“Where’s Ava’s room?” Chase asks, as he wraps his arm back around me.
“She’s in twenty-two, that way.” I point in the direction of her room. “A nurse is sitting with her now, I needed to check on Aubrey.” I’m explaining to him why I’m not with Ava, and I’m not sure why. We have two daughters, I had to be here for both of them. But I still feel the need to justify myself.
“Babe,” he says evenly, “I wasn’t questioning because you aren’t in there. I just wanted to know where to lead us. Right, Monkey?” He must’ve heard it in my tone. I tried not to be defensive saying it, but now that he’s here, some of my adrenaline is tapering and I feel a lot less sure of myself, and what’s happening, than I did before he got here.
“Right, Daddy!” she agrees, some of her fear ebbing away, replaced with happiness thanks to Chase’s presence.
“I’m sorry,” I sigh out, “it’s all just starting to crash down on me now.”
“It’s okay,” he says as we round the corner, and Ava’s room comes into view. “I get it. I’ve got you.” He gives me one of his patented, confident smiles. “Monkey, why don’t you walk with Mommy now? That way I can make sure Ava is okay when we get into her room.” He kisses her temple and winks at her, then sets her down.
Aubrey steps beside me and takes my hand, then Chase leads us into Ava’s room.
“I hear my Pipsqueak had a pretty big fall today,” it’s the first thing he says the second the door opens, and Ava’s eyes pop open instantly. She’s still looking a little dazed, but her smile fills her whole face.
“Daddy, you’re here!” It’s the loudest, most outgoing she’s sounded since we arrived, and it’s the first sign I’ve seen from her that she really will be okay.
“Of course I’m here.” He walks right up to her and bends over the bed, hugging her gently, but letting her wrap him up as tight as she can. He stays still over her, not pulling back even after her arms have gone loose.
I get it, baby. But she’s okay.
Seeing our little girl, small and hurt, in a huge hospital bed with an IV in her arm and the lights dimmed, because if they were any brighter it would make her head hurt, is absolutely terrifying. I settle Aubrey in a chair with my phone and move to the other side of Ava’s bed so I’m standing across from Chase.
He picks his head up and looks at me, not hiding a single feeling or thought at first, before he takes in a deep breath and puts a smile back on his face.
“Let’s look at that head of yours,” he says animatedly. He’s put on a brave face for her and I’m so grateful. Ava turns her head to the side as best as she can with her neck brace on, so he can see the knot and bruise forming. “Whoa! That’s one tough looking bump. Were you trying to prove how hard a head we Cantons have?”
“Nooo,” Ava says, drawing out the word as long as she can.
“You weren’t? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, Daddy. I didn’t mean to fall. I just wanted to practice.”
“You know,” he says more seriously, but still quietly, “practice is good, but only when someone is—” Before he can finish, Ava’s nurse comes back in.
“We’re ready to take her up for tests. Once those are finished, as long as they come back clear, you should be good to take her home.”
Chase audibly lets out the breath I was holding, too. “Is there any reason to believe the tests won’t be clear?”
The nurse shakes her head and responds, “No, Mr. Canton, we don’t think so. Dr. Simms is pretty sure her neck is fine, and he just wants to be certain there are no skull fractures. Based on all the years he’s been doing this, he said it’s likely just the concussion.”
I speak up first this time, “Thank you.”
A tech joins the group of us in the room and Chase and I kiss Ava, telling her we’ll be right here when she gets back from her tests. I’m hopeful they’ll be clear, especially after what we were just told, but if they aren’t, at least my husband is here with us. We can figure anything out when we are together as a family.
Allie
Four words, that’s all it took this evening to bring on a tidal wave of emotion and relief like I’ve never known before. Four words: “Her tests are clear.” When the doctor told us, I turned into Chase, hid my face against his chest, and I cried. I cried grateful tears. Grateful our daughter is going to be okay. Grateful my rock was there, holding us all up. Grateful that after a few days or weeks, everything will return to normal.
