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“Hello?” Sally answered after two rings.
“Sally. I need a big favor.”
“Sure. Anything,” Sally said easily, and that was part of what Norma Jean loved about her. Sally would do anything for anyone if she possibly could.
“Peter’s been hurt.”
Sally gasped. “Peter? Hurt?”
“Yeah. He was...charged by a bull.”
“Oh my goodness. Is he...okay?”
“He still breathing, and Miles said he still had a heartbeat. But I was hoping that you could meet him at the hospital. Miles can’t go, and I’m supposed to be meeting people for checks and to give them cash, and I hate to leave without doing what Peter told me to do. Especially since he’s not going to be here to do it.”
“Of course. I’m leaving right away. What hospital?”
“I assume the Blueberry Beach hospital, but I’ll let you know if the first responders say different. They’re pulling in now,” Norma Jean said as she lifted her head and watched the ambulance with flashing lights pull into the driveway.
“All right. I’ll be there.”
“I’ll give one of the first responders your telephone number so they can text you and let you know what’s going on.”
“Great idea. Thanks.”
The ambulance pulled in as Norma Jean swiped off. Her hands were still trembling, and her heart beat faster than she ever felt it beat before. This was all her fault, and she felt awful. She was so thankful that Miles was there to handle everything, because she would have been a mess. What a stupid thing to do. But the fact that she wouldn’t do it again didn’t change the fact that she shouldn’t have done it to begin with.
It took the first responders a long time to get Peter straightened out and onto a board where they secured his head so that he wouldn’t move around in case he had a spinal injury.
By the time he left, Norma Jean was freezing cold, but she didn’t want to go inside. Peter had to be cold too, but he hadn’t woken up the whole time. Which worried her.
“This is terrible,” she said, looking down at the ground as the taillights slowly moved away.
Miles stared at the back of the ambulance. “Yeah. If there was ever a nicer guy, I’ve never met him. Peter is one of a kind.”
“I know,” Norma Jean said softly.
“You did a good job. You look cold. You probably ought to go inside.” His heavy hand came down on her shoulder, and while it was rough, it felt comforting, exactly as his voice did.
Without thinking, she reached up and touched his fingers.
“I’m scared,” she said softly. She couldn’t explain any more. He wouldn’t understand that she wasn’t scared for Peter, she was scared for herself.
Well, she was scared for Peter, but she wasn’tjustscared for Peter.
“I think Peter will be fine. Blueberry Beach has some of the best doctors in the state. Doctors move here to get out of Chicago, and they bring their years of expertise with them. He will be in good hands.”
She swallowed and looked up into Miles’s face. If it had been another time, different circumstances, a different situation, she might have...blinked her eyes coyly at him and tried to flirt. He was...strong and capable and very manly, a man’s man, which was the total opposite of her, and she loved those differences.
Instead, he squeezed her shoulder, dropped his hand, and said, “Do you need me to walk you to the door?”
Maybe it was because she hadn’t moved, but she thought it was very gentlemanly of him to ask. She shook her head. She was not going to think about anyone else. She didn’t deserve to have someone when she treated the person that she was infatuated with so terribly.
Peter was lying on a hospital bed, in an ambulance, and who knew if he would ever walk again, let alone survive. She couldn’t just flip affections from Peter to Miles at the drop of a hat. She would be completely devoted to Peter for the rest of her life.
With that thought, she shook her head and said, “No, thank you.” And then, with renewed purpose, she turned on her toes and marched into the office building. She would sit in that office chair and she would work until she dropped if it would benefit Peter.
