15 Summers Later, page 28
Ava couldn’t answer. She could feel the tears leaking down her face as all her hopes and dreams were dying inside her.
She must have managed some sound. An instant later, Madi was at her side, crouching on the floor next to her.
“What’s wrong, Ava? Is it the baby?”
“I...I think so.” It was all she could say as shock and pain and grief roared in her chest.
“You’re pregnant?” Nicole looked shocked. “How far along?”
“Eight...eight weeks.”
“Have you been cramping?”
She nodded, pressing her hand against her abdomen. “All day. I thought...I thought maybe I had a stomach thing going on.”
Another cramp hit her hard, so intense she doubled over with a keening cry.
“Easy. Let’s get you into the bathroom. Madi, can you help?”
Her sister, who had been so angry with her, now appeared stricken. She reached her curled fingers down and helped lift Ava off the carpet. With Nicole on her other side, Ava managed to make it to the bathroom.
She didn’t want an audience, even her sister and one of their closest friends. “I’m okay from here,” she said to the other two women.
“Are you sure?” Nicole frowned.
Ava nodded. “Yes. Please. I... I’ll let you know if I need you.”
“There are pads under the sink if you need something,” Nicole said gently, squeezing her arm.
Madi hovered outside the door, her mouth twisted with fear and sorrow. Ava couldn’t deal with it right now. She couldn’t even handle her own raw grief and didn’t have space to take on anyone else’s.
She closed the bathroom door and stood for several moments, breathing through the physical pain and the deep emotional loss.
Finally, she looked and the thick clots of rusty blood staining her underwear, much more intense than any mild spotting, confirmed her suspicions.
She was losing the baby.
Bereft, shattered, she rocked back and forth, arms wrapped around her abdomen as if she could hold on to the pregnancy by force of will alone.
She let out a sob and then another one.
She thought the worst moment of her life had been when her sixteen-year-old self had been married off to a man older than her father. When he had kissed her, sloppy and wet, and touched her with his fat, horrible hands.
She had been wrong. This was so much worse.
That had been over in a few moments. This pain she knew would linger forever.
She had only known about the baby for a few weeks but its existence had been a shining light of hope in a cold, harsh world.
Cullen. She had to tell Cullen.
She sobbed again, burying her face in her hands.
She didn’t hear the bathroom door open and was only vaguely aware when her sister entered, when Madi knelt on the cold tile of the bathroom and wrapped her arms around her.
Her brave, amazing sister held her, rocked her for a long time as Ava rested her head against Madi’s shoulder and wept, huge, wrenching sobs that seemed to well up from the depths of her soul.
Later, when she had cleaned up as best she could and changed into a fresh, soft nightgown provided by Nicki, Ava clutched at the small comfort her sister had offered so generously, holding it to her heart.
“You can stay here tonight,” Madi said when they both emerged from the bathroom. “You’ll sleep in my room. I’ll call Grandma and let her know what’s going on.”
She nodded, feeling listless, wrung out.
“Ava, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I shouldn’t have...yelled at you.”
She shook her head forcefully. “This isn’t your fault, Madi. Don’t think that. It... I think it started last night.”
She pressed trembling fingers to her mouth to hold back the sob there. “I had some spotting and my back has been hurting since then. And today, I’ve been crampy on and off all day.”
“I’ve had patients describe it as the worst menstrual cramps of their lives.” Nicole’s eyes were drenched with compassion.
“Yes. That’s what it feels like.” She looked at the other woman. “Do you think I need to go to the ER?”
Nicole squeezed her arm. “Not unless you bleed heavily for several hours and it won’t stop.”
“Is there a way to reach Cullen?” Madi asked.
Ava closed her eyes, fighting sobs all over again as she felt keenly how her husband would grieve this loss as well. “No. They have a satellite phone, but he said it stopped working and they have to get another one. He’s supposed to be coming down tomorrow. I will...will wait to tell him then.”
She wiped at her eyes with the tissue Madi provided. The joy they both had felt about the pregnancy had been a tensile thread knotting her together with Cullen in the midst of their painful separation. Now that thread had been cut, how would her marriage possibly survive?
She didn’t know which hurt worse. The aching cramps in her womb or the fearful, anxious pain in her heart.
32
I embrace the uncertainty of the future with open arms, knowing that the power to shape our destiny lies within us.
—Ghost Lake by Ava Howell Brooks
Madison
After more than an hour of weeping on and off, Ava fell into an exhausted sleep on Madi’s bed, curled into a fetal position with her hands still clutched tightly around her abdomen.
Feeling helpless and filled with sorrow, Madi watched the last rays of the sun, striped by the window blinds, play over her sister’s lovely features, now ravaged by grief.
She found it grossly unfair that Ava had to suffer one more loss, after everything she had already endured.
She wanted Ava to know only joy and light and love.
