Page 20 of Just My Luck

“Nah. Raoul was looking for him, too. Looked real mad.”

Her stomach tightened. She had to go check on her brother. Usually she managed to slip away from the desk every half hour or so and swing by whatever hale she’d put him in. Today, she’d barely had a second to breathe.

Glancing over at the receptionist desk, she saw that it was just as busy as she’d been.

“Do me a favor, would you, Joe?” She gave him her sunniest smile. “I just need a quick bathroom break. Could you stand here and tell the guests that I’ll be right back?” She didn’t give him a chance to say no. “Thanks-you’re-the-best-bye! BRB!”

She flew across the foyer toward the front entrance—not the quickest way to a bathroom, but she didn’t have time for such details. Dodging past guests and servers circulating with free welcome mai tais, she made a beeline for hale eighteen.

The first thing she spotted was a leaf blower abandoned next to the hibiscus shrub by the front door. Jim must have gone inside, once again risking his job. The door was slightly ajar. She pushed it open and raced through the messy house, finding no sign of her little brother.

A low groan coming through the open sliding doors sent her racing through them. On the back lawn, she stopped in her tracks. What a mess—had a tree branch fallen? All she saw was a chaotic jumble of leaves and broken branches, and then a hand clawing out from under the mishmash.

“Jim?” she called. “Eddie?” No answer at first. She raced to the cracked branch and dropped to her knees.

“Zara!” From somewhere under that pile, Eddie was calling to her.

“Eddie! Are you okay?”

“The tree broke.”

“I see that. Are you hurt? Hang on, let me get this off you.” She got to her feet and gripped the branch with both hands. Pulling it off her brother was no easy feat. It was thick and heavy, and the part where it had broken off had huge jagged splinters of wood jutting out.

When she finally managed to heave it a few feet away, there was Eddie—but not just Eddie. He was clutched in the arms of Jim the gardener, who lay flat on his back, groaning as he tried to catch his breath.

She gently lifted Eddie off Jim’s chest. Eddie gripped his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist, hanging on like a monkey.

Since her brother seemed to generally be okay—at least alive and speaking, unlike Jim—she turned her focus to the gardener. “Jim, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

He turned his head from side to side, his eyes tightly closed, as if he was having a nightmare. “Crash. We’re going to crash. Refuse to die.”

“You’re not dead. Jim! Can you hear me?” She touched his shoulder, shook him gently. He didn’t wake up. Shit, was he injured? He’d obviously tried to catch Eddie as he fell, had maybe even saved her brother from crashing onto the ground. But at what cost to himself?

“Get down from there,” he mumbled.

“He’s already down,” she told him. “The branch broke, but Eddie is okay. Are you hurt?”

Jim turned his head from side to side and said, urgently, “We’re going to crash. We’re going down.”

“It’s over, Jim. You’re fine. You’re on solid ground and so is Eddie. Everything’s okay.”

Finally, Jim’s eyes opened, a slit of moody green against his sun-bronzed skin. His gaze found her, then dipped to Eddie. “Is he okay?”

“Seems so. A little clingy.” She peeled Eddie’s arms from around her neck and pulled back so she could look at him more closely. “Eddie, you’re safe now. You had quite the adventure, huh? Does anything hurt?”

“My leg.”

She peered down at his right leg and saw a rip in his favorite shorts, the ones with more pockets and zippers than a military uniform. Blood stained the khaki fabric.

“He got stuck on a branch stub,” Jim said with a wheeze. “You might want to get him checked out.”

She groaned at the thought of sitting in an emergency room on such a busy day. “Let me take a look first.”

She set Eddie down on the grass and gently lifted the flap of fabric. The branch had dug a shallow gash in his flesh, and bits of bark clung to the blood.

“Owww,” Eddie howled.

“We just need to clean this, that’s all. I’ll bandage you up and you’ll be fine.” At Jim’s skeptical glance, she added, “I have part of a paramedic certification.”