Perfect Fling (Serendipity's Finest 2)

“About what? The bastard was annoyed you were out?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly.”

He waited in silence.

“Fine. He insulted you—again—so I told him you’d be in my life for the foreseeable future, seeing as how you were the father of my baby. And then I punctuated the point. Like this.” She pulled her loose top tight against her tiny baby bump. “See?” She shrugged.

Cole stared at the little spitfire, trying not to laugh at Carmichael’s expense. Trying harder not to pull her into a hard kiss for defending him . . . yet again. He didn’t bother fighting the overwhelming admiration he felt for this woman, or the gratitude at how easily she stood up for him. Whether he deserved it or not.

“Stop laughing.”

He let his grin show. “I’m trying.”

She rolled her eyes.

“What’d Carmichael do?” Cole asked.

“He stormed off,”

she said, wincing at the memory. “And that’s when someone bumped me from behind.”

Cole sobered. Only Erin could have him so distracted on so many different levels that he’d forget the reason they’d started this conversation to begin with. “What happened?”

“Once she realized I knew her name, she got all excited that you’d obviously mentioned her to me. I tried to convince her we weren’t involved in any way, not anymore. She called me a liar. I didn’t want her to leave, so I tried to grab her hand, and when she pulled away, I screamed for Mike and Cara. They came immediately, but she’d run out the emergency door, and Mike couldn’t find her.” Erin spread her hands in front of her. “End of story.”

Not by a long shot, Cole thought, his pulse pounding so hard he felt the beat in his left temple. Her brother and sister-in-law should have been a hell of a lot closer to Erin than they’d been, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Obviously that was what Cara meant when she’d said Erin was safer with him.

“It happened fast,” Erin said, as if reading his mind. “In seconds, really. I never left anyone’s line of sight. I never figured I’d be alone—”

“Because Carmichael was supposed to be right beside you.” Cole’s anger at the other man only grew. Her boss wasn’t her bodyguard, but the other man knew the seriousness of the situation, had been told Erin was in danger, and yet he’d let his ego over Erin’s pregnancy get in the way of his common sense.

Erin touched his cheek, capturing his attention. “It’s all okay. I’m fine. She’s gone, but I’m here with you now, and we can focus on Jed. That’s what matters.”

He drew in a calming breath. “You have a way of making me insane,” he muttered.

She patted him on the shoulder. “Anything to keep you distracted from your problems.”

He shook his head. “She shouldn’t have gotten close to you. She’s crazy. What if she’d had a knife on her?” He didn’t know what he’d do if he lost her that way. His hands clenched into fists.

“Mr. Sanders?” A man in a white coat walked through the double doors.

“Yes?” Cole strode over to meet the man, nerves suddenly jangling.

No matter how much conflict existed between him and Jed, the man was his father. The only blood one he had, and dammit, the little boy in Cole still wanted the chance to make peace. Getting the other man’s approval might be asking for too much but he’d settle for a cease-fire, a cessation of hostilities and maybe even a permanent truce for the future. Especially since Jed was going to be his kid’s grandfather. There was no way Cole wanted his child to experience the kind of constant anticipation of disapproval or rejection from Jed that he had.

As long as Jed had a future, Cole thought, and, heart in his throat, he faced the doctor to hear his father’s prognosis. A few minutes later, only one word stuck out in Cole’s mind.

“Surgery.” Cole said the word out loud, but hearing it didn’t make it any more real.

Quadruple bypass surgery, without which, according to the doctor, Jed would have another imminent heart attack, this one probably fatal. The doctor, an older gentleman with sparse gray hair, continued to explain the procedure to Cole and Erin.

Cole vaguely heard him toss a lot of other medical terms around, but he didn’t hear everything. He couldn’t process all the details of how they’d crack open his father’s chest, use a heart and lung machine to keep him breathing during the procedure, without wanting to jump out of his skin. He thought instead about their strained, difficult relationship, and wished things could be different before his father went under the knife.

Erin slipped her hand into Cole’s, and her warmth registered against his palm. She not only calmed him but she focused him too.

He was able to concentrate more on what the doctor was saying, including Jed being a higher risk patient. “Your father has high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and has been suffering from anginal pain without reporting it to his doctors until the pain was so severe, he almost couldn’t call 911.”

Cole sucked in a startled breath. Damn the stubborn man.