by Lia Riley
ANNIE KEPT HER face politely tuned to Mrs. Peasey as her old 4-H instructor rambled about a rare coin she’d found at a flea market in Carson City.
“ . . . and so it turned out to be a 1943 Lincoln wartime penny, steel, not copper, and did you know there are folks getting one hundred and fifty dollars for it on the eBay? So I says to George that we should . . . ”
Sawyer stood behind the funnel cake stand trying very hard to appear as if he wasn’t staring. She hoped she did an equally good job pretending not to notice. Stop fidgeting. She dropped her hand from playing with the back of her hair and ended up settling it awkwardly on her hip.
How could Sawyer say she hadn’t changed? What a ridiculous statement. Maybe he’d reconsidered, came back to his senses after their coffee shop date. No! Not a date, a thing.
Their coffee shop thing.
“ . . . and so that’s how we ended up picking shot out of every bite. It was the Thanksgiving turkey no less, so I says, ‘George, next time you better . . . ’ ”
Annie managed a tight smile at Mrs. Peasey, daring another quick side eye. Darn. Her stomach muscles clenched. This time he caught her out. She tugged her sunglasses off the top of her head and shoved them on. Not exactly a superhero disguise, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. This way he couldn’t tell where her eyes wandered.
What did he see when he looked at her? She wasn’t a fresh-faced teenager anymore. The world had revealed itself to be tougher and crueler than she’d ever imagined.
Mrs. Peasey laughed, so Annie joined in, with a private prayer the older woman hadn’t said something inappropriate like “And now I’ll be wearing a colostomy bag forever.” Because she couldn’t focus on chitchat or anything except Sawyer and the way that dang tan cowboy hat offset his eyes.
Speaking of anything—how was Atticus doing? Behind Mrs. Peasey, he balanced a hard-boiled egg on a spoon, his tongue poking out as he tiptoed in careful concentration. Looked as if he was having a blast. Good.
At least one of them was.
She glanced over to the food table, where her contribution sat untouched despite the hungry crowd. Old Mr. Higsby approached her adorable “crazy daisy” vintage Pyrex bakeware, the one she’d chipped a nail to own, pounding the refresh button during a furious eBay bidding war. The stout proprietor of Higsby Hardware poised to rescue her from total potluck shaming—an unlikely hero in a John Deere mesh cap and Time to Get Star-Spangled Hammered t-shirt. He studied her little chalkboard food label with a furrowed brow.
“What the Sam Hell is avocado lime cheesecake?” Instead, he reached for the Jell-O salad.
This was how a bead of oil must feel when dropped in water, more proof positive that she didn’t mix here, never had, probably never would. She glanced back to the kid games and her heart gave a queer sideways beat. The egg race finished and a burlap sack obstacle course was in progress. No sign of Atticus’s towhead. She touched the base of her neck as her insides gave an uncertain flutter.
He’d been there a minute ago.
“Excuse me,” she cut off Mrs. Peasey. “My son, I don’t see him.” She turned and strode toward the contest. She’d been directly in his line of sight. Atticus didn’t wander. He was a cautious, anxious kid. If anything, he usually gripped her hand in public, burying his face in the side of her leg. Lately, he’d become a little more withdrawn. He was never as close to Gregor as she preferred, but he missed Margot, his half-sister, desperately.
Could he finally be acting out from all the stress and change related to the move? No, no I’m overreacting. She hastened her step, glancing this way and that. The Brightwater High School band started and the snare drum kept quick time with her pulse. He was a little towhead boy with a hot pink cast, surely he’d stand out. Where could he—
“Can I help?” Sawyer appeared on her left without warning.
She was too panicky to react to his unexpected proximity. “Atticus. I—I can’t find him. He was right here a second ago.”
“On it.” He turned and walked into the crowd. The calm certainty in his voice calmed her jagged nerves. Still, she wouldn’t settle down until her son was back in her arms.
“Atticus,” she called, useless in this noise. “Atticus!”
