Lexy's Little Matchmaker

“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

Calm. Cool. Professional. “Nine-one-one, what is the address of your emergency?”

“Help!” raged a small child on the other end, his screams cutting into the calm of the day. “P-please help me! My daddy’s dying.”

Lexy’s body lurched into full adrenaline alert mode, but she maintained her controlled tone through pure force of habit and years of training. Calls from kids were both the worst and the best. No doubt these crises reached out and grabbed you by the throat, but in her experience, children under stress followed instructions much better than adults. “Okay. Where are you?”

“I.I.”

He sounded young. What if he didn’t know his address? She glanced at the ANI-ALI screen, wishing it read differently. But the call had come from a cell phone—no exact location, just the nearest cell tower hit. Dammit. Murphy’s Law. “Take a deep breath, honey. I need to know where you are.”

“Um … um … D-deers make tracks.”

She blinked. “What?”

It came in a breathless tumble of words. “Deer Track T-trailhead. Eleven-eleven. He always has a medicine shot with him but I can’t find it.”

Medicine shot. High-country trail. Experience told her they were dealing with an allergic reaction. She quickly keyed the unfamiliar trailhead into her computer, then snapped her fingers to get Dane’s attention.

He spun around in his chair. Flagging him closer, she pointed at the address field on her computer screen.

Dane leaned forward to read the data, then nodded once and snatched the open-space map out of its upright holder and began flipping pages, tracing the myriad of high-country hiking trails with his index finger.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Lexy said to the caller as Dane tracked down the trailhead.

“I don’t know! I w-was pickin’ flowers! I think he got stung by a bunch of bees,” the boy said, voice wavering and watery. “He’s all red and puffy and I can’t find the medicine shot thing. I looked everywhere!”

Lexy took a deep breath to keep her own emotions in check. Anaphylactic shock could kill in a matter of ten minutes. And they didn’t even have an exact location yet. Press on.

“What’s your name, hon?”

“Ian,” he wailed, sucking in breaths between sobs. “Please, m-my mommy died two years ago today. Please don’t let my daddy die, too.”

Kick to the gut. Lexy squeezed her eyes shut; her stomach churned with empathy. “Listen to me carefully, Ian,” she said almost forcefully before softening her tone. “My name is Lexy and I’m not going to leave you, okay? I’m going to help you through this.”

“’K–’kay,” Ian said, clinging to her promise like a lifeline. “I’m scared, L-Lexy.”

“Be brave for your daddy, Ian, okay? I’m sending paramedics to help him. You can help now by staying calm and answering some important questions. Will you try that?”

“’Kay.”

“Good boy. Is your daddy conscious?”

“Huh?”

“Is he awake?”

“N–no, and I don’t think he’s breathin’ very good. He sounds … funny.”

Lexy’s alert spiked into the red zone. Funny how? she wondered. Funny like the allergic reaction she’d assumed, or funny like agonal breathing just before death? It could be a heart attack, for all she knew. “Do you see bee stings on your daddy? Red bumps?”

“Um … yeah. On his arm. L-lots of ‘em.”

She keyed that into the notes and hit Save. “Okay. You said eleven-eleven. What’s eleveneleven?”

“We, um … um … started hikin’ the Deer Track Trailhead at eleven-eleven. We always m-make our watches m-match just in case something bad happens. Daddy’s SUV is parked by the brown sign. Are they comin'? Hurry!”

“We’re getting them started. Hang tight.”

“Got it,” Dane said, in a lowered rasp, tapping his finger once on the map before lunging for his keyboard. Within seconds he’d keyed the exact location into the CAD computer system, set off the pre-alerts and aired the call to the closest units.

Thank God. Lexy flicked a quick glance at the call timer. Ian and his father had been hiking approximately ten minutes when the call came in. They’d be close to the trailhead, but who knew how long the father had been down. “What color is your SUV, Ian?”

“Blue. It’s a H-Honda.”

“And what’s your daddy’s name?”

“Drew K-Kimball.”

“Okay, good.” In her peripheral vision Lexy saw Dane standing to her left, slightly behind her. He was intently listening to her side of the conversation for important details. She pointed to the line she’d just typed in: BLUE HONDA SUV, DREW KIMBALL, signaling for Dane to run a check for the vehicle. She covered the headset microphone with her thumb and told him, “Check under Andrew, too.”

“Got it,” Dane said.

She refocused on her caller. “Stay with me, honey,” she said, sounding much calmer than she felt. “You’re doing an excellent job.”

“’K–’kay. Are they comin’, Lexy?”

“Yes, honey, they’re on the way. Look around you and tell me exactly what you see on the trail so the paramedics can find you quickly.”

“Um.um. Orange f-flowers. A whole gigungus field. We stopped to pick them for the angels to take up to Mommy at the top of the mountain, because orange was her f-f-favorite color.” He sucked back a sob and his pitch rose. “Right around a curve after a tree tunnel.”

