Erin admired her candor, and her smile for the other woman grew wider.
“I’m sorry about your father,” Nicole said to Cole. “Officer Marsden told me why we have to meet here.”
“Sam. You can call me Sam,” Erin’s brother said, sounding as if he was repeating a refrain.
“Thanks,” Cole said to Nicole. “Any word? From your sister?”
She shook her head. “I’m sure the fact that I led you to Victoria’s hideaway didn’t sit well with her.”
“She can’t know you were the one who told us. It’s not like she told you the location in the first place,” Sam reassured her.
“I know.” Nicole glanced away. “Look, I wanted to tell you all I’m sorry. I feel awful about everything my sister’s done to you.” She raised her hands toward them, then lowered them again.
“You aren’t responsible for someone else’s actions, Nicole.” Erin echoed a sentiment she’d said to Cole many times before, and in case he’d forgotten, she stepped closer and slid her hand into his, squeezing him tight as a reminder.
She glanced up at his handsome face, but his expression remained neutral, his mind, she was sure, in the OR upstairs. And she didn’t blame him.
“Thank you for that,” Nicole said to Erin. She hesitated, rubbing her hands against her khaki pants. “The other thing I wanted to tell you is that I have to get back home soon. I took time off from my job to look for my sister. But I’m not getting anywhere and I haven’t heard from her, and . . .” She trailed off.
“Erin has a job, responsibilities . . . and she hasn’t been able to do any of them because your sister could jump out of a corner with a knife at any minute,” Cole said, making Erin realize that his silence hadn’t meant he wasn’t focused on what was going on here. She should have known better.
Nicole winced and Sam stepped up beside her.
“Erin’s right. None of that is Nicole’s fault,” he said, scowling at Cole.
Erin decided it was time to empty out the room. Cole needed time to focus on his father and himself. “Nicole, thank you for coming. I guess I’d hoped you would have some fresh ideas for us on how to lure out your sister, but . . .”
“I don’t. I really wish I did. Helping you find her hideaway was about the best I could do.” Regret shone in her eyes.
Erin touched the other woman’s shoulder. “I believe you.” She’d dealt with enough people through the years, questioned the guilty and the innocent, and her gut told her Nicole Farnsworth was nothing more—or less—than she seemed: a woman worried about her mentally ill sister.
Sam nodded to Cole and met Erin’s gaze. “Let me know as soon as you have news about Jed.”
She smiled, knowing her brother truly cared about Jed. And in her heart, she wanted to believe her brother had come to like Cole as a person, despite the fact that he wasn’t thrilled about the one night that had changed the course of Erin’s life.
Even if she was.
Erin blinked, startled at the realization that if she could go back, she wouldn’t change that night or its outcome. Her hand came to rest on her stomach, on top of the life growing inside her.
Her baby. Cole’s baby.
How could she ever regret that?
• • •
Cole wasn’t sure how many hours had passed when he jolted awake. Could there be any place more uncomfortable than a hospital waiting room? His neck hurt from leaning the back of his head against the wall, and he realized Erin had stretched out, her legs along the row of chairs, her head in his lap. She hadn’t left him through this whole nightmare, and not because she needed his protection. She could have gone to stay with either one of her brothers for that.
He smoothed her hair with his hand and she shifted, moving her head around, making certain parts of his body even more aware of her.
“Hey,” she murmured, yawning as she looked up at him.
“Hey, yourself.” He smiled at her.
“Any news?” She pushed herself into a sitting position and he missed her warmth pressing intimately against him.
He shook his head. “No.”
She sighed and shut her eyes. He stared down at her beautiful face, making him realize she might appear fragile, but she possessed an inner core of strength he admired.