When I watched Ava fall today, my world came to a crashing halt. Thoughts I wouldn’t allow myself to think stayed at bay until it was clear she was okay, and then I drowned in them. The what-ifs were worse than what was really happening.
As I sit here with my family now, watching Ava sleep curled in Chase’s lap, and Aubrey sleep with her head in mine, I can finally breathe. We are whole. We are healthy—minus Ava’s head and sore neck, and Chase’s arm—and we are home together.
I don’t have to figure out what to do because my little girl is fighting for her life. I don’t have to sit bedside, holding vigil until good news comes our way. I get to hold one of our babies while he holds the other in our home, while they sleep peacefully, and aside from a few headaches and some stiffness for the next few days, all is right in our world.
We got lucky.
Chase reaches over Aubrey’s body, slipping his hand behind my neck, rubbing it gently, and whispers, “How’re you doing?”
“Okay.” It’s all I can think of saying. I am okay. I’m exhausted, I’m relieved, I’m amped up, yet perfectly content exactly where I am. I’m okay.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here today. I left a little later than I’d planned to. Had I been here…”
I shake my head. Now isn’t the time to play that game. “She still could’ve fallen. She’s going to fall. She’s going to make mistakes. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”
“But you said she was out there so she could show me when I got home. Had I already been here, then she wouldn’t have been on the damn horse.”
“You don’t know that. In fact, I’d venture a guess that you’re wrong, and she still would’ve been on the horse today. She still would’ve found the same determination to take the barrel with speed to prove herself, whether it was you, me, or Kip in the pen with her—she still would’ve gone down.”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head, rejecting my words outwardly, even though I know they’re settling in his mind and over his heart.
“She’s you, Chase,” I say with a small smile. “Nothing is keeping her from riding. Nothing.”
He dips his chin down gently and kisses her head, careful not to bump her temple. I can tell he’s thinking, and I’m not sure what he’s going to say, but I don’t think he is, either. So I give him time to work it out and run my fingers through Aubrey’s hair.
“I don’t know if her being me is a good thing,” he whispers, and glances my way. “I couldn’t take her being hurt worse. Not even a little. We know what the pain losing a baby we never even got to know feels like…” He breaks off and looks away, clearing his throat, gathering his composure. He doesn’t break easily, but you put one of his girls in the hospital and it will bring him to his knees.
“Losing our baby, it killed me. But if something had happened to Ava today, if something ever happens to either of our girls, it would put me in hell. Death would be nothing compared to what I’d feel if I lost either of them. If I ever lost you…”
The tears welling up in his eyes render me speechless. This man, the strongest I’ve ever known in my life, the one who rides bulls for a living and puts his life on the line week in and week out, is crying over our daughter’s calm, sleeping body because she could have gotten seriously hurt today.
I turn my head into his forearm, kissing it softly, and close my eyes, accepting my own tears as they slip out. “We didn’t lose her. She’s okay. She’s a Canton, she’s got a hard head, she’s stubborn as hell, and she’s full of piss an
d vinegar. A fall wasn’t going to keep her down.”
That brings a slight smile back to his lips, and he moves his hand from my neck to my cheek, brushing my tears away with his thumb. “She may be all me with her determination and stubbornness, but I watched the video you sent the other night, she looked just like a mini version of you up there. It took me back to when I first saw you ride.”
I look at him and he’s watching me carefully. We don’t talk about my riding days. Not if I can avoid it. It’s not that I’m ashamed to have ridden or been on the Junior Circuit. It’s that I was forced to ride. My dad, a bareback bronc rider, started me at a young age—younger than Ava is now—and forced me to start training. Rodeo was going to be a family thing. Mom would support both of us and Dad and I would bring glory to the family name.
I hated it.
I wanted to cheer, or play softball, take up art, or singing. I wanted to try just about anything under the sun to see what would’ve been my passion, but I couldn’t.
