First Real Kiss

Chapter 21

Sheridan

My head echoed like a cathedral with all the accolades of the people who’d thronged around me for the past fifteen minutes.

Good job, Sheridan.

Way to go, being strong.

Keep up the faith.

You’ll find him someday.

I always knew you were special.

But not a single person confessed to having been my rescuer. No one even suggested a guess of who it could have been. With every passing compliment, I deflated more and more. Soon I’d be nothing but a blob of disappointment on the ground.

I’d been so sure! I’d said yes to Garland McPhail only because I fully believed my person would come forward. I’d been so sure.

I closed my eyes and willed back the tears, but they threatened anyway.

“Sheridan!” Luke caught my arm, turning me toward him. “Come on.” He pulled me out of the fray to the safety and privacy of a copse of trees, away from the crowd.

I exhaled. “Luke.” Ooh, was he okay? Had the speech troubled him? I probably should have personally told him about the firefighter instead of springing it on him this way. “I’m sorry about the speech.”

“You were amazing.”

For the first time tonight, a compliment penetrated my shell. “Really? Are you sure?”

“I have something to tell you, Sheridan.”

He knows the firefighter? My soul leapt. Then sank again. He looked so grave he could be telling me the firefighter was dead.

“You know who my rescuer is?”

“No.”

My shoulders slumped.

“But, as a surgeon I can request access to all the staff records at the hospital going back twenty years or more.”

“You can?”

“And if your rescuer was listed as a paramedic or other first responder at the time, we can find that out. We can see who was driving the ambulance, contact the driver, see whether he or she remembers anything from that night. It’s a start.”

It was! “You’d do that for me?”

Luke’s face became a stone. “Yes.” That word appeared to cost him all he had. “If it helps you find the person you so obviously can’t rest until you find, yes. I’ll do anything I can.”

He’d hit the nail on the head. My soul could not rest until I’d found the man who’d saved me. I’d tried to get it to calm down by ignoring the urge to find him again when I married Case, but it only increased the more I realized how little connection Case and I shared.

“When can we start?”