LITMIR.BIZ

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you say so. I’d be chewing on paper now if I were you.” Lexy winced as she opened her desk drawer and extracted a headset.

      “You okay?”

      “Just sore. My rehab therapist, Kimberly, has been increasing the intensity of my workouts in preparation for race season.” And possibly some experimental therapies, but she didn’t share that.

      “Physical therapists, personal trainers, they’re all evil, if you ask me,” Genean said, with a grimace.

      “True enough. Kim’s a brute.” Lexy slipped on her headset, adjusting the earpiece and clipping the cord to her V-neck top. “Give me a quick pass-down of what’s going on out there. Then feel free to take your time and have a nice meal. I need the distraction of working the phones today.” She gestured toward the door.

      Genean preceded her out. “Thanks. As for pass-down, not much to say. Nothing’s going on,” she said, over her shoulder. “A couple minor medicals, one fender bender with no injuries. But those calls are handled, and the phones are quiet. It’s one of those excruciatingly slow days.”

      Lexy followed her employee down the wide ramp from her office into the center. “G, you know we never utter the phrase ‘slow day’ out loud,” she chided, in a playful tone, as they entered the epicenter of dispatch. “It’s the quintessential jinx.”

      “Oops.” Nonplussed, Genean shouldered her handbag and chuckled as she untangled the headset of her iPod from an outside pocket. “Sorry about that.”

      “G always jinxes us,” said Dane, the other dispatcher on duty, currently working the radio side, head buried in the Rocky Mountain News. He was senior to Genean, but the two of them got along great and worked well as a team. “She’s a crap magnet. Trust me, I know, because I get stuck with her all the dang time,” he fake-groused.

      “Ha-ha. So not true, Dane. You know you love working with me.” She made a face at his back.

      “Keep telling yourself that, jinx.” He grinned at Lexy, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “Boss, I’ve been meaning to ask you about a schedule change.”

      Lexy shook her head, smiling at their banter.

      Genean spread her arms wide. “You people are too superstitious. What could possibly happen in the half hour or so that I’ll be gone?”

      “Jinx number two, and the worst kind.” Lexy groaned, then pointed toward the exit door. “Go on, get out of here before you lay a hex on the entire town.”

      “Fine, fine, I know when I’m not wanted.” Genean batted her eyes with innocence. “Can I bring either of you anything from the Pinecone?”

      “I’ll pass,” Dane said, burying himself in the paper again. “You’ll probably jinx that, too.”

      Lexy snickered as she plugged into the console and adjusted the height of the motorized ergo-nomic desktop to accommodate the armrests of her wheelchair. She always loved how dispatch seemed like a family, with “siblings” picking on each other good-naturedly. “Nothing for me, either. I brought lunch. But thanks.”

      Dane glanced up at his span of five computer monitors, fingers poised over one of four keyboards he manned, as a medic unit called out en route to High Country Medical Center with one patient, nonemergent, followed by additional units going in service, in quarters, or other radio traffic.

      Genean gave a little finger wave and left. While Dane was busy communicating with the units on calls, Lexy’s restlessness returned like a persistent rash. At odds, she reached into the side pocket of her chair for the sheath of paperwork her care team, led by Dr. Shannon Avolese, had urged her to read.

      Experimental treatment.

      The possibility of truly walking again, after all this time? Surely she’d never walk without the aid of crutches or, best-case scenario, a cane, but she didn’t mind that. For that matter, she didn’t mind her chair. It didn’t hold her back; she was independent.

      Still … walking at all was such a long shot. As it was, the short distances she could walk with crutches exhausted her. But she’d been feeling stronger than ever, physically and mentally. This could occupy her mind for the time being. It wouldn’t hurt to try, since she had no emotional attachment to the outcome. It beat collecting stamps, she supposed.

      Aside from the initial three years post-injury when rehabilitation had been an everyday thing, she’d resisted the notion of regaining further use of her legs. But experimental treatment options had changed so much recently. She decided to give the literature a once-over, even if she hadn’t made up her mind about pursuing it.

      Truth was, ever since the prom-night accident, she’d embraced her physical changes as a constant, stark reminder of all the pain she’d caused. She never wanted to forget. Brody and the others suffered from garden variety survivor’s guilt, but none of them had truly been at fault for what had happened that night.

      None of them, that is, except her.

      Lexy shivered, rubbed her palms over her upper arms.

      To this day, she could close her eyes and recall the exact moment when she’d irresponsibly tried to crawl on her boyfriend Randy’s lap, even knowing he was driving.

      Knowing the twisting roads were treacherous at night.

      Knowing all of them had been drinking.

      She’d known better and had done it anyway.

      Her hip hit the steering wheel, knocking it out of Randy’s grasp, and the slow-motion look of raw fear on his face before they tipped over the cliff side still haunted her. She saw it as she drifted off to sleep, revisited it in her nightmares and she came back to it as she woke up.

      Every day.

      He had known he’d lost control of the SUV and, though he tried, there was no regaining it. At that moment, seeing his whitened face, their terrified gazes locked, she’d known, too. It was the last expression she’d ever see him make.

      Her fault. No one else’s.

      If only she could take it all back.

      But she couldn’t. Four teens buried. It was done.

      All things considered, adapting to the loss of function in her legs seemed a small price to pay for the ripple effect of grief she’d set into motion throughout the community.

      Still … when she’d confided in Rayna, a fellow wheelchair triathlete, she had suggested that maybe it was time for Lexy to stop punishing herself.

       I just don’t know how.

      She blinked down at the paperwork outlining new treatments. Everyone around her was happy. She supposed she could think about finding a new level of happiness herself, whatever that took. She wasn’t sure, though, if this experimental treatment route was the key. If walking was the key. It would take her completely out of her comfort zone, and nothing was guaranteed, anyway.

      A 9-1-1 line warbled, cutting through the silence. Lexy gratefully tossed the papers aside and pressed the red button on her phone keyboard to engage the line, relieved by the interruption. She’d reconsider the monumental decision about helping herself later. Right now her job was to help someone else, which fell directly within her comfort zone.

      Go time.

      Chapter Two

      Calm. Cool. Professional. “Nine-one-one, what is the address of your emergency?”

      “Help!” raged a small child on the other end, his screams cutting into the calm of the day. “P-please help me! My daddy’s dying.”

      Lexy’s body lurched into full adrenaline alert mode, but she maintained her controlled tone through pure force of habit and years of training. Calls from kids were both the worst and the best. No doubt these crises reached out and grabbed you by the throat, but in her experience,

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