Page 2 of The Lost Book of First Loves

“Ms. Connelly? June?”

When she didn’t get a response, she pushed the chair out of the way and lowered June all the way to the floor. Her face had gone pale, her features chalky against the thick pile of the carpet, and her eyes were fixed and open, staring at nothing.

Alison felt for a pulse. When she didn’t find one, panic clawed at her. This couldn’t be happening!

“Help!” she screamed. “We need help!”

With a quick breath to calm herself, she turned back to her boss. “Hang on. Hang on, June.”

She loosened the woman’s tailored black shirt and positioned her flat on the floor. She mentally rehearsed the steps she had learned in the class she took a few months ago. She checked again to make sure she couldn’t feel a pulse. Nothing.June’s chest wasn’t moving either, and Ali couldn’t see any sign of life.

Okay. She could do this. She had the training. If only she could find the courage.

She inhaled sharply and was just about to give the first rescue breath before starting cardiopulmonary resuscitation when she sensed someone else in the room.

“What’s going on?”

The baffled, alarmed voice came from Jason Taylor, she saw at a glance. He was June’s administrative assistant. One of two, actually, who worked in cubicles next to Alison’s.

“What have you done?”

He clearly hadn’t been impressed by her timid performance of the past three weeks, either. She stared at his haughty features for a fraction of a second. “June has collapsed. Call 911. Tell them we’ve got a medical incident of unknown origin. She’s not breathing. She needs CPR. Do you have any training?”

He stared. “CPR?” he repeated as if he had never heard the acronym.

She didn’t have time to deal with his. Time was of the essence. She had only a tiny window to avoid irreversible hypoxic brain damage. “Call 911,” she ordered, her voice as firm and direct as she could make it.

That recent trauma pushed through her consciousness, the helplessness and the fear and the inevitable crushing grief.

Not June, as well. Especially not before she had any chance to tell her...

Alison jerked her mind away from the information that had brought her here, to this high-rise building in Seattle and the sleek office of the woman who intimidated her so very much. Instead, she forced herself to focus on the matter at hand.

She would never have the chance to tell Juniper Connelly anything if the woman didn’t start breathing again.

She inhaled once more and then reached down to give a rescue breath. It seemed to go in and remain trapped there soshe knelt beside the woman, covered one hand with the other and began the count in her head.

Performing CPR on an actual human was much different than practicing on the dummy she had used during the training class she had forced herself to take after her father died. This was real. Not training. Someone’s life was at stake.Juniper Connelly’slife was at stake.

She was on her third round of compressions when Jason rushed back into the office.

“Okay,” he said. She could hear the fear in his voice but didn’t take time from her efforts to look up. “Help is on the way. Is she breathing?”

“Not yet.” Ali couldn’t spare even a look at him, focused solely on her efforts.

She heard him repeat the information into the phone, then he moved closer to the two of them. “The dispatcher wants to know if you’re familiar with CPR.”

Wasn’t it obvious?

“Yes,” she said, her arms moving in the steady “Staying Alive” cadence. “I finished training two months ago.”

Later, she knew she would be deeply grateful she had made herself go through the training. She had been driven by grief and pain and her helplessness at being unable to help her father. She never wanted to endure again the pain of watching someone die in front of her. Especially not someone she loved.

Surely, June looked a little better, didn’t she? She was still deathly pale but there seemed a smidge more color in her cheeks. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. Ali lost track of time and how many cycles she went through as the room seemed to fill up with people.

A dozen? Two? She didn’t stop even after the paramedics came in, answering their questions automatically with one side of her consciousness while instinct forced her to keep up the relentless rhythm. Finally, one of them nudged her aside.

“Miss? You need to step away now. I’ll take over from here. We’ve got an AED. We’re going to try to shock her back.”

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