Ava's Prize

“Make it a profitable one. I promise you won’t regret it.” Terri laughed and clicked off.

Kyle stood up, stuffed his phone into the pocket of his jeans and walked into his inspiration area. A curly-haired petite woman in four-inch red heels and a charcoal-gray business suit picked a ball out of the Skee-Ball queue. One underhand toss and the ball flipped up the ramp, landing in the forty-point circle. The points flashed in red lights across the digital screen on the top.

Kyle walked up to the second Skee-Ball lane, pressed the start button and switched his greeting for his older sister into a question. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

Specifically, his older sister should be at the job he’d secured for her last week at the Zenith Law Firm.

“Who’s Ava?” Iris threw her second ball, garnered another forty points and never glanced at him.

“Ava is Ben’s aunt.” Kyle faced his lane and aimed a ball at the white rings. “What about your job?”

“Things weren’t going to work out at Zenith.” She kicked off her heels and adjusted her stance as if her future was riding on the next toss. “Who is Ben?”

“Ben is Dan’s son.” Kyle landed a ball in the fifty-point ring. “What happened at Zenith?”

Thanks to a connection through his own legal team, he’d found his sister a position as a receptionist at the Zenith Law Firm. The position was perfect for Iris; between her pleasant voice and animated disposition, she’d been ideal to answer calls and greet clients in the reception area. The position paid well, offered benefits and had no mandatory overtime.

“Besides the requirement of having to be seated at my desk at precisely 8:00 a.m., there were other unrealistic expectations.” Her ball failed to make it into the scoring range. “Who is Dan?”

“They’re friends.” Kyle grabbed another ball and glanced at his older sister. “Tell me why you got fired.”

This was Iris’s sixteenth job in the past twelve months. That had to be some sort of employment record. His sister was quickly becoming a serial job-hopper.

“You don’t have friends.” She tossed her last ball from one hand to the other and looked at him. Nothing sparked in her blue eyes, as if she guarded herself from Kyle. “It was a mutual parting, by the way. I told Lacey Thornton you’d see her at the Harrington fund-raiser tonight.”

Kyle’s ball dropped out of his hand and onto the lane. His voice dropped, too. “Why would you say that?”

“Because Lacey helped get me the job at Zenith.” She pointed the ball at him. “You are friends with both Drew Harrington and Lacey, so you should be there at the fund-raiser to support your friend’s family.”

“I don’t have friends.” He threw her words back at her.

“You don’t have friends who come here to hang out, play arcade games and write their names on the chalkboard wall.” She turned to the lane, tossed her ball into the fifty-point ring and smiled. Her voice came out more like an accusation. “But you do have business friends.”

“Fortunately, I have those business connections.” Kyle ran his hands through his hair as if that would contain his frustration. He didn’t mind supporting his sister, especially since her disaster of a marriage and the extreme fallout after her divorce. But she needed something of her own. Certainly, she wanted that for herself, too. All she had to do was stay longer than a week at a job and she’d start to build something. “It’s been those business friends who’ve been willing to offer you employment. But I’m running low on those connections.”

“Then you can network tonight at the Harrington event.” She frowned at her final score and restarted the game. “If it makes you feel any better, I really intended to be at that job longer than a week.”

He’d intended the very same thing. Had even bought her an entire work wardrobe for this particular job, believing this would be the one she stuck with. Her suit jacket bagged around her shoulders—she still hadn’t regained the weight she’d lost after her divorce. Her frame had always been frail, but now she looked even more fragile. More vulnerable. He sighed and softened his voice. “Tell me what happened.”

She watched the balls roll into the queue. “When am I going to meet your new friends?”

Iris released information according to her own schedule. In her own way. She’d continue returning his question with one of her own for the rest of the morning. Determined to end the game, he said, “I met them at the calendar shoot for juvenile diabetes research several weekends ago. I offered to give Ben, who has juvenile diabetes, a tour of the place. He likes to invent things.”

She cradled the ball and turned to face him, but her gaze refused to meet his. “It was a mutual parting of the ways at Zenith. Wade and I agreed I wasn’t right for the job. I’ve already made plans to meet up with Wade and his entire team at Rustic Grille for appetizers and drinks next week.”

