by T. L. Haddix
“Welcome home,” he whispered when he pulled back.
She buried her face in his shoulder. “I’m so scared I’ll break him.”
“Nah. He’s durable.” He gently scooted her out of the way and put his hands around the baby. “He’s also going to sleep. Let’s get him out of the water before he does.”
Together, they got Daniel dried off, lotioned, and dressed.
“Want me to take him?” she asked as they headed to the living room.
“I have him.” He didn’t even try to pretend he didn’t want to hold the baby. They settled in on the couch, and Sawyer felt part of his heart right itself when Sydney snuggled up next to him.
In just a few minutes, the baby was out.
Sydney rubbed her face against Sawyer’s shoulder. “You know you can put him in the pen whenever you want, right?”
“Yeah. I know.”
Her breath shuddered out. “I can’t stand it,” she admitted.
Sawyer carefully freed one of his hands and put his arm around her, pulling her close. “I know that, too.”
They stayed like that for some time, not speaking. When the slam of a car door sounded from just outside, Sydney straightened away from him and stood.
“That’s either Danny or Daddy and the boys.”
“Here. Better put him in the pen.” He let Sydney have the baby, running a hand over his head as she took him.
“Yeah, and then I’d better change clothes. I’m a mess.”
It was true, she was. But she appealed to Sawyer on a level that he’d never expected she would before. He could too easily imagine her as a mother now, and on top of everything else the last few weeks had wrought, that almost sent him running out the door.
Before he could flee, however, Sydney had let her father in.
“Where are the boys?” she asked.
“Home. For some reason, they weren’t excited to see the baby. Where is he?” Archer came into the living room, anticipation on his face. He had a furry, stuffed yellow duck in one hand. “Hi, Sawyer.”
“Hi.”
“He’s asleep. Just went down for a nap,” Sydney said. She took the duck, shaking her head. “You’re going to have him spoiled by the time Neala gets home, aren’t you?”
Archer hugged her. “I’m going to do my damnedest. So what’s the scoop?”
Sydney filled him in on what they knew. By the time she’d finished, Danny was back.
“I brought pizza,” he said, holding up two white boxes. “Sausage pepperoni and veggie lovers.”
When they were settled around the dining room table, eating, Archer startled Sawyer by bringing up one of the topics that had been on Sawyer’s mind all weekend.
“I hear you had quite the revelatory adventure Friday. How’re you doing with that?”
Sawyer’s hand tightened around his glass as he glanced from Archer to Danny. “I beg your pardon?”
“He knows. Sydney told him when they were teenagers,” Archer said.
“Oh.” Sawyer shrugged. “I’m okay. It’s still a bit… fantastical, I guess, but it’s sinking in.” He eyed the other man carefully, trying to gauge Archer’s mood.
Archer smiled. “I imagine you have questions.”
“I do. But I also don’t want to trample on your privacy.”
“How long have we known each other? Twenty years now? Long enough that you know I’m hard to offend. Ask away. If I don’t want to answer, I’ll say so bluntly.”
For the rest of the meal, Sawyer did just that. He was more comfortable talking to Archer about shifting than he’d been discussing it with Owen. They were contemporaries, he and Sydney’s father, after all.
“So what about you?” he asked Sydney. “I know you said you could feel certain things with people health wise. Is that really all?”
She looked up at him warily, then at her father, and shrugged. “Mostly.”
Archer frowned. “Mostly? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” She shot Sawyer an irritated glance. “I guess it means I think there’s more to it. That in certain cases under special circumstances that maybe I can do more than sense a person’s health. Sometimes I can… enhance it, I guess.”
Archer was dead quiet as he stared at her. “You mean heal,” he finally said. “You think you can heal people.”
“Not intentionally. I can’t control it. It just happens. And I don’t even know I’m doing it until it’s done. What?”
Archer was staring at her, slowly shaking his head. “I didn’t know you knew about that.”
She scowled. “Of course I knew about it. Don’t tell me you did.”
He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Your mother has long suspected it was part of your abilities, yes. She didn’t want to say anything to you. Didn’t want to put pressure on you.”
Sydney touched his arm. “Daddy… You two are something else.”
“When did you figure it out?”
She smiled. “After Zanny got sick. You all tried so hard to protect us, but we knew things were worse than you were letting on. And I overheard you and Mom one night after she had more tests run in Lexington. She was better than she’d been when she was diagnosed, and that was before the doctors did anything.” She shrugged again. “Like I said, it isn’t something I can do at will. It either happens or it doesn’t. I learned a long time ago not to try to control it. If I did try, it would drive me mad. There’ve been a lot of people through the years I’ve wanted to help but couldn’t.”
Archer hugged her. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“There’ve been a lot of people through the years you have helped, too,” Danny said quietly. “Don’t even think there aren’t.”
She nodded. “I know.”
After dinner, Archer stayed for a while to play with the baby. Sawyer was hoping he would leave first, so that he could figure out whether or not Sydney wanted him to stay, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Reluctantly, he gave in first.
