Perfect Fling (Serendipity's Finest 2)

Same old gruff Jed, Cole thought. “I’ll be here before they take you down even if you don’t see me.”

Jed hesitated before answering. He curled his hands around the bars on the side of the bed, his knuckles white. “I appreciate that,” he said at last.

Cole raised an eyebrow. He’d been expecting Jed to tell him not to bother. He wondered if Erin had read him the riot act on his behavior or whether genuine fear was behind those words. Like most things with his father, Cole suspected he’d never know.

“Erin’s calling her folks. I’m sure they’ll want to come by tonight and see you before surgery.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“They’re good people. You’re lucky to have them,” he said, meaning it.

“I don’t deserve them, you mean?”

Cole raised his hands up in front of him. “Whoa. I didn’t say or imply that. And your doctor said we’re not to go down that road,” he reminded his father.

Jed groaned, laying his head back against the pillow. “Sorry. Old habits.”

Sorry?! What alien had invaded his father’s brain?

“They raised a good daughter,” Jed continued before Cole could reply.

“Can’t argue with that,” Cole said, not surprised Erin was the one thing they agreed on.

“Son,” Jed said, suddenly, meeting Cole’s gaze with a hard stare of his own.

Cole drew a deep breath. “What’s up?” With serious heart surgery looming, Jed could say anything at this point and Cole wouldn’t be surprised.

“Don’t let the one good thing in your life slip through your fingers the way I did,” Jed said.

Except that, Cole thought. The old man had taken him off guard. “Dad—”

“No. I don’t want to have any serious discussions. We’re just going to argue. That’s been our way too long for it to change in the blink of an eye.”

Which made Cole wonder if Jed meant he wanted it to change . . . eventually.

Jed reached for the paper cup filled with water and took a long sip. “But remember what I said. Just in case.”

Cole exhaled a hard breath. No need to ask just in case what. “You’re going to be fine,” he told his father. He opted to focus on his father and not his obvious allusion to Jed’s mother . . . or to Erin.

Jed didn’t reply. He yawned, though, and Cole took that as his cue. “Get some sleep. I’ll be here when you come out of surgery, and I’ll see you as soon as they let me.”

His father nodded, and an awkward silence ensued, no doubt thanks to the strain of their having been forced to get along for the last couple of minutes. But Cole had to admit, despite the discomfort between them, it’d been nice talking to Jed knowing no yelling was forthcoming.

He left the room, and for the first time that he could recall, he prayed—both for Jed to come through surgery and for the chance to rebuild some kind of connection with his father.

For years, Cole had rejected the idea that he needed anything from Jed Sanders. But faced with the prospect of losing his father, Cole was forced to admit he wanted a relationship with Jed. And he sensed, in a surreal way he didn’t understand, that the key to who he could become lay with the man who’d shaped the person he’d been.

• • •

Cole and Erin drove back to Nick’s house in comfortable silence. He didn’t feel the need to discuss what went on in his father’s hospital room, and Erin didn’t ask. She knew from his somewhat calm demeanor that at least there had been no yelling or confrontation, and for that she was grateful.

She couldn’t remember ever being more exhausted. At the top of the stairs, she turned toward the master bedroom, expecting Cole to head the other way to the room he’d been staying in for the last couple of days.

“Erin?”

She turned. “What’s up?”

“I . . . Never mind.”