Until I Found You (19 page)

Pedestals were for statues, not for men like Nick, who walked, talked, and breathed integrity. It was just like him to downplay his attributes. “I trust you, Nick. Completely. It’s easy, because you always put others first.”

“Not always.”

“But you try.”

He opened his mouth to protest again, but a drum roll distracted them both. The MC shouted to the crowd to get ready for midnight. Rather than go back to the ballroom, Kate and Nick gazed into each other’s eyes.

“Are you ready, folks?” the MC shouted. The crowd roared, and he started to count. “Ten . . . Nine . . . Eight . . .”

Nick cupped her face in his hands.

“Seven . . . Six . . . Five . . .”

She lifted her chin, her eyes shining into his.

“Four . . . Three . . . Two . . .”

The drum roll pulsed through her body.

“One!”

At the stroke of midnight Nick brought his mouth down to hers in a soul-searing kiss. In the banquet room people cheered, balloons fell, and glitter cannons shot gold streamers into the air. The band broke into “Auld Lang Syne,” and the crowd started to sing.

Nick whispered into her ear. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year,” she repeated.

“They’ll be doing a toast pretty soon. We should go back to the table.” He hooked his arm around her waist and led
the way to their seats. The champagne hadn’t been served yet, so Kate excused herself for a trip to the ladies’ room. She took care of business, applied fresh lipstick, then noticed her phone. She had three missed calls, one voice mail, and a text message. All three calls were from Leona’s landline. With her heart in her throat, she opened the text message from Dody.

Call
home 9-1-1.

S
haking all over,
Kate tried to call Leona’s landline. When the call failed to go through, she bolted for the lobby, found a quiet corner and tried again. The fourth ring blasted in her ear, then the answering machine picked up. A thousand horrible thoughts raced through her mind. She had to get home . . . had to get to Leona. While calling her voice mail, she hurried back to the dining room to find Nick.

He saw her approach and crossed the room to meet her. “What’s wrong?”

“Dody texted me 9-1-1.” Her voice quavered. “I’m checking voice mail, but it won’t connect.”

“Let’s go.”

Side by side they charged for the lobby. Nick cut through the line to retrieve their coats, then spoke to the parking valet, who ran for the truck. While they waited, Kate called Dody’s cell phone. No answer. Shaking more than ever, she tapped out a text with typos saying they were headed home. Kate never sent garbled messages; she took time to fix her mistakes but not tonight.

The valet brought the truck and they sped toward Leona’s house, some twenty minutes away. Kate called the house phone again, squeezed her eyes shut, and silently prayed.
Please God. Please God.

Dody answered on the third ring. “Kate?”

“Yes. Yes. What happened?”

“Leona’s conscious, but she had a fall. I called 9-1-1. The rescue squad is on the way.”

Kate’s throat constricted to a pinhole. “Did she have another stroke?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then what—”

“She was hurrying to the bathroom. She may have tripped. I don’t know, and she can’t tell me. I think she hit the side of the tub.”

Kate thought of the rehab nurse instructing them to avoid trip hazards like throw rugs and cats. Because of that advice, they’d put indoor-outdoor carpet in Leona’s bathroom. Kate had done everything possible to protect her grandmother, yet another random accident had smacked down someone she loved. Except now Kate had faith. She had to trust God knew best in spite of what seemed cruel and catastrophic.

With Nick focused on the road, she kept Dody on the phone and pressed for updates. Yes, Leona was alert. No, she couldn’t speak into the phone. Yes, she was warm under a blanket. The signal was spotty in the canyon, and Dody’s voice kept breaking up. Kate’s only solid touch point was Nick in the driver’s seat, strong and steady as the mountains passed by in a blur. With the phone against her ear, she laid her hand on his arm.

“I see lights,” Dody said. “The paramedics are here.”

“Go,” Kate ordered. “We’re just a few minutes away.” She hung up and tossed the phone in the console.

Nick turned onto the road leading to Leona’s house. A mile later they saw the amber lights of the rescue truck strobing through the trees. In Meadows, paramedics drove a truck equipped for rescue, not the transport of victims. To allow room for the coming ambulance, Nick parked across the street. Kate flung open the door and ran to the house, her high heels clumsy on the rough pavement. Nick caught up to her, gripped her elbow, and together they hurried into the living room where Staci, one of the paramedics, was on the radio.

