For several minutes Janice couldn’t do much but sit on the sand and try to catch her breath as the EMTs worked on the boy. At one point, Mr. Clark glanced over in her direction and said, “You all right, Janice?”

“I’m OK . . . ” she puffed. “Just tired.”

“Adrenaline crash,” he said. “It’s happened to me often enough. You’ll be all right; it just takes a while to recover. Just sit there and let it happen.”

There were more people on the beach now – a couple more EMTs, bringing a backboard to transport the boy, Chief Wexler, even Susan McMahon, carrying a camera. While the EMTs were still busy with the boy, and Janice was still trying to catch her breath, Chief Wexler asked her what had happened. Over a few minutes he got it out of her in considerably more detail than she’d told Randy, while the EMTs got ready to transport the kid and his mother to Camden.

“I’d better stay in town,” she head Randy say. “With the other unit out on a run I think I’m probably the only paramedic left in town, and I also really should get back to work.” He gave the other EMTs some instructions how to take care of the child, keeping him on oxygen and monitoring his heart and breathing. Soon, he was being carried toward one of the waiting ambulances, while Randy and the EMT that had come with him packed up their gear. While Randy was working on that, he said to Janice, “Hey, you’re sure you’re all right?”

“I’ll be OK,” she replied, trying to get to her feet, with John helping her. Even so, once she was standing up she felt weak in the knees, and felt his arm around her, helping support her. “I’m just . . . is he going to be all right?”

“Should be,” Randy replied. “Can’t say for sure until they run some tests on him at the hospital, but at a guess you got to him just in time. Another minute and he’d have suffered some brain damage for sure, but I think you gave him that minute. Like I said, Janice, you did good. Real good. I’m very impressed with the way you kept your cool when the chips were down, and you probably saved his life as a result. Like I said, you must have been listening when I taught you CPR.”

“Yeah,” she said weakly, “I guess I must have been.”

“Let’s get you back up to the shop,” John said. “You can sit down up there and I’ll get you a cold pop or something. The sugar will help you recover some more.”

“Sure,” she said weakly. “Thanks, John.”

Janice still wasn’t walking very steadily, but was improving as John helped her through the soft sand and up to Spearfish Lake Outfitters. He pulled out the chair from behind the desk in the office and had her sit in it, telling her he’d be back in a minute with something from the refrigerator in his office next door. While he was gone, she just sat there, still shaking from the experience, but she knew in her heart that she’d done the right thing, and done it well.

A few minutes later Janice was sipping at the sweet soft drink that John brought her. She was starting to calm down and her strength was coming back when Cody burst through the door. “Jan!” he yelled. “What happened?”

“Cody, what are you doing here?” she replied, a little surprised to see him.

“Charlie told me that you’d saved some kid down at the beach and to get my butt over here,” he reported. “I heard the radio calls but not the details.”

“That’s pretty much what happened,” John smiled. “Our girl showed off what kind of stuff she’s really made of.”

John and Janice were just starting to tell the story – John was telling more of it than Janice, who still wasn’t quite back together – when Candice walked in, wondering what everyone was doing in the store at this hour, so they had to start from the beginning.

“Jan,” Cody said when the story was finished, “I’m with Dad. I’m real impressed with what you did, and I’m proud of you for doing it!”

“Thanks, Cody,” she replied shyly, reverting to her normal form a little now that the excitement was past. “I hoped you would be.”

“Well, I’m impressed, too,” Candice smiled. “That was quick thinking and quick action. Maybe next winter we’ll have to see about you driving a dog team if you can do that well under pressure. Now, it’s almost noon. What would everyone say if we put up the signs and all headed out to somewhere for lunch?”

They settled for the Spearfish Lake Café, if for no more reason than it was familiar. They got a table back in the corner. They had no more than sat down when it proved that the Spearfish Lake gossip machine was at work at full force, not that the Café wasn’t one of the main streets for it, anyway – several people came over to Janice to congratulate her.

After they’d placed their orders, John decided that the time had come for him to say something he’d been wanting to say for the last hour or so. “Janice,” he said, “I don’t know that this is the time or the place to say this, but I think it needs to be said. I’ll be the first person to admit that I’ve had my doubts about you wanting to take up nursing. While it seems to me that nursing requires a compassionate, caring person, I’ve also been of the opinion that it takes someone with the initiative and the courage to do the right thing when it needs to be done. You seem so passive most of the time that I’ve had my doubts that you could do it. This morning proved me wrong. You may seem quiet and shy, but now you’ve shown your true colors. That was quick thinking and quick action, and it shows that you can take what you’ve learned and put it into action when the chips are down and mistakes could be deadly. That was very impressive, Janice, and I’m glad to see that you have it in you.”

