Chapter 5
Chapter Five
F or the next week, Ava did everything she was supposed to do.
She took walks around the cabin, she did her breathing exercises, she ate well, and she slept a lot.
Her reflection had become more normal, her bruises miraculously almost gone, and her strength was building, reminding her every day that she still had to find Lucas.
It killed her not to have any contact with the outside world.
She didn’t want to burden Allison with a call while she was away in Breckenridge. Allison would surely worry, given the severity of the accident, and Ava would rather not disturb her friend’s research. After all, Ava was fine.
And while she was nearly certain Scott was robbing her blind of her clients with all this time away from work, her goal was to get as strong as possible so she could step back into her job with a vengeance.
She tried not to think about the fact that McGregor Creative’s principal, Robert Clive, wanted to name a partner by the end of the month, and she’d missed her two biggest weeks of client meetings to show him what she was made of.
Robert had seen something in her and groomed her since the beginning.
Would he wait for her? He had sent a nice bouquet of flowers to the cabin, wishing her well.
Was that encouragement or condolence regarding her promotion?
“I’m not one hundred percent, but I’m starting to feel human again,” she said as they got into her mother’s car for her first day of physical therapy at Vanderbilt in Nashville.
“You’re doing great. And you haven’t touched a laptop in over two weeks.” Martha made a mock-surprised face.
“I know. I’m quietly going insane.” She put on her seatbelt. “You’ve been really accommodating, but the lack of human interaction has me a little like Jack Nicholson in The Shining .”
Martha laughed. “You’re so dramatic. Am I not enough human interaction?”
“You know what I mean.”
Her mom started the car and put it in gear, then adjusted the rearview mirror. The action took Ava back to that fateful day. She withheld a shudder, trying not to think of the accident.
“I’ll tell you what,” her mother said, “if you feel up to it after therapy, maybe we could stay in Nashville and go to one of those fancy coffee shops you like.”
“I will absolutely feel up to it.”
They made the thirty-minute drive into the city.
Ava checked her side-view mirror anxiously as they merged onto I-65.
Vehicles whizzed past them while their car got up to speed.
She gripped her hands together, their clammy, cold feel turning her stomach.
Her mother changed lanes with ease, but every movement had Ava on edge.
This was only her second time on a highway since the accident.
On the way to JFK airport in New York, they’d taken the subway and linked up with the AirTrain at Howard Beach station.
And when her mom had driven her through Nashville to Marrowbone Lake from BNA, Ava had been asleep.
Now, fully alert, she was struggling to manage.
Fear had never been an emotion she’d understood.
She’d been unafraid in business, in walking around the city, and in living alone.
She’d always thought her confidence was what made her successful, but now her self-assurance was shaken.
Would she be as ruthless in her career after this if she couldn’t even get herself on the highway?
Would the trepidation eventually go away, or would it be a part of her always?
The minute they got off I-65 and entered the busy city streets, however, all the blood ran back into Ava’s body.
It was as if she’d been lifeless for the last nineteen days, and her heart had begun to pump again with the pulse of the city.
As they drove through midtown, the people, the vibrant restaurants, and the traffic filled her with a sense of being.
She put down the window and let the warm air blow against her skin.
The Nashville weather was on the cusp of abandoning summer and moving into fall.
Nights were cool, but the temperatures fluctuated, and after two cool days, today was summerlike.
The balmy sunshine made Ava feel as if she were on vacation—something she hadn’t ever done, given her work schedule.
Vacations had been a point of contention between her and her ex, David.
But she’d known that people expected a certain level of work from her, and if they went somewhere, she’d have to deal with the disruption of the journey, and the work would still be there when they got to their destination.
The sun was so bright against the blue sky today that she reconsidered her position on that topic and wished she’d thought to have packed her sunglasses.
Easy to say, however, when someone was doing her work for her right now.
But she didn’t want to think about the fact that Scott was handling her accounts.
She focused on the warm Southern breeze instead.
