Wood Worked

My heart completely stopped, and time did, too.

Everything was happening in slow motion. The car was almost there. The boy was rapidly stepping backwards, trying to regain his balance.

And I moved, too. Though my brain was stalled, my body knew what to do. I ran into the street at a diagonal as I raced toward the boy.

A squealing sound reached my ears. The driver had seen me and hit the brakes—but the car still skidded forward.

The boy lost his battle with gravity, his little body tilting backwards directly in front of the bumper of the car. Then I was there, my arms outstretched as I shoved him out of the way.

That was when the car slammed into me.

2

Alyssa

The sky was barely visible. The trees that lined the street blocked the view. Somehow, they blocked the sound, too. There were voices, but they seemed far away. There was screaming, too. Screaming that started to grow louder.

Me. Oh my god, it was me.

I was the one screaming.

Hands touched my leg and the pain multiplied.

“Sorry.” A face slid into view. The man kneeling over me looked somewhat familiar, but it was hard to think where I had seen him before. “I had to reposition it to restore circulation.”

“W-what?”

“You’re going to be okay.” The man’s expression showed concern, but his voice was firm. Plus his eyes—his eyes were dark pools of molten chocolate.

A siren wailed in the distance, but I couldn’t look away from the man’s face. It was like I could see inside to his soul. “You have really pretty eyes,” I said.

Then blackness overtook me.

My head hurt. My throat was dry. The light seeping through my eyelids was bothering me. I wanted to go back to sleep, but I was too uncomfortable.

I blinked, then tried to cover my eyes with my forearm, but moving it elicited a groan. It hurt. Everything hurt.

“Alyssa?”

I frowned, which was pretty much the only movement I could make that didn’t cause pain. The voice wasn’t familiar.

Squinting to protect my eyes from the overhead light, I took quick peeks at my surroundings. The room around me was clearly part of a hospital. The walls were white, but the sky was dark beyond the window. The man who stood above me didn’t look like a doctor or a nurse, though.

My thoughts were hazy as I tried to figure out how I’d gotten here. What had I done to end up in a hospital? Had I crashed my car on the way home from work? But no, I’d pulled over by that park and—

“The boy!” My body jerked as I tried to sit up, but then pain washed over me, and I groaned.

“He’s okay.” The man put his hand on my shoulder, gently pushing me back down. “Barely a scratch. You saved him.”

“Oh.” My voice was not much louder than a sigh. Everything in my mind was jumbled and out of order. There’d been a kite, and the boy and girl running. And then I remembered the car. “I got hit?” The man nodded. “But the boy’s really okay?”

“He is, thanks to you.”

I closed my eyes, feeling extremely grateful that he was all right. When I opened them, the man was looking down at me with compassion. His eyes were a deep shade of brown, and all at once I recognized him. There was no mistaking those mesmerizing eyes.

But he looked different than he had kneeling over me in the road. He’d changed clothes. Now he was wearing a white dress shirt open at the neck, plus black dress pants. He’d shaved, too. Before, he’d had a short brown beard.

“You clean up well,” I said. I was focusing on him because it was a lot more pleasant than focusing on the pain.

The man looked confused. “I do?”

“Yeah. Before, you had the beard, and you weren’t dressed like that.” I gestured at his clothing, and then groaned. When was I going to remember that pretty much every movement hurt?

The man’s soulful eyes cleared. “That wasn’t me before; that was my brother.”

“Brother?”

“Yeah. He’s a few years younger than me, but people say we look a little alike.”

“Oh. Sorry.” I’d been sure that incredible eyes like that could only be unique to one man.

He gave a small smile. “Don’t be. It’s not like you met either of us while you were at your best. I’m Spencer Ward. It was my son, Lucas, that you saved.” His voice caught and he looked away for a moment. It made me want to reach out and take his hand, which was ironic since I was the one in the hospital bed.

“I’m Alyssa.”

“I know,” he said, returning his gaze to me. “We found your driver’s license in your purse.”

“We?”

“The hospital staff and me.”

“Are they here?” The man above me looked confused again—probably because I’d asked a very stupid question. “I just mean, I’d like to talk to a doctor or nurse about the pain.”