his eyes were rolling back already, and his lips were blue.
“Okay, Marty, easy now. Easy.” She yanked an inhaler from her bag. She also kept one in her glove compartment and two at her house. The number of asthmatic teens was ridiculous and seemed to be growing all the time. Not just in Shadow Falls, but nationwide, and she blamed air pollution, though she couldn’t prove it.
“You’re gonna be fine,” she said automatically as she knelt beside the fallen boy, held the inhaler to his lips and gave him two short bursts. He tried to suck the medicine into his lungs, but she didn’t think he’d gotten very much.
“Are you sure?”
That was a new voice. Male, and not local, because she knew all the locals.
“I know CPR if—”
“He’s breathing,” Carrie lifted her eyes and damn near gasped aloud when she saw the hippie from the bleachers kneeling on the opposite side of the prone player. His eyes were an interesting mingling of green and brown, and they were filled with concern as they bored into hers. He was far better looking than he’d seemed at first glance. Not that she had time to think about that right now.
“What are you doing down here? Do you know this kid?”
“No, but I—”
“Then you should get back to your seat with the rest of the spectators.”
He lifted his brows as if mildly offended. “Happy to. I just thought you might need an extra pair of hands, with every firefighter and EMT in town out searching for that missing boy.”
He was paying attention to local news, wasn’t he? she thought, as she fished a premeasured dose of epinephrine from her bag, tore off the cellophane wrap and jabbed the needle into Marty’s arm.
The man with the perfect jawline and cheekbones started to rise, but she said, “Hey, hold up a sec. You’re right. I might need you.” And then she looked past him, her entire focus on her son, who was hurrying toward her. Sweat had smeared the black smudges underneath his eyes, making him look even more menacing to the opposing team, she supposed. If a kid like Sammy could ever look menacing, anyway. She saw his massive red SUV sitting nearby and realized he must have run to the parking lot to get it, then driven it out onto the field to transport his teammate if a trip to the E.R. turned out to be necessary. Now he held up the keys.
“Can you drive, so I can tend to Marty?” she asked the stranger.
“Sure.”
She ran a hand over Marty’s forehead, lifting the sweat-damp hair away. He was semiconscious, and breathing a little easier, though his airway sounds were still terrible. He was whistling louder than the referees had been. She waved the coach over. “Get him into the back of Sammy’s Beast,” she said, using their nickname for the Ford Expedition Funkmaster Flex Edition that was Sammy’s pride and joy. The coach and the stranger worked together to lift Marty and then ease him into the cargo area.
“I can’t believe this,” Sam said, standing at the rear of the vehicle, looking in at his friend. “First Kyle goes missing, and now Marty—”
“Marty’s had asthma attacks before, and he’ll have them again, hon, but I guarantee you, he’s going to be fine.”
“I’ve never seen him this bad.”
She peered under Marty’s eyelids as she spoke, “He’ll be fine—really—but I’ll be at least an hour. Finish the game, okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” Sam promised. By that time, Sadie, his blue-eyed blonde cheerleader girlfriend, was at his side, looking worriedly into the back of the car.
“Mom says he’ll be okay,” Sam told her.
“Thank God.” She sent Carrie a hopeful look. “Take good care of him, Doc-O.”
“You bet I will. His parents are over there,” she said, pointing. They’d been on their way to the refreshment stand when they got the word that something had happened to their son, and they were still making their way to the field. Carrie gave the worried pair an encouraging wave. “Tell them to follow us to the hospital, and that I’m just taking precautions, okay?”
“Sure, Carrie,” Sadie replied.
Carrie spotted the hippie, still standing nearby. “Give that guy the keys, Sam. He’s driving.”
Sam nodded, then tossed the stranger the keys. He caught them easily.
“Go easy on my wheels, bro,” Sam said, and then made a fist and gave the stranger a knuckle bump.
The man looked a little puzzled, not by the knuckle bump, but by Sam’s words. Still, he closed the back hatch after Carrie climbed inside, then moved around to get behind the wheel.
Gabe felt as if he’d stepped into some kind of alternate dimension. He was driving a forty-thousand-dollar vehicle that apparently belonged to a teenage kid. There was a beautiful woman in the back who was, by all appearances, exactly the opposite of his type in every imaginable way, and yet he was attracted to her. How could he not be? She was confident, capable—if a bit bossy—and completely comfortable with herself.
He had come to this small New England town in search of a sixteen-year-old who might be his own child—only to immediately learn that just such a kid was missing and a presumed runaway, and now another one was having a serious medical crisis right before his eyes.
Not that the posters of Kyle Becker bore any resemblance to anyone in his family. If you could call it a family. Nor did the kid in the back. Hell, the gorgeous lady doctor’s apparently spoiled son looked more like him than any teenager he’d glimpsed so far.
Yeah, right, and was he going to get all worked up over every sixteen-year-old kid in Shadow Falls, male or female, who bore a slight resemblance to himself? That would be useless. He’d come to this town to talk to the professor who’d been living as Livvy—scratch that, as Olivia Dupree—all this time. His Livvy had almost never used her full first name. He was here to see what the professor knew, not to stalk teenagers. Since the good professor was out of town, he would just have to wait and bide his time.
Gabe lived his life by a certain code, and while it wasn’t one that most people would agree with or even understand, it worked for him. He believed thinking positively would bring positive experiences. He believed being kind to others would bring kindness into his own life. He believed that what was meant to happen tended to happen—if you didn’t go around trying to force it. Trying to force things to happen usually only managed to get in their way instead. Pushing too hard would prevent the very thing you were pushing for. He’d seen it happen time and time again.
If he was meant to find Livvy’s baby—her teenager now, and maybe his own son or daughter—then all he needed to do was relax about it, and keep his eyes and ears open.
And yet he couldn’t help but feel an inordinate amount of worry for the injured kid, and even more for the missing one. More than he would have a few weeks ago, before he’d read the news that had convinced him he might have a child around here somewhere.
He could imagine how those parents must feel about now. He knew how he had felt, after learning that the girl he’d lived with for eight months more than sixteen years ago had been killed only