Dody came out of the hallway and hugged Kate hard.

“How is she?” Kate asked

“Alert,” Dody replied. “And in pain. Captain McAllister is with her.”

Kate turned to Staci. “Can I see her?”

“In a few minutes. I just called for an ambulance. We don’t think she needs air transport.”

“That’s good,” Kate said, grasping at straws.

Nick put his arm around her waist, then focused on Staci. “Where are you taking her?”

“Valencia Community.”

Captain McAllister called from the bathroom. “Staci, come here, please.”

As Staci walked down the hall, Kate followed with Nick in her wake. They all stopped at the door, where Captain McAllister gave instructions in a low tone that Kate couldn’t quite hear except for the word
arrhythmia
.

An irregular heartbeat.

Her breath caught in her throat, then burst out in ferocious gasps. If she didn’t control herself, she’d hyperventilate.
Breathe! Breathe!
Nick wrapped her in his arms and held her tight, but nothing could stop the pounding in her chest.
Stay strong,
she told herself.
Go with the flow.
But the flow was a torrent threatening to drown her.
God, where are you?
She
was sinking . . . sinking . . . until Nick grasped her elbow and she steadied.

Staci’s voice echoed in the small room. “Base, this is Unit 34. We have a seventy-year-old woman with broken ribs, a possible shoulder fracture, atrial fibrillation, and a history of stroke. We’re advising air transport. . . . Roger . . . We’ll transport by ambulance to the fire station.”

The fog of fear burned out of Kate’s brain, not because she wasn’t afraid—she was. But Leona needed her. She pulled out of Nick’s arms with the intention of gathering Leona’s medical info but froze when Staci’s radio crackled. They all heard the dispatcher say the local ambulance was on another call.

“What’s the ETA?” Staci asked.

“Ninety minutes.”

Kate gasped.

“No way,” Nick declared to Staci. “I don’t care what your policy says. We’ll use my truck.”

“We’ve done it before,” Mac called from inside the tiny room. “Get all the blankets you can.”

Nick turned to Kate and gripped her arms, steadying her with a look. “I’m going to move the truck to the bottom of the stairs. You and Dody get all the blankets in the house. Stacy and Mac will do the rest.”

While Kate and Dody hauled the bedding to the truck, Staci and Captain McAlister maneuvered Leona onto the stretcher and carried her outside. Relieved to see her grandmother at last, Kate ran to the gurney. “Nonnie!”

“Kay . . . Kay . . .”

She reached out to touch Leona’s shoulder, but the paramedics were moving faster than she could. With calm precision, they collapsed the wheels of the gurney and slid Leona into the bed of the pickup truck, now filled with blankets. Mac made sure the stretcher wouldn’t slide and stayed to ride
in the back. While Nick said something to Staci, Kate hopped up next to Mac and tucked yet another blanket around Leona, who was strapped to the stretcher and perfectly still—too still. When her eyelids fluttered, Kate laid her palm on her grandmother’s cold cheek. “Stay with me, Nonnie. I need you.”

“Kay . . . Kay . . .” Tears flooded Leona’s silvery eyes.

Kate refused to break down, but what she had to do next would torment her until they reached the helicopter, maybe forever if Leona died. “It’s cold. I have to cover your face.”

Leona shook her head no.

Captain McAllister intervened with a firm tone that Kate wished God would use to fix the whole messy world. “Leona,” he said, in the way of a friend, “unless you want a frostbitten nose, I suggest you put up with the sheet over your face. You’re going to be fine. The chopper’s waiting, so let’s roll.”

When she nodded, Mac covered her face.

Nick draped a blanket over Kate’s shoulders, then took the driver’s seat. He inched over the bump between the driveway and the street, but Leona still cried out in pain. Kate clung to her grandmother’s hand under the blankets, crooned to her, shivered, and battled tears of her own. Nick drove carefully, the way he drove the Harley when Kate had been afraid. She was afraid now, but she had Nick at her side . . . and God, though God seemed far away.

They reached the fire station in exactly twelve minutes. Nick parked as close to the waiting helicopter as he could and cut the engine. Staci had followed in the rescue truck. She and Mac unloaded Leona’s stretcher and rolled it to the chopper. Kate ran after them but stopped when the wind from the rotor blades blew her back.

