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“Amanda, you shouldn’t be moving. You may have a concussion and spinal injury.”
“I’m fine.” She sat up and tried to push herself against him. “Move! We have to look for that girl. I might’ve hit her.”
“Easy!” He shifted back, only because Amanda wouldn’t sit still. “You’re going to hurt yourself further if you—”
Amanda didn’t listen. She shoved past him with the sudden surge of energy pumping into her system. Her legs gave out from under her, but muscular arms caught her before she fell to the leaf-covered ground. After quickly steadying herself, she held on to the car to pull herself up the slope toward the edge of the road.
Emergency vehicles arrived, lighting up the stretch of road. Amanda strained her neck to search for the girl or any shape that might resemble her. But there was nothing on the road except another car—presumably the man’s car. She started a slow jog along the side of the road and scanned the area.
“Amanda!” the man called, but she ignored him as she continued her mission.
She’s gotta be here!
“Slow down.” The man suddenly zipped around her and grabbed her arms to stop her. “You’re injured!”
“That girl may be hurt!” Amanda shouted at him.
“Let the police or the rescue crew look for her. You shouldn’t be on your feet,” he said.
She yanked her arms from his grasp. “Let me go. I’m fine!”
“Amanda, look at me!” he commanded, shocking her into focusing her wild eyes on him. “We’ll find her. But you can’t do this girl or yourself any good running around with a bleeding gash on your head.” He gentled his voice. “Let the paramedics treat you, and I’ll talk to the police. Okay?”
Amanda stared at the man. In the light now, she could make out his features. Those eyes looked familiar. Though his jaw was now covered in a trimmed beard, she felt she recognized the face underneath.
His voice. I know that voice.
“Gene?” she whispered.
“Yes, that’s me.” He turned her around and walked her back toward the emergency cars. Two people ran to them and took her by the arms.
“I’m Dr. Gene Rowland,” Gene said to the paramedics. “This is Amanda. I found her in the car, unconscious for about a minute. There’s a laceration on her left forehead. She didn’t listen to my instruction to stay still and got out of the vehicle. She didn’t exhibit any symptoms of spinal injuries.”
“Thanks. We’ll take it from here, Doctor,” the female paramedic said, leading her to the ambulance.
“Gene…” Amanda held on to Gene.
“Go with them.” He squeezed her hand. “We’ll look for her.”
two
Amanda sat at the back of the ambulance with butterfly bandages on her cut, which ached like a bitch. Thank god it wasn’t as bad as it’d looked before. There was a lot of blood, but apparently that was normal from a head wound, but the EMT said it looked superficial. If anything else hurt, it was her left wrist, which the paramedic had wrapped with a cold pack.
“Can you tell me what happened, Miss Garner?” Officer Penn stood in front of her with a pen hovering over his notebook. The young officer had closely cropped blond hair and a flirty smile aimed at Amy, one of the EMTs treating Amanda.
“I was driving home from Cumming when a girl appeared out of nowhere, running across the road. I slammed my wheel to the left to avoid hitting her and tried to readjust when I saw headlights coming my way. And I went off the road.”
“Are you sure it’s not a deer?” the officer asked as he jotted something down.
Amanda frowned at the question. “No. It wasn’t an animal. It was a teenage girl. Maybe fourteen or fifteen.”
“There’s no girl in the vicinity, Miss Garner. We walked through the scene of the accident and found no sign of another person besides you and Dr. Rowland,” he said.
“But there was a girl.”
Officer Penn narrowed his eyes at her. “Have you been drinking, Miss Garner?”
“I had one glass of wine with dinner about two hours ago,” she said honestly.
