Must Love Otters (23 page)

The progress is slow, so slow, but he stays conscious enough to drag his feet to the boat’s side. I hang onto the side railing with the tightest fist I can make, pulling the boat toward me so Ryan can sit his ass on the side and swing his legs around.

“One leg over … good, good … now the other.” I hop on and shove the small plastic table and fold-up chairs out of way to give him space. He collapses on the back deck, and I know that this is the end of the line. He’s not going any farther.

“Ryan,
Ryan
!” His eyes open. “I’m going to get us help. Please, promise me you’re not going to fall asleep.
Don’t fall asleep
.”

The blood from his arm is now puddling underneath, gathering in a taunting red pool atop the textured white fiberglass.

I have to untie the boat.

I throw the line off and slam through into the main cabin. Crank the engine over.

“Fuck … I don’t know where I am.”

Pick up the radio. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?” It crackles. Nothing but static. “Hello! Hello! Help us! This is Ryan and Hollie—we need help!”

More crackles. I click on the GPS screen, hoping it can tell me where to go from here, how to get us back to Revelation Cove to people who can save Ryan.

It’s not fair that he leaves me so soon.

“Revelation Cove here. Who is this?” the radio sputters. A female voice.

“Oh, thank GOD. It’s Hollie Porter. I’m out on the boat with Ryan Fielding. We need help. A cougar—Ryan was attacked by a cougar. I—he’s bleeding. So much. We need help!”

“Hollie, this is Betty. Listen to me. Where are you?”

“At Tanner’s cabin. We stopped to water the plants …” The tears sting my eyes, clench at my throat.

“Hollie, Tanner’s cabin is not far. Are you listening to me? The GPS will have the coordinates in it to get you home.” She walks me through turning the device on, but when I hit the satellite button, the screen says
low signal
.

“Move the boat out into open water. Can you do that?”

“Yeah … yes, I can.” I can drive a boat. I’ve driven with my dad a few times on rented boats and Ryan showed me the other night. I can do this. Engine’s on. Anchor’s up. Line’s free. Throttle forward.

The boat lurches, water spewing behind us as I slam it into drive.

A quick glance over my head reveals that Ryan hasn’t moved, but the once-white floor is tainted by the one thing that will keep Ryan’s heart beating.

I move into wider water, out of the cabin’s quaint alcove. “Try again with the GPS, Hollie.”

I do. The screen lights up!

“It’s working!”

“Okay, hit the little blue button on the side. It’s the go-to button. Revelation Cove is preprogrammed into it. The GPS will tell you where to go.”

But this isn’t like GPS in a car—there are no street signs here!

“How will I know if I’m going the right way?” I yelp.

“Use the compass and listen to the GPS. Go north. We’re north and west of your current location. You can be here in twenty minutes if you push it.”

“He’s in bad shape, Betty. We have to get him to a hospital—” I leave off the part about so much blood.

“I’m on the line with the air ambulance. The Coast Guard will be here when you arrive.” Her voice breaks at the end. When she comes back on, she’s not as strong as a second ago. “Please hurry, Hollie. Please …”

Hearing the fear in her voice, I open the throttle on the boat and chant to the higher beings I’ve never paid much attention to, begging and pleading that they let him live, that if they don’t take this wonderful, warm, loving man away from us, I will follow through on all the lame promises I’ve ever made and I will never ask for another thing as long as I live.

Please. I will be good.

Save him.

I need to work on my landings.

No one says a word when I slide the boat sideways into Revelation Cove’s outer dock. The damage is minimal, and I didn’t hit Miss Lily or the other plane parked down the way, but still.

The Coast Guard is indeed there—two vessels with a helicopter hovering overhead, waiting for us so they can scoop Ryan’s limp, unconscious form off the boat’s deck, now slippery with his blood.

So much blood.

I don’t have time to say goodbye or even kiss his forehead before he’s on a stretcher, medics surrounding him like lions on a bloodied, weak prey, starting IVs and cutting away the makeshift denim bandaging on his upper arm, strapping oxygen around his face, injecting, listening, palpating, checking pupils.

