by Emily Childs
“I know how to bargain shop, believe it or not.”
Impressive. Maddie never seemed the type, but then Royce was a tool and controlled everything, down to what she ate. It shouldn’t be a surprise that my cousin knows how to budget to the extreme.
“Still,” I say. “It’s nice. Thanks for helping.”
“Least I can do,” she says through a sigh. “What with you housing my butt for the unforeseeable future.”
I snort. “Maddie, it’s fine. Turn the tables and you’d be doing the same for me.”
She clears her throat and faces the wall, adjusting a picture frame that has no need to be adjusted.
“Mads,” I say and take a step closer. Great. Tears shimmer in her eyes. I’m on a roll for making women cry lately. “Hey, I’m sorry—”
“No,” she waves me away. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking if the tables were turned, I wouldn’t have helped. I wouldn’t have been able to. How pathetic does that make me sound?”
I don’t wait for her to crumble before I hug her against my chest. She sniffs, fights, tries not to break down, but my shirt feels wet all the same. “You are not pathetic,” I say with great deliberateness. “He is. Not you.”
She tries to smile through all the tears she won’t shed. Southern pride is a killer sometimes. Maddie squeezes my hand and lifts her chin. “Okay, enough talking about this or I’ll keep bawling. Did I tell you that lady did stop by about the Beach Day, thing?”
“The guys at the shop say it’s actually pretty fun.”
“Yeah, the lady has come at least three times to make sure we’ll be there.”
I groan and trudge back to my office. It’s been three days since our first training at the Honeyville Clinic, three days since Dot returned the ring I bought her, since she gave me the invitation to become a part of her life again. The Beach Games have been the last thing on my mind.
“I don’t see how we can avoid it at this point. Rosita is a little scary.”
Maddie laughs and is less than sympathetic. “She is scary. Still, I’m glad we’re going. I could use a brainless day now that I’ve been served and—”
“Whoa.” I hold up a hand. “Whoa. You’ve been what?”
Kyler’s face turns to stone. “He served you?”
Her shoulders slump. “Yep. With a new set of divorce amendments, oh and a suit for pain and suffering. Is that even possible? I can make it all go away, of course, if I crawl back home on my hands and knees.”
She’s trying to sound tough, but I hear the quiver in her voice. My blood boils and I clench my teeth to the breaking point. “It’s a last-ditch attempt to control you, Maddie.”
“I know.”
“Don’t listen to him.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m going to get you in touch with Gregory, my lawyer. Royce isn’t going to pull this kind of crap—”
“Sawyer,” she says with a desperate kind of smile. “Thank you, but you don’t need to do this. I’ll deal with it, and I promise I won’t let him bully me into coming back.”
I tilt my head, unconvinced. “At least let me have Greg call you. What you do from there will be up to you. Please. Please. I can keep saying it. You know I can. When my mind whirls it doesn’t stop, so I can do this all day, Mads. Please—”
“Ugh, stop,” she says with a laugh. “I forgot how annoying you can be.”
I grin and wink. The endless rambling wins every time. Whenever I wanted to get out of chores, play video games before dinner, stay out past eleven on weekends, ramble, ramble, ramble. Even my tough-as-steel Mama caved nine times out of ten.
“Perfect,” I say. “He’ll be in touch.”
She shakes her head. “You’re a good one. In case, I haven’t told you that recently. So now that I have my first paycheck from some super rich bachelor who shall remain nameless, would you mind terribly if I borrowed your car today? I wanted to get a new bathing suit for the beach. In my mad dash out of Tennessee, I left some of my summer things behind.”
“Sure,” I say and toss her my keys. “I was going to run home anyway. I’ve got to say, you’re super into this beach day.” I snap my fingers. “Oh, that’s right, Will is going to be there.”
Maddie stops abruptly. Her mouth opens and closes a few times before she finds her voice. “We’re friends.”
Kyler snorts a laugh. “I heard you on the phone last night.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks, fiddling with my car keys. “Nothing is what it should mean. I had a question about real estate is all. His family owns a massive firm that works with a lot of investment properties.”
