Sidney stared down at him, taking in his uncharacteristically serious demeanor. Vaughn braced himself for the inevitable quip or saucy comment.
Instead, she simply took a seat on the bench next to him.
“Some day,” she said.
Vaughn looked sideways at her, and then nodded.
Indeed it was.
Fifteen
PACING IN THE waiting room of the surgical floor, Sidney impatiently checked her watch again. “They said the surgery would take about an hour, right?”
Sitting in one of the chairs that bordered the path she had cut umpteen times since they’d wheeled Isabelle out of the emergency room on a gurney, Vaughn answered her with maddening calmness. “I don’t think that included all the prep and post-op time. That takes a while.”
What was he, a surgeon now? Of course he could remain calm. He didn’t have ovaries, let alone twisted ones—Sidney’s uterus cramped just imagining what that must’ve felt like. Nor did he have an eleven-week-old baby growing inside him.
Men. Clueless lummoxes, the whole lot of ’em.
“I can see your lips moving as you mutter about me, you know,” he said.
Figured. All the lummoxes in the world and she had to be trapped in this waiting room with the one who had superpowers of observation.
She looked over and saw him watching her with amusement, his long legs stretched out comfortably in front of him. Oh . . . whatever. Fine. So maybe her nervousness was making her a touch cranky right then. In her defense, that was her sister they’d wheeled out on that gurney, her younger sister, her only sibling, for whom she’d felt semi-responsible since they were kids. A sister who she could still remember as a sweet five-year-old, waiting on the front porch of their house on the day Sidney had returned from sleepaway camp the summer after their mother had died. She could picture the huge smile on Isabelle’s face as the car had pulled into the driveway, the way she’d bounded down the stairs and had hugged Sidney tight and declared that she was never, ever allowed to leave again for that long. Not like Mommy, she’d said.
And now Sidney was teary-eyed and sniffing.
Vaughn got to his feet, as if that settled it. “Okay, Sinclair. Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“Out of this waiting room,” he declared. “You need a break. There’s a Starbucks in the lobby with a grande Frappucino with your name on it.”
She scoffed. “I can’t leave. What if they finish the surgery and Simon is looking for us?”
“Well, lucky for you, you’re traveling with an FBI agent. And I just so happen to be in possession of a cutting-edge device that allows a person to track anyone down, anywhere in this city.” Vaughn pulled something out of his pocket and held it up: his cell phone. He looked around furtively, and put his finger to his lips. “Shh. Don’t tell anyone. We’re talking supersecret FBI technology here.”
She threw him a look. “Are we through with the comedy routine now?”
He held out his hand to her, not saying anything further. He simply waited with that infuriatingly confident look.
With a sigh—it wasn’t worth the argument—Sidney let him lead her out of the waiting room. They walked to the elevators and waited. She could see the satisfied gleam in Vaughn’s eyes, and she was about to comment when an elderly woman stepped out of the waiting room and joined them at the elevator bank.
The woman smiled at the two of them just as the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. As the elevator doors closed, Sidney noticed that the woman kept looking at them.
“It’s okay, I’m a little emotional, too,” she said to Sidney, with a kind expression. “My husband is having his third heart surgery in two years. Sitting in those waiting rooms . . . it gets you thinking.” She gestured at Vaughn, smiling fondly. “I was watching you two. You remind me of my husband and me thirty years ago. Oh, the arguments we used to have. We could go back and forth, all day long.” She winked. “My husband called it foreplay.”
Alrighty, then. Nothing like a little too much information from a perfect stranger. But Sidney was distracted by something else the woman had said. She pointed between herself and Vaughn. Sure, maybe, for a split second she’d contemplated the idea of having meaningless sex with the guy, but a relationship? Hell to the no, sister. “Oh, we’re not a couple.”
“Definitely not a couple,” Vaughn added emphatically.
“He doesn’t do couples,” Sidney explained.
“She has a checklist,” Vaughn said. “With thirty-four things on it.”
The elderly woman eyed them carefully, as if she wasn’t buying it. “Uh-huh.”
“See, her sister is marrying my brother,” Vaughn continued. Like Sidney, he seemed to feel the need for further explanations.
“He’s the best man. I’m the maid of honor,” Sidney said. “And we keep getting stuck together because of this whole big wedding and secret baby drama with our siblings.”
“Probably, it’s not so much a ‘secret’ baby if you tell everyone about it,” Vaughn said under his breath.
“She doesn’t know us and it gives context to the story,” Sidney muttered back. Then she smiled at the elderly woman. “See? Clearly not a couple.”
The woman smiled as the elevator stopped at the third floor. “Well. Obviously, I was mistaken. Carry on as you were.” With a friendly nod in good-bye, she stepped out of the elevator.