Cedar Bluff's Most Eligible Bachelor

No such luck. He grimaced as his car bumped the cyclist with a soft thud, just loud enough to hear over the pelting rain.

His tires finally gripped the road, stopping the car abruptly. He grabbed his cell phone and dialed 911 even as he jumped out, heading for the cyclist who was sprawled on the pavement not far from the bike, which lay crumpled beneath Simon’s front bumper.

He could barely hear the operator asking about the nature of his emergency over the sound of the storm. “Injured cyclist, hit by my car. Send a paramedic unit. We’re at the intersection of Grover and Howard. Hurry!”

Snapping his phone shut, he tucked it in his pocket as he knelt beside the crumpled heap of aluminous yellow cycling gear. His breath caught in his throat nearly strangling him when he realized it was Hailey.

Thankfully, a helmet covered her chin-length blonde hair, but her eyes were closed and her face deathly pale, despite the rain coming down.

“Hailey? Can you hear me?” He sheltered her from the rain with his body as much as he could as he felt for a pulse. Relieved when he found one, he turned his attention to the rest of her potential injuries. Her body was lying at an awkward angle halfway on her side, and he was loath to move her without a neck brace at the very least.

“Hailey? Open your eyes,” he said, running his hands along the arm and leg that he could easily reach, trying to ascertain if she’d broken anything. “Hailey, please open your eyes. I need to know if you can hear me.”

Her eyelids fluttered open and she groaned as she tried to turn over onto her back. She still had a backpack looped over her shoulders.

“Easy,” he cautioned, halting her movement with his hands. He unhooked the backpack from the one arm and twisted it up and out of the way. “First, tell me what hurts.”

“Everything,” she whispered. Her blue eyes were wide and frightened as she gazed up at him. “But mostly my arm and the leg beneath me.”

The naked pleading in her eyes did him in. He quickly unlatched the strap of her helmet and supported her head with his hand. “Okay, you can roll onto your back very slowly but don’t twist your spine or your neck.”

She let out a whimper as she log-rolled onto her back, his hands cradling her neck and head for stability. He slid off the backpack, tossing it aside.

“You’re going to be okay,” he told her reassuringly. “A paramedic unit will be here any minute.”

“Andrew?” Hailey whispered, looking at him oddly. A chill snaked down his back. Had she managed to sustain a head injury despite the protection of her helmet? “Andrew, is that you? “

“No, I’m Simon, not Andrew.” He took her hand in his and she grasped it like a lifeline, her fingers cold in the rain. Her apparent confusion scared the hell out of him. “Hailey, do you know where you are?”

For a moment she looked confused. “On the road. We had a car accident.”

Somehow he didn’t get the impression she was talking about this most recent accident but a different one. Suddenly her reaction the day before with the young trauma victim made sense. The sounds of sirens split the air. He was glad, very glad, to know help was on the way.

“Yes, I was in the car, but you were on your bike.” He held her gaze with his, willing her to remember.