He followed them to the front door and outstretched a hand, offering to hold the carrier while she dug for her key.
She hooked the seat in the crook of her arm and handled everything herself. A moment later she pointed her key at the lock and froze. She backed up a step and looked at Sawyer. “It’s unlocked.”
The frustration he’d felt toward her unexplained attitude bled away, and every instinct he had steeled him to defend her. He motioned Emma behind him as he turned the knob. She hurriedly obeyed.
The door swung easily inward, and Sawyer cursed. She was right. Someone had been there, and the house screamed with the evidence. He pulled his weapon and reached for Emma with his free hand, pulling her and Henry close behind him.
The house was in utter disarray. Every item in sight had been turned upside down. Someone was desperate to find something. The thing that he had broken into Sara’s room to find, Sawyer thought. A good sign that whatever Sara had on this guy was still in play. A good sign because her life likely depended on that.
Sawyer ached to prowl through the upended room and shoot today’s intruder the way he’d shot the last, but his legs locked and his muscles froze before he reached the center of the living room. He couldn’t take his family one step farther into a potential ambush, and he couldn’t send them out of his sight to wait. He stepped back, urging Emma onto the porch, then rushing her down the steps beside him to the SUV, where he locked them all inside and started the engine in case they needed to make a fast retreat.
His muscles ached to pounce on the man who’d done this, but that would have to wait. Right now, he had his family to think of.
* * *
THE POLICE ARRIVED within minutes of Emma’s call to Detective Rosen. He came later, having been caught up at Mr. Harrison’s murder scene. Comparatively, she supposed Mr. Harrison’s situation had probably seemed more pressing, but she disagreed. She and Henry were still alive, still in danger, and finding out who kept coming at them seemed paramount to finding out who’d killed a man after the fact. Maybe if the police got to the bottom of her situation now, she and Henry would never end up like... Emma’s stomach coiled at the thought of Mr. Harrison’s fate becoming Henry’s.
Emma took Henry to the rocker in the living room as men and women in uniforms began showing up in pairs. It was both profoundly tragic and strangely reassuring that the faces were becoming familiar to her. She’d seen them all at least once these last few days, some after Sara’s abduction, others after her own mugging, the first break-in or the runaway truck scenario. The small-town police force was only so big, and now she’d met them all, or at least it seemed that way. Thankfully, they all knew that this was part of a complex ongoing investigation, and Emma hadn’t had to repeat any information for them. She wasn’t sure she could without bringing on an emotional breakdown, and there was no time for that.
She kept Henry close, singing softly and stroking his hair and cheek until he grew tired of watching the crowd and he dozed in her arms. Henry was her life now, and keeping him close to her heart seemed to be the only thing keeping her from losing her mind. As long as Henry was safe, everything else would be too.
Even if her mother’s dishes were shattered and the bookshelves her father had made her on her tenth birthday were ruined. Even if every sweet memory she’d made before her parents’ deaths were slowly being chipped away and ruined by one murderous psychopath...
If Henry was okay, Emma would be okay too.
Emma tried not to think about the scene before her. She didn’t let her gaze or mind settle on the woman dusting her door for prints or the photographer snapping shots of her destroyed things. They were just things. But her stomach clenched at the sight of her framed photos scattered on the ground, some torn from the frames. Photos of her parents. Photos of Henry. Images of her and Sara through the years. How could she go on in a life without Sara? Emma wasn’t even sure who she was without her for context. They were best friends. Confidantes. Sisters.
Sawyer walked into the room, instantly pulling her jangled nerves together. Something about his presence had a way of doing that. Calming her. He’d stuck to Detective Rosen’s side after his arrival, talking, listening and occasionally making calls. She admired Sawyer’s unwavering confidence under fire. Ironically, of all the terrible things they’d encountered together these last few days, she’d seen him rattled only once, and that was in the SUV earlier when he’d offered to buy a second crib for Henry and she’d abandoned the conversation.
