Nicole Foster - Sawyer's Special Delivery

When Sawyer had asked about his father, his mother refused to talk about him, except to say that Jed Garrett loved his ranch above anything and anyone else and that Sawyer and Cort didn’t need a father who didn’t want them. And she’d made the break complete by legally dropping Garrett’s name and giving her sons her proud family name, Morente.

Sawyer might have believed what she’d told him if he’d never known that his father had adopted Rafe, remarried and had another son with his second wife. But he did know. And because he knew, he’d wasted years wondering what made he and Cort so unlovable that their own father despised them and completely denied their existence.

Now their mother was dead and suddenly Garrett wanted a reunion with his two oldest sons.

Sawyer didn’t know what had prompted Jed Garrett’s questionable display of fatherly interest and he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want anything from Garrett, now or ever.

“If it’s that important to you, then you answer him,” Sawyer said at last. “But you’re on your own, brother. I don’t want anything to do with him.”

The strident tones of the station alarm followed by the dispatcher’s voice drowned out whatever reply Cort started to make.

Two-vehicle accident with injuries. Woman in labor. Mile marker 223, Highway 137 at Coyote Pass.

“Gotta run,” Sawyer said, hanging up and cutting off Cort’s exasperated curse.

The wail of sirens jolted Maya and she whispered a prayer of thanks as the flash of red and yellow lights broke into the darkness around her. She had been trying in the last few minutes to convince herself everything was going to be fine, but her attempts had been a miserable failure, underscored by visions of herself delivering a premature baby alone in her Jeep and everything going more wrong than it already had.

At least now she had a hope of safely delivering her baby in a hospital bed.

A man’s face suddenly appeared at the window, blurred by the rain. He took a quick glance at her and around the vehicle, tried the driver’s door and then flashed her a reassuring smile.

“Be with you in a minute,” he called through the window.

Maya closed her eyes against another contraction, and about the time it eased, she heard glass break and the rear door open and then the Jeep creaked and shifted. It took her a moment to realize someone was climbing over the backseat toward her.

“How are you doing?” he asked as he managed to somehow maneuver himself around jumbled boxes and suitcases and into the seat beside her. Already cold to the core, Maya clutched her blanket closer and tried to keep from shuddering as his shoulder brushed hers, sprinkling her with the droplets clinging to his hair and clothing.

It was the man she’d seen at the window, and the small space suddenly seemed filled with him. In the dimness, broken only by the strobe of the emergency lights, she could only see he was dark, with a smile as potent as any remedy for terror she could think of right now.

Before she could answer him, he flicked on a penlight and began checking her over. “Now there’s a stupid question. I’m going to have to work on my opening line.” He worked quickly, asking her several questions about the accident and her pregnancy.

“This is not supposed to be happening,” Maya said just as another contraction started.

“I figured that. Here—” he took her hand in his “—go ahead, squeeze tight.”

She hesitated, torn between hating the weakness that made her want to cling to a stranger for comfort and needing someone to lean on, if only for a few minutes.

As if he knew everything she was feeling, he said, “You’re gonna make me look bad if you do this all by yourself. That’s it…”

Holding on to something—someone—besides a moth-eaten car blanket helped, but Maya had a crazy urge to ask him to go on talking. She wished she could bottle his voice and use it as a remedy for daily disasters. Rich and dark, with an intriguing hint of an accent, it—coupled with the reassuring warmth of his hand against hers—soothed some of the rough edges, distracting her from the bubble of panic waiting to burst inside her and making her feel a little less afraid.

She almost convinced herself she could relax a little when the growl of a motor followed by the crunch and shriek of metal being twisted apart next to her ear jolted her upward in her seat.

Gently he pushed her back. “They’re just getting the door open,” he said, gesturing at the firefighters outside. “Then we’ll get both of you out of here and to the hospital.”

Sawyer didn’t add that he doubted they’d make it to the hospital before her baby arrived. She was obviously already frightened enough. Her small, cold hand trembled in his. The tracks of tears clearly showed on her face and she had a death grip on the blanket in her lap. But Sawyer admired the way she fought her fear despite being trapped, in pain and on the verge of giving birth. He could feel her strength as she tightly grasped his hand.

He wondered why she was alone. What kind of man let his pregnant wife drive by herself on a night like this? Pale and bruised, she looked like something delicate and finely made that had been treated roughly.

“What’s your name?” he asked when she drew in a deep breath.

“Maya…Maya Rainbow.” She hesitated, glancing down at her hand still in his, looking as if she desperately wanted to him to tell her that it would all be fine. But she didn’t ask him for the comforting lies that would make it all the worse if things went wrong.

“It’s okay,” Sawyer said. “Nothing is going to happen to either of you if I can help it. Boy or girl, do you know?”