“I’ll head out. Are you planning to stay home tomorrow?” he asked Sydney as he got to his feet.
“No. Danny’s going to babysit. I’ll try to be in at the normal time.”
“Okay.”
Archer was frowning. “How much of an inconvenience would it be for you to stay here tonight, Sawyer?”
That was the last thing he’d been expecting to hear. “Excuse me?”
“Not that I don’t think Danny and Sydney can protect themselves, but I’d feel a lot more comfortable if you could stay. If something happens, if Neala comes back… You know how to defuse the situation and who to call first if it gets out of hand. I’m assuming you carry.”
“I do.” Sawyer didn’t know what to think, and if the look on her face was any indication, Sydney was just as surprised as he was. “You don’t trust Neala?”
“Not as far as I can throw her,” Archer replied, dead serious. “And while she may have cleaned her act up in recent years, she used to run with a pretty rough crowd. If I didn’t have to worry about the boys being home alone, I’d stay. Syd? What do you think?”
She spread her hands, her eyes wide as she struggled for words. “I… uh, I don’t know. It’s up to Sawyer.”
“I don’t have a problem staying if you don’t have a problem having me,” he said.
Archer grinned. “Good. I’ll sleep a lot better tonight knowing you’re here. Well, guess I’d better run. Holler if you need me.” He hugged Sydney and was gone before anyone in the living room could say much more than good-bye.
Sawyer stared after him, then turned back to Sydney and Danny. “Do you get the feeling we just got set up?”
“By a pro,” she said, nodding. “But… Okay. I won’t argue. He does have a point.�
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Danny agreed. “So I’m upstairs in the guest room. Are you keeping this guy with you in your room?” He raised Daniel over his head, making him squeal with delight.
“I guess so.”
“Then that leaves me the couch. All right. This is… yeah. This will work,” Sawyer said. He sat back down as Danny snorted. “What?”
“You’ll take the couch. Really? Got a bridge you want to sell me?”
Sawyer scowled even as Sydney snickered. He was mortified to feel himself blush.
“If you want to stay on the couch, feel free,” Sydney said. “Wherever you’re comfortable.”
He didn’t even try to get them to stop their teasing. They all knew where he’d be sleeping.
“Do you think he knows about us?” Sawyer asked Sydney when Danny excused himself for a few minutes. “Your father, I mean?”
“I don’t know,” she replied pensively. She was lying on the rug, the baby propped up against her on a blanket, playing with his toys. He’d not let go of the duck since he’d laid eyes on it. “I don’t think he does. Do you?”
“I don’t know.”
But Sawyer was starting to wonder. He knew the old adage, that a person only saw what they wanted to see, what they expected to see. And he was starting to think that he hadn’t seen a lot as it pertained to Sydney’s family. After all, he never would have imagined they’d support a romantic relationship between him and Sydney, as they knew it wouldn’t go anywhere. But he got the impression they knew a lot more than they were admitting to.
“I wonder if they haven’t set us up all along,” he slowly admitted. “But…” He’d started to ask “to what end?” but that might not be the best question to ask her. It could start a discussion he was in no way prepared to take on, much less finish, at the moment.
She bit her lip. “They are a nosy bunch of matchmakers.”
“Who are?” Danny asked as he came back in.
“My family. We’re trying to figure out if they know about us. Sawyer was asking if they might not have set us up from the get go. Have they said anything to you?”
Danny almost choked on his soda. “Huh? To me? Why would they say anything to me?”
She groaned and fell back, taking care to keep Daniel upright. “Oh, God. They have. How bad is it?”
Danny sent Sawyer an apologetic look, then Sydney. “They’re in it up to their eyeballs. Sorry, kids.”
Sawyer laughed. “Of course they are. Shit.” He was stunned, but at the same time, it fit. He rubbed his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” Sydney told him. Regret and wary concern filled her eyes. “That’s the last thing I wanted.”
“I know. But we should have expected it. God bless ‘em.” He shook his head, chuckling.
She sat up, her brow furrowed with confusion. “You’re not mad?”
“Would it do any good for me to be?”
“I don’t know.” She growled and tugged on her hair. “Is everyone trying to matchmake us?” she asked Danny.
“Everyone except Noah.”
Sawyer scowled. “What’s his objection?”
“Nothing specific. He just worries,” Danny said.
Sydney nodded. “That’s kind of what Noah does—worries. It’s nothing personal.”
He blew out an amused sigh. “Well, at least the last few weeks haven’t been boring, right?”
She laid back down. “Tell me about it.”
Sawyer and Danny exchanged a look. She seemed more perturbed about the meddling than Sawyer was, but he didn’t understand why. Now wasn’t the time to get into it, though.
And as to why he wasn’t more upset? That was something else he dwell on later.
Chapter Fifty
Sydney hadn’t been at work long Thursday morning when Neala called.
“We’ll be back in town this afternoon, probably around two. I talked to Danny. He said he’d meet me at your house with Daniel so we can get his things.”
