Chapter Twenty-Six #2
I don a smile so big it could split my face in half, and lean in for a kiss when screams—not the good kind—echo across the lake.
Brooks shoots up off the blanket and tears off down the trail that leads back to camp.
I hastily toss an armful of sand over what’s left of the coals, scoop up the blanket, and sprint off after him.
“Mr. G! Dad!” Colton rushes to meet us as Brooks and I emerge from the treeline and dart across the lawn to the crowd.
“What’s going on?” Brooks pants, his eyes frantically scanning the surroundings.
“It’s Morg—” Colt is cut off when the sight of Kai hefting Morgan up, carrying her bridal-style, comes into view.
Kai barks angrily at the kids to get out of the way. “Move! Everyone, get out of my way!”
Morgan whimpers in his arms, burying her face in his chest.
“She slipped off the dock,” Colton tells us frantically. “Her ankle looks real bad. I tried to call you, but my signal keeps dropping. I was just coming to find you guys.”
“Thank you, Colton,” Brooks huffs, before brushing past him and jogging after Kai, over to Sherri’s medical cabin.
“What happened?” I question Colt.
“Morgan and Kai were playing King of the Dock, and he tried pushing her into the water. She slipped, and her foot twisted.” He winces. “I think I saw her bone.”
“Aren’t you guys supposed to not rough-house on the docks?” I ask.
“She told him that, but he just kept poking her. Telling her she was just trying to chump out on him.”
“What a fucking moron,” I grumble, swiping my palm down my face. “He’s lucky he didn’t break her neck, pushing her off that thing.”
Suddenly, I’m, once again, overwhelmed with the urge to punch Kai right in his overly square jaw. Maybe rattle his perfect teeth a little. Guess my overprotective streak extends beyond Brooks, straight to Morgan, too.
Our kids are happy, healthy, and in good hands…
With Colton hot on my heels, I stalk up to the medical cabin to find Brooks and Kai already at war with one another.
Colt immediately goes over to hold Morgan’s hand, calming her while Sherri calls for an ambulance on the sat phone.
Sherri plugs one ear, and steps out of the cabin, so she can hear over the shouting.
“How dare you blame this on me?!” Brooks yells at Kai. “You were the one that pushed her!”
“Yeah, well, if you hadn’t been off gallivanting with your lover boy, you’d have been paying attention to things here at camp! You know, running the actual fuckin’ thing? Your job?”
Brooks snorts repugnantly. “The children weren’t at fault here. The thirty-two-year-old man-child was! And why do you smell like alcohol?! Have you been drinking?”
“What? No! We were playing! It’s not like I meant to break her friggin’ ankle, right Mowgli?”
“She told you to stop messing around on the dock, and you took it too far,” Colt growls. “You’ve even been acting a little drunk. It’s not even noon, dude.”
Kai spins on my son and jabs an angry finger at him. “Why don’t you shut your trap? You don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about, kid.”
No one talks to my fucking son like that. I’m pissed.
I yank Kai back by the neck of his shirt. Ready to finally land one on his shitty face, I bring my fist back. Like Phil Collins, I feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life.
“Stop!” Morgan wails. “Please, just stop! Please!”
“Oh, Morgs,” Brooks chokes back a sob, “I’m so sorry.” He darts over to the exam bed and takes up sentry on the opposite side as Colt.
I drop my fist and fling Kai back towards the door. Discarding him like the trash that he is.
“Would it be quicker if I just took her to the hospital in my truck?” I ask.
“Might be,” Sherri confirms, coming back inside the cabin.
“Apparently there’s been an accident in the next town over, both our local units are there currently.
I can finish getting her splinted up, get some ice on it, and as long as you don’t drive like a madman, like you do on your Harley, you should be able to get her there in one piece,” she teases me calmly, before turning to Morgan.
“It’s definitely broken, but they’ll get you cleaned up and in a better cast than I can fashion here.
I hate to say it, but you might need surgery. ”
“Oh god,” Morgan moans. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
I pass her a trash can and hold her hair back, just in case. She looks a little green in the gills, but thankfully doesn’t heave.
“Colton, can you grab some of her clothes from her bunk?” I ask, since she’s still in her bathing suit, and I can see her start to shiver, now that the adrenaline is wearing off.
“Pick me out something good, so I don’t look like a bum in the ER,” Morgan jokes.
“Do my best,” he assures her, jogging off towards her cabin.
“Brooks, can I get a word with you before you go?” Kai grumbles from the corner.
Brooks peers up at me first. “You got her?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you,” he says, before reluctantly leaving her side to follow Kai out onto the little porchlette.
Sherri passes Morgan a couple of pills. “Pain killers.” She nods at them. “You’re a tough cookie, you know. That’s gotta sting a little.”
Morgan chuckles wetly. “Just a little,” she hisses, shifting her position.
I give her a hand getting comfortable, then reassure her, “I promise I’ll drive you there safely.”
She smiles at me, her eyes bloodshot and still wet with tears.
“Thank you, Evan.” Then she reaches for my hand, and I take it, sitting on the stool at her side, while Sherri stabilizes the swollen, angry-looking ankle.
She winces when the nurse maneuvers her calf a little to accommodate the wrapping.
“So, you and Dad were out at our beach last night?” she asks, squeezing my hand.
My eyebrows bunch at the question.
“Oh come on, don’t look at me like that,” she chuckles, before sucking in a sharp breath. “I’m not looking for details; I’m just trying to take my mind off—ow!”
“Sorry,” Sherri mutters, “almost done.”
“It’s okay.” Morgan puffs out a breath, then turns back to me. “It’s just that only Dad and I know about his special spot. He must really like you if he let you go there. It’s where we spread some of my mom’s ashes…”
“Oh…” is all I can think of for a reply, because what the hell do I say to that?
