Ivy had correctly pegged them as family judging by the way Darek lit into them. In fact, the entire county might be able to hear him.
“Where is he?”
“Calm down, Darek. It’s just a few stitches,” the older blonde woman said, but her voice shook.
“Stitches? Sheesh, Mom, what happened?”
“I put him to sleep in Owen’s old bed, but he climbed up on the top bunk. I didn’t even know until I heard him scream.”
Darek made a face, something of pain. “You have blood all over you.”
At that, Ivy gave the woman a closer look. Blood smeared the collar of her shirt.
“Head wounds bleed a lot—”
“Head wound! Does he have a concussion?”
“I don’t know.”
Darek pushed the rest of the way through the crowd and pulled aside the curtain.
Ivy saw a man—probably Darek’s father for the resemblance to him, with his scowl, blue eyes, wide shoulders under a canvas jacket—holding the hand of a little boy.
A cute little boy. With curly blond hair that hung in spirals around his head and brown eyes. He wore Spider-Man pajamas, his feet bare. And blood saturated his shirt, coated his face. A nurse pressed gauze to a wound over his eye while the child fought back tears.
How well she could remember sitting in a hospital, fighting back tears.
Then Ivy’s breath stilled in her chest as the nasty man she’d spent the last hour with transformed before her eyes.
Darek moved around the gurney. “Hey there, Tiger.” He forced a smile despite the trauma in his eyes.
“Daddy!” The boy started to whimper and pulled away from the nurse to throw his arms around Darek’s neck, burying his face in his shoulder.
Darek held him tight, rocking him.
“Tiger looks just like Darek at this age,” Darek’s mother murmured. “I can’t believe I didn’t check on him.”
“It’s okay, Mom. These things happen. He not only looks like Darek, but he has his father’s wild streak.” The younger daughter slipped her arm around her mother’s shoulder.
“Thanks, Amelia. I just wish he was a bit easier to corral.” She turned to the other girl. “Grace, is your shift over?”
“No,” the blonde pizza girl said. “But when you called about Tiger, trying to find Darek, I got off. One of the other girls filled in for me. I’ll make up the hours later this week.”
“Poor Darek. Did you hear that he went for five hundred dollars tonight at the bachelor auction? Some out-of-towner bought him,” Amelia said. “Clearly she didn’t know what she was buying.”
“Oh, be nice, Amelia. Darek is a fine catch for any woman.”
“Mom, seriously. Darek is about as dark and wounded as they come. He’s never getting married again. He wouldn’t have gotten married the first time if—”
“So we’re having the party here?”
They turned at the voice, and the sliding doors closed behind a man with dark, tousled hair, sporting a leather jacket, jeans, hiking boots. He strode past Ivy, toward the family.
“Casper!” Amelia went into his arms.
He wrapped her up, kissed her on the forehead. “Hey, Sis.”
“How’d you know?” his mother said.
“I texted him,” Grace said, kissing his cheek. “And yes, I scored you some leftover pizza, although, by the way, you shouldn’t be checking your phone while on your bike.”
“I made a pit stop at the Cutaway Creek overlook to call home. Caught your message then.” He hugged his mother.
“How long do you have?”
“I leave in a couple weeks. We’re diving a wreck off of Key West.”
“Bring me a treasure,” Amelia said. She had tucked her arm into his.
“How is Tiger?” Casper asked, glancing into the room. “Dare looks like he might keel over. What happened?”
“He climbed up on your old bunk and fell off.”
“Where was Darek? Why were you watching him?”
“Darek had a date,” Grace said. She had pretty blue eyes and now they shone.
Ivy had already begun to back away, held there only by her crazy, train-wreck curiosity. Why had Darek gotten married—and where was this poor child’s mother?
“You’re kidding me.”
“He filled in for Owen at the bachelor auction. He and Eden couldn’t make it, so . . . ,” his mother said.
“Darek filled in?” Casper gave a sound of disbelief. “Oh, who is the poor girl?”
Ivy sort of liked Casper—his dark curly hair, the sense of adventure in his aura. With his talk of diving and Key West, he sounded like a modern-day pirate. Why couldn’t she have bid on him?