“All I wanted to do was to do the right thing,” she said shyly.

“Well, you did, and you did it well,” John continued. “In fact, you did it better than I could have. If I had any doubts about our asking you to come join our family, they were totally erased this morning. I for one am happy to have you part of us.”

“John, it’s very nice of you to say so,” she replied. “I didn’t know myself that I could do it, I just knew that I had to do it, so I did. But did you mean what you said about me being part of you?”

“Of course,” he smiled. “You’ve become like one of the family.”

Janice frowned for a moment, searching for words before she replied, “Maybe this isn’t the right time to say this,” she said finally, “but maybe it is, too. I’m very happy to be part of your family. The last few months . . . well, it seems like I really have the family I dreamed of for most of my life. I mean, being a part of a family who loves each other and takes care of each other. You don’t know how lucky I feel to have that from all of you. You’ve changed my life, not just Cody, but all of you.”

“Well, we tried,” Candice grinned, “but it looks like to me that you’ve been able to take what we’ve given you and make something out of it.”

“I’ve tried,” Janice nodded. “You’ve done so much for me that I can’t believe it all, and you’re still doing things for me. Now, like I said, maybe this isn’t the time, but I’d like to ask you all a big favor.” She paused, again trying to figure out what she wanted to say.

“What?” Cody asked quietly.

“I’ve thought about this for months,” she replied softly, picking her words carefully. “Ever since I realized that I was really going to be staying with you and I wouldn’t have to go back to being what I was.” Again she paused, then went on, “One of the things that I really hate, and that I think has really dragged me down, is my last name. Every time I hear the name ‘Lufkin’ I think of my father and my brother and the way my life used to be. For a long time I’ve wanted to change it to something else, just to get rid of all the baggage that name carries with it, both with me and around town.”

“There’s no reason you can’t change it,” Candice said. “I don’t think it’s a big deal, just some paperwork. Matt Schindenwulfe could tell you about it. I think normally you’d have to be eighteen, but that doesn’t matter with you because of your emancipation. Besides, you’ll be eighteen in a few days, anyway.”

“I know,” the girl replied. “But that’s not the problem. The problem is what to change my name to. My mother’s maiden name was Buckland, and I’ve thought about that, even though it carries some baggage with it too. Besides, that’s not what I want to change it to, anyway.”

“Janice,” Candice asked gently, “what do you really want to change your last name to?”

“Well,” she said, “I’ve been hoping that you’d let me change it to Archer.”

Candice should have seen it coming – they all should have – but it still struck them with no little surprise. Still, she was the first to regain her voice. “You’re saying just change it, not implying anything with Cody, right?”

“Yes,” Janice agreed. “I’m sure there are people who will take it wrong, but at least I can be his sort of adopted sister.”

“Then I have no objection,” Candice smiled. “I said I thought you’ve become part of the family, and I guess that would just prove it. Cody, what do you think?”

“I’m with Jan, I’m sure there are people who will take it wrong, but the heck with them. I’m proud of my sort of adopted sister, and if someone wants to make something of it, let them. Welcome aboard, Jan.”

“Being a Lufkin in this town can’t be much fun. Being an Archer in this town carries a little baggage with it, too,” John smiled. “But it’s a lot different baggage than you’ve been carrying, mostly because people think of the Archers as a bunch of crazy dogsledders, and most of the time they’re right. But that’s beside the point. I’ll be happy for you to join us. Would you like me to set up an appointment with Matt to get the ball rolling?”

“My God!” Janice replied, her eyes wet with tears, “you’re really going to let me do it?”

“Would we have said yes if we hadn’t meant it?” John grinned. “Welcome to the Archer family, Janice.”

Some time later, John and Candice dropped Cody and Janice off at home and they went back to work. “So Sis,” Cody teased, in a remarkably good mood even for him, “what do you want to do this afternoon?”

“I just want to be with you, whatever you want to do,” she replied, a big smile on her face, “but if you haven’t got any better ideas, let’s get on swimsuits and go lie on the beach for a while.”

“I can think of worse things to do,” he laughed. “Although after this morning, I thought you’d have had enough beach time to hold you for a while.”