“She’ll be better than I was,” I whisper back to him. This isn’t a conversation I want the girls waking up to. It’s not one I want to have.
He looks over both girls and then whispers back, “Why do you hide it from them?”
There isn’t a good answer. Not really. But I’ve never wanted the girls to know I did rodeo. I guess, in part, it’s that I don’t want to encourage Ava to focus solely on it—I want her to have a childhood and try everything. And, another part of it is, I don’t want Aubrey to feel like she’s the only one who doesn’t like rodeo. Because she has zero interest in riding, and that’s perfectly fine.
“It’s not important,” I say back, shrugging it off. “It has no bearing on either of them, and it’s not who I am anymore.”
He just shakes his head and drops it back on the couch, muttering something I don’t quite catch beneath his breath.
“It helped shape you, though.” He pulls his hand back slowly, then adds, “It’s the reason we met. The reason we have them. That alone is worth shouting how great a rider you actually were from the rooftops…”
“Maybe one day, once the girls have decided what they want to do with their lives. I don’t want my past influencing their futures.”
“Okay.” He turns his head toward the clock up on the wall and then looks back at me. “Are we going to sit here all night and watch them? Or should we get them into their beds?”
“Yes.”
His gruff chuckle fills the room over my response. “Yes, we’re going to watch them sleep in our laps all night? Yes, we’re going to take them to bed?”
“I know they need to be in their own beds so they sleep better, I’m just—” I pause, searching for the right words. “I’m just enjoying this. For a split second earlier, I didn’t know what life would bring us. Having you home, Ava is okay, I’m not ready to give this up yet.”
“Then they can sleep in our bed.”
That’s a solution I wouldn’t have even thought of. They sleep in our bed with me when he’s gone a lot, but never when he’s home. That’s my and Chase’s place. It’s where we get our one-on-one time, in every form it comes in.
“Our bed,” I repeat.
“It’s why we got a king-sized mattress, isn’t it? So we could all fit comfortably?”
He makes a good point. “Yes, it was, mostly. There’s also the small matter of you being a bed hog.”
His eyes go wide and he gives me an I’m gonna get you look. It hits me full force and awakens the butterflies in my stomach.
“I’m no more of a bed hog than you are a blanket hog.”
“Am not!” I laugh loudly. His blue eyes are shining bright, smiling just as vividly as his lips are. Until Ava stirs in his lap.
“You’re being too loud,” she mumbles, still half asleep.
I cover my mouth with one hand, trying to muffle my laughs, when Chase mouths, “Bad Mommy.”
“We’re sorry, Ava,” I manage to get out in a loud whisper.
“We’ll move you to bed so we don’t wake you again,” Chase adds, still smirking in my direction.
Ava’s response comes in the form of a soft snore and movement closer to Chase’s body. “Let’s get them to bed so we don’t wake her, or Aubrey, again.”
Chase
We lay the girls down in our bed carefully and cover them up. For the time being, they’re in the center of the bed, but multiple occasions in the past tell me that as soon as we step away, their two small bodies will quickly take up every bit of space they can and leave little to no room for Allie and me.
Allie smiles at me over the bed, and the girls, then whispers, “Come shower with me? They’ll be fine in here.”
I walk around the bed and toward the bathroom, holding my hand out to her, waiting for our fingers to be linked before I guide her in and shut the door behind us.
“Was this your way of telling me I smell?” I ask her teasingly. I reach into the shower to turn the water on, letting it heat up, and turn to her.
“Yep,” she quips, “I could smell you across the couch. I didn’t want you in our bed until we hosed you down.”
She pulls her T-shirt off and tosses it on the floor, then pops the button of her jeans open and shimmies them down her legs.
“My God, you’re beautiful.” I watch her wiggle and shake until her jeans are pooled at her bare feet, where she can step out of them. She’s left in plain, cotton black panties and a matching black bra and the look makes my mouth water and heart race.
