Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
It was weird how the feeling of home could change over time.
When he and Lara first bought their house, for Grant, it was his oasis. Every day he couldn’t wait to walk through the door to his wife’s smiling face, whether he’d spent the day doing paperwork, comforting a sobbing victim, or putting cuffs on a violent criminal.
Home was home.
Bringing one little bundle of joy through the doors, and then three years later a second, had only added to that feeling.
But then he lost Lara and their third baby, and everything changed.
Home became a place he dreaded because when he was there, he drowned in memories of the woman he’d lost, and the life that they’d never share together.
In those early days, whenever he could, he got the kids out and about. The zoo, the library, museums, art galleries, the park, the beach, the local shopping mall, it didn't matter where they went so long as he didn't have to be swamped by memories of Lara.
But over time, things began to shift again.
Those memories were still there, but they became a little softer, a little sweeter, not quite so tinged with sadness and grief. The house began to feel like a home again, and he stopped trying to hide from it.
Then Ashlyn entered his life, she started spending more time with him and his kids, he fell deeper in love with her, and she began to feel like home. Only at the same time, he had his daughter growing angrier and more distant with each passing day, and his home began to feel like a battlefield.
The war they were fighting began to feel unwinnable, and he didn't know where that left him.
Walking away from his daughter wasn't an option, but walking away from Ashlyn didn't feel like one either.
“You look lost in thought,” a voice spoke beside him, making him jump, and Grant realized he was standing at the sink in the precinct break room, filling up his mug to make a cup of tea, only the water was cascading down his hand.
“Yeah,” he said with a weary nod as he shut off the water. “I am.”
“Things with your daughter still not settling down?” Jessica Davidson asked.
She had also been a single mom for years after her husband bailed on her and left her to raise their then two-year-old son alone.
Freddie was now eight, and Jessica was no longer a single mom since she’d married Donovan last February.
Too bad his daughter hadn't embraced having a new parental figure the same way little Freddie had.
“No improvement,” he answered, not sure quite how much Ashlyn had shared with her brother and sister-in-law.
“Being a parent is the toughest job in the world,” Jessica said.
“Thought it was supposed to get easier as the kids got older. Instead, it’s getting harder.
What would you do? If you were in my situation?
” Grant wasn't ashamed to admit he needed another parent to tell him he wasn't an utter failure for continuing his relationship with Ashlyn despite his daughter’s objections.
“That’s tough to answer, because every situation is different,” Jessica hedged as he carried his mug to the microwave and stuck it in.
“It feels like I'm failing both of them. Lindsay and Ashlyn,” he admitted.
“You're not failing either. You're trying to balance two conflicting sets of needs the best you can. If it helps, Ashlyn loves you very much, and she feels like you're supporting her through this. She just doesn’t want to be the reason you lose your daughter.”
“I don’t want to lose either of them. Just feels like I'm stuck in an impossible position. Lindsay is still a minor, but she’s not a child.
She knows better than to treat another person the way she’s been treating Ashlyn.
But she is still a minor and my responsibility.
I just don’t want to teach her that throwing a tantrum is going to get her what she wants.
In just a couple of years, she’s going to be an adult, graduate, and go off to college.
I want her to be mature enough to handle the adult world, and breaking up with Ashlyn just because she doesn’t want me dating doesn’t feel like achieving that. ”
Before Jessica could offer some words of wisdom, his phone began to ring, and he pulled it out, seeing Ashlyn’s name on the screen.
Despite the constant tension rolling in his gut, the smile that came to his lips was automatic as soon as he thought about the gorgeous blonde who had gifted him with her love.
“It’s Ashlyn,” he told Jessica as he answered the call. “Hey, honey, did you find the key okay?”
“Something’s wrong,” Ashlyn blurted out. There was real fear in her voice, and it reminded him of the day seven months ago when he’d saved her from being abducted, raped, and possibly murdered.
Snapping immediately into cop mode, he found himself already moving toward the door. “What is it?”
“I got into your house okay, and I put the water in the snow. But then I heard something.”
“A burglar? Hide, I'm on my way.”
“No, Grant. It’s worse than that. It was Lindsay. She yelled at me. I tried to remind her how much you love her, but I knew it was best for me to leave. As soon as I got outside, I heard what sounded like her having a tantrum, yelling, and throwing things.”
He sighed, wishing that he could say with absolute certainty that his nearly sixteen-year-old daughter would not behave that way.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t.
“Then I heard a second voice, Grant,” Ashlyn continued.
“It sounded like a boy’s voice, so I climbed the fence to get into your back yard so I could get a look, and I saw them.
It’s that boy she’s been dating, I think he hit her, and now he’s yelling at her.
I can't hear what he’s saying, but she looks scared. ”
The bottom dropped out of his world as he pictured his baby girl being hurt.
“I'm on my way,” he assured Ashlyn.
“I'm going in, I won't let that boy hurt your daughter,” Ashlyn said fiercely.
Seemed there was a second bottom in his world.
Because the thought of both his girls in the hands of a potentially unstable and violent teenage boy had him staggering under the weight of the fear.
“No, Ashlyn, don’t. Hide and wait for me. I'm coming.”
“Lindsay is your daughter. I'm not going to stand by and let her get hurt. I love you, Grant, please hurry.”
With that, the call ended, and he took off at a dead run through the halls of the precinct, praying with a desperation he’d felt only once before in his life, when his wife bled out giving birth to their third child, flooding his veins.