Annie swallowed hard, her mind racing. She wasn’t ready for this. She needed time to get a handle on her motion sickness scare.
“I talked you up. I let him know that you’re a big deal.”
But she wasn’t a big deal. She wasn’t even a little deal.
“I reminded him of how you rescued Sarah after she fell through the ice into the water.”
“But I didn’t! You did.”
“You knew what to do. You kept a cool head. You got someone to call the fire department. You held on to Sarah until help came.”
“Gus, you do that kind of thing every day.”
“But I’m trained for it. You had no training. It was just instinctive. You’re a natural.”
She swallowed, feeling tears prick her eyes. No wonder she thought of him as Mr. Wonderful. The things she was good at—he saw them.
And he was being modest about his own instincts. She would never forget the story of why he had become an EMT. He had started out as a volunteer firefighter but soon realized firehouses respond to more medical emergencies than actual fires. “In my first few weeks of volunteering,” he had told her, “I watched firefighters bring a child back to life after drowning in a backyard pool, reset broken bones, and save a teenager from an overdose.”
“So is it the excitement that you like?” she asked. “The thrill?”
He gave a little head shake. “It’s more than the thrill. It’s the sense of making a real difference. There’s something incredibly fulfilling about stepping into those hard life-and-death moments by trying to make things better. I was hooked. And the firehouse needed EMTs. My bishop was all for it, which was a good thing. Because I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life. I’m grateful I didn’t have to choose between my church and my life work.”
She had felt the same way. She loved the world of medicine. She also loved being Amish.
He put his hands on her shoulders and gently squeezed, jolting her back to the present. “Annie, this ride-along is an incredible opportunity for you. It’s worth doing whatever you need to do to make it happen.”
Annie nodded, her mind already spinning with excuses to avoid it. She needed time! She needed to test herself before she went on an ambulance ride-along with Gus. “Can I think about it?” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
“Think about it?” He had a look in his eyes like he was trying to read her. “Why would you need to think about it?”
“It’s just ... this flu bug is running through the town and everyone wants to get in to see Dok and ... oh! Look! There’s your partner. Let’s ... talk about this another time.”
“Sure. Of course.” But a look of confusion and disappointment flickered through his eyes. “But ... let’s nail down a date sooner rather than later, okay?” he said, as he turned to meet his partner at the ambulance.
Maybe later rather than sooner. Annie sighed in relief as the ambulance drove off, but the lump in her stomach remained.