Huge tears spill down Miss Betty’s face as she watches the medics do their work, her arms wrapped tight around Tabby and a few other staff members, all of them sobbing, their faces drawn with shock and sadness. Miss Betty is the heart of this operation, the mother duck, and her ducklings are surrounding her, wrapping her in loyalty and strength.

When I am escorted off the boat, it only takes a moment for the catastrophe of this day to overwhelm me. In true form, I vomit into the water, spitting nothing but the remnants of terror and adrenaline into its clear depths. Another medic kneels beside me and takes one look at my left wrist and hand.

I hadn’t noticed how much of my own blood was dripping all over the world.

And then the lightheaded spinnies return. It’s loud, so loud, the noise in my head underscored by the hovering helicopter moving overhead, lowering a line to pick up Ryan and take him somewhere they can save him.

Please save him.

I suddenly want to go with him. “I have to go with him!” I holler. No one hears me.

I try to stand, but my ankle has had enough, and I stumble forward, screaming when the cougar’s handiwork on my left wrist reasserts itself.

“Chris, over here!” another medic shouts. He lays me back on the dock and examines my arm. Above me, down at the end of the dock, Ryan’s body is hoisted skyward in the air ambulance’s rescue basket, up, up, up, and away.

Before they can splash warm saline onto my arm, I’m crying so hard, I can’t catch my breath. An oxygen mask is shoved onto my face, and it helps, not because I’m so injured but because I am freaking the fuck out and hyperventilating and yes my ankle hurts and shit my wrist stings from that mean mean cat but
God please don’t let Ryan die
.

Miss Betty kneels next to me and places a cool hand on my cheek. Calm flows from her, into my face, and I feel … settled. Not alone.

I pull the mask off, chest heaving from sobs. “I’m so sorry … I tried … the cougar came out of nowhere.”

“You were perfect. You did everything right, Hollie. Thank you so much for saving my little boy.” She pulls me into her chest, into a hug so tight, I don’t ever want to let go. So I don’t. We cry and cry, and the medics wrap up my wrist that will likely need stitches. We don’t stop hugging until the medics put me on a stretcher and carry me into the resort to administer the care they can provide on site.

But because I’m medically stable, I refuse to leave. I can’t leave here yet. I have to wait with Miss Betty, to hear what happens with Ryan.

Her little boy.

I should’ve known.

Miss Betty is Ryan’s mom.

I argue with the Coast Guard guys because I refuse to leave until Ryan’s brother arrives at the Cove. He can fly me home tomorrow. I’ll need to call my dad and have him come get me in Seattle. There’s no way I can take the train home with whatever’s going on with the ankle.

And then I start crying again. I really, really want my daddy right now.

It’s a long night. Once the resort is quiet and the guests have gone back inside and the staff members have taken care of everything so Miss Betty and I can sit by the phone, I realize how very, very tired I am.

I sleep sitting up, leg elevated and ankle packed in ice, in a plush wingback chair in Miss Betty’s suite, jumping every time the phone rings as news spreads about the attack. About three o’clock in the morning, Tanner arrives with his wife Sarah. Tired hellos are exchanged as we wait for the hospital to call.

“Tanner, this is Hollie. She saved our Ryan.”

Foregoing the customary how-do-you-do handshake, Tanner hugs me, just as tight as his mother did, and kisses my cheek, kneeling beside my chair, thanking me profusely but then asking a million questions about exactly what happened. Says something about needing to know every detail about the cougar—conservation officers will need to hunt her down. If she’s out during the day and attacks a human, she’s probably sick.

Which could be very dangerous for Ryan. Infection and all that.

Considering the circumstances, Miss Betty is holding herself together remarkably well, even when the Department of Fish and Wildlife officers show up. Even when the hospital calls and says Ryan is in surgery to reattach the tendons and muscles ripped apart by the cougar’s claws. He’s lost a lot of blood. Required transfusions.

Otherwise, he should be fine.

“He should be fine,” she says, over and over again, tears aplenty all around.

As the sun rises over Revelation Cove, the sky hums with news helicopters looking for space to land on the golf course so they can get the scoop.

Tanner agrees to fly out imminently—to Vancouver first where he will drop his mother and wife off to go be with Ryan, and then down to Seattle’s Lake Union. He tries to offer to take me to Portland, but I won’t hear of it. He needs to be with his brother.

