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“S tep away, please,” said the emergency medical tech as he moved toward the man on the ground. “Give him some air.”

The Palm Springs Medical Response emergency van idled curbside, its red lights flashing round and round. Moments before, music had blared from a wireless speaker on a table under a nearby shade awning, and shouts and laughter had filled the air. But all had quieted when the ambulance pulled up.

“I’m fine,” wheezed Paul Rothman, a sheen of sweat above his unruly eyebrows. “I’m fine!” He lay on his back, splayed on the warm green surface, his T-shirt clinging to his soft belly.

The EMT placed his medical bag on the ground and knelt down next to Paul. He rubbed his trimmed salt-and-pepper beard as the walkie-talkie on his chest squawked.

“Third injury on a court today,” he said, “and it’s not even lunchtime yet.”

The EMT’s younger partner peered over his aviator sunglasses and looked across the twenty Whisper Hills Country Club pickleball courts.

The players, mostly senior citizens, many with one or two knee braces or an elbow sheathed in a compression wrap, stood or leaned against the low chain-link fence, watching.

He nodded, then answered with his voice low, “We weren’t half as busy before pickleball decided to become the fastest-growing sport in the galaxy.”

“You aren’t old enough to remember how bad it was when rollerblading came on the scene. Now that was busy,” the older EMT chuckled.

A metallic clank rang out as Endy Andrews threw open the gate and rushed onto the pickleball court. She looked around, her eyes wide and her long, dark hair wild from her mad dash to where Paul lay. She crouched down beside the heavyset man.

“Paul, are you okay?” she asked, her voice breaking. “What happened?”

The bearded EMT held out his hand. “Miss, you’re going to need to stand back.” He reached out to grab Endy’s arm.

“It’s okay. I work here,” replied Endy. “And Paul is my friend.”

“Oh, Endy, I’m fine. I just got a little dizzy,” said Paul. He looked at Endy and made a motion to push his gray-blond hair off his sweaty forehead. Endy tucked her own flyaway hair behind her ears, her eyes questioning.

From the corner of his mouth, Paul whispered, “That one’s hot. And he’s not wearing a wedding ring.”

Endy glanced at the younger EMT as he pulled a blood pressure cuff from his kit, a small grin playing on his lips.

Endy’s cheeks colored and she stammered, “Oh my god, Paul.”

Paul turned his head to the EMT. “An emergency medical technician is a noble profession. Tell me, did you go to an Ivy League college and are you wealthy?”

The EMT’s eyebrows drew together over his sunglasses. “Umm, no,” he answered.

“I ask because she’s been alone for a couple of years, ever since she was jilted by her rich, debonair ex-boyfriend,” said Paul, shifting his eyes in Endy’s direction.

Endy glanced down at her left hand, where she no longer wore an engagement ring. She slipped her hand under her leg.

“Paul, you don’t have to keep telling every handsome guy under the age of forty that Bennett broke up with me,” Endy said. “And he wasn’t that rich.”

Paul waved his hand and then placed it on Endy’s knee. “We’re all looking after your best interests, sweetheart. We don’t like seeing how lonely you are.”

Out of habit, Endy’s left thumb caressed her empty ring finger. “I’m not lonely,” she insisted.

“Don’t worry about it,” the EMT replied, amused. He wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Paul’s arm. “But actually, I have a girlfriend. We’re getting married this summer, next to a lake in Tahoe.”

“Hmm, that’s too bad for us,” Paul sighed. “The girlfriend part, not the lake part. I love Tahoe in the summer.”

It was as if the EMT had placed the blood pressure cuff around her heart and pumped it tight. Endy took a deep breath to try and halt the clenching feeling in her chest. The thought of any summer wedding in Tahoe still wrecked her.

Because she should have been the one getting married in Tahoe.

Instead, the band was canceled, invitations withdrawn, and her two-carat diamond engagement ring returned.

When Bennett had broken up with Endy to get back together with his ex-girlfriend, Endy had been floored. They had had a long engagement and were just months from the wedding. But he’d left her. Bennett had just simply left.

And Endy, her heart broken in a million pieces, had ended up alone.

Ever since the breakup, Endy questioned whether it was even possible for her to find someone again.

She didn’t want anything special … just someone she couldn’t stop staring at, someone who made her laugh, someone whose arms would wrap around her in a perfect fit.

And most importantly, someone with whom she could be herself—unadorned, unchanged, unapologetic.

