Page 92 of Her Wild Coast Promise

Instead, I feel empty.

Maybe it doesn’t feel real yet. Or maybe I’m already feeling the full responsibility of keeping my valley safe.

I park my rig in the strip mall’s lot and enter the building, the swish of the glass doors behind me drowned by the chatter coming from the volunteer HQ on the left side. Slipping inside the door, I scan the room for Cora.

“Seth!” one of our volunteers shouts, followed by a chorus of “He’s here!” Volunteers start cheering. I paste on a polite smile and give a quick wave.

“Where’s Cora?” I ask.

The volunteer stares back, a blank look on his face. “She’s not with you?”

I glance at the empty hall behind me, then back at him. Something about his question irks me, but I swallow it down. It’s not his fault that Cora is MIA.

“She’s probably here somewhere,” he says, frowning. “Want me to call her?”

“I tried,” I say. “She didn’t pick up.”

His eyes calm. “She’s probably with Mariah, picking up pizzas.”

I don’t tell him that Cora agreed to a pizza date with me, but there’s a weird tension at the base of my throat. Like my shirt collar is too tight.

“Okay,” I say.

After another scan of the crowd makes it clear she’s not here, alarm bells start clanging in the back of my mind. I squint at my phone, but after skimming through the congratulatory texts from friends and family yet not one message from her, I’m convinced that something is off.

The volunteer’s question rattles around in my brain.She’s not with you?

My heart pounds and the back of my neck pricks with beads of sweat.

Not with you…

“Excuse me,” I say to the volunteer. “I need to be right back.”

I breeze past him to the hallway just as my phone rings. It’s Cooper McCabe. Dread pulls my stomach to my knees.

“Seth, I’m breaking a bunch of HIPAA laws here, but I just gave Cora a ride to McKenzie Medical.”

“What?” I cry. “Why? What happened?”

“She’s okay,” he says in a calm tone. “But she’s in pretty serious pain.”

I take off running. “Did she get hurt somehow?”

“No, it’s medical. Sudden onset. I’m thinking maybe appendicitis. She’s pretty scared.”

After thanking Cooper, I end the call and slide behind the wheel.

“Hang in there, sunshine,” I say, peeling out of the parking lot.

At the E.R. entrance, I park my rig in one of the emergency slots near the entrance and race inside. The older gentleman behind the reception desk gives me a bright smile. “Nice job tonight!”

“Thank you,” I grit out. “A woman named Cora Tucker was brought here not too long ago. Is she still in the E.R?”

The man gives me a businesslike nod and slides on his bifocals to read something off his computer screen. “Yes, sir, she’s here.”

The E.R. entrance is adjacent to the main one so I thank the man and rush through the double doors. Inside the waiting area are two rows of padded chairs, several of them occupied. At the far end is the secure entrance to the E.R. flanked by the triage nurse’s station and a receptionist window where a clerk is assisting a woman holding a fussing baby.

I decide to try my luck with the triage nurse. She’s doing intake on an elderly gentleman with a thick dressing on his hand, like he’s been wounded.

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