Family Bonds- Ava and Seth (Amore Island Book 5), Natalie Ann [world of reading TXT] 📗

“I know. But I just got Adele down and it’s not that bad.”

“But worse than last time, you said.” He hated arguing with her, but sometimes she could be so stubborn in not wanting to put others out. He suspected it went way back to being the only child of divorced parents as they remarried and started new lives.

“Yeah. Okay, I’ll call now.” He waited while he listened to her talking to the service. “They said someone will call me back within thirty minutes.”

He wanted to grind his teeth over that. Thirty minutes was too long in his head, but then he’d told himself if it was an emergency they’d just go to the ER anyway.

And twenty-five minutes later, Ellen’s doctor called her back, asked a few questions, then Ellen hung up. “She said if it’s not nonstop then to rest and put my feet up and call the office to come in in the morning. If it starts to flow like a period, to go to the ER right away.”

Which Seth could have figured out on his own. “Then go lie down for the night. I’ll take care of the dishes when the dishwasher stops. Better yet, why don’t you get ready for bed? We can watch TV early together.”

“That sounds good,” she said, her voice a little shaky and he wondered if it was worse than she was letting on.

He pulled her into his arms to hold, then reached down and put his arms under her knees and carried her to their room and put her on the bed. “What do you need? Something to sleep in? Don’t do anything else right now until I get back.”

She laughed. “You take such good care of me.”

“That’s a husband’s job,” he said, going to the kitchen. The dishwasher would be done drying any minute and Ellen liked the dishes put away at the end of each night so that the day could start out fresh.

He wasn’t even halfway through when she started to shout his name and he went running to see blood on the bed.

He picked up his phone and called 911. There was no way he could get her there fast enough and he wanted her to have help immediately.

By the time the ambulance arrived, he had a neighbor at the house to stay with Adele. No reason to wake and worry his daughter.

The minute Ellen was loaded in the ambulance, he jumped in his car and followed them racing to the hospital, and prayed his wife and son would be okay.

He didn’t get that prayer answered when he had to return home the next morning in a haze of disbelief and confusion, wondering how he was going to break the news to his daughter that it was just the two of them now.

1

More To Offer

Three years later

“So, birth control options,” Emily Rauch said to Dr. Ava Mills. They were distant cousins, but that was the case with most of the Bonds on the island of this generation when they crossed family lines.

“I don’t see where you’ve been on anything other than birth control pills in your file. That was a few years ago?”

“Nothing in a few years. I’m not really keen on the pill again. I wasn’t a fan of the way it made me feel.”

“There are plenty you can try if you want,” Ava said.

“There are other options I think I’d rather explore.”

“So things are going well with the guy from the fundraiser? Enough that you are looking for birth control options?” Ava asked, wiggling her eyebrows. Lucky dog, her cousin was. It’d been way too long since Ava had any activity with the opposite sex. Heck, it might have been a year since she’d even been on a date!

“It’s been a few months now. You’ve seen us out to dinner and even came over to get the introduction. I want to know how you got out of that fundraiser.”

The fundraiser that island matriarchs Helena and Janet Bond oversaw to bring money to Amore Island to help fund the clinics and emergency services that taxpayer money didn’t cover. The island founded by their ancestors many, many years ago.

The island that she only worked at one day a week in the clinic. For now.

Ava grinned. “I was on call that week.”

“That’s your story and you are sticking to it?”

Maybe she should have offered to go on stage at the charity fundraiser and be one of the women men could bid on for a date if Emily was getting lucky with the guy who’d “won” her. No, no, it just wasn’t for Ava.

“Exactly. So tell me about your new beau.”

“Don’t you have other patients?” Emily asked.

“You’re my last of the day. I’ve got plenty of time to catch the ferry so don’t use that as an excuse either.”

“It’s only three,” she said. “How can I be your last patient of the day?”

“I didn’t know I had to report my schedule to you. But I had two cancellations and because I’m off the island, they called and rearranged it so that I could get out after you.”

Ava liked how accommodating everyone was at the facility where she worked. There were branches in Boston, Plymouth—where she was currently located—Amore Island, and other outlying areas. Her long-term dream had been Amore Island...at some point when there was an opening. It was coming true sooner than she expected though and since her father and brothers were now practicing on the island, she couldn’t wait to join them.

“It doesn’t bother you coming back and forth this way to work?”

“It’s only once a week.” Ava looked around as if she was afraid someone might walk in the closed door and hear them. “Until June that is.”

“What?” she asked. “What is going on?”

Her smile filled her face faster than when she was hired as an obstetrician less than two years ago. “I’m transferring here full time.”

“That’s great! I thought you didn’t want to be on the island.”

“It wasn’t that.