His sister had remained friends with every one of her prior employers. Every single one. She’d crossed the employee-employer boundary, proving they were better buddies than coworkers. He might’ve envied her ease at making friends if not for the fact that her friends wouldn’t pay her rent or her credit-card bills. “What now?”

“I have options.” Both her voice and small grin lacked confidence.

More like Kyle would have to find her another employment option. He rolled his last ball up the ramp. “Options that can pay your rent, bills and food.”

“Why is it always about money?” Irritation dipped into her normally sweet tone.

He’d just asked Terri of Tech Realized, Inc. the very same thing. He repeated Terri’s response. “Once you have enough money, you can do whatever you want. Whatever you’re passionate about.”

“Are you living your passion now that you have money?” Iris tossed her ball from one hand to the other as if debating whether or not to launch it at him. “Living alone in an arcade. Is this the life you always imagined?”

When had it become about him and his life? Or his passion. Whatever she meant by that. He could count on his hand the number of people he knew that were passionate about their work. Maybe he needed to extend his circle of acquaintances. They weren’t discussing his life right now, anyway. “Come with me tonight to the Harrington event. We’ll find someone with a job opening that you can be passionate about.”

“I have another commitment tonight.” She turned back to the game.

“For a potential job?”

“Maybe,” she hedged.

Kyle studied his sister. He wanted her to be happy. She deserved to finally be happy after a marriage that had left her isolated and scared to trust anyone, even her own family. His throat closed as if a Skee-Ball lodged there. “Iris...”

“I’ll change my plans around.” She eyed him. Her chin tipped up in challenge. “As long as you introduce me to your new friends.”

Simple. Easy. “Done.”

He had no idea when he’d see Dan, Ben or Ava again. That promise wouldn’t be difficult to keep. Smiling, he walked toward the back of the suite, grabbed his checkbook from a desk drawer and wrote out a check in his sister’s name. He knew by heart how much she’d need to cover her monthly expenses—he’d written the same check every month for the past year. Returning to the inspiration area, he handed her the check. “It’s enough to cover rent and food for the month.”

“I’ve got everything covered.” She focused on the lane, both her voice and grip on the ball intense.

“You’ve already lined up another job.” He couldn’t quite pull the surprised sarcasm from his voice.

She tossed the ball, pumped her fist as it rolled into the highest point ring. “Not yet. But I will.”

“Then you’re going to need this.” Kyle thrust the check at her. “Just take it.”

His sister launched her final ball. Landed another high point and jumped up in the air. “Where’s the chalk?”

“The what?” he asked.

She waved toward the chalkboard wall. “The chalk. I need to write my name over Ava’s.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“I’m the new high score.” She jumped again and pointed at him. “You can tell Ava I said, challenge accepted.”

Why couldn’t his sister be this competitive in the workforce? “You need to go home and iron your suit—the one you wore for your job interview at Zenith—and not worry about being the high score.”

“No ironing today.” She erased Ava’s name and wrote hers with her trademark flourish and flower to dot the second lowercase I in her name. “I have an appointment with Roland Daniels to de-stress and unwind.”

He needed to de-stress. How could his sister be so unpredictable and stubborn? She’d just lost her job. Again. “Stop at the bank and deposit this check on your way to the yoga studio.”

“I already agreed to go with you to the Harrington event. You don’t need to pay me like I’m your employee or something.”

Kyle cleared his throat to release the truth. The truth she never wanted to hear. “You can’t go back to Penny’s Place, Iris. Take the check.”

Iris crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him. “Why not? They understand me there.”

“It’s a shelter for abused and abandoned women.” He still cringed at the memories of seeing his sister in the doorway of Penny’s Place. Her bruised eye. The stitches circling her wrist and crisscrossing her forehead. A nauseous fury still stormed through him at the reminder. “You aren’t either of those things now.”

She yanked the check from his grip and stuffed it into her suit pocket. “Because of your handouts.”

“It’s not like that.” If she’d keep a job, she wouldn’t need his handouts. He smoothed the frustration from his voice. “I want to help. That’s all.”