I
need to be with his brother.

Alas, my vacation is over. In the wilds of British Columbia, I lost some blood, I lost some fear, and I found my heart.

And now he’s in a hospital room in another country hundreds of miles away.

My dad is waiting for me at the Kenmore terminal on Lake Union. His eyes about drop out of his skull when he sees Tanner carrying my bruised, bandaged body down the dock and into the terminal. The men exchange quick hellos, and my dad controls himself, adopting his stoic
I’m a medical professional I got this
face. As Tanner hands me over, Dad thanks and wishes him the best of luck for his brother’s speedy recovery.

I’m surprised Dad knows this part already—on the phone, I told him that I’d been in an accident involving wildlife and that I needed him to come to Seattle to get me. I didn’t tell him about Ryan or the cougar or how injured I am, or that we need to go directly to an emergency room when we get home. I knew I’d have a three-hour car ride to spill all that. The details had to be kept to a minimum so I wouldn’t bawl into the phone like a scared four-year-old.

Because that’s exactly how I’ve felt since that cougar growled over my shoulder.

And like the loving, truehearted soldier of parenting he is, Dad jumped in the car to come get me. No questions asked.

Seems he didn’t have to go far to get those questions answered, though. On the front seat of his Prius, a newspaper headline shouts, “Former NHLer Nearly Killed in Cougar Attack.”

Dad slides me into the front seat, his movements gentle as he buckles my seat belt. I’m already whimpering.

He crouches on the wet pavement alongside my open door. “So … you were the guest who saved him …”

I nod. Dad wipes my tears away. That only makes me cry harder. I can’t speak, so I lift my left arm and cringe as I pull back the sleeve of the Revelation Cove hoodie. “I need stitches. And I think my ankle might be broken.”

“Let’s get you home, then. The crew at the hospital will be thrilled to treat my little Hollie, Daddy’s little superhero.”

As I pull my otters from my hastily packed bag, I don’t feel very much like a superhero.

Seventeen stitches. Antibiotics. Tetanus booster that hurt worse than the stitches. Oblique fracture of the distal fibula.

The doctor didn’t believe me when I said I’d walked on it. Ran, even. He just shook his head and told my dad maybe the cougar hit me in the head.

And then he used that word again, nodding to the newspaper my dad won’t stop carrying around, shoving into everyone’s face who will listen, that I’m the girl who saved the NHL star. I’m the “hero.”

Not a hero. Just Hollie.

And I’m dying to know how Ryan’s doing. My dad tried to call Vancouver General, but the press is all over it, so the hospital isn’t releasing any details. I could call Revelation Cove, but Miss Betty won’t be there. She and Tanner will be at the hospital. With Ryan.

Which is where I should be.

I’m reading the newspaper article and a detail jumps out at me that I hadn’t noticed earlier. “‘Former NHL defenseman and enforcer Ryan Fielding, while in the British Columbian wilderness south of his resort at Revelation Cove, was mauled by a wayward cougar …’”

His
resort?

I scan farther. “‘Fielding played for six seasons in the NHL, retiring from the Canucks after a career-ending knee injury. In a business move some called risky, Fielding and his older pilot brother Tanner Fielding helm the now five-year-old Revelation Cove, one of British Columbia’s finest resort destinations. Fielding has proven himself a savvy entrepreneur and the resort regularly earns high marks on travel editors’ top-choice lists …’”

He owns it.

He’s not the concierge. He’s the damn
owner
.

Why didn’t he tell me?

A spark of hurt flames in my chest—this is not something to keep secret, not when you’re showing each other the most private parts of your body and soul.

Why wouldn’t he tell me that he was the owner and not just the guy behind the desk who arranged whale-watching and fishing excursions?

More importantly, would it have mattered?

Maybe. Look how I behaved with Roger Dodger. Why was I so willing to give up the prize to that skeezball? Because he was rich? Powerful? Successful?

I should be ashamed of myself.

As the cast tech wraps my ankle, the teasing starts. “How’d you ever manage to deal with all that blood, Hols?” Dad says.

“I just did, Dad.” I just … did.

“I told you you’d get over it. Maybe you can rethink nursing school now.”