Her spine stiffened with the memory. He wanted to get his own crib for Henry instead of sharing the crib she already had. What’s wrong? he’d asked. Was he kidding? Only the fact that it had been the worst way possible for him to say he had no intentions of making a life with her. What he’d suggested sounded like the behavior of divorced couples, not reunited lovers making a fresh start. She didn’t want two of everything or to split her son down the middle, raising him separately but together. She didn’t want to be a separated couple who’d never even had the chance to be together.
Her heart rate sped with fresh frustration. She supposed she should be happy Sawyer wanted to be with Henry as much as possible, but given the fact she’d just decided to tell him how badly she wanted to build a life with him, the notion of a second crib had been an unexpected punch to her gut. She shook it off. Sawyer didn’t know about her plans. It wasn’t fair to be upset when he had no idea why. And, she reminded herself, after she told him what she wanted, there was no guarantee that he’d want it too. She’d have no right to be mad about that either. She let her eyes close briefly. She needed to prepare herself for that possibility.
For now, she owed him an apology and an explanation for her earlier behavior. He’d been nothing but kind and comforting to her despite his own feelings about getting the surprise of a lifetime when she’d introduced him to Henry. Of course, she wasn’t in the mood to give an apology or an explanation, and both would have to wait until the house was straightened and empty of police officials. Until then, she rocked and sang and hoped Sara would be home soon. She needed her to be home soon.
Eventually, Sawyer walked the last of the cops onto the porch, and Emma rolled Henry’s crib into the living room, then laid him in it. She wasn’t ready to let him out of her sight, and she couldn’t leave him anywhere there was a bullet hole in the wall beside his head.
Emma started a fresh pot of coffee and collected her cleaning supplies from where they’d been thrown out of the hall closet. As if Sara had kept her biggest secrets at the bottom of a can of Comet. Emma started by putting her living room back in order and giving everything a good scrub so Henry wouldn’t be surrounded by chaos when he woke. She folded afghans and arranged throw pillows, straightened the curtains and lined books, quietly, back onto the built-in shelves along the fireplace. She shimmied the furniture back into the correct positions and righted the overturned vase, which had blessedly not broken in the spill. Goose bumps rose on her arms as she sprayed the cleanser on every flat surface and pretended that with enough elbow grease, she could rub all traces of the intruder’s grubby hands off her and Sara’s lives.
Sawyer returned as she put the last cleansing touch on her living room. “Nice,” he said, looking wholly impressed.
“Thanks. One room down, eight more to go.” She puffed air into overgrown bangs, then tucked them behind her ear. “What did Detective Rosen say?”
“He thinks whoever did this was looking for the notebook we gave him.”
Emma agreed. She moved into the kitchen and put her table and chairs back in place, thankful for the work to busy her hands and give her restless nerves an outlet. “Did you talk to your team? Have they made any more progress with the pages you sent them?” She’d seen him on the phone and hoped that was the case.
“Wyatt’s working on it.” Sawyer restocked the pantry with fallen cans and boxes, then lifted the broom into his hands and worked i
t over the linoleum floor. He stilled when his phone rang. “It’s Wyatt,” he said, looking at the small screen. He set the cell phone on the counter and pressed the speaker button. “You’re on speaker. I’m with Emma. What do you have?”
“Hey,” Wyatt began, skipping the niceties this time and getting right down to business. “We were able to make a definitive match on all the numbers in Sara’s notebook. The first account number represents an account at the Knox Ridge Credit Union, more than one hundred of them, actually. The back half of each number is a second account, as suspected, coordinating with a bank in the Cayman Islands. That’s why the numbers all end the same way. Sara began each line with a transaction date, which accounts for the initial set of numbers on each line.”
Emma wiped large wet circles over her countertop, trying to channel the excess energy while she processed the information. “Was Sara tracking an embezzlement scheme?”
“Maybe,” Wyatt said. “Blake’s looking into it further than I can, but that’s the direction we’re leaning.”