He wanted his sister to have security and protection—everything she never had in her brief marriage.

Iris slipped her heels back on, once again looking the part of a corporate professional ready to conquer the business world, one promotion at a time. “Mom and Dad called to congratulate me on making it a full week. I tried to pretend, but it only disrupted my inner zen. Luckily, they were off to snorkel, and their lecture ended quickly.”

Neither Iris nor Kyle had told their parents the full details of her divorce. No one besides Kyle knew where Iris had ended up a week after she’d signed her divorce papers. No one besides Kyle knew about the darkness in her marriage. Kyle intended to help his sister now.

“Did Mom and Dad tell you when they wanted to move back?” Perhaps with his parents back home, they could work together to get Iris into a full-time job. Kyle was beginning to think he needed reinforcements.

Iris tipped her head and gaped at him. “You do realize they retired to the Florida Coast, right?”

“But their family is here.” Their home was here. At least once he built the family estate in Sonoma. Then their family could be together again. Close again like they’d been before Papa Quinn’s death. Like his grandfather had always expected them to be.

“Speaking of family, can your family members enter that contest of yours?” Iris pulled a folded piece of paper from her oversize purse. “Wade showed me the flyer this morning before I left.”

“No. You’re ineligible to win.” Besides, he’d already advanced her double that amount over the past year.

“I have a great idea that’s worth more than your contest prize.” Enthusiasm lifted her voice. “I only need paint brushes and...”

“Painting the ceiling in here to look like the sky isn’t a great idea.” Kyle crossed his arms over his chest. He’d given Iris free rein to design the bathrooms and hang her own artwork in the elevator. The arcade, he intended to leave alone. The family basement never had a ceiling painted to look like the sky. He didn’t need that now.

“With the right lighting in here, it’d look incredible.” Iris adjusted her purse on her shoulder and stared up at the ceiling. “You have no imagination.”

He used to have one that helped him create endless ideas. He wasn’t sure where his imagination had fled to or how to find it. “I don’t need an imagination to recognize when something is a waste of time and money.”

“Art is never a waste of time.” Her voice was confident, her tone defiant. “But I don’t expect you to understand.”

He understood his sister needed a job with a regular paycheck. “I’ll pick you up at seven tonight.”

“Any other orders?”

He couldn’t resist the urge to bait her. “Get a class calendar from the yoga studio. When you start working full-time again, you won’t be able to attend a late-morning yoga session with Roland.”

Iris glared at him and yanked open the door. She exited without a goodbye. He shouldn’t have baited her. Yet when she was riled, she lost her fragility and vulnerability. Whenever Iris was riled, he saw a glimpse of his older sister—the one with the backbone and spirit that had come to his defense more than once. The one he’d grown up wanting to be like. Was it wrong that he wanted the sister he once knew?

CHAPTER FIVE

AVA RUBBED HER eyes and looked out the passenger window of the ambulance, idling in their usual curbside spot on the street. Three hours ago, the clock had chimed for Cinderellas everywhere to return home before the magic disappeared. Now Dan and Ava were stuck in the middle, between midnight and sunrise, with four hours left on their work shift.

The darkest hour of the night might’ve already passed, but the city only ever went completely dark in a rare power outage. Tonight was no different with the stoplight lighting the intersection and the surrounding buildings lit in awkward checkerboard patterns.

Tourists knew the city for its landmarks: Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and Lombard Street with its eight hairpin turns. Ava marked the city by patients and victims, especially the ones that had left the deepest mark inside her. Six blocks ahead on the left was the cardiac plaza. Chest pains and shortness of breath were the main reasons for 9-1-1 calls from that particular office building. Four blocks to her right was her first hit-and-run intersection. Every time she passed the corner of Cliff Street and Gate Street, the anguish of a mother’s cries over her stillborn baby echoed through her.

Ava stared out the window, searching for a less morbid memory. Only gloom overtook her. That was her own fault for inviting her financial problems inside the ambulance. She should’ve stuck to the cute puppy and kitten videos she usually watched between emergency calls and not opened the help-wanted website on her phone.