A relationship completely unlike the one she had had with Bennett.

But, two years later, Endy had not met anyone she was interested in enough to go on more than a couple of dates with.

The fact was, she worked and lived in a city that didn’t offer a lot of options.

The men, with their median age of sixty, gray hair—if any at all—and dinner times beginning at five o’clock, were more like her grandfather than potential suitors.

How was she supposed to meet someone, let alone fall in love again?

Maybe Paul wasn’t so wrong … Endy probably was a little lonely.

A flock of geese honked their way overhead, casting shadows across the pickleball court, and Endy raised her hand to shade her eyes. She watched the geese disappear behind a stand of tall palm trees.

“So, tell me what happened before we got here,” said the hot EMT, moving his finger back and forth in front of Paul’s eyes.

Paul sighed. “I was playing pretty aggressively for a bit, and set up to hit a dink into the kitchen, but then I got a little nauseous and went to sit down under the awning. I didn’t make it far before I got dizzy and had to—”

“Did you just say ‘a dink into the kitchen’?” asked the baffled EMT, his head cocked.

“It’s a drop shot into the non-volley zone,” huffed Paul. “Everybody knows tha—”

“He fell to his knees,” interrupted a short, wiry man as he approached, his hand still clutching a pickleball paddle. “His symptoms presented what could have been heatstroke or even a heart attack. Neither is anything to mess around with.”

“I told him that I was just dehydrated,” said Paul. “But Steven is a retired doctor. He insisted on calling 911.”

Endy got up from the court. “Paul tends to overdo—”

“No, I don’t,” interrupted Paul.

“Yes, you do,” replied Endy. “Just last week you had those headaches from actually being dehydrated.”

The EMT removed the blood pressure cuff and held out his hand to help Paul sit up.

“Well, you both are probably right. While your vitals seem fine now, the nausea and dizziness are concerning.” He tucked his equipment into his kit.

“Go home and take a cool shower, drink a lot of fluids, and make an appointment to see your doctor as soon as you can … just to be on the safe side.” His mirrored sunglasses reflected the red lights still flashing at the curb.

“Thank you for getting here so quickly,” Paul said, nodding. He leaned into the EMT and added in a conspiring way, “But are you sure you don’t want to, maybe, take Endy out for dinner and get to know her?”

“I would if I weren’t already taken.” The EMT’s lips pulled up on the side. “She might actually be hotter than the desert in summer.”

“And she’s more than mortified with this whole interaction,” interrupted Endy, rolling her eyes and placing her hand on Paul’s shoulder. “Thanks, guys. We’ll take care of Mr. Matchmaker from here.”

Endy walked with the EMTs as they carried their equipment back to their van. Once in the cab, the older EMT leaned out his open window.

“You seem like a catch, so I’m sure you’ll find someone somewhere.” His hand gestured out past Endy. “With the massive interest in this sport, who knows, maybe you’ll meet your soulmate through pickleball.”

The EMT knocked his fist on the door, then turned off the flashing red lights, and the van started pulling away from the curb.

Endy raised her hand in a wave and looked out over the courts filled with retirees. She shouted after the retreating EMTs, “Sure, and maybe it’ll snow in August in Palm Springs!”

She heard a burst of laughter from their open windows, followed by a lively brruuup, brruuup of the siren.

Endy turned back to the pickleball courts when high-pitched yapping filled the air.

A slender, speckled bird with a crest on its head streaked past, its long legs propelling it swiftly across the grass lawn.

Steps behind, a ten-pound miniature dachshund took chase, a flash of angry red-brown fur, floppy ears, and bared teeth.

“Rusty!” shouted Gary Lombardi. He ran after the dog, an empty leash dragging behind him. “Come back here, you beast!”

The roadrunner darted under a bougainvillea and the mini-dachshund followed, skidding under the bush just as the roadrunner squeezed through the wrought iron fencing, making a Houdini-like escape.

Endy and Gary rushed to where a vexed Rusty was holed up, still yapping, biting, and tearing at the vegetation in front of the fence. Endy dropped to her knees and reached out to grab the dog.

“Woah, woah! Don’t do that unless you want to get your hand bit off,” Gary warned. “We’ll have to wait until she tires herself out or—”

“I can get her out of there.”

Endy turned toward the voice and craned her head up to find the most gorgeous guy she’d ever seen towering above her.