Cole didn’t understand what had prompted that, and he didn’t care. He let Mason’s directive—the guy just couldn’t resist—roll off and stood, nodded.

As his brothers discussed the order of visitation, Cole followed the nurse through the maze of hallways to a private room with a large bank of windows to the outside. The curtains were drawn and the room was illuminated dimly.

His heart lurched when he laid eyes on his mom, intubated, surrounded by a dozen machines and monitors, her eyes closed. When he came up next to her, they slowly opened, met his gaze, took him in. Though she was drowsy, his mom was in there.

He’d been warned she couldn’t talk because of the breathing tube, but he would swear one corner of her lips twitched slightly upward when she recognized him.

He took her cool hand in his and leaned down and kissed her forehead, that baseball-sized lump lodged in his throat again. He cleared his throat, willed the lump down.

“You scared the ever-loving crap out of us,” he said. His voice was hoarse, thick. “Everybody’s here, well, except Zane. We only have a minute each because you need to rest but…I love you, Mom.”

She gave his hand a weak, almost imperceptible squeeze, and despite her condition, her love was there in her cloudy eyes. After several seconds, her lids lowered, as if she couldn’t hold off the drowsiness any longer.

Still holding her hand, he took in the room, the equipment, the wires, the sounds, and it struck him again how close they’d come to losing her.

But she was okay. They were lucky as fuck. And he was going to do his best to remember that. Not just today or this week or over the next few months as she recovered. This was his wake-up call to get his head out of his ass and be a better son, a better brother, a better person.

He didn’t know how to do that, exactly, but as he stared at his mother’s lined, pale face, he vowed to figure it out.

Chapter Nine

Monday morning, Cole was nearly running late for his seven o’clock meeting with Sierra at the office. The thought of sitting across the table from her and acting as if nothing had changed, as if he hadn’t revealed shit he never, ever revealed, turned his stomach, but that was exactly what he would do.

After the harrowing all-nighter Saturday and an emotional, exhausting Sunday split between seeing to his mom, interacting with his brothers, and fighting off thoughts of his boss, Cole felt raw. His energy reserves were bottomed out, his defenses down. Just when he needed them most.