the street to Jilly’s just as the Cavalier chugged up the slight incline of his driveway, shuddered a couple of times and died. He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, leaned forward in the chair and squinted.
“Who—”
The driver’s gaunt, pale face turned to stare at him. His belly went south. An electric current zipped from his brain to his nerve endings.
“No way. No possible way,” he was muttering as he slowly rose for a better look. When he did, three small heads popped up from the backseat. Kids. A tiny blonde girl and two boys with dark hair. Not one of them had a child safety seat.
The adrenaline jacking through his blood centered on that one thought. No matter who the driver, she was irresponsible. And she was breaking the law.
The brown door of the white Chevy groaned open before Zak reached it. A too-thin woman with short, curly hair—dirty blond—gripped the door and levered herself to a stand.
“Zak?” she said. “Zak Ashford?”
His belly did that dipping thing, like the time he’d fallen down a flight of stairs into the belly of the beast, a roaring fire. This could not be who he thought it was.
“Yeah, I’m Zak. Who’s asking?” And why don’t you have those kids in child restraints?
As he started around the car ready to give his fireman lecture, the woman met him at the headlights. “Remember me? Crystal?”
So it was her. She looked different—older, harder and more desperate, if there was such a thing—but here she was. His most humiliating moment.
Suddenly, the subject of car seats was not paramount.
Before he could open his mouth to ask why she’d come for this unexpected visit, she took two steps in his direction and crumpled like a wet paper sack.
With driveway concrete looming up fast, Zak’s paramedic training kicked in. He lurched forward to stop her fall but missed. She collapsed against his bare knees and slid down to the top of his Converse All Star slip-ons. Gently, he eased to a squat and turned her over, going through the ABC protocol. Airway, breathing, circulation.
“Crystal. Crystal, can you hear me?” he asked, his hands and eyes assessing. Pale and gray, she looked like warmed-over death. A cloud passed between him and the sun. He shuddered, vaguely aware of car doors opening and people moving around him.
A small voice said, “Mama’s dead.”
The statement yanked Zak’s attention from Crystal to a thin-faced boy. Maybe eight or ten, he stood solemnly, almost passively in front of Zak, staring down at his mother.
“No,” Zak reassured. “She fainted. She’ll be fine.”
“Nu-uh,” the boy insisted in that same tired, matter-of-fact voice. “She has cancer.”
The word slammed into Zak’s head as all the tumblers rolled into place. Crystal’s ghastly gray color, her skeletal body, the ultrashort, curly hair all pointed to someone who’d spent recent time on chemo. Lots of chemo.
Another boy, this one a few years younger, started to howl. Weirdly, not one of the three kids standing in a semicircle touched the woman lying on the concrete. The third, a tiny blonde girl with wispy ponytails, stared with undisguised interest at Zak.
By now, Jilly had arrived, panting and breathless. “What happened?”
“She passed out.”
“I saw that much.” She leaned forward, hands on her knees to stare at his patient. “Should I call 9-1-1? Anything?”
“I am 9-1-1. Give me another second.” He hitched a chin toward the kids. The yowler had escalated to something just short of siren velocity while the little girl had wandered off toward the street. “The kids.”
“Oh, sure.” Good old Jilly herded the toddler back to the fold. With one hand on the little one’s arm, she hunkered beside the yowler and stroked his back. “It’s okay. She’ll be okay. Zak’s a fireman. He’ll take care of her.”
The yowler wasn’t impressed. The older boy was. His flat expression livened up a tad. “A real fireman?”
“Real deal,” Jilly said. “He rides in a fire truck and everything.”
Too concerned about his patient to bask in firefighter adoration from a grade-schooler, Zak checked Crystal’s pulse again. Her eyelids fluttered. “She’s coming around.”
With a moan, Crystal opened her eyes and blinked blankly at her surroundings. She licked dry lips and managed a whisper. “What happened?”
“You passed out.”
As she struggled to sit up, Zak offered his strength. At six feet three and one-eighty-five, he could have shot-put Crystal across the street. Careful lest he break her matchstick arms, he assisted her to her feet. She was light. Scary light.
“We should get you to the hospital.”
She made a face. “Absolutely not. I’ve had my fill of those.”
He turned her loose. She wobbled. He reached for her again. “Hey.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, and I’m a unicorn.”
She rubbed a shaky hand over her forehead. The three children, all corralled by Jilly, stared up at their mother. The yowler had stopped crying and was now sucking his thumb. The little girl had a very baggy diaper.
“Bella’s wet,” the oldest boy said, a hint of annoyed resignation in his voice as he headed toward the beat-up car. The passenger door opened with a groan and Mr. Serious dragged out a diaper bag, scraping it across the concrete as though it weighed a ton.
Zak’s head buzzed on overload. What was Crystal doing here in his driveway after all these years? How had she found him? And why? She was sick, obviously, but what did that have to do with him? Now that she’d fainted in his front yard, what was he supposed to do with her? He couldn’t stick her back under the steering wheel and send her out into traffic in this condition with a carload of kids. And no safety seats.
The older boy tugged on Crystal’s hand while studying Zak with suspicious brown eyes. “Is this him, Mama?”
“Yes, Brandon. That’s him.”
Him what? Zak wondered, but his conscience kicked in. The woman, regardless of who she was, was sick and weak and shaking like one of Jilly’s rat terriers at bath time.
“Come in the house for a minute,” he offered. “I’ll get you something to drink while you get your bearings.”
He wasn’t sure what else to do. Obviously, Crystal hadn’t tracked him down to faint in his driveway and then go merrily on her way. But what she wanted remained a complete mystery—and from his experience, Crystal always wanted something. That’s what had gotten him into trouble before.
With one hand on the wobbly woman’s arm,
