“What if... What if we do everything right, and he still goes wrong?”

Nick shook his head vehemently. “He won’t.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“Of course I can’t, but I’d bet my life on the straight and narrow for our boy. That’s just who he is.”

“They’re all that way,” Sam said, glancing into Brooke’s room through the glass wall and relieved to see she was sleeping again. “Until they aren’t.”

“Scotty is different.”

“Freddie said the same thing. That his rigid sense of right and wrong will keep him out of trouble.”

“Exactly. That’s what I believe too.”

“I hope you’re both right, because if something like this ever happened to him...I wouldn’t be able to take it.”

“Yes, you would. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

“Not when it comes to him or my nieces and nephews I’m not. It was all I could do to hold it together in there with Brooke just now. I want to wrap her in gauze and protect her from every awful thing in the world. I’d do it if I could.”

“And she knows that. You’re already wrapping her in gauze by making sure she has the right people working on her case and by running interference on her behalf. You’re doing everything you can—and probably more than you should.”

“I just hope it’s enough,” Sam said with a sigh. “I need to call Detective Lucas and tell her Brooke is no longer under sedation. I’ll stay while Erica is in with her, and then I’ve got to get to HQ to see what’s up with the kid who posted the videos.”

“Miles to go before you sleep, huh?”

“Looks that way.” She glanced up at him. “Good luck at the White House. Let me know the second you’re out of the meeting. I’ll be on pins and needles waiting to hear.”

“You’ll be the first person I call.”

“I’m so proud of my smoking hot husband, the senator, who has a very important meeting with the president later today.”

He rolled his eyes, as she expected him to. “In the meantime, I’ve got three kids who want to go ice-skating. Think they’ve spent the ten bucks I gave them to stay in the waiting room with the vending machines?”

“Oh, jeez, you’d better go see how much sugar they’ve managed to consume.”

Leaving her with one last kiss, he headed off to rejoin the kids. Sam watched him go, feeling energized by the stolen piece of time with him. Brooke’s nurse approached the room, and Sam straightened to greet her.

“Girl, that is one fine, fine, fine man you’ve got there.”

Sam laughed at the lusty look on the nurse’s face. “Believe me,” she said with a wink. “I know.”

Chapter Eleven