“Okay. Orange flowers. Got it.” Despite the continued stabs to her heart with this child’s every word, Lexy swallowed back her instinctively human, sympathetic reaction. Sadly, she didn’t have time to feel sorrow for Ian, not while his father still needed life-saving help.

She click-clacked the location details into CAD and pushed a button that would transmit it straight to Dane’s computer, so he’d have everything he’d need to update the responding units over the radio. They had maybe ten minutes before Ian could quite possibly lose his father.

Could they get there in time?

No clue.

That part was out of her hands. But she needed to engage Ian in the rescue effort, so that regardless of what happened, he’d know he’d done everything he could to help his father. No regrets.

A thought struck her. “Ian, do you think the medicine shot is back in your daddy’s SUV?” A stretch, she knew.

“I don’t know!” came another agonizing wail.

“Ian, honey, take a deep breath for me.” She paused, listened to him drag in air and blow it out noisily. “Good boy. Do you have your daddy’s keys?”

She heard him fumbling.

“Um … um … yeah! I got ‘em from his pocket.”

“Good. How fast can you run back to the SUV?”

“I d-don’t know. I’m a-scared, Lexy!” he wailed. The wobble in his voice had returned full force. “When are they comin'?”

“Honey, you’re being very brave. I know it seems like a long time, but they’re coming as fast as possible. Take a breath.”

He hiccupped in some air and blew it out.

“Good. Now, listen to me. This is your most important job. I want you to run as fast as you’ve ever run before and look for that medicine shot, okay? I’ll stay on the phone, but if we get disconnected, don’t panic. I’ll call you right back as soon as we have a signal.”

“’K-’kay—”

“Ian, wait. Are you listening?”

“Y-yeah?”

“When you have that shot, you run right back to your daddy fast, fast, fast. Okay?”

“’Kay.”

“I’m not going to talk while you run because I don’t want to slow you down, but I’ll be here if you need me.”

“’Kay.”

She listened to Ian, footsteps pounding, sucking wind, as he ran back to retrieve the EpiPen she prayed was in the vehicle. Every once in a while, Ian would gasp, “Lexy?”

“I’m here.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t.”

Astonishingly, they never lost the signal. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he said, “I’m here!”

Lexy exhaled, squeezing the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “Check the car, Ian. Take a breath and look carefully.”

She heard the unlocking, the scrambling, Ian muttering to himself. A moment passed. “I have it! It fell out on the floor by the um … um … gas pedal.”

Lexy crossed her fingers. “Run, Ian. Run back to your daddy and I’ll help you give him that shot.”

“I…I know how,” he gasped out. More pounding. Voice jostling with his steps. “Daddy taught me ‘cuz he and I are a team now.”

Oh, God. “Good. Run fast.”

Adrenaline pumping, she tapped a pen rapidly on the console, her gaze ping-ponging from the call timer to the GPS map on a separate computer that showed the paramedics’ progress toward the scene, and back again. She focused on her young caller’s panting breaths, counting them.

In, out. In, out. In, out.

One, two. Three, four. Five, six.

“L-Lexy?”

“I’m here, honey.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t leave you.”

Finally a shaky-voiced Ian said, “I’m b-back. He’s still not awake. He slid off the rock, Lexy. He’s on the ground.” The panic reared up, making his words higher pitched, thready.

“That’s okay. Ian, you can still help him.” She had to tamp down his hysteria in order for him to be effective. She flicked a glance at the call timer: seven minutes. Lexy gulped and said a quick prayer in her mind. “Listen to me carefully. Open the package and get the shot ready. Did your daddy teach you that part?”

“Yes. I c-can do it.”

“Perfect. Set the phone down and do it. Then pick it back up and tell me when you’re done.”

“’Kay.”

The phone clattered to the ground. She listened to the package being torn, to Ian’s heavy breathing, to her own blood surging a staccato rhythm in her ears.

More shuffling. “I’m ready. Lexy?” Ian asked.

“I’m here. I need you to be brave, Ian, because, when I tell you to, you’re going to press that needle down into your daddy’s leg and hold it there for ten full seconds so he gets all the medicine. That’s very important. We’ll count the time together, okay?”

“’Kay,” he said, in a whimper.

“Now, do as I say. Put the tip of the shot against his upper leg and I’ll count to three. Then you’ll press down as hard as you can. And we’ll count out the seconds.”

“W-will it hurt ‘im?”

“No, sweetie, not at all. It just may save his life. Be strong for your daddy now, okay?”

“’Kay.”

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“One, two, three—go, Ian.”

“I did it!”

“Hold it down hard, no matter what, and let’s count,” she said in a rush. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten,” they said together.

Nothing.

Lexy held her breath. Dane stood frozen.

Even Ian remained silent.

A muffled, unintelligible groan carried over the line, and Lexy had to blink back tears of relief and clamp her knuckles over her lips to maintain her cool.

