Perfect Fling (21 page)

“Great! I’ll have Nash call you, and you two can take things from there.”

Kelly’s warm smile assured Erin she was doing the right thing.

“Have you lined up babysitting help for when you need to work?” she asked Erin.

Erin pushed herself into a more comfortable position on the couch. “My mom is going to help in the beginning, and the rest depends on what you and I are going to discuss now.” Erin’s stomach flipped at the reminder of her real reason for needing to see Kelly today.

The other woman raised an eyebrow, but didn’t press Erin to explain.

She closed her eyes, pushing back the pain and focusing on the reality, forcing herself to meet Kelly’s patient gaze. “I need to have papers drawn up to give to the baby’s father. Of course I want sole custody, but I need to give him generous visitation when he’s around, given the fact that his job won’t let him have set weekly hours.”

The other woman reached for her bag, pulled out a legal pad and a pen, and started taking notes. “What’s his job?”

“Undercover work in Manhattan. Last time he said he was out of touch for a year.” Her throat hurt from the effort of pushing back tears. “I don’t think I’ll be hearing from him while he’s on a job. He said he wants to take responsibility, and since I will need to work, I’ll need help paying for the babysitter.”

Kelly eyed her with concern. “You’ll need a lot more than babysitting money. Take it from me, you’ll want him to pay his share, and if he’s willing, it should be easy enough to take care of.”

“I don’t think he’ll give me a hard time.”

She just wished she didn’t have to take anything from Cole, but Erin wasn’t stupid enough to let her pride overrule her common sense. She was already giving up the career she’d planned for a situation they’d both created, while he would go back to life as usual. She didn’t resent the baby or the sacrifice. In fact, she was excited now and couldn’t wait. But that didn’t mean she would try to do it on her own.

If all Cole could offer was cash, she’d accept only what she needed to make ends meet. “This isn’t about punishment or anger,” she told Kelly. “I just want enough to let me care for my baby and be home with him or her when I can.” It was bad enough this baby would basically have one full-time parent and one he or she barely knew.

Erin swiped at her eyes with her palm, and Kelly handed her a tissue in silence.

“Thank you.” Erin appreciated the fact that Kelly didn’t push her to explain her feelings. If she had, Erin knew she’d fall apart.

While she waited, Kelly jotted down a few more notes. “Erin?”

“Yes?”

Kelly looked up. “You know I’m close with Annie, Joe’s wife, right?”

Erin narrowed her eyes and nodded.

“She mentioned to me that Joe has to look for a new tenant for the apartment over the bar. It’s month to month, so when this one’s over . . . Cole said he’s moving out,” she said gently. “Did you know?”

Erin shook her head, willing the tears not to fall. “But I haven’t taken his calls, so for all I know, he would have told me.”

“Is it okay with you if I give him a call? See if he has a lawyer he wants me to be in touch with over these things? Or did you want to talk to him yourself?”

Erin waved her hand through the air. “You do it,” she said abruptly. “Please,” she added, knowing it wasn’t Kelly who she was angry with.

Rationally she wasn’t angry with Cole either. Things were playing out exactly as he’d warned her they would. It was her fault, hoping for more. For something he’d expressly told her would never be.

Still, the less she had to do with Cole right now, the better off she’d be. She clutched at the blanket she’d draped over her stomach and legs, her head pounding and her heart breaking. Based on the easy flow of tears and the sharp pain slicing into her chest, obviously getting over Cole Sanders wouldn’t be as easy as she’d hoped.

Kelly handling things would let Erin hang on to the one thing she had left of herself.

Her pride.

• • •

After visiting his father again, Cole spent the day in
Manhattan, giving his boss the news in person. Rockford hadn’t taken his resignation well, the man sputtering and turning beet red, but in the end he’d wished Cole well. And told him if things got boring, his old job would be waiting.

Cole might be a lot of things in Serendipity, but he knew bored with Erin wouldn’t be one of them. He didn’t know it in his gut; he knew it in his heart.

Enough avoiding. While in Manhattan, he called on his mother and stepdad and told them they were going to be grandparents. Afterward, he planned for the future. He put out feelers with old contacts, hoping to start up his own security firm, which would be based in Serendipity but would work with retired agents he knew who had spread out to various parts of the country. There’d be some traveling, but little danger, and the more guys on board whom he trusted, the less Cole himself would have to fly out and handle things in person. In the meantime, he had a huge nest egg from years of living minimally and frugally, he had jobs with Nick if he wanted time working with his hands, and most of all, he had a plan.

