A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(73)

Making sure no one could see her face but Hailey, Sun offered the woman the best apology she could muster, infusing her expression with sympathy and remorse.

Hailey seemed to snap out of it. She turned away, but kept herself wrapped over him while the EMT got an IV started.

Sun stepped closer, gaining the interest of Jimmy’s uncle Levi, and not in a good way. “You are the bravest boy I’ve ever met,” she said to him.

He smiled from behind the mask and gave her a thumbs-up. The sixteen-year-old had blond hair like his mother, but darker. It was wet and plastered to his head, and his cheeks were bright red. That, along with the glassy eyes, had Sun worried he had a fever.

She could hardly blame Hailey. She wanted to throw herself over him, too. But for now, she needed to hurry.

“Jimmy, how on earth did you survive?”

With that, he flashed her a nuclear smile, and she finally saw a little of Levi in him. He pulled down the oxygen mask and said, “I made a snow cave. Like the rabbits.”

“Oh, my god, aren’t you the clever one? Can I ask you how you wandered so far out?”

“A deer,” Hailey said, shaking her head.

“It was hurt. I was trying to help it.”

“You were following an injured deer?”

Pride practically burst out of him when he nodded, but then he caught sight of the needle headed his way.

She could tell it scared him, and she almost laughed. “Let me get this straight,” she said, eyeing him with disbelief, “you just survived two days alone in the mountains with snow and blizzards and wild animals, and you’re scared of a needle?”

He nodded.

She leaned down. “Me, too. You know what helps?”

He shook his head.

“Panting.” When his expression turned dubious, she demonstrated. “Like a puppy.” She showed her tongue and breathed in and out in rapid successions. In other words, she panted.

He laughed softly.

“Don’t knock it until you try it, Daniel Boone. Come on. Stick out your tongue.”

He stuck it out but kept smiling.

“And now pant. Breathe in and out really fast.”

Hailey laughed as her son panted like a dog, but the needle had gone in before he’d even started. He never felt a thing.

“Guess what?” she said, leaning closer. “It’s done.”

He looked down wide-eyed at the IV in his hand and then back at her.

“Told ya,” she said, blowing on her nails and polishing them on her coveralls.

When he smiled like he’d single-handedly won the state championship, she took his other hand in hers. He was on fire. She needed to wrap this up.

“Jimmy, can I ask you a question?”

“We need to go,” the EMT said.

“Just one more. Jimmy, do you know Sybil? A girl a little younger than you with red hair and freckles? Did you . . . did you see her?”

He frowned. “No. Not Sybil. She’s not my friend. Only Auri’s. But everyone likes Auri, so it just makes good sense.”

“But wait, you know her?”

“No. Auri told me she’s her friend. I’m Auri’s friend, too, but mostly Sybil is her friend because she’s a girl and Auri’s a girl and they talk about girl stuff. It’s gross.”

Sun snorted, as did Hailey.

The driver climbed into the ambulance and started it up.

“We’re going,” the EMT said.

Hailey followed the stretcher in and sat beside her son as the EMT shut the doors, and Sun prayed that he would be okay. She turned to Levi, worried for him, too.

“How is he?” she asked his EMT. She would’ve done it when Levi wasn’t looking, but he hadn’t stopped. He was annoyed with her, probably for questioning Jimmy.

“Dehydrated.” After another minute, he added, “And cantankerous.”

Levi leveled a scowl on the guy that could remove automotive paint.

“No fever?” she asked as Levi shifted the scowl to her. That was okay, though. She didn’t exfoliate that morning.

“No fever. He should be fine, but he definitely needs to rest for a few days.”

“Yeah. I’m sure he’s on top of that.”

“I’m right here,” Levi said.

“I’m very aware,” Sun answered. She took out a notebook and started writing.

“What are you doing?”

“Giving you a citation for littering. I saw what you did to the note.”

“The wind got it.”

“Mmm-hmmm, tell it to the judge.”

Quincy walked up, rubbing his hands together. “Okay, we should get out to that body. They’ve cordoned off the area, and we should be able to take the ATV all the way out to the site.”

“Great,” she said, folding her notebook without actually giving Levi a citation. Mostly because it was the wrong book. “I take it you know where we’re going?”

Quincy winced. “I was hoping you’d know the way out there. I haven’t been to Estrella Pond since I was a kid.”

“Me neither.”

“Why go to a pond when you have a lake?”

“Exactly. So . . .”

They turned in unison to Levi. When people said he was known for his skills in tracking, they weren’t talking about a racetrack. The guy new the land better than anyone in the area. He may have spent his summers on the Apache reservation, but when he came back, he put what he learned to use here.