“No,” she sighed. “In fact, right now I think it would be a good place to be.”

“Suits me,” he agreed. “I didn’t have anything else in mind.”

They headed upstairs to what they now thought of as their room – in fact, they’d thought of it that way for months. Back in the winter when Janice still had trouble changing clothes Cody had started helping her get dressed when his mother wasn’t immediately available. By now they were totally comfortable changing clothes with each other present, even being nude, even though they were very little beyond their traditional goodnight kiss in terms of getting physical with each other. As he watched, she took off her clothes and replaced them with a tiny bikini that he had never seen before.

“You know,” he observed. “You might want to think about using a little extra suntan lotion,” he teased to try to indicate that the sight of her in that colorful thong bikini wasn’t getting to him, which it was. “You’ve got some bikini lines showing where you never had any before.”

“I’ll let you do it for me,” she grinned back at him. “At least I know you’ll do a good job, and I know you’ll enjoy it as much as I will.”

“Jan,” he sighed. “You know, some day you’re going to push me too far, and then you know what’s going to happen.”

“I can’t wait,” she giggled. “I haven’t changed my opinion about that at all, and you know it.”

This was getting hard in more ways than one he wanted to say, but held his tongue. More than once he’d wondered if he was being a little hard-nosed about his decision to not have sex with her until he thought she was ready, and after this morning he suspected that she was a lot closer than she had been. By now he’d conceded to himself that it was going to happen sooner or later unless something really unexpected happened. Still he’d resolved to hold off as long as he could, just so he could be sure in his own mind. But the sight of her in that bikini was definitely weakening his resolve. “Maybe we’d better get out on the beach,” he said, thinking that at least in public some of the temptation would be removed.

Downstairs, they grabbed some towels and an old blanket that had been demoted to beach duty, and headed out the door. It was only a short walk down Grove and across Lakeshore to the north end of the beach, where they spread out on the sand. “You know,” Cody said as he gave her a good rubdown with suntan lotion, especially on her newly bared spots, “that bikini is about as far as you can go in Spearfish Lake, and then only if Charlie is on duty. Any further and I’d have to take you out to the nudist place. Something tells me you’d like that.”

“Maybe,” she giggled, “but you’d have to go, too. Have you ever been there?”

“No, I haven’t,” he admitted. “I guess Mom and Dad have been out there a couple times with Aunt Tiffany and Uncle Josh, who go once in a while since they have some friends out there. But I’ll bet I could get us an invitation if I tried.” He wouldn’t have to try very hard, he thought – it would just involve having to wait till Janice was really over eighteen, and then asking Gil Evachevski – but he wasn’t sure how bad he wanted to do it.

“Maybe someday,” she said, “but not this summer. If someone from school were to find out about it, we’d both catch it pretty good once classes started again.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” he agreed philosophically. “I’ll tell you what, the last couple of days I’ve really been thinking about how nice it’s going to be to be out of high school and going to a place where no one knows us.”

“Me, too,” she agreed. “I mean, I know people talk about me, because they know who I was before, what I was like . . . and, well, what happened to me. There’s no getting away from it in a town this size.”

“Same thing,” he agreed. “Jan, I don’t know if you’ve thought about it at all, but I’m thinking that I’d be real reluctant to come back here to live once we get out of this town.”

“I couldn’t agree more, and I know I have to have thought about it more than you have,” she agreed. “I mean, you and your folks were real nice about letting me change my last name to Archer, but as long as we live here people are going to think of me as Janice Lufkin, no matter what. I will be so happy to be done with that and put it behind me that it isn’t funny. I mean, it’s like this morning. I didn’t realize until after the EMTs had taken over working on the kid that Susan McMahon was there with her camera, so you know it’s going to be in the paper, and you know that they’re going to say that it was Janice Lufkin who saved the kid. I’m going to hate that.”

“Be that as it may,” he said, “you still did a hell of a job this morning, and I couldn’t be any prouder of you.”

“Thank you, Cody,” she smiled. She lay there face down on the blanket, her backside bare except for a few tiny bits of string, and was silent for a while before she asked, “Cody, can I ask you something that might be, uh, a little upsetting for both of us?”

“Sure,” he said, figuring that he was going to be getting another pitch to have sex with her.

“Cody,” she said, confidently enough that she surprised him a little, “I’ve asked you this before, and you never really gave me an answer. Why did you come looking for me?”