“Thank you.” She smiles shyly, still, after all these years. “You’re still completely dressed…”
I am. But watching her, unrushed and perfect, is far more important than removing my clothes at the moment. She’s still looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to undress, but reaches behind her to loosen her bra before it slips down her arms and falls away.
“Chase, clothes…” She laughs and pushes her panties down. She starts walking toward me and my breath catches, watching her, anticipating what she’s going to do. Much to my dismay, she continues right on by me, and steps into the shower, giggling beneath the spray of the water.
“That was cold,” I half-groan, half-say, tugging my shirt over my head and dropping it where I stand. “So cold.”
The sound of the water sloshing off her body to the shower floor nearly drowns her voice out, but I manage to catch her words anyway, “Then hurry up and get in here, it’s nice and hot.”
I do as she says and finish undressing as quick as I can, then join her in the shower.
“It’s about time.” She turns around beneath the water to face me, smiling. “Will you wash my hair? It’s been so long, and your hands could literally put me to sleep with how comforting they are when you do it.”
I reach for her shampoo, a white bottle labeled with the scents of vanilla and coconut. “It would be my pleasure. Turn around, please.”
She turns away from me again and tilts her head. Her hair falls down her back, looking like a dark, smooth curtain with water dripping from the ends. I squirt the shampoo into my hands and lather it before I apply it to her head.
“Mmmm,” she moans, “that feels so good.” I’m working the shampoo into her scalp now, massaging gently, letting the soap build before moving my fingers down her long locks, combing shampoo from her head to the very ends of her hair.
“Please don’t stop yet,” she murmurs.
“I won’t.” I move my fingers back to her scalp and continue to work my magic, stepping closer so I can kiss her shoulder and whisper in her ear, “Rinse this out then I’ll give you a massage. I felt the tension in your neck earlier. Let me take care of you.”
She spins back around, facing me and lets the water cascade down her hair and body. “I’ve missed you. This.”
“Me, too.” I take the opportunity to bend and kiss her lips while the shampoo runs out of her hair. Her hands move to my chest and settle there as the kiss grows between us. A gentle meeting of our lips turns to a deeper
pressure, then her mouth opens, or maybe it was mine first, and we each give and take. A leisurely pass of my tongue over hers is followed by a playful nip of her teeth over my lip. I wrap my arms around her and pull her tighter to me, loving the feel of her body, slick and hot from the water, against mine.
“Hit the other showerhead,” I instruct against her lips. She reaches out to the side and turns the head behind me on so we are enclosed in a sheet of water. I revel in the feel of her lips and body melting into mine for a few minutes, then break away with a level of restraint I didn’t know was possible.
“What, what are you doing? You don’t want…” She’s a little breathless, and her eyes are wide and dilated. It would be so easy, so damn hot, to take her right here and now. But we have days for that. Tonight, she deserves to be pampered.
“Oh, I do. But I’m going to do what I said I would,” I respond, leaning in to give her a chaste kiss. “I’m going to rub the knots and tension out of your neck and shoulders. Then I’m going to wash your body, rinse you off, get you out of here and dry, and then I’m going to carry you to bed. I’m going to take care of you tonight.” I take a deep breath and turn her away from me. “Tomorrow I will finish what was about to start just now.”
She gives a little huff, but the second my hands press into her shoulders, it blends into a deep sigh. “I—why?” I know she’s confused, I can hear it in the tone of her voice.
“Because I know what today did to you.” I rub my thumbs into the knots in her shoulder and lower my head to kiss her heated skin. “I know what my being gone has been doing to you. I’ve seen it in every Skype. I’ve heard it in every call. I felt it when I finally showed up and you clung to me for dear life earlier.”
“Chase…” It’s all she says, but it’s enough. My name on her lips in that tone is all I need to hear to know I’m doing the right thing. Her tone is laced with the weight of her feelings, frustrations, acceptance, and love. But most of all, it’s laced with relief and exhaustion.
Hold on Tight (Cowboys & Angels Book 1) Page 6
