First Real Kiss

Chapter 19

Sheridan

My fingers hovered over the keypad to hit call for Garland McPhail of the Quake Commemoration committee. I pressed it. The phone rang.

This speech was my best, and maybe my last, chance to find the fireman who’d rescued me from the library that night. Or had it been day? With so much dust filling the air, it had felt like night, but the papers and other people’s anecdotes all claimed day.

What I remembered best was the strong, capable arms of the man who’d yanked the beam away from my lower torso, freeing me, saving my life, and carrying me to safety. Nothing about his face came to memory, maybe because I’d only seen him from a strange angle. I did know he’d had a good jaw, shaggy brown hair, and a kind voice that told me over and over again that everything was going to be all right.

That reassurance had kept me going, had pulled me through surgery after surgery. I’d even learned to walk again based on its transformational power.

It had given me hope.

“Mr. McPhail? This is Sheridan Chandler. Yes, née Allen. If the offer is still open, I’d like to speak. Yes, I’d be willing to finally tell the world who I am, the Library Rescue. No, I’m not sure I can be inspiring. Thanks for saying that anyway. I’ll do my best. Goodbye.”

We hung up.

I exhaled. This was happening.

I needed to find my rescuer, tell him thank you, cry on his shoulder—and learn if he was still single. Which, I know, was crazy. But my soul tingled, telling me it was important, that I’d need to either be with him, or at least rule him out before I could decide whether any other man could be in my life. I’d made that mistake with Case, but when he died, I renewed my promise to myself.

Nothing logical said I’d find my rescuer, even if I spoke and asked for information about him. If I were to find him, it was even less logical that he would be available or waiting for me like I’d been more or less waiting for him. Emotionally, at least, I’d waited. I’d given my heart to no one else, including my husband, I was ashamed to admit.

Not even to Luke Hotwell, even though every day I spent with him wedged me a little closer to opening my heart to him. I’d better not kiss him.

Um, I’d almost kissed him on that bluff outside of Bacon. So, so close. He’d smelled so good, and I’d been so broken and then put-back-together by his reassuring words and his safe arms, and—

Nope. Firefighter. I had to find my rescuer.

Even if I were to find him, all I could offer was my heart but nothing more. He wouldn’t want someone broken like me. I wouldn’t wish someone broken like me on him. Gratitude, devotion, and admiration were all I could offer.

But I definitely wanted to offer them.

I had to find him. Period. I had to push aside the fact that Luke Hotwell was weaseling his way into my feelings and confusing me, distracting me from my purpose.

That was the one and only reason why I’d finally agreed to speak—because if I didn’t make this effort to find my rescuer, I would never find him. I instinctively knew that for a fact.

In the meantime, I couldn’t fall for the wrong person. Wrong, according to the feelings my gut and intuition had been drumming into me for almost twenty years.

The rescuer is the man you need. Don’t let this opportunity to find him get away.

Even on my wedding day to Case, I’d been cringing with guilt for saying I do when in my heart I didn’t, when I only planned to love my rescuer. Ever. Even if death had already parted us.

Truthfully, he could have been one of the half-dozen killed due to the quake. He may have succumbed to injuries after he rescued me.

If so, I’d never know. I’d just hope to meet him in the next life.

Now that I’d agreed to speak though, what was I going to say, and how was I going to say it so that I had the best shot at finding the man my soul hungered for?