“You planning on moving?” I ask.
“Someday. Yeah.”
“Ah,” Kyler goes on, “so the laughing and all that was just normal business talk.”
She sighs and her shoulders fall. “I’m not ready for anything, trust me, but is it wrong if . . . well, he’s the first guy outside of family who’s made me feel like I could laugh again.”
My blood burns again. I don’t know, nor do I want to know, everything that Royce did to Maddie to make her lose a bit of the light she always had in her eyes. I’m frustrated enough to disown her brother and parents since they seem to be entirely on Royce’s side. Is a divorce seriously so shameful they’d rather their daughter and sister be miserable?
“Will seems like a good guy,” I say. “I know the others better, but they’re good people. I think it’s a good thing to talk to people who make you happy, Maddie.”
“Thanks, I think so, too. Thanks for the car. Oh, and paycheck.”
She snickers and leaves us alone. Eventually, Kyler drifts back to his office to finish up before heading home. I answer a few phone calls that come in last minute, respond to an email from one of the Lanford & Hewitt board members about the sale of my shares. Liam pulled through and really set it all up. It’s bittersweet, but heavier on the sweet.
When there is nothing more I need to do unless I want to cross the line to workaholic, I take my carefully prepared characters and drive to the clinic.
Once I’m there, my stomach does a backflip. This is dumb. I don’t know what I was thinking—Dot’ll think I’m an idiot.
I’m about to leave and think of something else, when a voice calls my name from the front. “Sawyer?”
“Hi, Josephine,” I say. I’m still not quite sure where I stand with Jo Dawson, and I certainly don’t want her to know I’ve decorated Star Wars characters as a peace offering for Dorothy-Ann. If Jo already has a poor opinion of me, this’ll seal the deal, no doubt.
“Dot is in a meeting right now.”
“Oh, that’s okay.” I cling to the box with my space guys as if she can see them from where she stands. “I was going to leave this for her anyway.”
“Well, are you coming in then or are you going to stay out here?” Josephine smiles—a real smile—at me. It’s almost unnerving since she’s been the one who doesn’t hide her feelings about me in the least.
“Thanks,” I say as I step into the clinic. Still teeming with life even this late in the day, but I suppose it is the after hours shift by now.
“You know where to find the office,” she says and scans over a clipboard of notes.
“Yeah. I’ll be quick.”
At Dot’s door, my palms grow sweaty. Funny how all this does feel new, enough I’m doubting every seemingly romantic idea I conjure up. Second guessing, wondering if we can ever repair what was broken. I suppose there is only one way to find out.
I hurry and slip the box of my guys, set them on her desk in the proper order, then scribble a note that says, memory lane.
By the time I leave the clinic, my palms aren’t as sweaty and I’m feeling a bit more confident in my seduction techniques. Back home, the house is empty and dark. With nothing to preoccupy my time until I hear from Dot (if I do), I begin rummaging through the files we put together after the training.
Somewhere in this mess is a clue, and I’
m missing it.
Whoever is skimming money from the clinic is good at covering their tracks. For the last three days, I’ve been scanning these sheets, coming up empty. I can sense the answer is right there in front of me. Dot assures me only she and the board which includes Josephine and Rob Gardener see the numbers and the code.
I stop shuffling papers.
Dot and the board see the financials. They have access to the billing, but so does . . .
My heart shoots to my throat and I rummage through a stack of papers. Why didn’t we think of this before now? I mentally berate my distracted head. This is something I should’ve checked off days ago.
Yes!
I study the signature on one of the accounts that closed. Walter Burg, patient accounts representative.
He has access to every file. Not as a financial manager, but as the middleman who takes the documentation and billing information to and from those who sent the claims to insurances. Then he brings back the payments to the management. A kind of invisible entity no one would notice.
I fumble for my phone in my pocket, on edge and in a flurry of thought. It rings three times before she picks up. “Dot,” I practically shout.