She passed a vaguely familiar woman with pursed lips, the whisker in the mole pointing like a judgmental finger. Oh, right, the nurse at the community hospital.
Yeah, hi. Me again. This time I haven’t got a broken kid. I don’t have a kid at all.
Fear choked her. How could she have been so careless? Daydreaming about Sawyer and not paying careful attention to her son.
“Atticus!” More heads turned. No missing the hysterical note in her cry. She needed to calm down. Brightwater was a small town, lost in time, transported from a Norman Rockwell painting. But these weren’t her people. She recognized many of the faces, but they didn’t know anything about her, no matter what they thought.
Except they watched a disheveled, frantic mom, so maybe they had her number after all.
Mother trucker.
Anger ignited in her chest—could he have run off to scare her? The brief flash was doused quickly by a bucket of ice-cold guilt. He was five. He couldn’t be responsible for remembering to wash his hands after using the bathroom. Stupid—so stupid—to have lost sight of him for even a split second.
By the time she’d lapped the rodeo grounds without a sign, she started hyperventilating. Surely he wouldn’t have gone to check out the horses? Oh God, what about the bulls or the parking lot full of big trucks and drivers who could so easily miss a little guy?
What if . . . Bile burned her throat. Atticus was so gentle and trusting, a kind-seeming stranger could take him by the hand with a friendly word. She’d vaguely mentioned stranger danger, but not in a bad-guys-might-steal-you way because she didn’t want him having nightmares.
Big mistake. Huge.
She should have told him the truth—the world wasn’t safe, terrible things could happen and—
“Found him.” She froze at the sound of Sawyer’s deep voice and slowly spun around. Sawyer stood an awkward distance from Atticus, whose bottom lip quivered.
“Oh, thank God.” Annie fell to her knees and pulled her son close. She needed to hold him tight, remind herself that children were precious, and so delicate. She needed to take better care. Except a darker truth gritted against any silky sheen of optimism. Atticus needed her to be perfect, and she wasn’t. She was far from it.
Chapter Seven
“COULD YOU GO for another one?” Sawyer tapped the edge of her paper plate.
Annie’s eyes cut to his face. She’d been so relieved about finding Atticus, and flustered by Sawyer’s proximity, that she’d stammered out an acceptance to his unexpected offer of fair food. No doubt Atticus would swing from the ceiling light after finishing his cotton candy. Her own paper plate was empty. She’d said she wasn’t hungry but devoured the funnel cake in a record-setting two minutes. Desperate times called for desperate stress eating.
“I’m okay,” she responded. “Thank you though.”
“Would it be wrong to say you seem to like funnel cake more than Nutella?” he said teasingly. Laugh lines bracketed his deep-set gorgeous eyes, grooves that told a story. He wasn’t weathered, but had seen a thing or two. His boyishness roughened to the point where he possessed that indefinable air often described as character.
Hard to find a witty comeback while busy licking the powdered sugar from her fingers. His smile faded as she withdrew one. Did she slow it down a little? Let the tip pop over her lower lip?
A little.
Maybe it was the sugar, or the endorphin rush of danger averted, but she felt good—damn good—not overthinking for a second and . . . just seeing what could happen.
“I’d forgotten about Brightwater fair food,” she said. “Whatever went down with my taste buds was nothi
ng short of sinful.”
“Good. Seemed like you could use a little more sweetness.” He leaned against the picnic table and kicked out his legs, half turning his narrow hips in her direction. His Western shirt stretched over a leanly muscled chest, the pearl snaps marching down a trim abdomen, disappearing into his jeans, and that simple metallic belt buckle shaped like a—
He’s going to think I’m eyeing his package.
Which, come to notice, was hard to miss, the thick line evident against the denim of his inner thigh. Would something that size hurt or feel amazing? Gregor had been average on all respects. No complaints, but nothing to give pause.