Sawyer crossed his arms. “Could be money laundering. Could be both.”
The phone was silent for a long beat before Wyatt simply added, “Yep.”
Emma shivered as the implication settled in. “This is a lot bigger than I thought,” she said, her mouth going dry with anxiety. “I thought Sara caught one guy doing something big enough to get him arrested. Now I know she caught someone stealing from at least a hundred people? Funneling funds offshore? And the man behind it is so unstable he’d kill to cover his tracks.” She swallowed the painful mound of emotions piled in her throat and wrapped her arms around her unsettled stomach. “He killed Mr. Harrison. He tried to kill Kate. And us too.” She swept her gaze from the phone to Sawyer and saw the truth in his eyes.
Whoever was doing these things would do whatever it took to be sure his stolen funds were safe.
Even murder a pair of sisters and a little baby.
Chapter Twelve
Sawyer worked at Emma’s side for hours, enjoying the steady pace and easy partnership they’d fallen into midway through the kitchen cleanup. He scrubbed. She tidied. They were an excellent team. Emma knew where everything went. She knew how things worked. He, on the other hand, was decent with a scrub brush and lifted fallen items with less trouble.
Emma adjusted the volume on her phone dock’s speaker as a new song began. She watched as he emptied another dustpan of broken glass into the trash bin. “I know I’ve said it before, but thank you, Sawyer,” she said. “For helping me with this mess. For being here when we need you most.”
Sawyer let the smile budding on his lips break free. “Where else would I be?” he asked with a wink. He watched as her own smile bloomed in return, and some of the day’s horrendous weight lifted.
Working beside her, even at a task as unfortunate as theirs, reminded him of how good they were together. Emma was his perfect teammate. The yin to his yang. He’d never experienced anything like it, not even with his brothers in arms after years of fighting side by side. With Emma, it was different. Seamless. Better.
She stretched to set a pile of freshly folded jeans on her closet shelf, and Sawyer had to force his gaze back on the floor and dustpan.
There were perks to their camaraderie besides companionship. He also enjoyed her taste in music, and the playlist she’d started to help pass the time was filled with his favorites. A few of the selections were deeply nostalgic, and most of those memories included her.
Another bonus was the conversation. She didn’t push or prod for more when he answered her questions, and she always answered his with depth and sincerity. She took her time, and he appreciated that.
The other benefit to their evening was watching her dead-sexy body bend and stretch for hours, a little sweat beading in the most deliciously distracting places.
Sawyer met her at the closet doors and placed the next few stacks of clothing on the shelves just above her head. “I’ve got it. Move over, shorty.”
She bumped him with her hip. “I could have done that,” she said, grinning. “I’ve been short all my life, you know. I’ve learned to get creative.”
“No need to get creative when you’ve got an extra set of hands,” he said.
“And they are very nice hands.” Emma flashed a wicked grin but didn’t say another word as she went to refill her drawers with freshly washed and folded clothing. Whatever she’d been upset about in the SUV seemed to have passed. He planned to circle back to that subject later, when the work was done, but for now, he was just glad to see her smiling.
He didn’t hate seeing her in her “work clothes” either. A few hours ago when she’d announced that she would change to finish cleaning, he’d expected her to return in oversize sweatpants or a holey T-shirt. Instead, she’d emerged from her room in a pair of short black running shorts and a fitted V-neck T-shirt. He could understand why the outfit worked for her. It couldn’t possibly be hot or cumbersome, two definite benefits with so much bending, stretching and sweating ahead. Her outfit worked for him too, but all his reasons were currently testing his integrity and willpower.
Emma finished refolding the rest of her clothing and reloading the dresser drawers, then wiped a line of sweat off her brow. “I think that’s it,” she said. The hem of her shirt rose above the waist of her little shorts as she reached to peel the elastic band out of her hair and free her ponytail. The strip of exposed skin drew his attention to her middle, and his fingers curled at the sight of her creamy skin. Determined not to touch the gentle sway of her stomach or curves of her waist, he braced his hands on his hips. Emma wasn’t his to touch that way anymore. And this was hardly the right time to address the possibilities that she might reconsider him for the job anytime soon.
