A Child for Christmas

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Since she had found no physical indication to say otherwise, she just sat back on her heels and looked up at him. “Go lie down, Sawyer,” she suggested quietly.

  He was squinting, as if the light bothered him and she rose, knowing she’d regret what she was doing, but not able to stop herself. She took his hand in hers and gently pulled him toward the hallway. “Come on.”

  Inside her bedroom, she left off the light and closed the drapes, feeling relief herself when Sawyer seemed to sigh with it in the darkness. She pushed him onto the bed, and leaned over, struggling for a moment to get off his boots.

  “This is not what I pictured when I made it to your bed.”

  Rebecca snorted softly. “I’ll bet.” She didn’t want to picture him on her bed at all, yet escorting him back to his room at the end of her motel had been the farthest thing from her mind. He needed rest, and he needed it now. Even if it was her bed. She left his boots on the floor by the bed and straightened. She touched his forehead gently. “Get some sleep.”

  His lips twisted, and she could see the glint of his eyes between his thick, narrowed lashes. “Haven’t slept well since I woke up in the hospital.”

  Tears burned behind her eyes, and she hoped that it was dark enough that he wouldn’t see. Her fingers strayed to his heavy, silky hair. “I can give you something—”

  “No.”

  She wasn’t surprised. She drew her hand away and walked to the bedroom door. “I’ll check on you later,” she said softly.

  “That’s probably what you tell your boy when he’s got a stomachache from eating too much candy,” he groused wearily.

  “If you’re good and rest like you’re supposed to, I’ll let you watch a movie later,” she said, repeating the bribe she’d often used on Ryan.

  A faint smile formed on his lips, before he threw one arm over his eyes and Rebecca let herself into the hall, closing the door of her bedroom behind her.

  Leaving Sawyer Clay to sleep—or not—in her bed. He was just another patient, she reminded herself sternly. A patient who desperately needed a good stretch of sleep.

  Only she felt a terrible yearning to be lying there with him, and that scared her right out of her mind because she was supposed to know better.

  Pulling her overshirt neatly down about her hips, she went out to her office and slipped on her white coat. Taylor Blankenship and her parents would be arriving any time now. And she was the town doctor, so she’d better just get her mind off the man in her bed, and on the patients in her care.

  Taylor Blankenship was most definitely pregnant. Delivering the news to the teenager and her parents shouldn’t have exhausted her as much as it did. But Rebecca came out of her lengthy appointment with them feeling nearly as disturbed as the stunned family did. It just hit too close to home, she decided, as she lingered at her desk long after the Blankenships left.

  Particularly with Sawyer, presumably still resting in her bedroom.

  Propping her elbows on her desk, she lowered her chin to her hands, and stared at the medical release form that had been in the packet of Sawyer’s films—the form that would clear him, once again, for active duty.

  Did Taylor know how fortunate she was to have parents who loved her and supported her no matter how badly their existence had been shaken? Did she have a clue of the struggles that she had ahead of her, despite that precious parental support?

  Rebecca dropped one hand, smoothing her palm across the cool, silky surface of the desk. She’d been older than Taylor when she’d been pregnant, certainly. Though her parents had been away, she’d had Tom. Dear Tom, who’d gently pushed and prodded after she’d missed a few of his classes until she’d told him of her pregnancy. Who’d taken her under his wing so subtly that she’d barely known he’d been doing it until after she’d been well and truly there. He’d stood by her even after her half-dozen refusals to live with him. To marry him. And he’d been there three years later when she graduated med school, holding her toddler son in his arms, pride beaming in his eyes.

  She’d married him two weeks later, and had never regretted it. Not even when he’d been dying of a virulent cancer that came on too hard and too fast for them to do one thing to stop it.

  She knew what Tom, bless his peaceful loving heart, would say if he’d still been alive. He’d known her so well. In his calm and gentle way, Tom would simply have told her to do what she knew was right.

  Her jaw throbbed and she realized she was grinding her teeth together. The problem was, Rebecca wasn’t sure what was right anymore. Did she do what was right for Ryan?

  Wasn’t that what she was trying to do when she asked Sawyer to come back and encourage Ryan to remember Tom?

  Or did she do what was right for her? Remembering the hurt Sawyer had caused her in the past; the pain and disillusionment that had been her heart’s companion for longer than she cared to admit? Wasn’t it only smart, wise, to stay on guard, to keep her distance, lest she repeat her mistakes all over again?

  She pressed her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose.

  Of course, if Tom were still alive, she and Ryan wouldn’t be living in this rural town in the middle of Wyoming. They’d be back in New York; Ryan flying through school subjects and her and Tom working seventy- and eighty-hour weeks, trying to fit a life somewhere into the few hours that were left.

  Rebecca pushed to her feet, sliding the unsigned release form into her desk drawer. What she needed to concentrate on was doing the right thing for Ryan. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  She glanced at her wristwatch as she closed up the office once more and headed back to their private quarters. It was well after four. Sawyer would have had plenty of time to rest, and he’d be able to go to his room at the end of the row. Once he was gone, she’d enlist Ryan’s help in baking another batch of cookies. And Rebecca could try to pretend that the day had been no different than any other.

  Walking through to her living room to find Sawyer sitting in Tom’s recliner, a book open on his lap, startled her so much that it took her a few moments to realize that he wasn’t reading, but sleeping. She blew out a soft breath and walked past his stretched-out legs.

  Ryan’s room was empty. As was his bathroom. He wasn’t in the kitchen or the laundry room, or playing out in the backyard.

  And it was getting dark outside.

