14. Linc
“Did she just call you a banshee?” I stare at Alex Townsend, the chief of police and Kennedy’s father, when they take Kennedy away from the wreckage of her car and put her in the back of an ambulance.
He doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he puts his head in his hands and takes a deep breath. “She’s alive.” Another breath. “She’s still alive.”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “And she’s going to stay that way. Why don’t you call Veronica and Casper, too. She’s gonna want to be there for her sister, and I don’t think it matters that she’s pregnant. I’m sure Remy will get Parker and Nox to the hospital.” Babbling seems like the right thing to do, especially since I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing.
I’m already pulling my phone out of my pocket so I can make sure he is up and on his way.
“Why the fuck was she out in the middle of the night?” I look down to see Chief Townsend still on the ground, panic replacing the relief he feels that Kennedy is still alive. “Why was she driving so late, Linc?” He looks up at me with fear, but I don’t have an answer for him.
“I know you watch her,” Chief Townsend says. “Were you watching her tonight? Were you there? What happened to my daughter?”
I’m not an idiot. I’m aware that Chief Townsend knows. He’s known since the first night I showed up at her house, after whatever happened with Royal left her hurt and in the hospital.
“I went home,” I answer bleakly. “Around midnight, I went home. She was there. She never leaves at night, Chief Townsend.”
I hold out a hand for him to take, which he does a few seconds later. “Was this Royal? Did he have something to do with it?”
I shake my head. “No. The driver was a high schooler who works at Taco Bell.”
Chief Townsend storms away, and I have to rush to keep up with him as he descends on the kid responsible for the accident. The boy who looks like he’ll blow away with a stiff wind.
He had his arm around a girl who was shaking and clutching a jacket that looks like it belongs to him rather than her. With how cold it is, it is good to see he is a gentleman, at least.
“What happened?” Chief Townsend practically shouts at the kid.
I expect him to wilt, to back away and balk under the chief of police’s attention, but he doesn’t.
The kid swallows deep, steps forward so that he is blocking the girl from Chief Townsend’s view, and starts talking.
“I’m sorry, sir. My name is Henley Moore. I was driving home from work, and Lexi was walking. I stopped and picked her up. About a mile down the road, there was a moose in the road. I swerved, sir, and didn’t see the other car until it was too late.” He held the chief’s eyes, not once looking away or flinching from his scrutiny. “I called the cops, and Lexi ran to the car to make sure that the driver was okay once her car hit the tree. Lexi called out that she was injured, but I was already on the line with the dispatcher. I’ve taken CPR, and I know you’re not supposed to remove anyone from a car during an accident in case they’ve injured their neck. I didn’t want to chance making it worse, and I couldn’t get into the other side of the vehicle to assess her for any injuries.”
If Chief Townsend wasn’t impressed with the kid, I sure as fuck am. He reacted calmly and seemed to be in control of the entire situation, even knowing not to touch Kennedy after the accident.
“Good job,” Chief Townsend finally bites out. Then he does something I’ll never forget. He pulls that kid into a hug and squeezes him tight. “You might have saved my little girl’s life. Do you know how many people would have just driven off? You did the right thing, Henley.”
Henley, who must be barely holding it together, sobs in the chief’s arms. The only thing I can do is watch. At least until my phone starts ringing in my hand.
“Hayes,” I bark when I answer without looking at who is calling.
“What happened?” Remy sounds afraid, and I honestly can’t blame him. “Is she alive?”
“She’s alive. A high school kid swerved on the road to avoid a moose and hit her.”
The deep sigh of relief that hits me from the other end of the line takes every ounce of my strength away, leaving me nothing more than a shell of the man I should be. Kennedy is alive.
“She’s alive?” The question, more a hope-filled plea than anything else, stands in the empty air between us, and my breath catches in my throat while I try not to let him know exactly how affected I am.
Practically croaking on the answer, I nod. “Yeah. They’re taking her to the hospital now. Your father called your sister and mom and they’re heading over, too, I think.”
“But she’s alive.”
“Yes,” I confirm again, closing my eyes as I send a silent prayer of thanks to the heavens. “She’s alive.”
“Meet me there.”
I nod, rather than answer him, and he hangs up, leaving me in the increasingly quiet Maine night.
Kennedy almost died. The realization that I almost lost her before I’ve really made her mine guts me. And if it wasn’t for the plain stupidity that has taken up residence in my brain after Danny died, she may not even have been on the road.
“I’m leaving,” Chief Townsend barks, breaking into the depressing turn my thoughts have taken. “Are you coming with me or staying here?” He knows the answer, without me even saying a word.
I turn around to see that we are the last two people there besides Dom, who is standing on the road, talking with a tow truck driver.
Chief Townsend drives like a bat out of hell, and within a few minutes, we are walking through the double doors to the emergency room of the hospital before either of us say anything.
“You’re gonna have to marry her, you know that, right?”