“Boy—Joey. I’m afraid he’s either going to be very impatient or very dramatic, being born too early, in a storm, on the side of the…oh—”

The pain came at the same time the driver’s door wrenched open and a draft of cold rain rushed into the Jeep. Everything happened so quickly that Maya couldn’t have said exactly how she got from the driver’s seat onto a stretcher and inside the ambulance. It all seemed to pass in a blur of people and lights and voices until she heard someone saying her name and looked up into the only familiar face there. Trying to focus, she heard enough to understand he needed to check on the baby.

“I don’t even know your name,” Maya said irritably, then thought how idiotic she sounded. Under the circumstances, she didn’t really have the luxury of modesty. “Oh…never mind—”

“Sawyer Morente. And this will only take a minute.”

The name momentarily distracted her from what he was doing. Of all people to come to her rescue, again. She hadn’t thought about him in years, hadn’t even known he’d come back to Luna Hermosa. And now…

From the business end of the stretcher Sawyer looked over at her. “Joey isn’t going to wait until we get to the hospital, and my partner is busy with the guy who ran you off the road. So it’s just you and me.”

“Alone? Here? Oh, no, I—you can’t. Not by yourself.”

“Sure I can,” he said firmly. “Don’t worry, I’ve done this before.”

When she just stared blankly at him, Sawyer reached over and touched her arm. “We’ll do this together, Maya.”

“I can’t—” Her head twisted on the pillow, her whole body clenching. “Not, not here…”

“It’ll have to be here. Has someone called your husband for you?”

For a moment Sawyer thought she couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Finally, in a voice that sounded oddly strangled, she said, “There isn’t one. Joey doesn’t have…a father.” Defiance flared with hurt in her eyes. “There’s…only me.”

Her words slammed Sawyer hard against the memories of the past, catching him off guard. He wanted ten minutes alone with the jerk who’d decided this baby and his mother could be abandoned like something broken and worthless. He wanted to comfort Maya and reassure her that she and her son were better off without a man who could turn his back on his own child. He wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter—except that it did, and he understood that better than anyone.

A crackle of radio static snapped Sawyer back to the present.

With a stab of guilt he saw Maya was looking at him with something close to alarm. Immediately shifting his focus back to her, Sawyer didn’t waste time with apologies or self-rebukes he could make later.

“Okay, Maya,” he said, catching and holding her gaze. “Get ready, and when I tell you, push. Now—”

With all his attention focused on a safe delivery, it seemed hardly seconds from when he told her to push to the moment he cradled the tiny infant in his hands. Sawyer worked gently and quickly, and after a few moments the baby made a small mewling sound and then started to cry.

“My baby…is he—?”

Sawyer looked up from the baby long enough to give her a brief reassuring smile. “He’s small, but he seems to be doing okay.”

Bothered by the hedging in his words, Maya anxiously watched him bend over her baby until Sawyer finally straightened and laid her son in her arms. The tears she couldn’t hold back slid down her face unchecked as she touched the odd little tuft of red hair, the scrunched up little face, the tiny hands that flailed softly against hers.

“Welcome to the world, Joey,” Sawyer said softly.

Maya couldn’t think of any words powerful enough to express her feelings. He seemed to understand, and for a moment, as they looked at each other, everything felt right to Maya.

“I never knew,” she whispered. “I never knew it was so…amazing. How could anyone not want—” She stopped. She wouldn’t think of Evan, not now, not again.

Reaching out, she put her hand on Sawyer’s, linking the three of them. She tried to say something, to thank him, but she couldn’t find her voice. Meeting his eyes, she knew it didn’t matter.

Her touch and the love for her child he saw shining on her face stirred again all the emotions Sawyer had pushed away after he’d learned Joey’s father had abandoned her and her baby. In that moment, he almost said something stupid, almost admitted that after helping her through the birth he felt a connection to her and her son.

Then common sense kicked him hard. It was bad enough he’d had that momentary lapse earlier, he certainly didn’t need to convince her he’d totally lost it by telling her this had been some sort of bonding experience.

He smiled at her before gently breaking the hold she had on him and focusing on doing his job. Because that’s all this was, doing his job, and whatever else he’d imagined was the result of a long week of double shifts, too little sleep and that letter he’d wished he’d never opened.

Maya lay staring at the ceiling of the emergency-room cubicle, seriously considering getting up and going to find Joey and reassure herself he was okay. She wanted to find someone, anyone, and demand they tell her where her son was. But exhausted and aching all over, she didn’t know if she could sit up, let alone do battle.

They’d whisked her baby away minutes after she’d been wheeled into the emergency room. No one since then had been able or willing to tell her anything about Joey or when she could see him again. Instead, after being questioned, prodded, probed, cleaned up and offered painkillers she refused, she’d been left alone in the curtained-off room to wait until someone could get her a bed in the maternity ward.

There was a murmur of voices just outside, and Maya pushed herself up on her elbows and then sat up, swinging her feet off the bed, determined to get someone’s attention.