But watching endless videos wasn’t going to pay the rent or cover the cost of her mom’s prescriptions. Neither was her paramedic’s salary. She had to supplement her income.

She scrolled through the job ads on her phone and groaned.

“Nothing promising?” Dan asked between bites of his cheeseburger.

“It’s a toss-up between airplane repo man, exotic personal assistant or nude housekeeper.” Ava dropped her phone on her lap.

Dan choked on his bite of french fry.

Ava handed Dan his bottle of water. “In all fairness, the nude part ends when the guy’s wife returns from her vacation. Then it’s just regular housekeeping.”

Dan wiped a napkin over his mouth and muted the laughter in his voice. “How much does the housekeeper get paid?”

“Not nearly enough.” The housekeeping would barely cover the expense of her mom’s daily medications. That left rent, electric and food.

“For the fast, easy payout, you should enter Kyle’s contest. You get to keep your clothes on, unless of course your invention involves being naked.” Dan crumpled the empty foil wrapper from his cheeseburger along with the tease from his tone. “Although that doesn’t seem like the kind of X-rated idea Kyle wants in his contest.”

“How do you know what Kyle wants?” She wanted to see Kyle again. But only in the can-I-play-Skee-Ball kind of way. Nothing more. She had no time for a man in her life.

Even if she did, Kyle wouldn’t make the cut. Anyone who could fund a random contest with fifty thousand dollars in less than a week, on a whim no less, played on a different field than she did. One that was no doubt carefree, worry-free and extra green from his money. Her field consisted of financial debt and possible job burnout—not exactly greener pastures or enticing.

“Ben and I checked out Kyle’s website.” Dan polished off the last of his french fries. “We’re trying to come up with a winning invention.”

That money, along with the potential bonus, would allow Ava to go to school and pay for her mom’s care. No naked housekeeping required. Temptation swirled through her. But she had to come up with an idea better than mood-changing hair dye. She’d need a serious, workable idea. One worth twenty-five grand. “Surely you guys have something on your list of wins from our You-Know-What-We-Need game.”

“Nothing worthy of fifty grand,” Dan said.

“Then it’s not such an easy, quick payout.” Like everything in life. Life was never that easy or simple. Ever.

“You just need one idea.” Dan held up his index finger. “One.”

“One really good idea that hasn’t been thought of already.” Ava stretched her legs out and flexed her toes inside her boots, rolled her ankles. Nothing smoothed out the sudden restlessness inside her. “An invention that can also be made into a prototype.”

Dan scrunched up his napkin and threw it at her. “You looked into the contest, too. What is your idea?”

“I talked to Kyle about the contest when we were there.” She’d considered the contest in a the-sky-is-always-pink-in-that-world kind of way. Putting her energy into a fantasy made her selfish like her father. She had to do what was right for her family, not only herself. Believing she could win a contest was a risk she couldn’t afford. She tapped on her phone screen to search for more job ads. “My only idea is to find a legal, non-nude, part-time job that pays well.”

Dan tapped the steering wheel. “You have better odds with the contest or the lottery.”

She refused to believe that. She had to be thoughtful and methodical in her job search. Entering a contest and wishing on stars wasn’t practical. “I just have to search the right job-ad website.”

Dispatch interrupted the conversation. Codes. Location. And more details rattled over the speaker, focusing Ava.

Who was she kidding? She wasn’t an inventor or a forward thinker. She was a paramedic who’d served her country and now took care of her mother. She tended to the wounded and sick—that was what she knew how to do. What she excelled at. Ava buckled her seat belt and left her ridiculous thoughts about inventions outside, in the gutter.

“Time to roll.” Dan buckled his seat belt. “Told you that you should’ve eaten while we had the chance.”

Stress had stolen her appetite. With each block closer to the victim’s location, she crammed the stress deep inside her, where it wouldn’t distract her. She couldn’t rescue her struggling finances, but she could help save another life.

* * *

FORTY-EIGHT HOURS after her late-night job search in the ambulance, the reality of Ava’s life crashed over her. Game night at Kyle’s place seemed like a distant memory—an imagined one.

