Elena slowly rose from the table, seeming unsteady. “I will.”
Dani watched as Elena walked down the hall to the nanny suite and disappeared into her bedroom. Dani dropped down to a crouch to talk to the boys. “What do you guys want to do for the rest of the day?” Between the sting, the hospital, and Cole’s big news, Dani was quite frankly exhausted, but there would be no rest for the weary.
“We saw Mr. Cole’s truck in the driveway. Is he here?” Cole asked, seeming terribly excited by the prospect.
“We looked everywhere,” Cameron added.
“Is he coming over? Please say he’s coming over.”
Dani laughed quietly, but this was merely confirmation that she couldn’t let Cole slip away this time. These boys loved him, and she did, too. She had to fight for him. She hadn’t done that the first time, and perhaps that had been her biggest mistake. Everything might’ve been different now if she’d fought for him.
“No, Mr. Cole isn’t here right now, but hopefully he’ll come to get his truck in the next day or so. He’s very busy right now.” Dani didn’t want the boys to worry, so she didn’t mention that Cole was in the hospital. Dani still had no idea exactly how serious the news would be. She prayed that whatever it was, that she had the strength to help Cole with everything he was facing. Of course, she had no idea if he would even speak to her after she finally told him that the sweet boys standing before her were his sons.
Both boys’ faces dropped in disappointment at the news that Cole was not around for fun. Dani felt the same way.
“We wanted him to see the swings and the monkey bars,” Colin said.
“We were hoping he’d come play with us,” Cameron added.
“Well, how about this? It’s a beautiful day today. Why don’t we do whatever Mr. Cole would want to do if he was here with us?”
“Swimming!” the boys proclaimed in unison.
Dani had little doubt that fun-loving, full-of-life Cole Sullivan would want to do exactly that. She choked back a few tears at how sad it was that he wasn’t here. Making her all the more determined to finally come clean.
Eleven
Cole arrived back at his hospital room, only to learn that Dani was gone. His disappointment was immense. That was it. She’d taken off. She wanted no more of Cole Sullivan. Everything he’d feared as they wheeled him into that MRI room was right on the money. Well, maybe not everything. He still hadn’t received his news from the doctor.
He got settled in his bed and took the pain medication the nurse offered. The headache had inexplicably gotten better during his test, but this stuff was fast acting and his agony was quickly fading. His physical misery might be disappearing quickly, but it was being upstaged by his state of mind—a harrowing mix of sadness, trepidation, and plain old worry. Between waiting for the doctor and wondering if Dani would ever speak to him again, things couldn’t get any worse.
Out of nowhere, his brother Sam burst into his room. He was wearing his clothes from the ranch, cowboy hat and all. “I got here as fast as I could.”
Cole sat up, wondering who in the hell thought up the design for hospital gowns. “How did you know I was here?”
“Dani called me.” Sam sidled up to the bed and took a full survey of Cole. “She was worried. She didn’t want you to be alone. But she had to leave. I think she needed to get to her boys.”
Cole let out a deep sigh. Dani was clearly juggling a lot today and he’d had to go and heap one more thing on the pile by telling her about the glioma. At least she knew now. Come what may, the truth was out. “I’ll have to thank her for that.”
“Of course, it would’ve been nice if you’d called me or one of your other family members yourself. Were you just going to sit here and stew?”
Cole pressed his lips together tightly. “I’m thinking. And I needed to do it by myself.”
“Thinking? Or worrying?” Sam reached for a small side chair and pulled it closer to Cole’s bedside.
“At this point, I’m not sure I can separate the two. Every thought seems to come with a worry by default.” Cole looked all around the room, hoping to hell this was not about to become his future. The doctor still hadn’t come in to talk to him, and it was making him crazy. If he was dying, he just wanted to know so he could put his jeans and boots on and head back to the ranch, where he could at least keel over with a glass of bourbon in his hand while he sat out on the back terrace and watched the sun set. That was the way to go, not sitting in a mechanical bed wearing a sheet that opened in the back.
“Dani seems really worried, too.”
“She does?” Cole couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Tell me what she said.”
Sam reared his head back and bugged his eyes. “I already told you. She didn’t want you to be by yourself.”
That wasn’t enough to keep Cole going. That concern could certainly come accompanied with the sentiment that she never wanted to see him again. “Did she say what was going on with the boys? Are they okay?”
Sam shook his head. “She didn’t say. And that was actually just a guess on my part. I think she said she needed to get home.”
Now Cole felt even worse. Maybe Dani had simply wanted to get as far away from him as possible.