Her ears heated. If she looked up now, she’d giggle and it would become painfully obvious that she perved on his manhood. “Atticus and I should go find a spot to set up before the fireworks.” This had been a nice exchange. Combined with the coffee shop thing yesterday, maybe she could leave town feeling as if things between them were at peace.
She drew a star in the dust with her shoe. Yeah, she should go . . . except it was awfully nice sitting here with him.
“There’s a meteor shower tonight,” he rumbled.
“So you’re still into astronomy?” He’d invited her to sneak out and stargaze once. She’d tiptoed from the farm after midnight, hoping “stargazing” was code for wild clandestine make-out session, her first real kiss.
When she arrived on the knoll behind the ranch, he had an actual star chart spread out. She hadn’t gotten her first kiss, but had sat wrapped in a quilt, sipping hot chocolate from the thermos he brought and listening to his stories about different myths related to constellations. Under that night sky, she felt poised to turn the page from girlhood, to whatever stage happened next, and even though he never so much as held her hand, her heart felt full.
“Yeah, I still dabble in stars, nothing serious. You live far enough out you’ll see a hell of a show tonight. No light pollution on Five Diamonds.”
“Hidden Rock is the only light I ever see.” The Kane’s ranch.
He frowned. “You can’t see Grandma’s from your place.”
“I can too, near the hill’s rise.”
“Nah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s not her.”
“Who is it then?”
“Me.”
“Oh.” Something about the idea of seeing his home light from her bedroom window seemed rather wistful. “I saw the light come on two nights ago after your grandma paid me a visit.”
“I got home late, been out looking for the first meteors. The Alpha Capricornids.”
“The Alpha huh?”
“A yearly meteor shower, not very strong, only four or five in an hour, but here’s the thing. They’re big and bright. Good bang for your viewing buck.”
“Sounds lovely.” She kept trying not to stare, or at least not be obvious about it. The problem was that she started to feel like one of those paintings in Scooby-Doo, where the eyes kept moving while the face stayed still.
“Yes, lovely, indeed,” he murmured. Had he leaned in, because Lord, suddenly his scent was stronger and he smelled good, all spicy aftershave and cinnamon chewing gum.
The sugar must be entering her bloodstream. Either that or he was throwing out serious signals. She just wasn’t sure if she could, or more importantly, if she should, try to decipher them.
“Too bad I don’t know Morse code,” she burst out. “I mean, because then I could send you secret messages.”
“Like what?” He scratched his denim-clad thigh, right near his, ahem, rather large—
Say something, anything, that doesn’t have to do with pop cans or sausages. “Got meteors?”
He froze. “That’s what you’d Morse me?”
“You have a better message?”
“Imagine I would.”
“Go on, then. Let’s hear this Morse magic.”
“I have to be in the moment, not big on rehearsing ahead of time.”
“Impromptu Morse.”
“Yes.”
“You’re a freestyler.” Was she giggling? Yeah. Crud. That was definitely a giggle. Still, being in Sawyer’s company again was good. It was easy—too easy—to settle into a comfortable rhythm with him.
The corner of his mouth turned down, but his eyes danced. “You’re making fun of me.”
“And you’re only now picking that up.”
“Annie Carson, you’re trouble.”
“Don’t smile too big. People are staring. They don’t look like they notice but they’re waiting.”
“For what?
“Probably to see if I’m going to provide some kooky Carson excitement. Maybe go on stage and play a pan flute, or break into spoken word poetry, or announce Five Diamonds has become a nudist colony, or—”
“Annie,” he said huskily.
Oh God, had she really mentioned nudity? “Mm-hm?” she said, not trusting herself to speak.
“People are staring because you’re a knock out.” He glared around the crowd with a look that said in no uncertain terms “mind your own fucking business.”
Everyone turned away with a shrug. Guess being sheriff had its perks, as did adding another two inches of height and twenty pounds of muscle. A sweet warmth pooled in her lower abdomen as he smiled back at her. Gregor never stared like he saw her, the Annie that existed deeper than her mere face, or body, and other outward manifestations of self. Not like Sawyer and his gorgeous green eyes. The effect was disorienting, but a little addictive.
