“I tried to stop,” I said, although no one was paying attention to me. But it was true. I’d come around the corner and he’d walked right out in front of me. He hadn’t even looked.
It wasn’t long before an ambulance arrived, lights flashing. Soon after, a police cruiser. The paramedics loaded Gavin onto a gurney. At least I hadn’t killed him. Not instantly, at least. My mind cataloged everything I knew about internal injuries. Why were they being so slow? He could be bleeding out right before our eyes and—
“Miss?”
I gasped. Someone was trying to talk to me. “What?”
A man in his fifties wearing a sheriff’s department uniform placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get out of the street, okay?”
“I didn’t mean to hit him. He walked out right in front of me. I tried to stop. I hit the brakes—”
“I know.” His voice was calm and soothing. “He’s going to be okay.”
“But they should really check for internal bleeding. He could have ruptured his spleen. Or worse, his liver. You can live without a spleen. Liver, not so much. And the bleeding could kill him if left unchecked.”
“They’re taking good care of him.” He guided me onto the sidewalk. “What’s your name?”
“Skylar Stanley.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Are you related to Norman Stanley?”
“Yeah. He’s my dad.”
“Okay. I’ll call him.”
Great. I get into town and the first thing I do is run over someone. Way to make your daddy proud, Skylar.
They closed the ambulance doors. I started to ask if I should go with him, but snapped my mouth closed. That didn’t make any sense. The paramedics were taking care of him; he didn’t need me.
But I was still oddly disappointed to see him go.
There was clearly something wrong with me. Had I hit my head on the steering wheel? Maybe I needed medical attention.
The small crowd disappeared, and the cop—he introduced himself as Jack Cordero—moved my car so it was parked on the side of the road. Then he checked my license and registration and asked me a lot of questions about what had happened. I answered as best I could, trying to be a grown-up and not burst into tears.
It was hard.
But I didn’t want to be one of those weepy girls who’d make a scene in an attempt to get out of trouble. It had been an accident—he knew it, and so I did I—but still.
Although maybe hitting a pedestrian on my first day in town was just par for the course at this point. My entire life was in shambles. Why not make it a little worse?
In the last six months I’d been dropped by my publisher, then cheated on and dumped by my boyfriend. As a consequence, I’d lost my literary agent—because that was what happened when you dated your agent and he cheated on you and subsequently dumped you. I’d lost my apartment—it had been his, not mine—and decided to move back to the town I hadn’t lived in since I was in kindergarten.
Because, you know, moving in with your dad when you were in your mid-twenties because you basically had nowhere else to go and your career was in the toilet was every girl’s dream.
Eventually, Dad pulled up in his Tilikum Fire Department truck. Just the sight of his face, with all that parental sympathy in his eyes, sent a few tears trailing down my cheeks. I quickly swiped them away.
“Skylar, are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“She wasn’t going very fast,” Jack Cordero said. “Turned the corner right as Gavin started to cross the street.”
“She hit Gav?” Dad asked, his eyes widening.
Jack nodded, and it was so weird, but he almost didn’t seem surprised. Like his expression said, of course she hit Gavin, who else would it have been?
“Do you need anything else from her, or is she free to go?” Dad asked.
“We’re good here.”
They shook hands.
“Thanks, Jack. Appreciate it.”
“Anytime.”
Dad turned to me and let out a long breath. He looked tired and worn, like he hadn’t slept in a while. “Let’s go home.”
Home. Such a strange concept. I didn’t feel like I had one anymore.
“Okay.”
Before I got in my car, I glanced over my shoulder, looking in the direction the ambulance had gone. Wondering if Gavin was okay.
4
Skylar
I parked next to my dad’s truck and gazed up at his old two-story house. I’d lived here when I was little, but I didn’t remember much of that time. Only bits and pieces.
It was odd that he’d kept it. When he and Mom had divorced twenty years ago, Mom had packed me up and taken me with her to her hometown of Spokane, several hours away. Dad had stayed here, living all by himself in this big four-bedroom house. Even though I rarely came to Tilikum to visit—he usually drove to Spokane to visit me—he hadn’t downsized.
I’d never thought much about that, but now that I was in front of his too-big-for-just-one-man house, I had to wonder why he still lived here. Maybe moving would have been too much trouble. He probably lived at the firehouse more than here, anyway. Maybe he just didn’t care.
It was in good repair, the yard neat. A concrete path led from the driveway to the door and the curtains in the front window were closed. Inside was an empty front room—no furniture at all, just a big rug in the center of the maple hardwood floor—and a similarly empty dining room.
His living space was all at the back of the house. A kitchen with a breakfast nook and a family room with a couch, recliner, and TV. The only attempt at decoration was some framed photos of me. Mostly older ones, from when I was little, although he had my high school graduation picture on the wall. Everything was clean, but sparse. Of course, he lived here alone. How much of a mess could one man make?
“I suppose you remember your way around.” He set his keys on the kitchen counter. “Your old room has a bed in it, but if you like one of the others better, I can move it.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Do you need help unloading your car?”
I sank into a chair at the small white breakfast table. “Probably, although I don’t have much stuff. Can we deal with it later, though? It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah. For me, too.”
“Dad, I swear I didn’t see the guy in the street. It was an accident.”
“I know.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
He took the chair across from me. “Yeah, I talked to one of his brothers on the way over here. He’s fine. Just a broken leg. He’ll sleep in his own bed tonight.”
“He looked awful.”
“Well, he’d just come in from the front line of the wildfire up north.”
My eyes widened. That was even worse. “Are you kidding?”
“Nope. He saved a guy’s life today, then almost lost his. I have a feeling he was going for a celebratory beer when he stepped out in front of you.”
“So he’s one of your firefighters and basically a hero.” And the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen, but I was absolutely not thinking about that. “I almost killed him. Clearly I’m going to be the most popular girl in town.”