Chapter 7
Ava refolded her hands over her lap for the hundredth time in the last sixty seconds. She turned her gaze out the passenger side window of Richard’s Audi Coupe, wondering if the awkwardness would subside.
“It’s a pretty day,” Richard said from behind the wheel.
“It really is.” She squinted her eyes and tried forcing herself to focus on the sights. There was a span of green land, distant pines, and the glowing blue sky, but her mind was playing an entirely different scene. Flashbacks of the last few days.
“I hope he’s going to be okay,” she finally said, revealing where her preoccupation lay. She looked over to see Richard’s mouth pinch shut.
A deep furrow came over his brow. “The doctor seems to think that he will.” He shook his head, and Ava couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts were going through his mind.
She could guess them easily enough. In fact, Richard had verbalized a fair share of them, to Maverick’s irritation.
A recollection of the doctor’s orders came to mind. “Four to six weeks of bedrest is…intense,” Ava said. “Do you think he’ll really follow it?”
“Normally, I’d say no,” Richard said, squinting as he lowered the sun visor. “But now that we’re dealing with matters this…” He shot a glance in her direction before pinning his eyes back on the road. “Thissensitivehe might just wise up and follow orders like he should.”
Three days had passed since the accident, yet Ava couldn’t quite shake the odd sense of guilt that clung to her. Sure, it was no more her fault than it was Richard’s—or even Betty’s, for that matter—but she knew that guilt stemmed from someplace else. A place she didn’t want to acknowledge just yet, even to herself.
Richard reached for a pair of sunglasses on the dash and slipped them on. “We found a good nurse. We requested a male to keep Maverick from hitting on them,” he added with a laugh.
Ava laughed too. “Has he always been such a Casanova?”
“That kid was winking at the ladies from the church pews by the time he was two years old.”
She smiled at the imagery.
“Seriously,” he added. “I feel sorry for poor Memphis. Maverick went around stealing the show wherever they went. It’s a shame too, if you think about it. Memphis gained a complex along the way.”
“That’ssad,” Ava agreed. She’d noticed as much for herself. “Maybe now that they’re here with you guys that will change. Sometimes it helps to be around people who…seeyou.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that if it hadn’t been for an exceptional math teacher I had in high school, one who saw past what I presented each day, I might not have gone on to get my degree.” Janet Slaybough was the woman’s name, and Ava would never forget her. Somehow, she had sensed the state Ava was in, the type of home she was from. Janet was a hardened woman herself, anyone could see that much. But on the last day of class, as the room cleared out, Slaybough had called out to her. Slipped her an envelope with a note, urged her to get her degree. Here was some extra cash and encouragement.Get your own income and get free,it said.
Shehad,until Wren came along just a few months later.
“I keep meaning to ask about your family,” Richard said. “I’m sick when I think about the fact that—”
“I don’t have any,” she blurted. “That’s probably why it hasn’t come up before.”
Richard’s face tensed as he shot a glance in her direction. The sunglasses kept her from fully seeing his expression, but the furrow in his brow said he was conflicted about something.
“I don’t mean to pry,” he started, “but when you say you don’t have any family, you mean—”
Ava huffed out an irritated breath. “I mean just what I said,okay?”
She gulped, cringing from the way she’d cut him off, her voice jagged and sharp. The tension in the car felt so tight she had to roll her shoulders back in effort to escape it.
Nope. Still there. But perhaps it wasn’t tension at all. Maybe it was guilt. Rightfully so, after the way she’d snapped at him. Now she’d only made him more curious too. He’d be prying more than ever if she couldn’t satiate him.
With that thought urging her on, Ava glanced over, tipping her head so that he could see her sincerity. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have cut you off like that.”
She sighed. “I, umm, I was an only child. My mom died when I was young. My father hasn’t been in my life for years. That’s all. I shouldn’t have gotten dramatic over it.”
“No, no,” Richard was quick to say. “It was rude of me to pry. I should have left it alone.”
Ava turned to look out the window, still failing to really see her surroundings at first. But as the drive into town went on, the tension from her shoulders melted away, and the sights came into full and glorious view.