With the natural instinct dogs seemed to have, compelling them to provide comfort when needed, Mabel was curled up in the small of Ava’s back, offering heat and comfort.
When the elderly schnauzer mix had jumped onto the bed as Ava had been crying, Madi had moved to take her off, intending to push her out of the room and close the door to keep her away.
Ava, her sister who feared dogs because of that long-ago vicious attack at Ghost Lake, had shaken her head and held a hand out to the dog.
“Let her stay,” she had rasped out.
So now Mabel was snuggled against Ava, sleeping soundly.
Satisfied the dog would watch over her sister, Madi made her way to the living room, where she found Nicki reading, of all things, a copy of Ghost Lake.
Instead of the baffled fury that usually came over her whenever she spotted someone reading the book, Madi only felt a twinge of annoyance.
Nicki set aside the book and moved to make room on the sofa so that Madi could sit down next to her.
“How is she doing?” she asked.
“Asleep,” Madi answered. “Finally. Poor thing.”
“Miscarriages can be so rough. She’s going to need a lot of love and support. Pregnancy loss is tough at any stage. Breaks my heart every single time we have someone come into the ER.”
“I feel like I should be doing something else to help her.”
“There isn’t much you can do, except to let her know she’s loved. And also to reinforce that a miscarriage does not indicate any failure on her part. There was probably nothing she could have done. An estimated fifteen to twenty percent of pregnancies end in a miscarriage, usually because the fetus has some chromosomal anomaly making survival unlikely.”
Madi made a small sound in her throat and Nicole reached out and squeezed her fingers. “I know. Statistics don’t mean anything when a woman finds herself among that number. All that matters to Ava is that she will never have the chance to hold the child she was coming to love.”
“I need to call my grandma. She needs to at least know Ava will be staying here tonight, so she doesn’t worry.”
Though afraid she would cry through the whole call, she still somehow managed to find Leona, the first name in her favorite phone contacts, and initiate a call. Her grandmother answered on the second ring.
Madi took a deep breath and relayed the information with as much calmness as she could muster.
She heard one low, sighing sob before her grandmother fell silent. “I would offer to come get her,” Leona finally said, “but I think she might be better off there with you. She needs you.”
“She needs her husband,” Madi countered.
“Yes. But since he’s up in the mountains for now, you are the next best thing. Give her my love and tell her I’m so sorry.”
After she hung up from her grandmother, Madi stared down at her phone for several moments, then stood up.
“I have to go up to Ghost Lake so I can tell Cullen. He needs to know. He needs to be here with his wife. He wouldn’t want her to go through this on her own.”
Nicki stared. “Are you serious? It’s dark. You can’t go up there by yourself!”
“I have the side-by-side. It has headlights. I can be there and back in a few hours. He should be here when she wakes up.”
“You can’t, Madi. It’s not safe.”
She was really tired of people telling her what she could and couldn’t do. “I’ll be fine. It’s a well-maintained fire road, until the last few miles.”
“You can’t do this on your own. I’ll go with you.”
Madi shook her head. “I don’t want Ava to wake up alone. That’s the last thing she needs.”
“Then, you stay here. I’ll go up to Ghost Lake.”
“You’ve never been to the dinosaur camp. You don’t know where to go.”
“I can follow a map. You can give me directions.”
Madi shook her head. “I should be the one to tell him. He’s my brother-in-law. This kind of news is better coming from family than from someone he hardly knows, no matter how wonderful you are.”
With her mind already spinning with what she might need to take with her, Madi started heading for the door.
“Take Luke with you, then,” her friend said quickly. “He knows the way and he can drive his own UTV. It’s newer and faster than yours.”
Nicki reached for her phone and started texting before Madi could figure out a way to stop her.
She tried, anyway. “That’s not necessary. Don’t text him. Really. I can do it.”
The words were hardly out of her mouth before her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and somehow wasn’t at all surprised to find it was Luke.
“What did you say to him?” she demanded of Nicki.
Her friend shrugged. “I sent him an SOS and said you needed help.”
Oh. How was she supposed to resist a man who responded instantly when he thought he might be needed?
Warmth settled on her shoulders as she answered.
“What’s going on?” Luke asked, his tone urgent and worried. “Is it one of the animals?”
“Hi. No. Sorry about that. Nic jumped the gun a bit in sending for the cavalry. It’s not one of the animals. It’s Ava.”
She wasn’t sure what to tell him, as this was Ava’s pain and loss to share with those she wanted to know. Luke would not betray the confidence, she knew, and she had to tell him something to explain why she needed his help. She did need his help, she acknowledged. Having him along made the prospect of driving up to Ghost Lake in the dark much less intimidating.
“Ava is miscarrying the baby.”
“Oh no.”
At the genuine sorrow in his voice, tears burned behind her eyelids once more.
