He hated that they’d argued about it.
Screaming fights. Tears.
The undeniable truth was, Gina pushed herself too hard, stubbornly determined not to let the diabetes control her life. Instead of managing it, though, she’d laughed in its face. He understood her motivation, but it hadn’t worked. It would never work, which is what he’d told her. Why they’d fought. Not that it mattered in the end. Just as he’d feared, the diabetes had won, and he was just the jerk of a husband who’d argued with his headstrong, diabetic wife.
But all that? The past. What mattered now was that he was the grown man while Ian remained a child. Only four years old when Gina died. Drew had shoes older than that. Despite Gina’s infuriatingly stubborn nature, she was the mother of his son. Drew simply had to keep her alive in Ian’s mind, no matter what it took. So? Shutting out the world wasn’t an option; his son needed him.
Emotionally flattened, Drew blew out a breath and leaned his hands back on the hot, jagged rock.
The stings ripped through him like little searing shockwaves.
One, then another, and another. And more.
He hadn’t even seen the bees.
“Dammit.” He flailed, then shot to his feet, spinning this way and that to knock the bees off. How could he have been so careless? Where there are flowers, there are bees. Simple fact of nature.
An immediate rush of heat up his arm set the alarms clanging in his heart. The effects seemed much faster than his usual allergic reactions, which had always been bad enough. But this … probably due to the multiple stings.
Tamping down the panic, he inspected his forearm. Five stings that he could see, already swelling, with hives spreading well beyond the cherry-red bumps. His pulse kicked into overdrive and his face bloomed tight and hot. He recognized the signs of imminent anaphylaxis all too well. He’d been deathly allergic to bees since childhood and had brushed with the life-threatening condition more than once.
This could not be happening.
Not today.
He needed to talk to his son before he was no longer able. Needed help. Needed it damn soon. “Ian!” he choked out, coughing through a tightening throat. Damn. His tongue had already begun to swell, as had his windpipe.
Ian pivoted toward him and froze, instantly on alert by the urgency of his dad’s tone.
Drew fumbled in his cargo pocket for the EpiPen he never left home without … then stilled. Empty.
No EpiPen? He numbed. Dread spread through him as fast as the bee venom.
He always carried his EpiPen.
Panic pushed through his veins and squeezed him; he couldn’t breathe. Shaking, he tore through his other pockets, partially ripping one flap off his hiking shorts. Nothing. He shrugged off his backpack then pawed through it, clumsy and slow, craving oxygen.
Nothing.
Stars burst in his vision as he watched his son run and stumble toward him, the carefully chosen orange wildflowers falling forgotten from the boy’s little hand. “Daddy! Daddy! What’s wrong?”
He wanted to reassure his son.
Wanted to make it all okay.
But couldn’t.
Gasping, choking, Drew sat, then slid back on the rock. He tried to keep the stung arm angled downward, to slow the venom’s attack on his body. The skin on his face and hands seemed stretched to its limit, fire-hot and apt to split open if he moved or spoke. When Ian’s terrified and confused face appeared above him, Drew didn’t have the option of many words. He reminded Ian of the most important ones. “Deer … Track.”
He labored for air, his vision blackening. The last thing he heard was Ian yelling for him to wake up.
Eleven-eleven.
Deer Track Trailhead.
Ian repeated the words in his head as he plowed through his daddy’s belongings looking for the medicine shot that was supposed to save his life if he ever got stung by a bee. But it wasn’t there. It wasn’t there! His heart pounded so hard, he could hear it in his head. His throat had gone dry and sore from his heavy breathing.
The shot was nowhere.
Daddy had always told him, use the shot. But how could he use it if he couldn’t find it?
“Mommy!” he wailed in panic and frustration, fists clenched as he glanced up at the fat white cloud.
No answer.
Why couldn’t she say something?
Wasn’t she supposed to be watching out for them?
He felt so alone. So scared. Tears squeezed out of his eyes. The breeze tilted the orange flowers in the field to one side, then the other. They didn’t look so pretty anymore.
Eleven-eleven.
Deer Track Trailhead.
Unsure what to do without the shot, he choked out a sob and shook his dad by the shoulders as hard as he could. It didn’t wake him up, but Daddy’s cell phone fell out of his shirt pocket just as Ian was about to lapse into full-on hysteria. The cell phone felt like a sign from Mommy.
Help!
He could get help for Daddy. That’s what Mommy was trying to tell him. Snatching up the phone, he pressed the three important numbers he’d had memorized since the police officer came to talk to his kindergarten class.
Nine.
One.
One.
Please, God, Ian prayed, as the phone rang. Don’t take my daddy to heaven, too.
Lexy sat in her glass-walled office overlooking the bustling Troublesome Gulch emergency communications center she managed. The distinctive warble of the incoming 9-1-1 lines carried through the secured room, as did the regular phone sounds, the tones going out to the fire stations and the capable murmurs of the dispatchers she supervised deftly handling calls, emergency and otherwise.
Familiarity.
Her world.
But Lexy’s mind wasn’t on her work. Her mood was thoughtful, perhaps even melancholy, which really wasn’t her style. But she couldn’t seem to shake it and she couldn’t figure out why she felt like this. She tossed her pencil aside and studied the three framed wedding photos that adorned the upper left corner of the desk. Her best friends in the world.
Brody and Faith.
Erin and Nate.
Cagney and Jonas.
Survivors from the horrible prom-night tragedy twelve years ago, all
