He didn’t answer. He felt her head lift from his shoulder, sensed her peering at him from the side, but he couldn’t meet her gaze.

“You were a teenager, and teenagers are hard,” she said, and he blew out a scoff. “Your dad knew you loved him, just like your mom does. They know, Cole.” She squeezed his hand as if she thought she could force that supposed truth in through his skin if she applied enough pressure.

He wished it was that easy.

“He couldn’t have known,” he said.

“Did you love him?”

Cole nodded, squeezing his eyes shut.

“He knew.” Sierra said it with so much conviction that he wanted to believe her, but fifteen years was a long time for his doubts to burrow in.

They sat in silence for a while, a long while, watching across the way as a middle-aged woman shuffled to the vending machines and purchased several items, then walked back out in a daze, without noticing them.

Cole breathed in Sierra’s shampoo scent, focusing on it as if it were a security blanket, drawing what comfort he could from it and the quiet sounds of her breathing.

It was well after midnight when he straightened, ready, finally, to head up to the third floor to face his brothers and his mom’s fate.

Chapter Eight

The ICU waiting room was an upgrade from the ER, and thank God, because Cole and three of his brothers had been there for hours.

Instead of hard plastic chairs, there were couches and recliners, and a nurse had offered them blankets, though Drake was the only one who’d taken one. The youngest North brother was with Gabe and Mason when Cole and Sierra had finally come upstairs.

Their family had had the smaller, dimly lit waiting room to themselves the whole time, so it was impossible for Cole to distance himself from his brothers, but oddly, he found he didn’t want to. Crisis situations brought out some weird shit sometimes, he figured.

They’d persuaded Sierra, who’d looked close to collapsing with fatigue, to leave not long after they’d found the ICU waiting room. It’d taken all four of them to convince her, and she’d scrutinized Cole’s face until she’d apparently seen the truth—that he was okay with her going.

She’d pulled him through his personal shit storm of a reaction with the patience and understanding of a saint…and that thought reminded him of her use of the same word, saint, at her sister’s wedding. Hard to believe that was only a few hours ago. His whole world had gone ass over elbows since then.

It was after three in the morning when Drake, fully reclined in the chair in the corner, said, “Someone should offer pizza delivery at this hour. It’s time for fourth meal.”