Her lips turn up in the corner, then she chuckles. “Colty-doodle was right, you really don’t talk a lot. S’okay, Dad says I do enough talking for two people sometimes. Anyway, I just want to say that I really—ow, ow, ow!”
“Shoot, sorry,” Sherri murmurs again, gripping the tape between her teeth and tearing it off. “Damn tape wouldn’t cut.”
Morgan bites her lip, sucking back tears.
Her eyes flick back up to me, a grim, almost hardened, look on her face.
“I really hope your intentions are good with my dad, Evan. I’d really hate to bust my knuckles on your face, if you hurt him in any way.
Colton’s my friend, but I won’t hesitate to knock a bitch out if you mess with my old man. ”
“I’m sorry, what?” I gape at her. Is she really giving me the opposite of the ‘don’t mess with my little girl’ speech?
She holds the stern look on me for a couple moments longer, before Sherri starts to giggle. Morgan loses her stone-faced expression. She bursts into a fit of laughter.
“I wish I had an Uno reverse card I could toss at you right now,” she squeaks between giggles.
“I’m sorry, Evan, but if you and my dad are in it for the long haul, you’ve got a lot to learn about me.
I really hope you are in it for the long haul though, because Dad’s as happy as I’ve ever seen him in a long time—probably until he starts freaking out about my hospital bill. ”
Not if I have anything to say about it. Someone’s gonna foot the bill, and that someone’s name is going to be Kai Hale. I glare out the front door and see Brooks and Kai in the middle of another heated argument.
I start to rise off my stool. “Please, don’t go,” Morgan begs me.
“Things have been tense between Dad and Uncle Kai for a while. Dad never fights back. It sucks to see, but I really think my Dad needs to speak his mind to him. Let him. I only stopped you guys before, because I know Uncle Kai would definitely press charges if you hit him.”
I turn my attention back to her. “You sure you're sixteen?”
She manages a slight grin. “Last time I checked. Just taking a page from the book of life lessons handed to me from my dad.” She’s starting to slur her words together now. Perhaps the painkillers are kicking in. I urge her to lay back, tucking some of her stray hair behind her ear.
Morgan truly is an amazing young lady. I’m glad she appears to have given me her blessing to be with her dad. Ryann too, apparently, though the ‘reunited with an old friend’ part of Miranda’s message to me does have me a little stymied.
Colton comes barging back in at the same time as Sherri wraps an ice pack on the mound of bandages and splints she has holding Morgan’s ankle in place.
Together, the three of us help Morgan shift so we can help her get some clothes on over her bathing suit.
The pills are making her feel too weak to do it independently.
“Eh, not runway ready, but it’ll do,” Morgan teases, her speech even more drawn out.
I scoop her up in my arms, Colton holding her injured foot from bobbing around, as I start to carry her out of the cabin.
“Listen, I’ve got to go, but we are not done with this conversation,” Brooks shouts at Kai, glaring daggers at him. He jogs to follow me up the hill, towards my truck.
“We are done with this conversation. I’m fucking out. I’m done with you and this fucking stupid camp. Consider this bank drawn from and dried up!”
Once I get Morgan settled in—laying across my extended cab, with her ankle elevated slightly on Brooks’ lap—I stomp down the hill and jab Kai in the chest with my pointer finger.
Brooks is right, he does reek of alcohol.
I’m too pissed to unpack that at the moment, because I just need him out of here, for the safety of the campers here.
He’s becoming unhinged, and I won’t have that here.
“You can be done with this camp all you want. In fact, get the fuck out,” I growl, with a voice low enough for only him to hear, minding the little ears around us.
“But right now, there’s a lawn full of kids sitting here watching you talk shit about Brooks and this camp, and this isn’t the time or the place for it, do you hear me? ”
He scoffs, making a move to brush past me, muttering to himself, “Finally lands a man and, suddenly, he grows a pair. Brooks never would have spoken to me like that if it weren’t for his big, dumb ass.”
I fling him back around. “Fuck’d you just say? Are you jealous of Brooks and I; is that what I’m gathering from this big tantrum you’re having?”
“Of course I am! Brooks is mine! He’s always been mine, up until you came along! I came this summer hoping to get back together with him! I need him…”
My molars grind. “Think you’re a little too late, now.”
He snorts. “Good, you can have him. You can have this, too, while you’re at it,” he hisses, gesturing around the camp.
“You know what I think? I think you really did come here just to protect your investment,” I hiss, mocking him.
“You only wanted him back when you thought you couldn’t have him.
News flash, he’s not a possession, he’s a person.
A real human, with feelings—feelings which you’ve been toying with for years, without giving a flying fuck.
So why don’t you just set him free from yourself, Kai. Sign over the camp to him.”
“I’m not just signing it away without being paid for my half of it,” he balks.
“Send me the bill, then,” I tell him. “Me, not him. He doesn’t need another burden right now. When I get it, I better see what I owe you less what you’re paying for Morgan’s hospital visit. You pushed her; you’re paying for it.”
He scoffs. “Sure. I’ll cover that charitable donation for you.
No skin off my back, I’ve got money enough to cover it and, despite what you may think, I do care for Mowgli and want to see that she gets the best possible care.
You still won’t be able to afford what you’ll owe for this cesspit, though, so I’d start looking for another investor you can sell it off to. ”
“Go fuck yourself, and go sober up somewhere away from the campers. Be gone by the time I get back, Kai. I fuckin’ mean it,” I grunt, before spinning on my heels and hopping in my truck. I’ve already wasted too much time on that asshole, and I really need to get Morgan to the hospital.