Grant had no doubt that if he hadn't gotten there when he did that Everett wouldn't have stopped until Ashlyn was dead.
“She’s not dead, Lindsay,” he assured his daughter as he gently moved Ashlyn’s body into the recovery position, since she was still unconscious.
“I'm sorry, Daddy. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Lindsay babbled as her arms wrapped around his neck, clinging to him in a way she hadn't since she was a little girl and needed him to banish the monsters in her life.
Today, the monster in her life had almost stolen something precious from him, and he knew that he was no longer prepared to tolerate Lindsay’s rage toward the woman he was in love with.
“Therapy, Lindsay. You on your own, you and I together, the three of us, and the four of us,” he added with a glance at Ashlyn’s too still form. “I love her and I'm not cutting her out of my life. Not for anything. I don’t want to lose you, you're always going to be my baby girl, but I love Ashlyn as well, and I'm not letting her go. You have to find a way to deal with it and accept it.”
Expecting to meet resistance like he had for the last seven months, this time Lindsay just nodded. And when she looked down at the woman bleeding on the floor, there was a softness in her gaze that hadn't been there before.
“She tried to save me,” Lindsay whispered through her tears. “Even though I've always been mean to her, she still tried to save me. Why did she do that?”
“Because Ashlyn is a good person, Linds. She loves me, and you're a part of me, which means that love extends to you as well. I told her to wait outside, but she said there was no way she was going to do that while you were in danger.”
“She’s going to hate me if she doesn’t already. She almost died because of me.” Lindsay actually sounded upset about the possibility of Ashlyn hating her.
“No,” he told his daughter confidently. “Ashlyn doesn’t have it in her to hate you.”
But did Ashlyn have it in her to forgive Lindsay?
For seven months, all he’d worried about was his daughter not being able to accept his girlfriend. Now he was worried that his girlfriend might not be able to accept his daughter after this.
Chapter
Twenty-One
December 14th
10:02 A.M.
Everything hurt.
From her feet all the way up to her head, her body was just one great big throbbing mess.
Ashlyn knew she was lucky, though, knew things could have been so much worse if Grant hadn't shown up when he did. She had a concussion, three cracked ribs, some internal swelling and bruising, but thankfully, nothing that needed surgery. There was also a hairline fracture in her left arm. While she didn't remember it, she must have thrown up her arms to protect herself at some point, and Everett’s kicks had broken it.
Waking up in the back of an ambulance, confused about where she was and what had happened, was not an experience she ever wanted to have repeated.
At least Grant had been with her.
His soothing words, even when her brain felt too muddled to make them all out, had calmed her, and the feel of his handholding hers had grounded her when pain and fear felt like they were going to sweep her up and carry her away.
Most of the emergency room visit and subsequent scans and tests were a blur, and while she’d given a statement she hoped was mostly coherent to the cops that came to speak with her, and she’d spoken with Grant, she knew the details of what had happened, all she’d really done these last almost twenty-four hours was sleep.
Yet no matter how much she got, it never seemed like enough.
In fact, she was close to drifting off again when the door to her private hospital room opened. Grant had been by her side as much as he could be, and her mom and stepdad, and Donovan and Jessica, had taken turns keeping her company, but this was the first time she’d set eyes on Lindsay since they were in the family room with Everett.
Unsure what to expect, Ashlyn felt her body tense, sending a fresh wave of pain cascading through her. That set off the machines still attached to her to monitor her vitals, and Grant hurried to the bed. Lindsay remained hovering near the door.
“Shh, honey, you don’t have to do this if you're not up to it,” Grant soothed, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips to touch a kiss to it. “Lindsay asked if she could see you, and I said it would be up to you. If you want to wait, we both understand.”
It wasn't that she was afraid of Lindsay, but there had been so much one-sided animosity that it was hard to be in the same room as the teen when she was so vulnerable.
Still, Lindsay was Grant’s daughter, and she loved him with her entire being. That meant she had to find a way to make peace with his child if they wanted to have a future.
“She can stay,” Ashlyn rasped, her voice still weak.
