“I’m sorry,” he apologized, squeezing her hand. “I got here as soon as I could. Traffic was a mess. You okay? Where’s Joe?”
“He’s at work,” Anna explained. She pulled her hand from Cole’s and sat on the bed next to Lulu, stroking her daughter’s hair. Lulu gave him a shy smile. She looked more like her mother every day. Seeing her there in cutoff shorts with a dusting of freckles on her nose reminded him of Anna at that age. “Joe couldn’t get away. Besides, you know how he feels about hospitals.”
Cole’s temper flared. Lulu had a broken arm and Anna hadn’t been in a hospital in nearly two years, not since her miscarriage, and Joe couldn’t take the fucking afternoon off? He knew that being in the hospital would tear open old wounds for Anna, which was another reason Joe should’ve been by her side, regardless of his own discomfort. He was her husband, for chrissake, and his family needed him. What could be more important than that?
“Lulu, why don’t you show Uncle Cole your cast?” Anna coaxed, changing the subject. To his surprise, Lulu smiled and it lit up her whole face.
Cole took a deep breath and pushed his anger aside. He didn’t want Lulu to see him angry. Joe was her father and he loved her, despite his many other shortcomings. After all, they were a family and that was a sacred bond, one Cole was unlikely to ever experience himself.
“Want to be the first to sign my cast, Uncle Cole?” Lulu asked, carefully holding up her plaster-covered right arm. She seemed to be in good spirits, which he attributed to the empty pill cup on the nightstand. At least they’d given her something to manage the pain. Cole was always impressed by the resilience of children, although it didn’t increase his desire to start a family of his own any time soon. There was no place in his busy life for midday hysteria or afternoons in the ER.
“Lulu, how on earth did you break your arm?” he asked, shaking his head and eyeing her sternly. “You need to be more careful or you’re going to give us all gray hair.”
“It wasn’t even my fault!” Lulu braced her good hand on her hip and cut her eyes at him. She was the spitting image of her mother. “It was Tommy’s fault!”
“Was not either!” his nephew argued as he sauntered through the door with a can of orange soda in each hand. He put the drinks on the nightstand and rushed to Cole’s side, flinging his arms around his midsection. “It wasn’t my fault, Uncle Cole. We were just wrestling is all.”
He ruffled Tommy’s hair. “Maybe you better take it easy on your sister next time, what do you say?”
“Whatever! More like I better take it easy on him!” Lulu chimed in. Tommy scrunched up his face and stuck his tongue out at his sister, but said nothing. “If I hadn’t fallen off the-”
“There won’t be a next time!” Anna corrected, giving both of her children a stern eye. “If I catch you wrestling in the house again, you’ll both be grounded until you die.” She pretended not to notice when the kids rolled their eyes.
“So, where can I sign?” he asked, pointing to Lulu’s cast. He pulled a black pen from the breast pocket of his jacket. What the hell was he supposed to write on the cast of an eight-year-old girl, anyway?
“Anywhere you want, but don’t write anything embarrassing!” Lulu giggled and offered her arm. He held it gently, afraid of pressing too hard and causing her discomfort. Placing the tip of the pen against her cast, he lightly scribed his name. “Can I be a flower girl in your wedding, Uncle Cole?”
He jerked his hand back as though she’d branded him with a flaming hot poker. “What makes you think I’m getting married?”
Anna snorted with laughter.
Lulu shrugged. “Well, Mom said you had a new girlfriend, so I just thought…”
“Anna?” Cole eyed her curiously. “Care to explain what my niece is talking about?”
“What?” She crossed her arms and held Cole’s stare. “I had to tell her something to get her mind off the pain. And I know there’s someone new in your life, even if you insist on denying it. You’re thinking about settling down. Why else would you have bought an apartment?”
“People buy homes all the time.”
Anna smirked. “Yes, people do. But you’re not people. You’re Mr. I-never-stay-in-one-place-or-one-be—” She paused, searching for a more child friendly word. “Relationship-too-long.”
Cole sighed heavily. Not only was Anna relentless, she had good instincts. He couldn’t get anything past her. That also meant she didn’t fall for his BS and lived by the sibling code, which she’d informed him on numerous occasions gave her the right to set him straight, even when her opinion left his oversized ego bruised and battered. Hell, especially when it left his ego bruised and battered. For some reason she was determined to teach him humility, although it hadn’t exactly taken.