AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Stable,” Jillian said, her arms wrapped securely around his waist as she looked up at him. “The doctor believes it was a stroke.”
Tears filled her eyes and that wrenched his gut. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said softly. “What I have learned about your grandmother is that she is a fighter. Right?”
Jillian smiled and bit her bottom lip. “I feel for the doctors when she’s able to swing and wants to go home,” she quipped.
They looked at each other and shared that kind of smile of intimacy and closeness.
He liked it a lot.
“I’m glad you’re here. I need you with me,” she admitted, pressing her hands to his back atop the sweater.
He raised her body up to lightly kiss her lips before setting her back down on her feet.
“Hello, Cole.”
He stiffened and looked over Jillian’s head at the other man. “Warren,” he said, offering no warmth even as he gave him a forced smile.
Warren pushed his spectacles up on his nose and gave Cole a stiff smile, as well.
“Thanks for coming to check on my grandmother, Warren. You’d better get back to your rounds before you’re missed,” Jillian said as she released Cole and turned to her friend.
“Yeah, I gotta go. I have surgery in a little bit,” he said, checking the time on his pager.
“She’s in good hands,” Cole reassured him as he placed his arm around Jillian’s shoulders.
Warren nodded. “I’ll check on you later,” he said to her before walking away.
Keeping her grandmother’s well-being paramount, Cole set aside his concerns about Warren’s feelings for Jillian as they walked together to enter Ionie’s hospital room.
“Good evening, everyone,” he said, giving Jillian’s parents a nod of greeting before moving to the side of the bed where Ionie looked less energetic.
She opened her eyes at the sound of his voice and then squeezed them shut. “Cole, you turn around until Jillie puts my lipstick on me,” she said, sounding tired and talking slowly.
He chuckled and bent to press a kiss to her soft cheek. “Beautiful as ever,” he said to her.
That made Ionie smile.
Jillian sat beside her grandmother on the bed. As Ionie kept them entertained with her quick wit, which wasn’t harmed by her slow words, Cole eyed Jillian. Things between them were so serious. So intense.
So needing of ultimate trust and understanding.
But that wasn’t easy for him, especially knowing her ever-present ex harbored love for her.
Over the years, he’d seen many relationships shatter because of infidelity—emotional and physical.
For so long, he had fought hard not to give in to the weakness that love could be. The vulnerability. The risk. The danger.
Does Jillian love Warren, as well? Is there more there that I’m missing?
His eyes shifted to Jillian’s profile and his doubts gripped him.
He wanted it to work. He truly wanted them to be one of the few to make it.
His fear of betrayal just wouldn’t allow him to believe it could be.
Jillian gently gnawed at her thumb as she swiped through online listings for chef positions, sitting at the kitchen table at her parents’ house. Cole had taken them all to dinner after they’d left her grandmother to get some rest. Although she knew he wanted her to go to his condo, she had begged off to be with her parents instead.
When she was with Cole, she got too lost in him and would forget her anxiousness over being unemployed. Still. The last thing she wanted was to reveal to him that she had moments when she regretted leaving her well-paying job—mainly anytime she paid a bill and had to dip into her savings.
