First Real Kiss

Chapter 24

Luke

“Dr. Hotwell, you were a rescue worker at the time, you know.” Harvey Pooler folded his arms over his chest as if lecturing me.

“Uh, I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else.” My voice quavered, as if I was about to remember something that my conscious brain had long forgotten. But it couldn’t be! “I was just a kid at the time.”

“No, you were a lifeguard at the cove.”

“How do you know that?” This was weird. I’d entered another dimension. Now, I sort of got it—how Sheridan must feel every time I told her something I’d seen in my dream. “There were dozens of us lifeguards on staff that summer. The cove practically employed every teen in town.”

Lucky guess. It had to be a lucky guess.

“I’m afraid he still doesn’t remember, Harvey.” Eloisa wore a kind look on her face, almost pitying, but full of love and interest. “Luke, honey. Harvey came home that night and told me that one of our young lifeguards deserved the medal of honor for a major rescue, but that you utterly refused it, and then disappeared back into the building to check for any remaining people.”

“But …” Luke said. “I didn’t.”

Harvey chortled. “You most certainly did. The paramedics told you not to go into the library in the first place, that it wasn’t safe, but you said you heard voices, and you went in. First for Sheridan—who we didn’t know for the longest time was the Library Rescue because her parents wisely demanded her privacy—and then you went back in. There was …” His face grew stern, guilt-ridden. “I should have been more on top of the situation.”

Beside me, Sheridan shifted, pulling away. “He was hurt?” she said softly, like her throat was tight.

“We didn’t have to rescue the rescuer—thank goodness. He made it out on his own, but a brick tumbled and …”

My head throbbed, right at the spot where that Filer guy clocked me. I rubbed it. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think you have the right person.” I stood up and rubbed my hands on my thighs. They were sweating. They never sweated. I was Cool Hands Luke in the operating room. “I’m going to get some fresh air.” I headed for the door, like a jerk, leaving Sheridan in the living room with Harvey and Eloisa.

Out front, I paced the sidewalk, and a short time later, Sheridan came out.

“They signed.” She didn’t say more, just headed to the car.

I followed, getting her door. She set the clipboard on the floor, and I headed us back toward her house.

“I’ll take that to Marcia tomorrow. I don’t think we should do any more of the visits.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’m the one who promised. I’ll take care of keeping the promise I made.”

We didn’t speak the rest of the way, but the air between us was thicker than the dust of that quake day, so substantial it was hard to draw breath.

At her place, Sheridan got out, taking the clipboard and saying, “Thanks,” no promise of when I’d see her again. I should have expected that. It was too weird.

She’d been told I was her rescuer, and I’d denied it and acted like hearing it was outlandish and repulsive. Like I wanted to run away from the truth—if it was the truth.

Once she’d disappeared inside her house, I drove around. Eventually, I found myself in front of Carlton Cook’s house. I parked, staring at the light pouring from his front window. I couldn’t exactly go knock on his door. He was off work. This was a professional situation—I was a clinical case, it seemed.

His front door opened, and he walked out. “Is that you, Hotwell?” He knocked on the passenger side window. “What’s going on? I’ve got the barbecue fired up. Come out back and we’ll eat brats and you can meet my family. Well, there’s just me and my daughter, and you’ve met both of us, so …”

Like a zombie, I exited my car and followed Carlton to his back yard. Now, I was the Certifiable Kook. And I might have been all along.

“This is my daughter, Giselle.” Carlton brought me up to where she was stirring a pitcher of Kool-Aid.

“Hi, Giselle.” Then I remembered. “Hi, Gigi.”

“Hi,” Gigi smiled. “You and Library Girl.”

It took me a second to decipher what she’d said, but I got it, although I didn’t know why she’d connected me to Sheridan. “Well,” I hedged.

“She loves you.”

Yeah, she’d been in love with me until a few minutes ago, maybe. “I don’t know about that.”