“He’s wakin’ up, Lexy! He’s wakin’ up!”

She swallowed several times, leveled her tone. “Good, Ian.You did an excellent, excellent job.”

“Daddy? Daddy! Wake up!”

“The paramedics are almost there, okay, Ian? And they’ll take over. They’ll take good care of your daddy.”

“Ian?” she heard a deep male voice slur.

As expected, at the sound of his daddy’s voice, Ian lapsed into full-blown “refreak,” bursting into gut-wrenching, breath-stealing, choking and gagging sobs.

“Ian, hand the phone to your daddy,” she said in a loud, firm tone, before she lost him completely. “Ian!”

Some fumbling, then, “Hello?”

“Drew Kimball?”

“Ah.yeah?”

“My name’s Lexy. This is Troublesome Gulch 9-1-1.”

“Allergic,” he slurred. “Bees.”

“I know. Ian told me. Don’t try to talk.” She could still hear Ian’s gulping wails in the background and they tore at her heart. “Just relax right where you are. The epinephrine your son administered will hold you over. Paramedics are almost there to help you, so hang tight.”

He blew out a breath. “Yeah. ‘S okay, pal. C’mere.” A pause. “My son okay?” he asked Lexy.

She smiled for the first time since that line had rung. “Mr. Kimball, Ian is much more than okay. He just saved your life.”

Lexy stayed on the line until Drew slurred that the paramedics were tromping up the path toward them, then wished him luck and hit the F8 key to disconnect.

“Holy—” She eased out a long breath and pushed her fingers into her hair, yearning for some kind of an adrenaline dump. “Great job finding that trailhead so fast, Dane.”

“Thanks. You, too, boss,” he said, admiration threaded through his tone. He wiped perspiration from his temples with the backs of his wrists. “Great job with everything. I heard his wail through your headset when you picked up.”

“He was pretty panicked.”

“Well, it was one amazing save.”

“I’ll say” came an unexpected voice from the back of the room.

Lexy swiveled around to find three uniformed men standing at the divider wall, observing the action. Chief Ken Hayward from TG Paramedics had spoken the words. Police Chief Bill Bishop and Fire Chief John Dresden flanked him. All members of the interdepartmental brass had offices one floor above the dispatch center in the main emergency services building, and all of them had radio scanners on their desks. “Chiefs, wow. Sorry, I didn’t even hear you guys come in,” Lexy said, raising her eyebrows quizzically at Dane.

“Nope, me, neither.”

“No worries. We didn’t intend to interrupt. Just watching the magic happen,” Chief Dresden said. “We headed down as soon as we heard the call go out. You both handled that amazingly well.”

“Thank you,” Lexy and Dane said together.

Police Chief Bishop stepped forward, gesturing toward the console. “Lexy, how old was that caller?”

“I’m not sure. He was so freaked out, it was hard to get a bead.Young, though. Definitely well under ten. Maybe … five or six? Seven at the most.”

“You did a helluva job with him,” Chief Bishop said.

Unreal. A compliment like that was huge coming from Chief Bishop, also known to Lexy as her friend Cagney’s taskmaster father. But she knew from Cagney that he’d been actively working on changing his ways since his wife left him. Lexy gave him credit for that. She bestowed a genuine smile on him. “Thanks, Chief. Actually, though, the boy’s the one who deserves kudos for the save. He did everything I asked of him and more. And get this.” She paused. They all waited. “Apparently today is the two-year anniversary of his mother’s death.”

A murmur of shock rippled through the room.

“Do we know this Drew Kimball?” Chief Dresden asked, eyes narrowed in thought. “Is he local? Name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I’ve met him. He’s a recent transplant. Or re-transplant. His family lived here when he was a kid, apparently,” Chief Bishop said. “He moved back with his son. Opened that small gym near the youth center, in the old drugstore building.”

“Ah, yes.”

Lexy had noticed the new gym when she’d dropped by Cagney’s. She’d never been inside.

The chiefs exchanged glances. “Once they’ve got the patient packaged and en route to the hospital, let’s get as much information as we can about our young caller,” Chief Hayward said. “Sounds like a perfect candidate for the Troublesome Gulch Hero Award, and we haven’t had one of those in a while.”

Lexy felt her muscles unlocking like a puzzle, her heartbeat returning to normal, pump by pump. “What a great idea. Maybe it’ll help to take the edge off this sad day for him. Give him a new memory to associate with it.”

Just then, the electronic door beeped, and Genean dance-bopped in carrying white takeout bags and a soda, earbuds from her iPod in and clearly pumping some wildly upbeat tune into her brain. She stopped short, glancing from person to person, then hooked her finger in the white headset cords and yanked the buds from her ears. “Whoa, three chiefs in the room.” She widened her eyes at Lexy. “Am I in trouble?”

Lexy shook her head slowly. “No. But I must say, when you jinx the center, Genean, you don’t do it halfway.”

“Uh-oh. What exactly did I miss?”

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