“Hey,” he said as he came to stand next to her. “You doing okay?”
Sienna glanced up, then quickly away, her eyes round with what looked like residual shock. Her skin was pale, her shoulders slumped. Cole wanted nothing more than to gather her in his arms and tell her he’d make everything right again.
“I should never have come here,” she told him, shaking her head.
“Don’t say that.” He pulled out the chair next to her, metal scraping against the floor.
“Why not? Everyone else will be.” She stared directly in front of her, unwilling to look at him. “I could hear it in Jase’s voice when I called him.” She shuddered. “Do you know what he said? ‘What did you do to him?’ Like the cardiac arrest was my fault.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You don’t know that.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I don’t know that. The woman at the front desk handed me all this paperwork like I can fill it out. As if I know anything about my father’s medical history or insurance.” She gave a short laugh. “I don’t even know his birth date.”
She grabbed the clipboard from the table, holding it so tight her knuckles turned white. Cole placed a hand over hers, willing her to relax.
“Look at me, Sienna. Tell me what happened.”
She shook her head. “I went to his house, and we argued. Or I argued. I yelled at him. So much anger came tumbling out.” Her gaze flicked to his. “He had a framed photo of me as a girl, and it set everything off. He thinks he knows me, but he doesn’t. He couldn’t possibly.”
“You can change that.”
“I’ve done a real bang-up job so far.” She blew out a breath. “I spent my first week in town hiding out only to storm away from a family dinner. Then today—” Her voice cut out on a choked sob. “What if Declan doesn’t make it? What if all those horrible things I said are his last memories of me?”
“It wouldn’t matter.” He lifted his free hand to the back of her neck, gently massaging the tight muscles there. “Declan owns his mistakes, and he made some big ones with you. That’s on him, Sienna.”
She leaned into his touch and let out a sigh. “How I deal with him now is on me. I’m an adult. I have a life. My daddy didn’t want me when I was a girl. Big deal, right?”
Cole thought of his relationship with his own father. Until his arrest, Richard Bennett had been a picture-perfect parent. He’d taught Cole and Shep to fish and hunt, run alongside them when they’d learned to ride bikes. He’d been to every football game and parent-teacher conference he was in town for, and most of all he’d always made both boys feel safe and loved. At least that’s how Cole had seen it. Shep had a different opinion—bristling against the strict rules his father set in the house.
Cole’s dad had been his idol, which was why his arrest and then shocking death had hit so hard. He still couldn’t imagine how he would have felt growing up without his dad or believing he didn’t want anything to do with him.
“Come back with me to the waiting area. Emily and Noah are there while Jase is in the room with Declan.”
“Saint Jase,” Sienna muttered.
“No one blames you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Liar.”
“It won’t help to keep yourself separate from them.”
“It’ll help me,” she said, her voice breaking, “not deal with the fact that I may have just killed my estranged father.”
“Don’t say that.”
She lowered her head, tears dripping onto the hospital paperwork.
His heart ached, but clearly sympathy wasn’t helping. “I never took you for a coward.” He cringed inwardly when her shoulders stiffened.
A moment later, she looked up, her eyes blazing. If she could have killed him with a look, he’d be long gone. She swiped at her eyes. “Is this reverse psychology?” she asked, her tone menacing.
“You have to face this thing,” he said instead of answering. “Or run back to Mommy and Stepdaddy and your little insulated world of privilege and first-world problems.”
She barked out a laugh. “First-world problems. That’s a good one.”
“Where are you going to find the next candidate for a country club husband since the last one couldn’t keep it in his pants?”
“I don’t need another candidate.”
