A Beautiful Mess

Chapter 22

Sydney looked at her phone again. It was half-past five. Cole had said to meet him at five. Her first instinct had been that something was wrong, she didn't think he was the type to be unpunctual, but the longer she sat alone and in the silence, the more she began to believe that it had been some cruel joke.

Her mind replayed her and Cole's last few months together, and she was still trying to pinpoint the moment that he had changed from distrustful and angry to kissing her and wanting to know everything about her.

There were a few defining moments, when he had knocked her off her bicycle, in his childhood bedroom, and the day she had saved Timmy, but even though she could pick out these moments, she didn't know what had changed.

Then it was as if someone hit her over the head with a brick. They were all moments when she had been honest with him. She had let him see the real her. But what did that mean, why would he possibly like her? She didn't doubt that he was attracted to her, but he had said that he wanted to know everything about her, why?

And what had he meant when he had said that she didn't trust him?

Sydney looked at the time again and sighed, it was forty-five minutes past the time he had wanted to meet, and she was done waiting. She had been sitting on the hood of her car, and she jumped down moving towards the door. She had just opened it when Cole's truck pulled up next to her, stopping hard.

"Follow me back to the trailer," he said as he looked down at her from the truck's window.

Sydney looked at him, noting that he looked tired and strained. It was apparent that something was wrong. She nodded and watched as he turned the truck around and left. Sydney climbed into her car for the short drive back to the trailer.

When she arrived, Cole had already loaded up the dogs, and he told Sydney to jump in next to him. She did so, concerned at how tired he looked.

"You look tired, are you O.K. to drive?" she asked.

He gave an exhausted smile. "Yes, I'm fine, but I've been at the hospital all day, Aunt Viola fell and had to have emergency surgery. Thank goodness Sam was here, he was able to advise us on what needed to be done."

"How?" She continued to watch Cole, drinking in his profile.

"He's a Cardiovascular surgeon, one of the best in the country. Aunt Viola's fall wasn't heart-related, but he knows most things medical, my parents were glad he was there," Cole explained.

"I'm sure Aunt Viola was as well."

"If she had been conscious she probably would have been," he agreed.

Sydney's brow creased in concern. "What happened?"

"She slipped getting out of the tub this morning and hit her head. She also broke a shoulder and a wrist."

"Who found her?" Sydney couldn't' imagine Viola in a hospital bed injured.

"Mom did. Aunt Viola is a creature of habit, and when she didn't show up to the breakfast table, Mom went to check on her and found her unconscious on the floor. Sam and I had driven up last night, so we were both there."

"I'm sorry Cole." Sydney reached for his hand, which was resting on the console between them, and squeezed it.

He turned his hand upwards and grabbed hers, lifting it up to his lips.

"I thought for sure you would be spitting mad that I was late. I was worried about getting there at all, we had to reschedule Sam's flight, and I had to get him to the airport."

Sydney cleared her throat and gently pulled her hand from his grasp. His lips on her skin was doing funny things to her insides. "I never spit." She tried to lighten the tension Cole's natural move had created inside of her.