Her reality was a domestic fight and a victim with multiple stab wounds. An overdose. One early-morning heart attack. A stroke. Not everyone arrived at the hospital alive. Those were only the life-threatening calls during the night.

Five hours into their shift, Ava had checked the full-moon calendar, looking for something to explain the hectic pace. The full moon was still more than eight days away. Her shift had been another routine night on the job. A routine night that had left her hollowed out and exhausted.

Ava walked into her apartment, her legs wooden, her steps slow. Surely a few hours of sleep would right her world enough to take on the day.

But her home life collided with her professional life, adding a bleakness everywhere she looked.

Joann, a registered nurse and her mother’s caregiver, sat at the kitchen table, her fingers wrapped around a wide mug. Worry and exhaustion faded into the older woman’s wide brown eyes and thinned her mouth.

The long-time nurse—and second mother to Ava—didn’t need to speak for Ava to know her mom had relapsed during the night.

Ava worked her voice around the catch in her throat. “How is she?”

Joann sipped her tea as if requiring the warm liquid to loosen her own words. “We made it through the night.”

They’d never called Ava. Not that she would’ve been able to answer, given their call load. She thanked the powers that be for Joann. She’d be lost without the remarkable woman caring for her mother.

Joann pointed to a dry-erase board on the side of the refrigerator. “Doses and times are on the board. You’ll want to repeat.”

Ava scanned the med list and her heart rolled into her stomach. This wasn’t a mild relapse. Nothing that would resolve in the next few hours. “You need to get some rest.”

“I’m thinking the very same thing about you.” Joann tipped her mug toward Ava; a familiar motherly scold laced her tone. “Child, you look like you’re about to drop out to that tile floor. If you dare to do it, I’m leaving you right where you fall.”

“Can you at least cover me up?” Ava asked, a small smile in her voice.

“Fine, but I’m not getting you a pillow.” Joann rinsed her mug in the sink and set it in the dishwasher. “Go to bed before you really do face-plant on this floor.”

Ava hugged Joann and watched the nurse leave. Exhaustion made her feet drag down the hall. She already knew sleep would be difficult to hold on to with the worry for her mom weaving relentlessly through her. She showered and changed, and then headed out of her bedroom. Her gaze drifted over the contest flyer she’d tossed on her dresser last week.

She tiptoed into her mom’s room and curled into the recliner beside her mother’s bed. Concern pulsed through her, making her entire body ache.

Her mental health needed a career change and soon. She’d never really paid attention to statistics, never considered herself a number on a survey. Until recently. Statistics listed a paramedic’s burnout rate at five years. If Ava listened hard enough, she could hear that clock ticking. She hadn’t shared with Dan or her mom that her past and present intersected during any quiet moment. In those moments, memories stole her sleep and haunted her with fear-induced adrenaline rushes.

The more she worked, the more her empathy dwindled away. Last night’s first call had been to a car accident involving a seventeen-year-old who’d been texting. The teen had cried his life was too hard with balancing school and girlfriends and expectations. He’d swerved into oncoming traffic, too absorbed by the videos on his phone to watch the road. Ava had wanted to lecture the teen that hard was having both legs blown off from an IED and living to talk about it. Hard was leaving your pregnant wife at home while you served for a year overseas and not knowing if you’d return at all. Hard was burying your child. Too soon. Too early. Because of irresponsible drivers like him. Anger warred with her compassion. But teens should be having fun and being carefree, shouldn’t they? They weren’t adults yet. And didn’t everyone deserve a second chance?

She wanted to believe she could attend physician assistant’s school, shift into an office environment with normal hours and less stress. Then she’d rediscover her empathy and passion for helping people. But attending graduate school would sacrifice her mom’s care. She’d never risk losing Joann. If only there were more hours in the day. Then she could have everything.

Kyle’s contest was another option. A chance—however small—to change her future if she won. Maybe all she needed was to just take the risk and enter the contest. Maybe believing she had a chance to win would be enough to quiet the past and give her hope. Hope that would surely bring back her compassion.

Her brain was too exhausted to think logically. She wasn’t actually considering entering Kyle’s contest, was she?