Nick grasped her arms from behind and kept her from falling. “They’ll take good care of her.”

“I can’t bear to leave her!” There was a slim chance Kate
would be allowed to go in the helicopter, a brand-new model with room for four victims. Just last week, Nick had written a story about it and met the crew. She turned and clutched at his jacket. “I want to go with them. Will you ask?”

The noise stole his words from her ears, but he circled her waist with his arm and led her to the open door where they could see a male flight nurse securing the stretcher. Nick shouted up to him. “Do you have room for a passenger?”

The flight nurse yelled something to the pilot, who approached with his gaze on Kate first, then Nick. Recognition flashed in his eyes, and he nodded a friendly greeting.

“You’re transporting Kate’s grandmother,” Nick shouted to him. “Can she ride along?”

The pilot shook his head. “Sorry. It’s against policy.”

“But you can make an exception.” Nick held her even closer, fighting the cold and the wind along with the regulations. Kate knew about the exceptions. They were usually for a parent with a child, but tonight she saw no difference.

She squared her shoulders to prove to the pilot she could handle the flight. “Please. Leona’s my own family.”

The pilot sized her up, glanced back at Nick, and finally nodded. “Sure, why not?”

Relieved but still terrified, she gave Nick a ferocious hug. “Thank Mac and Staci for me—”

“I will.”

“And hurry,” she added.

“I’ll be right behind you. I promise.”

She slid from his arms, climbed into the chopper, and strapped herself into a padded seat. The flight nurse checked to be sure she was secure, gave a thumbs up to Nick, and closed the door. The engine whined and the blades beat the air faster, faster . . . until the helicopter lifted vertically off the ground. She imagined the snow angel flying alongside
them, but the picture in her mind blew apart, and the angel disappeared. Suddenly the chopper angled downward, giving her a view of Nick holding up one arm in a kind of salute. God seemed to have forgotten her, but Nick was real and would never let her down.

He watched the helicopter fade into a circle of light, then a star, and finally to nothing but a memory. As much as he wanted to race the chopper to the hospital, Kate needed a change of clothes and her phone charger. His job tonight was to take care of her, though earlier he’d heard the hero worship in her voice and realized he had a serious problem. Kate had placed him on a pedestal, and he needed to correct that impression. But not tonight—not when she needed him so badly. He drove back to Leona’s house, hauled the six blankets to the house, and dumped them on the living room floor.

Dody was in the kitchen, gulping a glass of orange juice. She looked past him to the empty doorway. “Where’s Kate?”

“They let her fly with Leona. I’m going to get a few things and head to the hospital. How are you?”

“Shaky.” She held out her hand to prove it. “Oh, Nick, it was terrible. I thought we’d lost her.” Even with her dyed red hair, Dody looked every minute of her sixty-seven years. “It happened so fast. We were watching television, getting ready for the ball to drop in Times Square, when she headed for the bathroom. I was in here—” she indicated the kitchen. “Earlier we’d joked about toasting in the new year with Metamucil.”

“That sounds like Leona.”

Dody’s weak smile caved into a grimace. “I heard a thump and went to check. She was in a heap on the floor, all twisted and pale. I thought—well, you know what I thought.”

As anxious as Nick was to meet Kate, he couldn’t leave Dody until she was more settled. “Why don’t you rest while I get Kate’s things?”

“I think I will.”

“Can you think of anything Leona might need?”

“Her glasses. I’ll get them.” She took a step, swayed slightly, and gripped the counter. “I’m not as steady as I thought.”

“I’ll get the glasses. Where are they?”

“The bathroom.”

He walked Dody to the couch and fetched Leona’s glasses before bolting up the stairs to Kate’s room, where a bedside lamp cast a golden glow. In a blink he took in the twin bed covered with an eyelet quilt, then a small desk littered with drawings of flowers and women of various ages—her work on the Eve’s Garden account. Without the urgency, he would have enjoyed seeing this side of her. Instead, he snatched a gym bag out of the closet, stuffed it with clothes, and added the cell phone charger. On his way out he snagged her everyday purse off the knob. Whatever he missed, they could buy.