Angels Walking Read Free Page B

couldn’t hear them, couldn’t make out their faces. He felt like demons were ripping his arm from his body. The world around him faded, every voice and face.
    The first uniformed medic reached him, a man Tyler had never seen before. He dropped to his knees and put his hand on Tyler’s good shoulder. The guy looked like a linebacker. “You’re going to be okay.”
    No! Tyler wanted to shout at him. But the pain was too great. I’ll never be okay again. The man was staring at him, his eyes bright with something Tyler didn’t recognize. Peace, maybe. Something otherworldly.
    “This isn’t the end, Tyler.” The medic’s hand felt warm. “It’s the beginning.”
    Tyler shook his head. Angry tears filled his eyes. Of course it’s the end. The name on the medic’s uniform caught his attention. A name he’d never heard before.
    Beck.
    Figures. Brand-new medic. What would he know? “My . . . shoulder!” The pain was killing him. Sweat dripped down his forehead and he could feel his body shaking, going into shock. Tyler lifted his eyes to the stadium lights. A strange darkness shrouded them and then gradually, everything else began to fade.
    Sami would never want him now. She would blame him for making the wrong choices all those years ago. I’m sorry, Sami. I still love you. If you only knew how much. Two more medics with a stretcher rushed toward him, and the rest of the team gathered at a distance, silent, shocked. Tyler had one final thought before he blacked out.
    He wasn’t perfect.
    And after tonight he never would be.

2

    T HERE WERE TWO THINGS Sami Dawson loved most about her job as an assistant for the prestigious Finkel and Schmidt Marketing Firm in Santa Monica, California: the independence it gave her from her grandparents, and her office’s breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean.
    She had another hour of work before she would meet up with Arnie for dinner at Trastevere on Third Street—their Monday night routine. Three years dating and their traditions were pretty well locked in. After dinner they would walk along the Promenade, and after an hour he would drive her home. Sometimes they would play Scrabble or watch The Office at her apartment. Arnie had bought her the complete DVD series two birthdays ago. Other nights they tuned in to whatever was on TV—baseball and I Love Lucy reruns being the exceptions. Sami didn’t like baseball and Arnie couldn’t stand Lucy. Too much silliness.
    Arnie left Sami’s apartment by nine—weekday or not.Every time. They were early risers, both of them. Routines were rungs on the ladder to success. Her grandparents had taught her that. Arnie agreed.
    “No one ever got ahead by keeping late nights,” he would say. He was right. Studies showed sleep was good for the immune system—eight hours a night.
    Sami’s immune system was rock solid.
    Her current work account was the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas and Dubai. Paradise Island’s think tank was located in Pensacola, with business offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Sami had worked three months to get last year’s Fifteen Minutes winner Zoey Davis to sing at the Bahamas resort. Zoey had straightened up her act in recent months and agreed to the gig last night. Today Sami expected to see news of the decision online somewhere.
    Proof that Sami was doing her job.
    Before she could search People.com, something on her Google feed caught her eye. A name from the past. It caught her off guard and made her heart skip a beat. Sami read the headline again and sat back in her chair. Her heart beat faster than before.
    Tyler Ames Suffers Season-Ending Injury.
    She leaned in closer to the screen, seeing him again, the freckle-faced boy with blue eyes who had captured her heart the summer before her senior year in high school. She saw him where she would always see him: on a pitcher’s mound, ball in his glove, hat low over his pretty eyes.
    Baseball was everything to Tyler. He had traded her for the game,