Nicole Foster - Sawyer's Special Delivery

“I just had a baby,” she said. “Of course I’m tired. But it’s not terminal. And I’m not working right now, so I have nothing but time to clean up around here.”

“Who are you trying to kid?” Val countered. “Let’s see.” She started counting off on her fingers. “You’ll be at the hospital, say, eight, ten hours a day, if I know you. Sleeping and eating will take up another ten. So I’m figuring you ought to have at least an hour, maybe two every day to make this place livable. With that schedule you should be done cleaning up about the time Joey is ready for kindergarten.”

Sawyer covered a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

Maya wasn’t amused. Her patience wearing thin, she stubbornly stuck to her defense of her plan to temporarily move Joey here, even though a small part of her agreed with Sawyer and Val. Getting her parents’ house into shape was probably going to be a much bigger job than she’d bargained for.

“Look, both of you, I appreciate your concern, I really do. But this is my home—Joey’s and my home—for now. I know the pair of you would just as soon see it demolished, but believe it or not, this place has a lot of happy memories for me. And the junk has meaning to me. That hideous painting over there, for example,” she said, pointing to a large framed painting of splattered colors. “I painted that for Shem when I was in the third grade. When he framed it and hung it on the wall right smack in the middle of the living room, I felt like a real artist. It might not look like much around here, but it’s all we have and we will make do.”

Val glanced at the picture, then at Maya. She shook her head, smiling a little. “You always were stubborn, girl. And you know you have me, too, mi amiga.”

“And me,” Sawyer said before realizing exactly what he was saying. Both women turned to stare at him—Val with speculation, Maya as if she wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. What the hell, it was too late to back down now. “I already told you I’ll help you get this place in shape for Joey. And I’m sure you can count on Val and Paul, too.”

What he really wanted to say was he’d help her out of here as soon as possible and find her a place that didn’t reek, wasn’t a fire trap and didn’t have an open invite to any vermin and vagabonds in the neighborhood.

Like my house he thought and then immediately squashed that idea. Get a grip, Morente. He’d had no business suggesting that in the first place and no business even thinking it now. Man, do I need a good night’s sleep.

“Absolutely,” Val said. “We’re all here for you 24-7.”

“Thank you, I know that.” Maya smiled at Val and avoided looking at Sawyer. For some reason she didn’t want to consider too closely, his words stung. I’ll help you get this place in shape for Joey. Of course he wanted to do the decent thing and rescue Joey from what he considered a disaster. Not her, Joey, she thought with a pang.

In the next instant she felt ashamed at herself. How ridiculous was she, feeling disappointed because gorgeous rescue-hero Sawyer Morente was more interested in her days-old baby than in his less-than-stunning mother.

“I’m really grateful for all you’re trying to do,” she told Val. “But we have to find our own way from the start. Actually it’s probably better that Shem and Azure aren’t here. They’d only try to tell me how I should be nurturing Joey’s spirit and trying to read his aura and chart his stars.” She couldn’t help but laugh. “Then they’d just mess the place up even worse by throwing me a big congratulations party.”

“All the more reason to get out of here before they come back,” Sawyer muttered.

“All the more reason you should accept a little help from your friends,” Val said. “You and your little boy are going to need all the help and support you can get. It’s not going to be easy for either of you.”

Maya looked at Sawyer, and for a moment Val wasn’t in the room.

Sawyer could hear Val’s unspoken message: Raising a fatherless baby is going to be hard—for both of you.

Still looking at him as if she understood exactly, Maya said, “Joey has me and I’ll love him enough for two. He doesn’t need a father who doesn’t want him.”

From the recesses of his memory, Sawyer heard his mother saying the same thing to him. You don’t need a father who doesn’t want you.

He recalled the times, as a boy, he’d gotten into fights because kids at school had teased him about not having a father come to watch him play baseball or because he was clumsy in shop class. He’d never had a father to teach him how to use tools the way the other boys had. His mother had always chided him and reminded him that he didn’t need a father who didn’t want him.

And all his life he’d told himself the same thing. Until he’d looked into Joey’s innocent blue eyes and seen a reflection of himself. Now the idea of that little boy growing up with the same doubts and fears he’d had bothered him more than he cared to admit.

Fighting off a surge of unwelcome emotion, he abruptly turned back into the kitchen and began unloading groceries.

There was a silence and then he heard Val say, “Well, how about this? Why don’t you stay with us, just until we get this place into shape? It’ll be cozy, but we don’t mind if you don’t.”

“Val, you are not listening to me. I’ll have a job soon and Joey and I will move into our own place. Try and understand. “

Val heaved a sigh. “I don’t understand, but obviously I can’t change your mind right now. But I’m not taking my groceries back, so don’t even start with me on that. Speaking of which, I’ll give you a hand putting them away.”

“I can do that,” Sawyer said as they walked into the kitchen. He hoped Val would take the hint and leave. “Why don’t you stay and let me make you lunch?” Maya asked, unaware of Sawyer’s wish. “It’s the least I can do after all this.”