“Yeah. It sucks. Right now, we have no way to reach Cullen. Ava wants to wait to tell him until he comes down out of the mountains tomorrow or Monday, but I feel like he needs to know now. He should be here, helping her through this. I want to go up to his camp to tell him and bring him back down, but Nicki doesn’t want me to go by myself.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
He said the words without any hesitation and hung up before she could even respond.
This was what every woman should have, she thought. A man who would drop everything to be there when she needed him.
“Is he coming?” Nicki asked when Madi slid the phone back into the pocket of her jeans.
“He’s on his way.”
“Oh good.”
As she gathered warm clothes, a blanket, a water bottle and headlamp, Madi thought about Luke and what a good man he was.
Of course she loved him. She’d never really had much of a choice.
He had risked his own life to save hers fifteen years ago. Since then, he had been a steady source of support and encouragement. Even when he had been away at vet school, married with a child, Luke would always send her a card or call her on important days like her birthday or the anniversary of their rescue to connect and make sure she was okay.
Her entire adult life, she had compared every other man to him, she realized now. All those summer guys and ski bums. No wonder she had wanted to date only casually and never let her heart become too involved.
Part of it had always belonged to Luke.
Before he arrived, she went back into her bedroom to check on Ava. Mabel looked up through the dim light, her tail wagging, then snuggled against Ava’s back once more. Her sister was asleep, eyes closed, but tears still trickled slowly down her cheeks, as if even in sleep, she couldn’t escape the pain of loss.
Oh, Ava.
Madi made sure the blanket was tucked around her sister, then retreated back to the hallway as she heard Nic open the front door. When she walked into the living room, Luke immediately crossed the room and enfolded her in his arms.
He was warm and strong and wonderful. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, feeling anchored for the first time all evening.
“I’m so sorry, Madi. Poor Ava. How is she?”
“Sleeping, for now. I hope she stays that way until we get back.”
“I’m ready to go when you are.”
“I’m ready.” She gestured to her travel backpack, which he picked up and slung over one shoulder, already heading for the door.
“Thanks, Nic,” she said, hugging her friend.
“I’ve got Ava. Don’t worry. I’m here for her.”
She nodded and hurried out into the pale blue twilight, where Luke’s truck and trailer waited in the circular driveway. He helped her into the passenger seat and then climbed in and pulled away from the house.
“Is it reckless to head up into the mountains at this time of the night?” she asked.
“We’ll be fine. The UTV has headlights.”
She was suddenly fiercely glad his sister had reached out to Luke. This would have felt like an impossible journey without him.
“What did you tell Sierra?”
“Not much,” he admitted. “I assumed Ava might want her privacy protected, so I only told her there was an emergency at the shelter here. No details.”
“Thank you for that. I’m sure Ava will be grateful. Did you take Sierra to your mom’s house?”
“No. I wanted to, but she reminded me she’s thirteen and insisted she would be fine by herself. The security system at the house is armed, plus she’s got two big dogs to protect her. She also has her cell phone with Mom’s number and Nicki’s number.”
Sierra still seemed like a young girl to Madi, but she had to remind herself she was a teenager now, only a year younger than Madi had been when she and Ava had escaped through the darkness, into the wilderness.
She wanted to ask him if Sierra was still upset about what had happened earlier, about that kiss that seemed as if it had happened a lifetime ago, but she bit back the question. It seemed wrong to even think about that kiss when her sister had suffered an unbearable loss.
She looked out at the passing trees and the black mountains looming in the distance, as a few raindrops began to spatter against the window.
“Oh no,” she exclaimed.
“With any luck, it won’t last long.”
“Even a quick rain will make the trail muddy and harder to navigate.”
He glanced at her briefly before turning his attention back to the road. “Do you want to turn around?”
She considered briefly, then shook her head. “Cullen needs to know about the baby. Ava should have her husband with her. What’s a little mud?”
His mouth lifted into a smile. “Right. What’s a little mud?”
He reached a hand down and his strong fingers folded around her smaller curled ones and they rode that way through the night as the headlights sliced through the darkness and the wipers beat away the rain.
33
Days blur into nights, and our strength is tested in ways we never imagined.
—Ghost Lake by Ava Howell Brooks
Luke
The trust Madison Howell had in him was as remarkable as it was humbling.
Luke drove toward the Sawtooths, more aware with every passing mile of her hand curled inside his. He could no longer avoid the overwhelming truth.
For the second time in his life, he was in love and the reality of it scared the hell out of him.
He had loved Johanna and had grieved the loss of her for four long years. He had told himself he would never let himself be vulnerable to that kind of loss and pain again.
But when his sister had texted him, saying only that Madi needed his help, he was fairly certain he had stopped breathing for a full minute while he waited for her to answer his call.
In that moment, he had accepted the truth that had been hovering at the edge of his subconscious for months now, nudging at him to wake up and pay attention.
This thing between them was not a passing, somewhat inconvenient attraction.
He was in love with Madison Rae Howell.