As they idled at a stoplight, Ava leaned toward the sunshine streaming in through her open window.
The shops were full of people, and she couldn’t wait until she felt well enough to spend the day walking around a city again.
She scanned their happy faces, the way they moved along.
The south was different from New York. People seemed busy, but they had a less frenzied way about their collective movements.
They took their time, stopped to look into shop windows, and filed down the sidewalk in a more laid-back fashion.
When the light turned green, her attention was still on the sidewalk two lanes over.
And that was when she saw him.
Ava gasped. “Wait! Stop.”
“What?” Her mother glanced over at her. They continued to travel with the flow of traffic.
Ava grunted as she forced her stiff body to twist so she could see the man on the street. “Mom, stop!”
“I can’t stop. The traffic is going,” her mom said. “What is it?”
“I swear that’s Lucas Phillips.” She craned her neck, but they were moving away from him, and he was getting lost in the crowd. “Take a right and pull over.”
“I can’t. The traffic’s too thick.” Martha put on her blinker, but there were two full lanes of cars between her and the next right turn. “We’re going to be late for physical therapy.”
“I don’t care. Please. Get over as soon as you can.”
Ava had lost him, but she knew what street he’d gone down.
They continued to drive away from his corner, as her mother waited for a break in the traffic to change lanes.
By the time they had, they were blocks away.
Ava directed her mom, telling her where to go, and they took the next street in the other direction until they’d made it back to the place where she’d seen him.
She scanned the faces of everyone on the sidewalk, but none of them were Lucas.
“Can you park here?” She pointed to a loading zone. “I’ll just be a minute.”
Her mom pulled over, and Ava got out. She pushed her sore muscles as she walked, peering into shops and restaurants.
She scanned every face, every set of legs, anything that might be him.
A few people eyed her, curious, but she ignored their stares.
She looked across and down the street. There was no one matching his description.
Lucas was nowhere to be seen.
She blew air through her lips in frustration and climbed back into the car, her limbs shaky from her brisk movements.
“Are you sure you actually saw him?” her mother asked with a note of skepticism.
“Yes. I’m sure,” she replied.
“So he was in New York with you, and now he’s magically in Nashville?”
She scanned the street again, the preposterousness of such a coincidence settling upon her. “I swear, he was here …” Was her mind playing tricks on her? “Am I going crazy?”
“I don’t know what’s going on.”
Martha put the car in gear, and they drove the short distance to the Vanderbilt parking deck. The rest of the way, Ava kept her eyes on the streets, still searching for Lucas.
“If the doctor is the same person as the boy I knew growing up, it might make sense that he’s in Nashville,” Ava said, trying to get a rational handle on what had just occurred.
She climbed out of the car in the parking deck, wincing at the pain.
“Dr. Watkins mentioned that Lucas has a fiancée. If he’s getting married, he might be here for the wedding if he still has some family in Tennessee. ”
Her mother hit the elevator button to take them up to the street. She didn’t say anything .
“I wonder if they moved here. Maybe they transferred to be closer to his family.” Ava didn’t know of any extended family he might have had in Tennessee, and his immediate family could still be in Charlotte, but him moving back home was a feasible idea, right?
They got into the elevator.
If she did have some sort of time limit on her life without Lucas, this was a major break. She had no idea what she’d do when she found him, but that wasn’t her problem. She’d been told only to find him. And she couldn’t help but feel incredibly hopeful after today.
“This seems like an unnatural obsession, Ava,” her mother said. “And it’s not like you. You’re usually so level-headed.”
The doors opened and they walked out onto the street. Her mom opened the door to the therapy building.
“It isn’t an obsession, Mom. He was in my hospital room in New York. I know how strange it all sounds, but that much is real.”
When they got inside, Ava checked in, and they took a seat in the waiting room. Martha never acknowledged her response. As she sat with her mother’s silence, Ava questioned herself and wondered again if she might have actually lost her mind.