“Dad, I’m not going to nursing school. Or medical school. Not now, not ever.”

“I’m just sayin’ …”

“Can we not talk about this right now?”

He pats my hand. “I’m going to go downstairs and get these prescriptions filled,” he says, kissing the side of my dirty hair. “Hey, Mark, make that a waterproof cast. This girl needs a bath.”

I slap at him as he walks away. Always the kidder.

The crutches are harder to navigate with the stitched left arm, so one of Dad’s orderly buddies gives me the limousine treatment and wheels me out to the car. The argument about where I’d be staying was easily resolved when I started crying again—Dad insists that I come out to his house but I told him I just want to be in my own bed, that I don’t have the strength to fight off Mangala or see Dr. Aurora if she shows up or hear about how wonderful Moonstar is and I don’t want any goddamned cupcakes. He relents but only on the condition that I let him come stay with me for a few days. He offers to call Keith, and I think the abruptness of my answer cements in his head that indeed, Keith is a thing of my past.

Because he so is.

And the fact that I haven’t thought about him for the past few days, not in any meaningful capacity, reaffirms to me that, despite my earlier self-doubt, I absolutely made the right decision.

As we’re driving home, I notice for the first time the billboard rallying support for the Portland Winterhawks hockey team. “Winterhawks are in the playoffs?” I say.

Dad smiles at me. “Since when do you follow hockey?”

“Since now.”

“Mm-hmm.”

A guy walking across the crosswalk is wearing the Detroit Red Wings jersey—and he has a beard. I laugh to myself.
Someone didn’t get the memo. Red Wings are eliminated. Time to shave, buddy
.

Heading along Burnside, a half-smile accompanies a snort as a Monday Merchant comes into view. I start to tell my dad how I met the guy who owns the Merchant empire, but then I think better of it. Too many questions, not enough energy to answer them all. And what an embarrassing misstep on my part.

Guess I’ll be spending more of my time at Trader Joe’s. Take
that,
Roger Dodger.

When we turn into the apartment complex, I’m flooded with relief that Keith’s truck isn’t in the lot. I don’t have the energy to talk to him about why we should maybe get back together. I’m so glad my dad didn’t call him. Another check in the Win Column for Daddy-O.

Mrs. Hubert is waiting at her kitchen window, as per usual. The springs on the back door whine as she opens to shuffle out onto the concrete stoop. “Hollie, what have you gone and done to yourself?” she says.

My dad runs interference. “Hollie’s a hero, Mrs. Hubert. She saved a famous hockey player from a cougar attack.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Well, you don’t have to. She did it, though. She fought a cougar, and won.”

“A cougar? As in a cat? She can’t even handle those damn rat dogs. How could she handle a cougar?”

“Goodbye, Mrs. Hubert.”

“You let me know when she’s back moving around. I need groceries!”

I tuck my head into my dad’s shoulder as he carries me up the stairs. He grunts with every step—he’s not as big or strong as Ryan, or even Tanner. I should’ve walked up.

But I don’t want to. I want to be taken care of right now. My physical injuries are painful, yes, but it’s my heart that’s hemorrhaging.

How did that happen so fast?

Dad settles me on the couch and opens all the windows to air the place out. It’s muggy, and the fresh air wafting through the kitchen and bedroom feels nice. A large shadow dusts the main wall in the living room from Keith’s now-removed TV. Without even asking, Dad hefts my trusty Magnavox in from the bedroom and sets it on the vacant cabinet.

“You thirsty? Hungry?”

“I’m sleepy.”

He brings water and the pills—antibiotics and a pain reliever. “I’m going out to get you some groceries. Any special requests?”

“Chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate,” I say. He ruffles my hair. “Oh, and go down to the other stairs so Mrs. Hubert doesn’t see you walk by. She’ll make you buy her food too.”

“Hollie, you have to stop helping that woman. She has children, you know.”

“Dad … later …”

He kisses my forehead again. “When I get back, if you’re up for it, we can wash your hair.”

When the door clicks closed, I’m already drifting off, away from the throb in my ankle, away from Mrs. Hubert’s whining or my dirty hair or my empty apartment, sinking into the thoughts about if Ryan made it through surgery and if he’s thinking of me as much as I’m thinking about him.