With that plan came hope. Though he cautioned himself against it, Erin’s optimism had been contagious. But she was the last stop in his plan and he meant to tackle things in order, so he could show her that he meant what he said and had taken steps to prove it.

From the city, Cole headed back to the hospital in time for the last visiting hours of the day. He stopped to talk to the doctor, who’d just finished rounds. Jed had been moved out of the CICU and into his own room. They were already getting him up and moving, and Cole couldn’t imagine the pain involved in such an endeavor—or the crap his father was giving the nurses.

He began walking toward the room and stopped right outside.

“Mr. Sanders, I need you to breathe into that tube. We can’t have your lungs filling with fluid.” An older woman stood beside the bed with a breathing apparatus in her hand.

Jed lay back against the pillows, refusing to look at her. “Go away.”

Cole bit the inside of his cheek, debating whether or not to step in.

“Not until you blow. You don’t scare me and I’m not leaving. I’m every bit as stubborn as you.”

“Dang it, woman—”

“Ms. Reynolds. Lucy Reynolds. You can call me Lucy if and when you blow into this machine.”

She stuck the equipment in front of Jed’s face, and to Cole’s amazement, his father let her help him sit up straighter and did his best to comply with her instructions. Jed groaned and winced and she finally eased him back against the bed.

“Good job, Jed!” the nurse said happily.

“That’s Mr. Sanders to you, and you can call me that until you stop being a pain.”

Ignoring him, she handed him a cup with a straw, from which he took a small sip.

Cole shook his head and walked into the room. “Still cheery as ever?” he asked his old man.

Jed’s eyes widened as Cole stepped inside.

“He’s doing well,” the nurse, who was attractive and about his father’s age, said to Cole.

“Well, I appreciate you putting up with him.”

She glanced at Jed, her eyes warming with amusement. “Anything he dishes out, I can handle.”

His father muttered something under his breath, but his cheeks turned a ruddy color.

“I have other patients to check on, but I’ll be back. Buzz me if you need me, Jed.” She turned and walked out.

Cole pulled a chair up to his father’s bedside. Silence surrounded them for a few minutes, before he finally spoke up. “Well, you made it through.”

“Hurts like hell,” the older man muttered.

“I’ll bet.”

Cole leaned an arm on the metal bed rail. “Listen, there’s something you need to know.”

Jed met his gaze. “What’s that?”

Before Cole could reply, his cell phone rang. Unwilling to get sidetracked, he glanced down to see who was calling. Kelly Barron’s name came up on the screen. He narrowed his gaze.

“Someone important?” Jed asked.

Kelly was a paralegal at her husband’s law firm. The main firm in Serendipity. “Yeah, it’s important.” Legal documents, no doubt. But Cole planned to intercept Erin before dealing with those. “I’ll take care of it when I leave here.” Which had been his intention all along.

Turning back to his father, Cole gathered his courage. Though he’d prepped this speech, he knew it wouldn’t be easy, and he could never anticipate his father’s reaction. Especially after all he’d been through in the past couple of days.

“I’m staying in Serendipity. Permanently.”

Jed blinked, the only indication he’d heard as the announcement settled between them. “Erin know?” he finally asked.

“Not yet. I had some matters to take care of first.”

Jed nodded, his gaze focused on the wall across the room. “What if she won’t have you?” His voice sounded raspy from the tube, and weak.

But his words were blunt and very Jedlike. At least it hadn’t been couched in an insult. “I’m staying anyway. I have a kid to raise. That’s more important than any job.”

“Don’t screw it up like I did.”

Cole stiffened, unsure he’d heard correctly. In fact, he was damned certain he hadn’t. But he couldn’t ask. “I plan to do my best.”

“So did I. My mother, your grandmother, raised me by herself. She worked and pretty much ignored me, letting me run wild.”

Cole sat in stunned silence. Jed never discussed his past. Never considered it important. All Cole knew was that Jed’s father hadn’t stuck around, and his mother had died while Jed was in the army. Now his father was talking and Cole was afraid to interrupt and have him stop.