His eyes are locked on the doors that lead beyond the waiting room. We are the first ones there, and I take advantage of the few moments of silence before chaos descends in the form of her family to tell Chief Townsend the truth.
“I hurt her. I don’t think she’s going to give me a chance, Chief.”
His response is a snort. “Try again.”
I cough in a poor attempt to clear my throat. “If she wants me, I’ll be hers until the day I die.”
This time, he nods. “That’s my boy.”
Right on cue, the doors open behind us and the Townsends arrive en masse. First comes Veronica, Kennedy’s mother, followed closely by a very pregnant Casper and her husband Cole. Then, about thirty seconds later, Parker and Remy storm in with Nox, who is wearing a pair of bright-green pajamas. I think they are the last to arrive, until Emma and my parents walk in behind them.
“What the hell?” The question tears from my lips about the time that Mom and Veronica crash into a hug and start crying together.
“Shut up, boyo.” My father pulls me into a tight hug and slaps my back. “She’s family.”
“We don’t even know what’s going on, though.” Emotion clogs my throat, making it almost impossible to keep talking.
There I am, sitting in a hospital waiting room, with all the experience I have not only as a cop but as a Marine, and I can’t do shit for Kennedy.
“Why do we spend so much time in hospitals?” Parker asks loudly. “This shit is bananas.”
Casper plops down next to her and rests her head on Parker’s shoulder. “So much time.”
Cole takes a seat next to his wife and laughs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The only time I spend in a hospital is because of one of you Townsend lot. Car accidents, explosions overseas, I blame it all on you.”
The man has a point. Our families seem to be cursed, especially when it comes to traumatic shit happening.
“Didn’t you know?” Nox pipes up from Remy’s side. “All the best people go through the crazy stuff. At least that’s what my feelings doctor says.” He yawns loudly and curls into my best friend’s side, and I have a moment.
Nox really is the very best of all of us. Danny, Parker, Remy… all of us. Hell, he even has the sass that only Kennedy seems to have. And he is right. The traumatic shit that we’ve gone through brought us together, closer than anything else.
Emma sidles up next to me, wearing a bright-pink onesie that has white clouds all over, and leans against my shoulder, taking note of where I’m looking.
“You know he’s just like his daddy,” she murmurs quietly.
“You’re kidding, right?” I smile despite the seriousness of our situation, sitting around waiting for an update on Kennedy. “Danny would be running around like a chicken with his head cut off. He couldn’t sit still for anything.”
Emma shakes her head, and I feel it more than see what she is doing. “No, dummy. I mean that Danny always had a way of saying exactly the right thing at the right time.”
To that, I agree. “Parker told me that he fell in love with someone else overseas.” Changing the subject may be the only thing to save my sanity. “But I lived with him, Emma. I think I would have known.”
“Would you?” Emma counters, wrapping her arm around my back. “Or were you so obsessed with Kennedy, like you always have been, that you didn’t pay attention to the signs?”
Before I can protest, she goes on like she didn’t just insult me.
“Of course you wouldn’t know. You didn’t know when I fell in love for the first time. You didn’t know when Mom decided to color her hair. There are some things, big brother, that you just don’t see. And that’s okay. If Parker said it, I believe her. Think about everything she gave up for our family.” She smiles at the little family having a quiet conversation with Casper and Cole, then squeezes my waist a little bit tighter.
Alex and Veronica are rushing forward in the next second, and we turn to see Dr. Tyler Masterson standing there with an inscrutable expression on his face. Tyler’s twin is one of the deputies for Birch County, and I count both of them among my closest friends. Especially when Tyler leaves his psychotic wife at home.
“Tyler.” Alex holds his wife in his arms and stares at the young doctor, waiting for an answer about Kennedy’s condition.
“What is it about your family, Chief Townsend?” Tyler shakes his head and puts his hands in his pockets. “Kennedy is going to be fine. She’s got one hell of a concussion and a few broken ribs. But there’s no internal bleeding.”
“Concussions fucking suck,” Parker says suddenly in a singsong voice from behind me.
How I end up standing directly next to my dad, who stands on the other side of Chief Townsend, I don’t know. But there I am.
“I brought clothes,” Parker pipes up again, pushing forward with a bag of clothes. “In case they had to cut anything off her.”
“Great.” Tyler nods his head and adds, “She also asked that no one be here when she gets out.” A round of snorts and denials fill the room and Tyler just stands there. “Point taken.”
He turns to leave but I step forward before I can stop myself. “Can I see her?”
My heart races while I wait for him to deny me. For him to tell me to go home and wait. After all, Kennedy isn’t mine. Not really. I don’t have a claim to her other than one from when my life wasn’t a complete wreck.
He bites his lip for a second and looks back over his shoulder briefly.
“Follow me.”
With my heart in my throat, my lungs on fire, and my future down the hall, I follow him and hope that Kennedy won’t kick me out without giving me a chance to tell her… Hell, to tell her that she is everything to me.