Chapter 15
Lindsey woke up very early the next morning, more like the middle of the night.
She was tired and surprisingly sore, but then was immediately slammed with the memories of all she had endured yesterday.
She felt the rush of tears coming back again, wondering how she would ever get past this stage.
She’d taken something to help her sleep when she went to bed, and it seemed to have done the job, but, with her now wide awake, no way she could get back to sleep.
She got up and went to the bathroom. As she returned, Sterling stood there, looking concerned. “I’m fine,” she muttered, “but, once you wake up, it’s just hits you all over again.”
“Of course it does,” he whispered, “and it will be that way for a while. Are you sure your head is okay? I know you refused to get checked over last night, but …”
“I’m fine,” she muttered, “and here I was hoping I could just put it behind me.”
“You will,” he stated. “Just don’t expect it to happen tonight.”
“Right.” She walked back to her bed and crawled under the covers.
He still asked her again, “Are you okay?”
“Sure, I’m good,” she muttered, with a wave of her hand. “Go back to sleep.”
As he went to walk out of her bedroom, she added, “Unless you want to stay in here with me.”
He looked at her, then walked back over.
She asked, “Did you even take off your prosthetic?”
“No, I wasn’t sure what kind of a night you would have.”
She sighed. “Always the protective angel, aren’t you?” she teased.
He laughed, then shook his head. “That I am not, but I really don’t want to see anybody suffer, and you’ve been through enough already.”
“I’m fine, just waiting for a time when I don’t see him in my dreams. I want something else to think about, something else to replace that memory,” she muttered. “Right now, every time I close my eyes, I see only him. And that’s really not a nice image.”
“No, not at all,” he agreed. He sat down on the side of her bed and said, “Settle in. I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
She frowned at him and asked, “Really?”
“Why not?” he replied. “You’ll tease me about being protective anyway.”
She smiled, tucked deeper under the covers, and suggested, “You could just sleep here, you know?”
“And I might,” he said. “I might just fall asleep on the job.”
“Ha,” she muttered. “As much as I think you should fall asleep on the job, you probably won’t because of that ingrained sense of honor that says you’ve got to look after me.”
He gave her a soft chuckle. “Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with honor. Maybe it’s just because I want to.”
She thought about that as she lay here, then rolled over and told him, “And that would be lovely.”
He smiled at her. “I’m glad to hear that, but first you need to get over this. You did take a knock on the head.”
“Ha, ha, very funny,” she quipped.
“Beyond that, let’s get this mess over and done with, so that nobody comes back after you again. I’m so sorry that happened.”
“Yes, that would be a good thing,” she whispered. “I would absolutely love that.”
He smiled. “You need to get some more sleep.”
“It’s not so much about needing more sleep, as much as I just need to know this is over.”
“And you don’t think it is?”
“It may be over with Charlie, if they can keep him in custody for a while, but we don’t really know how dangerous your aunt can be. She’s done some pretty crazy things in the past, without any sign of remorse.”
He stopped, thought about that for a long moment, and nodded. “That’s a really good point. I have no idea what she’s really capable of.”
“And she’s on the brink of losing it all, which could be really traumatic for her, at least according to Chelsea,” she shared.
“I wonder though,” he muttered. “Traumatized or just angry that the chickens have come home to roost? It’s all catching up with her, and she’s losing her boyfriend to boot.”
Lindsey sighed. “I can’t imagine why anybody would even want him, but there’s no accounting for taste.”
“No, there sure isn’t.” Then he smiled and quipped, “I mean, after all, look at us.”
She smiled, reached up a hand, and stroked his cheek. “I know, right? Who would have thought I could find a nice big brave hero out here?”
“Oh stop,” he muttered, with a groan. “That’s just not me.”
She burst out laughing and said, “You might say that, and you may even think it, but I can see it very clearly.”
“Yeah, but you did get hit on the head.” He chuckled. “Seriously though, an awful lot of people have this distinction about honor and whatnot, thinking we’re really stuck in the old ages, but it’s not true.”
“I’m hoping some of it is true,” she admitted, as she yawned, “because I really want to think that those ethics of past generations aren’t completely lost in our times.”
“I don’t think that has anything to do with it,” he replied. “I think it’s more about the people you wind up with.”
“Not me,” she muttered. “That’s a Chelsea thing.”
“Or her mother’s thing. As soon as we get Chelsea away from all that, I think her life will improve immensely.”
“Do you know Charlie was pressuring both of them to produce the money from Chelsea’s student loan?” she asked. “Even though I explained it, he just couldn’t grasp the concept that it was a loan and that it wasn’t just some huge stash of cash money, sitting around Chelsea’s apartment.”
“I’ve met people like that before,” Sterling said. “They have it in their heads that they know how the world works, but they’ve never really experienced key elements, then just assume that what they’re thinking is correct.”
“Yeah, that’s what this was,” she replied. “Charlie honestly had no idea that Chelsea wasn’t just given a pile of big bills, totaling $50,000 or more.”
He looked at her and then laughed. “And I bet her mother is probably very much the same.”
“Probably more so. Sadly she was probably expecting him to come home with the fifty grand.”
He frowned at that. “Do you think she’s pulling his leg, stringing him along, or is he the one who’s been pulling hers?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “and that’s a good question because it goes to how safe Chelsea is. There’s a big chance that she’s not very safe at all, given the circumstances, even if Charlie’s out of the picture.”
He pondered that and nodded. “That’s a problem, and, damn, I just found her. I don’t want to lose my only cousin already.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Lindsey declared, “because, when we don’t have much in the way of family, the people we do have are all the more special, and we need to look after them.”
He smiled. “That sounds very much like something my grandpa would say.”
“Let’s hope he’ll stick around long enough to pass on a few more of his lovely little comments. You don’t want to lose him again either.”
“And yet his age being what it is, there are no guarantees it won’t happen.”
“I know,” she whispered, “but it would be nice if he can hang in there for a while, so at least something good can come out of this.”
“There can be a lot of good out of this,” Sterling noted, “but what you need to do—”
“I know. I know,” she muttered. “I need to sleep.” She yawned one more time and rolled over, then headed for dreamland. Just as she was about to nod off, she looked up at him and whispered, “Please get some sleep yourself.”
“I’ll think about it,” he replied. “You’ve got to get some rest though.”
“I’m not arguing that,” she muttered. “I’m just so tired, and I want you to get some rest too. Tomorrow might be a very long day.”
“It will be for sure,” he agreed, with a smile.
With that, she rolled over and went to sleep.