then exhaled noisily. “Oh, you scared me.”
“Sorry.” Genean, one of the younger dispatchers, scrunched her nose. “I didn’t mean to sneak up.”
Lexy easily maneuvered her wheelchair to face her employee, then smiled up at her. “No problem. I was just daydreaming, which, admittedly, isn’t listed anywhere in my job description,” she added, in a just-between-us-girls tone.
Genean laughed. “Happens to the best of us.”
“True enough.” Lexy rested her hands in her lap. “What can I do for you, Genean?”
The trendy young woman aimed a thumb toward the central area of the secured room. “Can you sit the board for me for half an hour? I forgot my lunch on the kitchen counter this morning, and I’m sure it’s been devoured by my ill-behaved dog by this point.” She shrugged. “I’ve been trying to hold out until I got off shift, but my tummy’s protesting loudly.”
“Of course.” Lexy glanced at the large, wallmounted LED clock and saw it was already after eleven. Genean’s shift had started at six-thirty in the morning. “God, you must be famished. Why didn’t you call me down earlier?”
“I was okay until a few minutes ago.”
“If you say so. I’d be chewing on paper now if I were you.” Lexy winced as she opened her desk drawer and extracted a headset.
“You okay?”
“Just sore. My rehab therapist, Kimberly, has been increasing the intensity of my workouts in preparation for race season.” And possibly some experimental therapies, but she didn’t share that.
“Physical therapists, personal trainers, they’re all evil, if you ask me,” Genean said, with a grimace.
“True enough. Kim’s a brute.” Lexy slipped on her headset, adjusting the earpiece and clipping the cord to her V-neck top. “Give me a quick pass-down of what’s going on out there. Then feel free to take your time and have a nice meal. I need the distraction of working the phones today.” She gestured toward the door.
Genean preceded her out. “Thanks. As for pass-down, not much to say. Nothing’s going on,” she said, over her shoulder. “A couple minor medicals, one fender bender with no injuries. But those calls are handled, and the phones are quiet. It’s one of those excruciatingly slow days.”
Lexy followed her employee down the wide ramp from her office into the center. “G, you know we never utter the phrase ‘slow day’ out loud,” she chided, in a playful tone, as they entered the epicenter of dispatch. “It’s the quintessential jinx.”
“Oops.” Nonplussed, Genean shouldered her handbag and chuckled as she untangled the headset of her iPod from an outside pocket. “Sorry about that.”
“G always jinxes us,” said Dane, the other dispatcher on duty, currently working the radio side, head buried in the Rocky Mountain News. He was senior to Genean, but the two of them got along great and worked well as a team. “She’s a crap magnet. Trust me, I know, because I get stuck with her all the dang time,” he fake-groused.
“Ha-ha. So not true, Dane. You know you love working with me.” She made a face at his back.
“Keep telling yourself that, jinx.” He grinned at Lexy, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “Boss, I’ve been meaning to ask you about a schedule change.”
Lexy shook her head, smiling at their banter.
Genean spread her arms wide. “You people are too superstitious. What could possibly happen in the half hour or so that I’ll be gone?”
“Jinx number two, and the worst kind.” Lexy groaned, then pointed toward the exit door. “Go on, get out of here before you lay a hex on the entire town.”
“Fine, fine, I know when I’m not wanted.” Genean batted her eyes with innocence. “Can I bring either of you anything from the Pinecone?”
“I’ll pass,” Dane said, burying himself in the paper again. “You’ll probably jinx that, too.”
Lexy snickered as she plugged into the console and adjusted the height of the motorized ergo-nomic desktop to accommodate the armrests of her wheelchair. She always loved how dispatch seemed like a family, with “siblings” picking on each other good-naturedly. “Nothing for me, either. I brought lunch. But thanks.”
Dane glanced up at his span of five computer monitors, fingers poised over one of four keyboards he manned, as a medic unit called out en route to High Country Medical Center with one patient, nonemergent, followed by additional units going in service, in quarters, or other radio traffic.
Genean gave a little finger wave and left. While Dane was busy communicating with the units on calls, Lexy’s restlessness returned like a persistent rash. At odds, she reached into the side pocket of her chair for the sheath of paperwork her care team, led by Dr. Shannon Avolese, had urged her to read.
Experimental treatment.
The possibility of truly walking again, after all this time? Surely she’d never walk without the aid of crutches or, best-case scenario, a cane, but she didn’t mind that. For that matter, she didn’t mind her chair. It didn’t hold her back; she was independent.
Still … walking at all was such a long shot. As it was, the short distances she could walk with crutches exhausted her. But she’d been feeling stronger than ever, physically and mentally. This could occupy her mind for the time being. It wouldn’t hurt to try, since she had no emotional attachment to the outcome. It beat collecting stamps, she supposed.
Aside from the initial three years post-injury when rehabilitation had been an everyday thing, she’d resisted the notion of regaining further use of her legs. But experimental treatment options had changed so much recently. She decided to give the literature a once-over, even if she hadn’t made up her mind about pursuing it.
Truth was, ever since the prom-night accident, she’d embraced her physical changes as a constant, stark reminder of all the pain she’d caused. She never wanted to forget. Brody and the others suffered from garden variety survivor’s guilt, but none of them had truly been at fault for what had happened that night.
None of them, that is, except her.
Lexy shivered, rubbed her palms over her upper arms.
To this day, she could close her eyes and recall the exact moment when she’d irresponsibly tried to crawl on her boyfriend Randy’s lap, even knowing he was driving.
Knowing the twisting roads were treacherous at night.
Knowing all of them had been drinking.
She’d known better and had done it anyway.
Her hip hit the steering wheel, knocking it out of Randy’s grasp, and the slow-motion look of raw fear on his face before they tipped over the cliff side still haunted her. She saw it as she drifted off to sleep, revisited it in her nightmares and she came back to it as she woke up.
Every day.
He had known he’d lost control of the SUV and, though he tried, there was no regaining it. At that moment, seeing his whitened face, their terrified gazes locked, she’d known, too. It was the last expression she’d ever see him make.
Her fault. No one else’s.
If only she could take it all back.
But she couldn’t. Four teens buried. It was done.
All things considered, adapting to the loss of function in her legs seemed a small price to pay for the ripple effect of grief she’d set into motion throughout the community.
Still … when she’d confided in Rayna, a fellow wheelchair triathlete, she had suggested that maybe it was time for Lexy to stop punishing herself.
I just don’t know how.
She blinked down at the paperwork outlining new treatments. Everyone around her was happy. She supposed she could think about finding a new level of happiness herself, whatever that took. She wasn’t sure, though, if this experimental treatment route was the key. If walking was the key. It would take her completely out of her comfort zone, and nothing was guaranteed, anyway.
A 9-1-1 line warbled, cutting through the silence. Lexy gratefully tossed the papers aside and pressed the red button on her phone keyboard to engage the line, relieved by the interruption. She’d reconsider the monumental decision about helping herself later. Right now her job was to help someone else, which fell directly within her comfort zone.
Go time.
Chapter Two