“So you’re taking him today?”
“Yep. I’ve missed him so much, but I had to do this. Kyle’s with me. He’s never met Daniel. He’s so excited.”
Sydney wanted to scream that he’d never meet him, that she’d take the baby and Neala would be shit out of luck. But she couldn’t.
“I’ll see you around two then, I guess.” She didn’t wait for a response, just ended the call, staring into space numbly. It shouldn’t hurt so much, the thought of letting the baby go after she’d only had him for a few days. But she felt like her heart was being ripped from her chest.
When she could breathe again, she stood and went to Sawyer’s door. He turned the radio down as he looked over.
“What’s up?”
“That was Neala.”
He frowned. “She’s coming?”
“Today at two.” Sydney picked at the doorframe. “I’ll call Danny, see what he wants to do.”
Sawyer’s chair creaked as he sat back. “Where’re you meeting her? I’d like to be there.”
The line of his jaw was hard, his eyes shuttered, as he turned his pen end over end. He had grown just as attached to Daniel as she had, something that made Sydney even angrier. She wasn’t the only one losing the baby today.
“The house.”
He nodded. “What time do you want to go?”
She took her glasses off and cleaned them on her shirttail. “Maybe around eleven? That’ll give me time to get his things together, feed him before he goes.”
“Okay. How do you want to handle the transfer?”
“Honestly? I’d like to punch her. That’s not really an option, I know, but it would make me feel better. At least for a few minutes.” She sighed roughly. “I don’t want to see her. She hasn’t even said thanks yet, you know?”
“I know. I have quite a bit to say to her before she takes him. She probably won’t appreciate most of it, but I don’t give a fuck how she feels at this point.”
Sydney gave a quick laugh, even though she felt like crying. “Her ‘baby daddy’ is with her. Kyle, she said his name was. I guess things went well for her. She said he’s all excited to meet Daniel. I don’t want to give him back.”
“You don’t have a choice. And I can see you calculating how far you could get in five hours’ time,” he said, standing and coming around his desk. He pulled her straight into his arms with a sigh. “I’m sorry.”
Sydney clung to him, slow tears tracking down her cheeks. “It isn’t fair.”
“No, it isn’t.”
There wasn’t anything else to say. Nothing would fix the loss—Daniel would go home with Neala, Sydney would be with Sawyer for however long their fling lasted, and then she’d be alone again. She’d come to realize over the last few days that while she’d been prepared to lose him at the end of their run and was able to face that reality, adding the baby to the mix had changed things. Now she saw exactly what it would be like to have a family with Sawyer. He’d make a spectacular father. And she couldn’t erase the images of him with Daniel from her mind. They already haunted her.
The dynamic between them had changed, as well. It felt more like a real relationship, not a casual, fun, lighthearted affair. And Sydney wasn’t comfortable in that skin, not as long as she knew it would end sooner rather than later. She knew Sawyer was worried about her, as he’d asked her several times this past week what was wrong. She’d gotten quiet, and being a smart man, he’d picked up on that. She kept insisting nothing was the matter, but he didn’t believe her. She knew that, too.
When her phone rang, she pulled away from him. “That’s probably Danny.”
“Okay. I’ll wrap things up here so we can leave at eleven.”
“Thanks. I think I’m going to take a walk, very brief, and get some air. I’ll be back in
a few minutes.”
“Take your time.”
She felt the weight of his gaze on her back as she grabbed her phone and wallet. She couldn’t turn around and support him, though. Not right this moment. Right now, it was all she could do to keep herself together, much less anyone else.
As Sydney left the office, Sawyer growled out his frustration in a long string of curses that were less than flattering to Neala and her errant boyfriend. The week had been both tremendously long and unbelievably short. He’d still been reeling Monday from the weekend’s blows as he struggled to deal with everything he’d learned, everything he was starting to feel for Sydney. With the baby thrown in the mix… He felt like his entire life had been turned upside down, all the neat, logical pieces scattered across the ground so far out of reach, he’d never find all of them.
He was terrified he was falling in love with Sydney. Hell, if he was being honest, “falling” wasn’t even close. “Had fallen” was more like it. Head-over-heels, through-and-through in love.
And she was withdrawing from him faster than he could run to catch her.
After Danny’s revelation that her family was on to them, had been in on the whole thing since before Sawyer had ever made his first move, they’d talked about what to do.
“Should we let them know that we know?” Sawyer’d asked as they got ready for bed that night.
“I don’t think so,” Sydney said. “Maybe it’s petty of me, but I intend to play dumb if for no other reason than to get Daddy’s goat.”
Sawyer slid his arms around her waist, pulling her back into him as he laughed. “You’re liable to get us in trouble.”
“Nah. But maybe it’ll back them off Noah a little. They need to learn they can’t play Cupid like that and get away with it. Unintended consequences and the like.”
The baby had cried then, and Sawyer hadn’t been able to ask her what she’d meant. But her withdrawal had been blatantly obvious as the week had gone on. Danny had even noticed and commented on it.