Grabbing Hold (The Motorcycle Kid #1)

40. Hard Truths

"Charlotte," Derek answered the call in surprise, standing up from his seat next to his father. Tom Daniel watched his son curiously. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you."

That much was true. This would have been the first proper conversation Derek and Charlotte had had since he'd admitted the truth about his engagement a week before. Since then, they'd communicated solely via email, and even then, only when it was work-related. Derek hadn't bothered to reach out, knowing Charlotte needed her space, but he also knew once she'd processed everything, he would be in for the biggest chewing out of his life.

"Yeah, neither did I," Charlotte said with a sigh. "But it's important. Something's happened to Emma."

"Are you driving, Charlie?" asked Derek after a loud blare from a car horn. "Pull over. What happened to Emma? Where is she now? Is she okay?"

His voice filled with worry, and more guilt than he was willing to admit.

"I can't stop now," she said urgently. "I have to get to her-"

"Charlotte, what happened to my daughter?"

"She had an anxiety attack, Derek," Charlotte told him. "Kale says one minute she was fine, and the next she was on the floor fighting to breathe. I told him to get her to the hospital, that's where I'm headed now."

"Damn it!" Derek swore, making his father look up from the newspaper he'd been reading. "I knew we shouldn't have taken her off the medication."

"She was doing fine the past few months, I don't know what happened-"

"A lot of things happened the past few months, Charlotte. Dominic happened. That boy I'm going to kill with my bare hands happened. She stopped going to therapy. Everything with Abbie, and Emmett heading off to college, now the wedding -" Derek cut himself off. "She was bound to break sometime, Charlotte."

"My daughter is not a piece of glass, Derek."

"Yeah, well maybe if you stopped denying the fact that Emma has issues we have to learn to handle, she wouldn't be."

The other end of the line fell silent. Derek knew how hard it was for Charlotte to accept this, how much it hurt her to see the child she'd brought into the world at the mercy of something she couldn't control. In a split-second, he made a decision that would either go very wrong or very right.

"I'm coming, Charlie," said Derek gently. "You won't have to go it alone."

"Okay," whispered Charlotte, and he could hear the helplessness in her tone. She tried to compose herself. "Okay."

She hung up a second later, leaving a now very worried Derek alone with his father.

"What's up?"

"Emma's in the hospital," Derek answered, grabbing his car keys off the table. By then, they were in a semi-decent motel just off the interstate, just under three hours' drive away from West Virginia.

"How bad?" questioned Tom, barely bothered. As a military veteran, he was used to tackling mental health issues - he himself suffered with occasional bouts of PTSD - and so could easily empathize with his granddaughter.

"She's in the hospital, Dad. She hasn't been to the hospital since March."

Almost simultaneously, father and son clenched their jaws.

"I'm coming with you."

"Are you sure?" Derek asked, knowing full well it made no sense to argue.

"Yes, boy. Now let's go. I need to see my grandbaby."

Kale leaned back in a chair next to the hospital bed, typing furiously as he updated the rest of Emma's close friends on her current condition. Natalie was already on her way, having freaked out the minute she got his message.