The EMTs were rattling off the injuries and stats, and nurses were directing them to different exam rooms. They’d called down two doctors from upstairs to aid Dr. Quick, and Ava was serving as the triage nurse, getting pertinent info, assessing the symptoms, and directing the most seriously injured into exam rooms first. It was steady chaos but nothing they hadn’t dealt with before, and then the victims’ relatives began coming into the ER, getting in the way, arguing about who’d caused the accident, making it even more difficult for the ER staff to tend to the injured.
Dr. Quick stepped out of an exam room, saw what was going on, and called out, “Ava, call the police.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and turned around to go to the phone when one of the men grabbed her by the arm and slung her around, shouting, “You ain’t callin’ no cops on us!”
At that moment, orderlies came running to Ava’s aid.
Chapter 17
Hunt was at the gas station, standing by the pump and waiting for his tank to fill, when he heard ambulance sirens again. Wherever they’d gone, they hadn’t gone far because they were already returning. He thought about Ava and all of the other medical personnel and how important they were to this little town. A part of him felt guilty that she was leaving because of him, but she’d chosen love over location and that was never a bad thing. The hospital could always hire more medical personnel, but there was only one Ava Ridley and she was his.
A man pulled up to the other side of the pumps and got out, nodded to Hunt, and then swiped his credit card and started pumping gas, while the woman with him went inside.
“You’re Hunt Knox, ain’t ya?” the man said.
Hunt nodded. “Do I know you?”
The man grinned. “Probably not. My name is Moss Payne. I used to play dominoes with your daddy at the Blue Ivy Bar. You have his dark hair, but you got your mama’s blue eyes. She was a good woman. My sympathies for your loss.”
“Thanks,” Hunt said, remembering his daddy’s days of coming and going at the Blue Ivy had ended as he got older. Likely because the kids kept coming, making it harder than before to stretch a dollar.
Then the pump kicked off. Hunt replaced the nozzle in the pump and was screwing the gas cap on when Moss’s woman came hurrying out of the store, waving her phone.
“Moss! Moss! Willa Jewel, who works in the cafeteria at the hospital, said there’s a big fight in the ER. The families of the people who were in the wreck out north of town got into a brawl. She said blood’s flying everywhere.”
Hunt’s gut knotted. Ava! “Where are the police?”
The woman shrugged. “Maybe at the crash site. Sometimes it takes a while for the Georgia Highway Patrol to find places like this, and they help out.”
Hunt jumped in the truck and headed back up Main, driving as fast as he dared. He didn’t know if a hospital the size of Blessings had security officers or if the police were already on the scene, but he had to make sure Ava was okay.
It took him less than two minutes to get from the far end of Main to the ER parking lot, but when he drove up on a number of vehicles parked in all directions and didn’t see any police cars on the scene, it made him uneasy.
Hunt jumped out on the run, and as he entered the lobby he could tell by the shouts and screams coming from the ER that the fight was still ongoing.
The receptionist at the front desk was wide-eyed and in a panic.
“Where are the police?” Hunt asked.
“They were at the wreck, all except for one officer who was already out on another call. He’s on his way here now, and the others are coming in from out of town.”
“What’s the fight about?” Hunt asked.
“A boy from the Ryman family was running off to get married to a girl from the Dillon family. Pete Dillon took off chasing them, and that caused the wreck.”
Hunt’s eyes narrowed. Ryman? As in Tall Man’s family? What were the odds? He didn’t know what he was walking into, but Ava’s welfare took precedence over any hesitance he had in interfering with police business.
He took off in long, angry strides, hit the doors with the flat of his hands, and walked right into a melee.
Orderlies were trying to keep the angry family members away from the exam rooms where doctors were tending to victims. Rhonda Bailey was behind the nurses’ desk with blood on her cheek and a small cut over her eye, and another nurse was crying.
Two grown men were fighting with each other, and two females with them were screaming and cursing and pulling each other’s hair.
Then Hunt saw Ava, pinned against the wall by another man. She was arguing with him and struggling, trying to get free. Every fighting instinct the army had instilled in Hunt kicked in, and he began wading through the melee, punching and shoving, trying to get to her.
One of the men turned to swing at him, and when he did Hunt hit him in the chin with an uppercut. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head. He fell backward onto the floor and didn’t get up.
The other man came at Hunt from the right, so caught up in the bloodlust of battle that it didn’t even dawn on him that his “enemy” was now unconscious on the floor.
Hunt hit him in the nose with his first punch, and then the side of his jaw with his second. The man fell to his knees, both hands over his face, moaning, “You broke my nose!”
The women who’d been screaming and cursing were suddenly silent, standing there in shock and staring at Hunt.
The man who had Ava pinned became aware of the silence and turned around, saw his brother on the floor, and then shouted at Hunt.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
That’s when Hunt realized who he was. Josh Ryman. Tall Man Ryman’s brother. What the hell were the odds of their families butting heads like this again?
Then Hunt saw the fear on Ava’s face and started walking toward her, his hands doubled into fists, his gaze fixed on Josh’s face.
“I’m Hunt Knox, and you, Josh Ryman, have your hands on my woman. I’m going to give you about ten seconds to turn her loose or there won’t be enough left of you for the doctors to put back together.”
Ryman’s eyes widened. “She was going to call the police!” he said.
Hunt was getting closer. “Three seconds, dammit, or let her go.”
“For the love of God, Josh! We already called the police,” Rhonda said.
“Fine!” Josh shouted, then turned Ava loose.
She staggered, trying to catch her balance, while Josh turned his rage on someone else and began cursing and shouting at the Dillon family.
Ava grabbed at the wall to steady herself and started running toward Hunt. All she wanted was to be out of this mess.