Chapter Seventeen

“I don’t understand.” Maggie sat beside her brother in the emergency waiting room. “Ava didn’t bother the eel. He just shot out of nowhere and bit her. Why?”

“In some ways”—leaning forward, forearms resting on his thighs, Billy stared ahead at the double doors separating him from his sister in the ER—”eels are a lot like bears. It’s a known fact that bears don’t attack humans without provocation. It’s also a known fact bears, like this eel, get to decide what constitutes provocation.”

“You said it was a good thing she didn’t pull away. Why?” It had bothered John the way Ava had stood frozen in place with the three-foot eel hanging off her arm. There would be no wiping away that horrific picture.

“The eel wasn’t going to let go, until he wanted to. Had she pulled her arm, she would have torn away her flesh. Eels’ teeth are double-tiered and worse than a razor. She could have lost a good chunk of her arm.”

John kept telling himself it could have been worse. Much worse. But at this particular moment, knowing the shock and pain Ava had suffered, it was hard to find comfort in avoiding a worst-case scenario. Maybe if someone would tell them how she was doing, how much blood she had lost, how serious was the wound? Though, with the amount of Ava’s blood on his hands, he didn’t need medical training to know this was definitely more than a little scratch.

“There you are.” Angela Everrett waddled in with Nick, Kara and baby Catherine. “They wouldn’t let me drive.”

John didn’t miss the curt nod that Billy gave his former navy partner, nor the silent your welcome received in response.

“Your mother caught a ride with Lexie and Jim,” Angela continued. “They should be here any second. Jonathan’s running the shop.”

“What about Emily?” Billy asked.

John vaguely remembered meeting Ava’s sister, the teacher.

“Doug is at the school. He wanted to tell her in person. I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”

“She should stay with her students.” Oozing frustration, Billy flexed his fingers and shifted his attention from the clock to his sister beyond the separating doors and back. “The doctors aren’t telling us anything here anyhow.”

* * *

Before long the tiny waiting room was overflowing with Everrett family and friends. Even the redhead, Sara, and her mother had come, after stopping to pick up Nick’s son from school. The one person John noticed hadn’t arrived was the guy from the birthday party. After this morning’s kiss, he’d seriously hoped the guy wasn’t important to her.

“Shouldn’t we have heard something by now?” Emily asked.

Her fiancé Doug pulled her a little more tightly against him. “They’re probably busy with other emergencies more serious than Ava’s.”

“I like that thought.” Emily smiled weakly.

The double doors opened, and every head in the room turned to the tall man in blue scrubs. “Mrs. Everrett?”

To the doctor’s credit, he didn’t flinch when the crowd rushed to surround him.

“Your daughter is very lucky. That’s a nasty bite. But she did the right thing in waiting for the eel to unclamp his jaw. Still she needed twenty-six stitches.”

A collective grimace reverberated in the chilled space.

“She will be moved to a room shortly.”

“She’s staying?” For the first time since her arrival, Maile’s voice cracked under the stress.

“Just for observation. We’d like to keep an eye on her. She did lose a great deal of blood.”

“But she’ll be all right?” Billy asked, and several heads bobbed in agreement.

“She should be fine. She’ll need some physical therapy, mostly for strengthening. There’s some tissue loss.”

Maile gasped, and her arm flailed momentarily, reaching for her son.

The doctor in blue scrubs softened his gaze. “She’s had a strong cocktail of antibiotics and is a bit groggy from the pain meds, but why don’t you come see for yourself how well she’s doing?”

“Yes.” Maile squeezed her son’s arm and jumped forward.

“Once Ms. Everrett is in her room, the rest of the family can visit in twos.”

“Like Noah’s ark,” Billy added.

The doctor smiled. “Exactly.”

Maile trotted off beside the doctor, and everyone else took his or her seats. The room had grown awfully quiet. But it was Billy who looked the most somber, his wife rubbing her belly with one hand and squeezing his knee with her other. No. Not squeezing, massaging.

John could only imagine the memories this incident had to be bringing back to mind for the war hero. John had only served six years in the navy. As an engineering aide with the Seabees, he’d been lucky to make it home without issue, but he’d had too many friends who couldn’t say the same.

“Daddy.” Bradley, Nick’s son, looked up. “Is Miss Ava going to be with Mommy soon?”

“Oh, no, sport. She’s not sick. She’s hurt. Remember at the last Fourth of July, when your friend Kimmy walked in front of her older sister, just as she swung the bat?”

Bradley bobbed his head. “She split her head open.”

“That’s right. Kimmy’s eyebrow split open, where the bat hit her. She had to be taken to the hospital and get stitched up.”

“So Miss Ava’s eel is like Kimmy’s bat?”

“Exactly. Now she’s had stitches, just like Kimmy.”

The worried frown on the little boy’s face gave way to a sweet smile. “Then she’s going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” Nick pulled his son closer. “She’s going to be very okay.”

In Silent mode, the phone in John’s breast pocket buzzed. Not in the mood to talk to anyone, he almost ignored the call, but old habits died hard. Pulling out the offending apparatus, he glanced down and, seeing Derrick’s name, pushed to his feet, moved to the corner of the room, took the call. “What’s up?”

“We’ve got a few problems here, and Evelyn said it was okay to call.”

John glanced across the room at the crowd and turned back to the corner. “What sort of problems?”

“The Arts District committee decided to make some changes to the gardens.”

John nodded. “So I heard.”

“The redesigns we’ve been getting back from the architectural firm are rudimentary and not to the committee’s liking.”

“So have them do it again.”

“They have. Three times.”

John turned around again, not sure what he expected to find, and spun back. “Is this for real, or are the committee members just being assholes?”

“It’s a problem. The first redesign cut out an entire section of retail space.”

“Shit,” John mumbled.

“The next two were more reasonable but didn’t match the original designs.”

“What does Evelyn say?”

“She’s gone from treating them with sugar and spice and everything nice to threatening them with a big stick. Something’s wrong, and I don’t know how to fix this, and I don’t want to dump it on Evelyn again.”

“All right. Send me the most recent updates and board reactions. Carbon copy Evelyn, and I’ll see what I can come up with. And, Derrick?”

“Yeah.”

“How far behind is this putting us?”

“So far we’ve been able to work around it, but if this isn’t resolved soon, it’s going to be a mess.”

“Right. Thanks.” John slid the phone into his pocket and returned to his seat.

“Business?” Maggie asked quietly.

“Isn’t it always?” He glanced up at the clock, surprised to discover he didn’t feel any urgency to study the problems with the new Arts District. What he cared about was how much longer before Ava would be in her room and he could see for himself that she was all right.

Looking around the room there wasn’t a single time since his mother’s funeral, that John could remember his family gathering together to comfort and support each other, like this group. As for family friends, well, nurturing friendships had taken a backseat to building a successful business. A business that would outshine anything his father had ever bought or sold. And, for the first time in his life, John wondered if maybe success had come at too high a price.