He dragged his gaze to hers. “I guess our work is done here.”
She smiled, and he knew he’d been caught ogling, but was that all? Could she see the shameless truth in his expression? That he wanted her in every possible way, even if this was a terrible time to want more than to keep her safe and bring her sister home?
“What now?” he asked, intentionally leaving the question open to interpretation.
“Now,” she said, plucking the thin cotton fabric of her white T-shirt away from her sweat-dampened skin, “I need a shower.” She shook out her hair and gave him the sexiest damn smile he’d ever seen before walking away. “I won’t be long,” she said, moving in the direction of her en suite bath. She hooked a finger at him as she crossed the threshold.
Sawyer swallowed a low groan and went after her.
A small, distant cry pulled him up short. He caught the doorjamb in both palms and dropped his head forward in disappointment, but only for a moment. He lifted a genuine smile to Emma’s stunned, maybe even disappointed eyes. “Duty calls,” he said, smile growing.
“Daddy duty,” she said, smiling back.
He liked the sound of that. He turned on his heel and gave her one last look over his shoulder. “I’m going to have to insist on a rain check for that shower.”
Emma laughed. “If you handle daddy duty so I can soak this day off right now, you’ve got more than a shower coming your way.”
Sawyer gave a low wolf whistle on his way back to Henry’s crib in the living room, where he would soon get to hold the other love of his life for a while.
* * *
EMMA TOOK HER time in the shower, both soaping up and winding down. She let herself imagine Sawyer had joined her under the steamy spray, and a wave of similar memories pummeled through her. Emma’s time with Sawyer, before Henry, had always been intense. He’d asked for her number the moment they’d met and called the same night, before she’d made it back to her car. He’d told her he didn’t have much time. That he was a soldier on leave for thirty days, and he planned to make the most of his time. When he asked her out, the sound of her name on his tongue had felt like coming hom
e. Maybe that was what people meant when they said “love at first sight.” Whatever it was, being with him again had brought it all back in a powerful rush.
She spent a few more minutes enjoying the fantasy that she wasn’t alone before stepping out of the shower and pulling herself back together. Thoroughly dried and relaxed, she paired a jean skirt and short-sleeved button-down with bare feet in sneakers, then blew out her hair until it was soft on her shoulders. A little lip gloss and mascara, and Emma was ready to face the rest of her night, whatever that might hold.
Sawyer’s voice rumbled down the hall from the kitchen as she stepped into the hall. She followed the sounds of his singing until she reached the kitchen, where he two-stepped Henry through the room.
Henry looked tiny in Sawyer’s muscled arms, his narrow body stretched against Sawyer’s broad chest. Their matching blue eyes lit with each buoyant step. Just when she’d been certain Sawyer Lance couldn’t get any more desirable, this happened. It wasn’t fair. Seeing him like this with their son was more than she’d ever dared to dream for, and here he was, instantly devoted and obviously happy. It was exactly the way she’d felt the moment she’d realized she was pregnant.
She and Sawyer had created the most precious gift imaginable together, and the beauty of that truth tugged at her heart. Despite everything else going wrong in her life at the moment, her heart overflowed with gratitude.
Sawyer raised a smile in her direction as the song ended. His jaw went slack before his lips broke into a wide smile. “You must be going somewhere special looking like that.”
“I am,” she said. “I’ve got a whole night planned at the lake with two very important men.”
“Two, huh?” Sawyer strode to meet her in the room’s center, turning Henry so he could watch the approach. “Sounds like some lucky guys.”
Emma pulled Henry into her arms and kissed his cheek. “I’m the lucky one,” she said. And it was true. She hated knowing it would end soon. That Sawyer would go back to his new life in progress, and she’d only see him during the drop-offs and pickups when they traded Henry like a shared book or CD.
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