“Sawyer, oh my gosh, I saw the guys and—”
“I think I found our bad guy!” I blurt out. The line is quiet for a minute, but my mind is racing. “Can you come to my place? Now?”
“Yes,” she says. In the background, papers rustle. “Yes, I’m coming now.”
“Hurry.” I hang up without another word and study the puzzle pieces that have officially come together in one beautiful image. “Got you.”
Chapter 17
Dot
The Blue Palace is dark, only a light is on in the kitchen when I arrive. I get a short knock in before Sawyer opens the door and practically drags me inside. His hair is tousled, his shirt unbuttoned, but his eyes are bright with energy.
“Look,” he says once he’s led me into the kitchen. He points at his laptop, opened to sheets of billing documents that pass through Walter’s office before—
My mouth drops as my brain makes the connection. “No,” I say in a gasp. “Walter?”
Sawyer nods and shows the mess of documents that all spiral back in one terrible path of guilt to Walter. He signed off on dozens of procedures we never performed, skimmed the excess once payments came in, then must’ve pocketed it for his own use.
I plop into one of the dining table chairs and cover my face with my hands. At my side, another chair scrapes over the wood floor and Sawyer sits. He says nothing, but I don’t need him to say anything. Being there is enough for now.
“I feel like an idiot,” I say after a long pause. “I should’ve thought to look to Walter’s office, but was so focused on the board, or physicians, and completely overlooked patient services.”
“We all did,” Sawyer says. “I wasn’t looking at him at first either.”
“This is illegal, right?” I know it is, but I like Walter. I’ve known him for years, and in my own way, I want to find a way out of this, as if it’s some big misunderstanding.
“Very illegal,” Sawyer replies. “I’m sorry.”
With a groan, I let my head flop to the table. “Why did he do this, the dummy? He’s a decent guy, boring, but nice to everyone.”
“Good people can get caught up in things.”
“What do we do now? Call the cops, what?”
Sawyer scratches his chin, staring at the papers spread out over the table. “Your board will need to meet, and then, yeah. This needs to be dealt with legally, I’d say.”
Silence settles around us. I pick at my thumbnail, my voice small when I speak again. “I don’t like this part of the job. Here I was living in my little kumbaya bubble, never imagining I’d need to do this ugly side of business.”
A hot sting builds behind my eyes. Great. Now I’m crying. A prickle climbs my arm when warmth from Sawyer’s hand covers my own. He slips his fingers into mine and gives my hand a squeeze.
“It’s not easy,” he tells me. “Something like this happened to us, too. A developer was selling our code for the app to a bigger company at the beginning. We lost two major investors because of it. The guy wasn’t a bad guy, but sometimes people just . . . get stuck in bad choices.”
“And you recovered,” I say more to myself.
The barest hint of a smile curls in the corner of his mouth. “We did, and you will, too.”
With a deep breath, I rise from the chair, my body stiff and exhausted as all this crushes over me. I’m spinning, overwhelmed. I’ll need to call Jo. My dad, which feels as uncomfortable as discovering a friend is betraying me. My eyes find Sawyer, though, and funny enough, he’s my mainstay in the turbulence. We’re not the same, a little discomfited around each other, but right now he’s the anchor grounding me in a storm.
“Thank you,” I croak out. “For your help. I’m not sure I would’ve ever seen this objectively enough to get the truth.”
He nods. “It’s my job.”
Shouldering my bag, I hug my middle, afraid to stay too long, but hesitant to leave. “And thank you for—” I can’t help smiling. “For my new friends.”
Sawyer’s face heats in a flush. He looks back at the table, grinning. “No more living in the past, but I wanted you to know the important things, they’ve always been on my mind.”
I dig into my purse because, yes, I brought my little guys with me. They meant enough to look at through the night. First up, the little storm trooper with a stick of gum. Sawyer lifts his eyes.
“Significance?”
“Mr. Lanford,” I say, as if offended. “Are you testing me?”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “Absolutely.”
