Hunt was at the gas station, standing by the pump and waiting for his tank to fill, when he heard ambulance sirens again. Wherever they’d gone, they hadn’t gone far because they were already returning. He thought about Ava and all of the other medical personnel and how important they were to this little town. A part of him felt guilty that she was leaving because of him, but she’d chosen love over location and that was never a bad thing. The hospital could always hire more medical personnel, but there was only one Ava Ridley and she was his.

A man pulled up to the other side of the pumps and got out, nodded to Hunt, and then swiped his credit card and started pumping gas, while the woman with him went inside.

“You’re Hunt Knox, ain’t ya?” the man said.

Hunt nodded. “Do I know you?”

The man grinned. “Probably not. My name is Moss Payne. I used to play dominoes with your daddy at the Blue Ivy Bar. You have his dark hair, but you got your mama’s blue eyes. She was a good woman. My sympathies for your loss.”

“Thanks,” Hunt said, remembering his daddy’s days of coming and going at the Blue Ivy had ended as he got older. Likely because the kids kept coming, making it harder than before to stretch a dollar.

Then the pump kicked off. Hunt replaced the nozzle in the pump and was screwing the gas cap on when Moss’s woman came hurrying out of the store, waving her phone.

“Moss! Moss! Willa Jewel, who works in the cafeteria at the hospital, said there’s a big fight in the ER. The families of the people who were in the wreck out north of town got into a brawl. She said blood’s flying everywhere.”

Hunt’s gut knotted. Ava! “Where are the police?”

The woman shrugged. “Maybe at the crash site. Sometimes it takes a while for the Georgia Highway Patrol to find places like this, and they help out.”

Hunt jumped in the truck and headed back up Main, driving as fast as he dared. He didn’t know if a hospital the size of Blessings had security officers or if the police were already on the scene, but he had to make sure Ava was okay.

It took him less than two minutes to get from the far end of Main to the ER parking lot, but when he drove up on a number of vehicles parked in all directions and didn’t see any police cars on the scene, it made him uneasy.

Hunt jumped out on the run, and as he entered the lobby he could tell by the shouts and screams coming from the ER that the fight was still ongoing.

The receptionist at the front desk was wide-eyed and in a panic.

“Where are the police?” Hunt asked.