“S-so,” she stammered, struggling to recalibrate to this new reality, the one where Sawyer was a friend, or . . . something. “That was so great of you helping out today, finding Atticus.”
“Glad I could be of assistance. You looked like you . . .”
She realized what he was going to say, and maybe she should be offended, at least a little. “Go on, get it out,” she said, belly tightening.
“I didn’t mean anything rude,” he said.
“You wanted to say I needed help.”
“Yes, but not in the way you might—”
“You know, I can’t argue the facts. Maybe I need a hand.”
“It must be hard, being a single mom.” He nodded at the top of Atticus’s head.
“He’s my little buddy. His father . . . ” Wasn’t around much. Didn’t care about children. Annie hadn’t said a stray word about her ex in front of her son, and she could only hope that she never would. Atticus needed his father and Gregor was off doing some sort of mid-life cuddle pile party. She’d spied a flier when she was there a few days ago, picking up Atticus so they could make the drive to California with as much daylight as possible before starting. It advertised an Orgasmic Meditation course, to become a Certified Master Stroker.
Annie couldn’t begin to wrap her head around what that meant. Or maybe she could, and it was that easy. Divorce to her meant soul-searching, navel-gazing, late nights alone with Joni Mitchell and Norah Jones on iTunes wondering where she went wrong. Divorce to Gregor meant finger-banging strange women in a sanctioned yoga classroom.
“His father’s a good guy, but he worked a lot at the university.” She cast a gaze to Atticus and back to Sawyer, silently willing him to see there was more there, a lot more, but her son didn’t need to hear it.
Sawyer’s mouth lost its easy angle, flicked to a more rigid shape, stern and just this side of angry. Not hard to see a sheriff in that moment. He was the quintessential strong silent type. The in-charge, don’t-mess-with-me man of the law. But also the stargazing guy with an easy smile and kind word.
Who was the real Sawyer? Her feelings for him had been balled up like a crumpled piece of paper for years. They might have started to smooth things out, but creases remained. She’d never return to that innocent, reckless abandon of first love. He’d stolen that from her, on purpose or not. Maybe it was
irrational. It wasn’t Sawyer she hated; it was the fact she’d given him the power to hurt her, and his brand of kindness was its own dangerous form of seduction. Her whole body craved it like a sunflower long deprived of light.
“Okay, well, I’m sure you’ve got other people to visit. Atticus and I will go set up a blanket for the fireworks, and tonight I’ll drive slow. Scout’s honor. No stop sign will go unnoticed.”
Sawyer shrugged and looked out at the crowd, spreading out across the rodeo grounds. So many people, and right now, all she wanted was his company. “What if we watch the meteor shower back up on our hill, between our places? It’s owned by the National Forest, so neutral ground.”
“Our own Switzerland.”
“It will be quieter. We can talk better.” His look was typically inscrutable, but there, just there, the flicker. That was definitely a flicker. Was it her imagination or did his gaze hold some sort of promise?
She tested out a laugh that sounded suitably breezy, even as her insides were melting faster than vanilla ice cream at noon. “Now, I’ve been gone a long time, but you were never known to like talking much.”
He scuffed a boot heel against the ground. “I do with the right person.”
And there, with six little words, he found the straps of her armor and unbuckled them with a flick.
“Excuse me, did you bake this?” Annie turned, startled, and Edie Banks stood there, holding a paper plate with a fat slice of her avocado lime cheesecake in the middle.
“Uh, guilty as charged. Sorry.”
“Sorry?” Edie’s eyelids closed as she put another forkful into her mouth. “This is good. And by good, I mean incredible. There’s really avocado in it?”
“Yeah, I saw a few overripe ones at the Save-U-More and couldn’t bear for them to go to waste. The flavor gets muted during baking but makes the texture extra creamy.”
“No kidding. This is really good stuff.”