I clear my throat as though I might be preparing a speech. “A stick of gum, well, that was the first thing you said to me. Let’s be honest, though, it was a major excuse to talk to me.”
He grins. “Or maybe I really wanted a stick of gum.”
I snort, recalling every moment of the day we met. Myrtle beach, smoothie house. I’d tossed my cup, and was taking out my pack of gum when a handsome, shirtless guy popped out of nowhere with the guts to ask for a stick. “I’m curious if mooching off strange women was a thing for you back then?”
“No, only certain ones.”
“Remember what you said after I gave you one?”
“I believe I asked you to join me and Ky for our fancy dinner of peanut butter and jellies as a way to say thank you.”
I laugh as my chest tightens at the memory. A solitary day ended up with Sawyer and me, laughing, maybe stealing a few cutesy touches in the surf.
“Well, that’ll lead to this guy.” I pull out Luke Skywalker and the awkwardly taped gift card to a popular barbecue joint in Charleston. “First date.”
“I needed to make sure we’d be compatible. Loving Archies is a must.”
“Ah, so it was a test. The truth comes out.”
He scoffs and tilts his head. “A major test.” Sawyer takes Luke and runs his fingers along the edge of the card. “I’d say you passed with flying colors.”
“Why? Because I almost scared you away by how much I can eat?”
Sawyer’s eyes break into me when he looks up. “By that point, I already knew you’d be getting asked out for a second date. Any woman who can down ribs like that while not messing up a manicure is worth the time.”
Obi Wan and his strawberry Chapstick are next. My smile widens. “The second date was certainly memorable. I’ve never had a guy steal my Chapstick before he kissed me for the first time.”
“Admit it, flavored kisses are the best.”
I laugh because for a while it became a kind of joke between us. What flavor I’d bring when we went out. Of course, it didn’t take long to start skipping the step because it was hard to keep my mouth off his long enough to apply the stuff.
“Earned me date three, didn’t it?” he goes on.
I pout my lip and hold up Da
rth Vader with a broken hand. “Didn’t turn out very good, though.”
Sawyer’s smile shifts to something a little more somber. He takes Vader, staring at the toy as if he’s remembering every detail perfectly. “No,” he says, softly. “This night was my second favorite night.”
Sawyer loves baseball. Somehow he coerced me and my wedge sandals into a batting cage for date three. Long story short, while he was trying to save me from the horrid monster of a pitching machine, his hand got in the way of a fastball. The night ended in the emergency room with a loopy Sawyer saying all kinds of things on pain meds.
I didn’t forget the big one, though. When I’d pulled up to his condo complex, he’d trapped my face in his hands (cast and all), his eyes lit me up inside, like they’re doing now. “Dot,” he’d whispered close my lips. “I’m in love with you.”
I’d gone still, heart beating like it might snap a rib. “You can’t know that already.”
He’d given me a goofy drug-induced laugh, then kissed me. But he hadn’t slurred a single word when he said, “I loved you from the first day I met you.”
I clear my throat and take back my Darth. “Second favorite?”
“Yep.” Sawyer gestures to my purse. “What’s the last one?”
Ah, Han Solo. The quarter, same as the one sitting in my sweet tea bottle on my desk. I smile sadly. “This was a good night.”
Sawyer stands and closes the space between us. I hardly breathe as he takes Han out of my grip, his fingers linger on mine before Sawyer’s warm palm rests against the side of my face.
“Sawyer . . .”
“You don’t think I remember things,” he says, drawing me closer. “I want you to know I remember everything.”
His lips brush mine and he kisses me sweetly, chastely. He pulls back too soon.
“I appreciated this gesture,” I admit. “But I still think you wanted to forget.” I pat the left side of his chest where he told me he’d covered up my tattoo.
Sawyer follows my hand, mouth tight. “I’m not looking back, Dottie. This was for you to know I remember what I gave up. But I’m looking forward now. I want you, and I’ll be here until you tell me to get lost.”