“I was just like you were. Just like it.” He pointed to the can of ginger ale.

Cole copied what the nurse had done and lifted the straw to his father’s mouth. Jed took a few sips and, wincing, relaxed back again.

“Got myself arrested too.”

What the hell?

“Yep. Just like you. But I didn’t have a mother who’d bail me out or take me away. In fact, she wiped her hands of me. So the judge said I could do time in juvie till I hit eighteen, which was only a couple of months, and then he strongly suggested I join the army. Get myself some discipline before I ended up back in front of him again. If I enlisted, he’d expunge my record. I didn’t see any better options, so I did.”

Cole’s mouth grew dry. At least Jed didn’t seem to expect a reply, just kept talking.

“I met a colonel who took me under his wing,” Jed said into the silence. “A hard son of a bitch who decided he’d make a man out of me. It worked. The discipline and routine suited me. Straightened me right up, and I knew if I’d had him around growing up, I’d never have ended up in jail in the first place.”

Cole blew out a long breath, finally able to gather his thoughts. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me all this?” Knowing he’d been like Jed would have formed a bond, let him see his father was human and not a cold machine.

“Didn’t see how it mattered.” Jed’s hands worked the blanket on the bed, crunching into his palms.

Anger washed through Cole but he wasn’t going to pick an argument with a sick man. “Go on.”

“I thought if I treated you with the same hard hand as soon as you started getting out of control, I’d reel you back in. Instead you rebelled harder. That only pissed me off and made me more determined to get through to you on my terms.”

Cole opened his mouth but Jed continued to speak. “They were the only terms I knew. If they worked on me, I didn’t see how it wouldn’t work on you.”

Cole shook his head in disbelief. “You didn’t hate me.” Shit, he’d said that out loud. Cole ran a hand through his hair.

“No, I saw myself reflected in you, and didn’t like what I saw.”

Cole forced himself to breathe before he got dizzy and managed to pull himself together. He hadn’t expected a heart-to-heart with his old man—now or ever. And he wasn’t sure what to do with the information Jed was giving him now. Cole supposed it provided understanding. Forgiveness wouldn’t come overnight, though. The emotional scars Jed had embedded were too deep. How his father treated him equaled how he felt about him, at least in Cole’s mind. And that had permeated every aspect of his life, including his time with Erin.

“I’m sorry I disappointed you,” Cole finally said.

Jed sighed out loud. “It wasn’t that. I just didn’t know how to adapt when things didn’t work. And then your mother and me and all that constant arguing, it wore on me.”

Cole set his jaw. “It wore on her too.”

“Which was why she left, but by that time, I couldn’t see it. I could only blame you.”

He shook his head. “Well, you did a damn fine job of that,” Cole muttered.

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry,” Jed spat.

Cole jerked in his seat. Jed was sorry. He hadn’t said it nicely, but he’d said it. And Cole knew better than to make a production out of it either.

“What happened when I grew up? You couldn’t let it go then?” Cole couldn’t help but ask.

“Your mother left and almost immediately fell for someone else.
You
idolized that son of a bitch she married. That soft, good guy. And he turned you around. I resented that too.” His father stared at the ceiling, his voice harsher, lower, and his obvious exhaustion leaching the color from his face.

“Dad, get some rest. We can pick this up tomorrow.”

“Finishing it now. Then I don’t want to talk about it again.”

Cole raised an eyebrow. “What made you discuss it in the first place?” He couldn’t contain his curiosity.

“Erin.”

Her name caught him off guard. “How does Erin have anything to do with this?”

For the first time, Jed turned his head and met Cole’s gaze. Cole stared into his father’s dark eyes, eyes that looked so much like his own, unsure of what he was really thinking. Another thing he vowed to do differently: Let his child know there was someone who cared looking back at him.

“She’s a good woman,” Jed said of Erin.

“That she is.”

“And she sees something good and decent in you. Hell, she’d kick my ass if I wasn’t already kicking it myself. Anyway, if someone like her can look at you the way she does, and face off against me on your behalf . . . oh, hell. Between Erin, the things you said to me after surgery, and lying in this bed facing my own mortality, I had to take a long look at myself.” Jed drew a tired breath. “At us.”