“I’d love to but I have to get back home. The girls have ballet class and Paul’s taking our little one for his checkup.” A feline smile slanted her lips. “But maybe Sawyer is hungry.”

The woman didn’t know when to quit, Sawyer decided. Fantasizing about a good use for duct tape, Sawyer resisted telling her to give up on her very obvious and misguided attempt at matchmaking. “Actually I’m more tired than hungry. I think I’ll take off as soon as I put the last of these away.”

“I’ll get those,” Maya said, reaching for a can. He caught her gaze, her eyes brimming with a combination of sympathy and apology.

“Fine, then I guess I’ll head back to my place,” he said, inwardly wincing at the brusqueness in his voice, especially when Maya looked a little taken aback.

She followed him to the door, and when he turned to tell her goodbye, she averted her eyes, her face a becoming pink. “Um, thanks for everything,” she said quickly. “I really—”

“Appreciate it, I know. Forget it,” he said roughly. He looked down at her upturned face, those wide green eyes locked with his, and wondered why he couldn’t just walk away and forget about her.

“I should go,” he said. Fishing around in his pocket, he pulled out his sunglasses and shoved them on. “Call me if you need or want anything.” He opened the door and stepped out, paused and turned back. “You know where to find me.”

She smiled at that, soft and full. “And you know where to find me.”

His arms laden with a pile of dirty clothes he’d kept throwing in his truck from the station but forgetting to bring home, Sawyer kicked his door shut with his heel. Regina had come this morning, and the place smelled fresh, of lemon oil and floor wax. His housekeeper would ream him for bringing her the heap of sweaty, smoky clothes from work, but he was used to that.

Regina Cortez had been taking care of him and Cort one way or another since they’d moved to the estate. She’d been working for his grandparents for a couple of years before his mother had come to live there with her two young sons and asked Regina to be their part-time babysitter. From the beginning Sawyer and Cort considered Regina family rather than hired help. Even now she fussed over the both of them and had made it her life’s work to find them both nice girls to settle down with, since she was firmly convinced both of them were overdue for marriage and family.

Tugging off his boots, Sawyer left them by the door, lest she have another reason to curse him out in Spanish for leaving black scuff marks on her shiny beige ceramic tiles.

Sawyer strode to the gleaming kitchen and tugged open the stainless-steel fridge. “Beer, beer or beer?” he muttered to himself, rummaging through shelves largely empty except for the bonanza of imported beers. “Come on, Reggie, didn’t you leave me some of your world-famous tamales? Ah, there they are.” He pulled a tray from behind a six-pack. “Atta girl, I knew you wouldn’t hold that gouge in the coffee table against me forever.”

He snapped the beer and drank it while he shoved the tamales in the microwave to warm, then wandered into his living room and snatched up the TV remote. He sat back in his favorite leather chair and propped his legs up on the coffee table. He began channel surfing, not really watching anything. His thoughts weren’t here in his gorgeous, custom-decorated hacienda. His thoughts were back at the Rainbow love shack. His thoughts had never left Maya.

Why was she so attached to that run-down excuse for a house? Maybe because it was a home, he mused.

Sawyer looked around him at the beautiful Spanish antiques, Indian rugs, pottery. Most of it, including the rich leathers and upholstery, had been given to him by his mother from the estate house furnishings. His mother had bought the house shortly after Sawyer had joined the Air Force, with plans of finally moving off her parents’ estate. But she’d always found a reason not to make the move, and when Sawyer came back to Luna Hermosa, she had insisted he move in to this house. She had offered the house to Cort, but he had flat-out refused to live there. Sawyer hadn’t been excited about a house, either, because he thought it was too big and too fussily decorated for his taste. And if his mother hadn’t been ill at the time and determined he accept, he would never have agreed to live here.

The house had every amenity money could buy. And yet it was still only a house, a shell. Impersonal. Cold. The house had almost nothing of him in it except his old leather chair—and that he’d had to fight his mother tooth and nail to keep after she’d consigned it to the junk pile.

He smiled, thinking of Maya’s grade school painting on the wall. Hardly the Gorman that hung over his fireplace. But it was a part of Maya, like her mother’s pillows and heaven knew what other trinkets and odd junk. All of it worthless, except to Maya. He took another swig of his beer, his other hand still impatiently surfing his hundred-plus channels of cable service for something worth watching.

Hell, if that place means so much to her and she won’t leave it, then at least it’s going to be up to code and safe for her to bring Joey home to.

Sawyer dug his cell phone out of his jeans pocket and punched in his brother’s number. “Hey, Cort, you wanted to talk, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“How about now?” Sawyer suggested. He figured Cort would make the time for a brotherly heart-to-heart, especially since Sawyer hadn’t bothered to tell him what their talk would be about.

Half an hour later Sawyer slung a towel around his waist and went to answer the doorbell only to nearly get hit in the face by the door when Cort shoved his way through the entrance. “Come on in,” Sawyer said.