They gave their names in the ER, staff put bands on their wrists, and brought them back to a waiting room.
“Darin.” A man came in. He was assuming it was a doctor.
“Hudson. How is she?”
“She’s done in radiology now. I want to see if she broke any ribs, as she’s having some pain in her chest. Otherwise, she’s more banged up than anything. No concussion, but she’ll have some shiners from the air bag hitting her in the face.”
His shoulders sagged hearing that.
“Thank God,” Cindy said. “Brennan Austin, this is Dr. Hudson Mills. A relative of ours. Hudson, this is Alana’s boyfriend, Brennan.”
“Nice to meet you,” Hudson said, shaking his hand. “She’ll be fine. Carson, my brother, will let me know once he’s read the imaging. Shouldn’t be much longer. I’ll check to see if she’s back yet and then you can go see her.”
“Thanks,” he said.
Brennan knew he should text his mother and let her know he was back on the island and what was going on.
Becca hadn’t even crossed his mind in the past hour since he’d found out.
That had never happened to him once. His daughter was always the first and last thing on his mind.
Twenty minutes later, a nurse came out and said the three of them could go back.
Alana already had bruising around her eyes, her face a bit swollen, but nothing else.
She pushed herself to sit up better and winced.
“Don’t move,” her mother said. “We were worried.”
“Me too,” she said. “I’m hoping I’m only sore and nothing is broken,” she said, then turned to Brennan. “Did you fly over with my parents?”
“I did,” he said. “They called me. I never found out how you knew I was there.”
He looked at Cindy. “We got the call first. I didn’t have your number and called Kelsey. She said that you were in Boston. Once I knew Sophia was on her way, Darin called you.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I would have gone nuts knowing this happened and I couldn’t get to her.”
“We figured as much,” Darin said. “Hey, I’m sorry.” He was looking at his daughter, rubbing her hand. “I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you.”
She was looking at Brennan, as if she didn’t know what she could or should say.
“We told Brennan about the texts,” Darin said.
Alana pursed her lips. Yeah. The fact that she was annoyed he knew didn’t make him feel any better.
“There wasn’t much to say,” she said.
“We’ll deal with it later,” he said. “I’m more worried about you.”
Hudson came in, breaking the tension in Alana’s eyes.
“Good news. No broken bones, just two bruised ribs,” Hudson said.
Alana breathed out but then grabbed her side and winced again.
He rushed over next to her. Not that there was anything he could do about it.
“That’s good. So I can go home?”
