Her door crumpled inward, the impact painful. And then her car was flying off the highway. A monster evergreen tree loomed in front of her. She was going to die. Metal screamed, and she blacked out.
* * *
SHIT! DID I not set the alarm?
Cole reared up in bed, his appalled stare on his digital clock. Damn it! He’d swung his feet to the floor before he woke up enough to think, Sunday. I don’t have to get up.
Groaning, he flopped back down. After a minute, he yanked the pillow from beneath his head and pressed it over his face. It didn’t take him long to recognize that he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again.
As a teenager, he could have—and sometimes did—sleep until noon or even later, which irked his father to no end. The last ten years, he hadn’t had any choice about when to rise. Now, the five-day-a-week schedule had him up at six thirty. Apparently, he was incapable of sleeping in.
Grumbling under his breath, he pulled on shorts and made his way to the kitchen, where he remembered he hadn’t set the timer for his fancy new coffee maker last night. Because he was going to sleep in.
While he waited for the coffee to brew, he turned on the TV. Local news was running, something about the Seattle city council, which he couldn’t care less about. He picked up the remote and was about to change channels when the newscaster declared, “One fatality and two people in critical condition after a multicar accident that occurred last night on Highway 9 in north Snohomish County.” A camera panned the cleanup phase of the accident. Lights flashed atop police cars, and a tow truck had backed up to a sedan now compressed like an accordion. Cole winced. The fatality almost had to be that driver. A big pickup had its share of dents and hung halfway off the road. One of those big SUVs like a Suburban—what was left of it, anyway—was perpendicular to the road, blocking both lanes.
The camera kept moving as the on-scene reporter talked. Cole stared in disbelief at a smaller SUV crumpled around a tree. His heart slammed into overdrive. The driver’s-side door had been smashed in, right where she’d have been sitting. He couldn’t read the bumper sticker, but it was in the same place and the same color as the one Erin had on her Cherokee, saying, Markham College. Was that—Could it be—
Frantic, he paid attention to what the reporter was saying in a gravely concerned tone. One person involved had been pronounced dead at the scene. Another had been transported by helicopter to Harborview Hospital in Seattle. Injured passengers from one vehicle, as well as a woman driver, had been taken to the hospital in West Fork. The police weren’t yet releasing names.
Had Erin gone out last night? Had she caused this mess? Cole had trouble believing it. As he watched, the news moved on to another story. Wishing he had a computer, Cole found his phone and tapped in some keywords. The article that came up repeated information he’d already heard—except he saw the time of the accident. Around 10:30 p.m.
Thank God. If that was her Cherokee, she would have been coming home from someplace. Frustrated, he reread the meager information, turned off the coffee maker and went back to the bedroom to throw on some clothes.
Unless she’d moved on, into a new relationship—and he didn’t believe that—she’d be alone at the hospital, and she didn’t have to be.
* * *
ERIN LAY IN the hospital bed, not bothering to open her eyes. The white-curtained cubicle with a machine reading her pulse and who knew what else hadn’t changed.
Dazed, probably drugged, she hurt. It was hard to focus on anything else. Top of the list—her head felt like a bass drum being rhythmically pounded. Her face, probably because of the air bag. Arm. Shoulder. Chest. Breathing hurt, too. She struggled to remember what the doctor had said. The cast on her arm was a clue, but the rest was a blank. Déjà vu.
“Erin?”
At the sharp inquiry in that deep voice, she did lift her leaden eyelids. “Cole?”
“Yes. God.” His shoulders sagged as he gazed down at her. He looked haggard, at least a day’s stubble darkening his jaw and upper lip. “You’re okay.”
“Don’t feel okay,” she mumbled.
“I know.” He sounded impossibly gentle. After glancing around, he dragged a chair to the bedside and sat down, reaching over to carefully enclose her right hand in his. On the good-news front, the broken arm was her left.