“Huh?”

“The night you saved me,” she said. “Why were you there? What made you come looking for me?”

“I’ve told you before, I don’t know,” he said, deciding to roll up on his side, partly to be able to talk to her better, and admittedly to look at her better, too. “I just had a gut feeling that something was wrong. I have no idea where it came from, no idea what it was. I just knew that I needed to check on you, and I gave into my suspicions.”

“I’m glad you did,” she said, turning her head to look at him, instead of just resting her chin on her hands. “Cody, I finally think I understand, even though I don’t know what it was any more than you do. I mean, I was out there sweeping that porch, and I just had this gut feeling that there was something wrong. I mean, really, really wrong. I have no idea why I should have felt that way, but I just did, and I was right, but it’s just as big a mystery to me as it is to you.”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Maybe it’s just a sixth sense that some people have, or that comes to people from time to time. I know I’ve talked about it with Charlie. I mean, not recently, but way back last winter when I was still trying to sort all that shit out. He says that sometimes he gets the feeling that something is wrong, but doesn’t know why. The tough thing, he says, is to know when to act on that feeling. He said, well, he said that he had some of that feeling the night, well, the night when . . . ”

“The night when you shot Bobby off the top of me,” she replied, as confidently as he’d ever heard her refer to that evening. They didn’t talk about it often, and never that bluntly.

“Yeah,” he said, admitting it without wanting to talk about it that directly; even her words brought the terrible vision of that evening back to him, as much as he’d tried to seal it away in his mind. “He said that he had the feeling but wasn’t confident enough of it to act on it. At least all you had to do this morning was turn around and look.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” she said. “At least I had the good sense to do that.” She let out a long sigh. “Look, Cody, I haven’t had time to think this all through yet, but you know that in a way you’re almost as responsible for saving that kid’s life as I am?”

“How do you think that? I wasn’t even there.”

“Cody,” she said, “I wouldn’t have been there to save the kid’s life if you hadn’t saved mine over six months ago. And even then, the only way I knew enough CPR to save that kid was because you insisted that I go to that Medical First Responder class with you.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s all just a chain of coincidences.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just thinking fantasies or something, but do you think that maybe someone or something told you to save my life so I could save that kid?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I try to not think about those kinds of things.”

“I’ve never really thought about those things myself,” she said. “Cody, I used to call you my Guardian Angel, and you know, you really are. But I can’t get rid of the idea that someone or something had to be watching over both of us, telling us to do something that we needed to do.”

“I know there are people who would tell you that it’s true,” he said. “But I don’t know whether to believe them, or if they’re talking through their hat, or what. But if I had to bet, I’d put the money on some sort of sixth sense rather than on some angel watching over my shoulder.”

“You may be right,” she agreed, “but I don’t suppose we’ll ever know for sure.”

“Probably not,” he agreed, “and to tell you the truth, I’m uncomfortable when I even try to think about that kind of thing. But the bottom line is that whatever caused you to turn around, you did, and you did the right thing from then on. Like I said, Jan, I’m proud of you.”

“I’m glad you think so, Cody.”

“Hey, I do have to say one thing. I think Dad hit it right between the eyeballs.”

“What’s that?”

“I know I haven’t been real straight with you about you wanting to become a nurse, and really, it’s for the same reason as he said. I’ve wondered if maybe you weren’t too passive, too neutral, maybe too apathetic to take charge when it was needed. Well, I was wrong, just like he was wrong. You have it in you, Jan. In fact, you have quite a lot of it in you. Back last winter, Carole asked me to try to force you to make decisions for yourself, rather than just making them for you, like you seemed happy to let me do.”

“I’m still happy to let you make decisions for me,” she said. “In fact, I want you to, but I know there are times when that can’t happen, like this morning. But when times like that come, I at least want to make the decisions that I know you’ll be happy with.”

“Do you really mean that?” he frowned.

“Of course I do. Cody, making you happy is the most important thing to me. I’m happy when I know you’re happy with me. If my doing what you tell me to makes you happy, then it makes me happy. I know you want me to make my own decisions, but Cody, I’ll do what you tell me to do whenever you tell me to do it, and I wish you would tell me what to do more than you do. But I’ll take what I can get and be happy with it.”

“Janice Archer,” he smiled. “You’re one weird girl, you know that?”

“Yes,” she smiled. “But I’m your weird girl, I always will be, and don’t you ever forget it.”

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