  She was in the kitchen pulling on her parka when Sawyer joined her, his eyes once again clear and sharp. She flipped the end of her ponytail out from the collar of her coat. “I have to go find Ryan.” She wasn’t too worried. He’d probably just lost track of time with his friends. They liked to hang out in the small park by the high school where there were some nifty hills to slide on. “This isn’t the first time he’s missed his check-in time.” She pulled up her coat zipper. “Unfortunately, I’m going to have to ground him this time, ’cause I told him I would if he did it again.”

  “I told Ryan he could go over to his friend’s house.”

  Rebecca went still, one glove held in the air. “Excuse me?”

  “When Ryan checked in at four and asked, I told him it was okay to go over to Eric’s house.”

  “Just like that.”

  His eyebrows drew together a fraction. “Got a problem with it?”

  She tossed her gloves on the table beside her. “Yes, I’ve got a problem with it! You have no right to give my son permission to do anything!”

  If she hadn’t been so incensed, so utterly panicked, she might have paid more heed to the knife-edged angle of his tight jaw. “Just because you’re renting a room here now, and you’re my patient and—and—well, you just had no right!”

  “I’m a damn sight more than just your patient,” he said silkily.

  Her stomach tightened. “What?”

  “We’re two breaths away from being lovers.”

  Her jaw loosened. “I don’t think so.”

  “And I know it, because we’ve been lovers before.”

  At that, her stomach dro
pped away completely. She pressed her hip hard against the counter beside her, because if she didn’t, she was going to fall right on her face.

  “What? Nothing to say now, Rebecca? No denials, no flat-out lies?”

  “Captain—”

  “Goddammit, Rebecca, stop calling me that!” His big hands closed around her arms, crinkling the waterproof fabric of her parka. “My name is Sawyer. Use it. Like you used it before. When we were lovers.”

  She opened her mouth, but words wouldn’t come.

  Sawyer shook her slightly. “Quit hiding the truth from me, Doc. You and I have a history. And the want is just as bad between us as it ever was. I might not remember when or why, but I remember that.”

  Rebecca’s knees started to buckle and she locked them furiously in place. She grabbed onto his last words like a drowning man. “What do you remember?” She forced the words through the vise that her throat had become.

  “I remember this,” he said, his thumb brushing over her lips. He lowered his head alongside hers and drew in an slow breath. “I remember the way you smell.”

  Afraid to move, afraid to stay, Rebecca closed her eyes, trying desperately to block out his low words. Failing miserably. She gasped audibly when his hand swept over her hip, up her belly and cupped her breasts. When had he undone the zipper on her overshirt?

  “I remember the way you feel,” he muttered. “Tell me I’m right. We were lovers, weren’t we? Dammit, Bec, tell me the truth before I go insane.”

  So he didn’t really remember. He might suspect. His instincts might be flying off the charts of accuracy, but he didn’t truly remember. “Saw—”

  His mouth covered hers before she could finish his name. He had tantalized her into kissing him earlier that day. Now he commanded it. And to Rebecca’s dismay, she reveled in it. She pressed herself as tightly against him as he pulled. She fisted her hands in his hair, and took, just as much as he.

  And when he finally lifted his head, both of them hauling in shaking breaths, Rebecca couldn’t lie.

  “Yes,” she whispered hoarsely. “We were lovers.”

  Chapter Eight

  She didn’t wait for Sawyer to respond. She turned away, sweeping up her gloves and her car keys. “Lock the door on your way out,” she said in the moment before she stomped out the back door, slamming it shut behind her.

  Her boots crunched across the snow, and she didn’t get over her fear that Sawyer would follow her until she was in her Jeep and driving down Main toward the Fieldings’ home. And then, she was shaking so badly, she had to pull over and stop on the side of the road.

  Engine still running, Rebecca folded her arms over the top of her steering wheel and pressed her forehead to her hands. What on earth had she been thinking when she’d moved to Wyoming? When she’d voluntarily planted herself and her son in territory that held more danger than a minefield?

  The urge to collect Ryan and just keep on driving nearly overwhelmed her. They could go north to Canada. East, back to New York. Anywhere, as long as it was away from Weaver, Wyoming—and Sawyer Clay, who had broken her heart once, and would do it again if she didn’t do something to stop it.

  At the Fieldings’ home, she found Ryan and Eric thoroughly involved in some project in Eric’s room. Eric’s mother added her pleas to the boys’ that Ryan be allowed to spend the night. So Rebecca cornered her son for a hug that was much too quick to satisfy her maternal needs.

  “Jeez, Mom.” Ryan rolled his eyes and grimaced, when Rebecca lingered. “I stay here all the time, what’s the big deal?” He suddenly grinned, his eyes sharp and miles beyond her in scheming. “I bet Sawyer would eat supper with you,” he suggested.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But Mom, when I talked to him at four—”

  “Something you had no business doing,” Rebecca interrupted quietly. “If you want permission to do something, you don’t run your plans by just anybody—you talk to me.”

  “Sawyer isn’t just anybody,” Ryan defended. “He’s—”

  “My patient and a motel guest,” she said abruptly. “That’s all.”

  Her son’s eyebrows drew together in a painfully familiar fashion. “I don’t know why you don’t like him,” he said hotly. “You were probably mean to him and now he’ll go away just like Dad and—”

  “That’s enough.” Grateful that she and Ryan were alone in Eric’s room, she sat on the edge of one of the twin beds and pulled her son, front and center. “This has nothing to do with liking or disliking.” Her words were brittle. “This has to do with you following our family’s rules. You know you should have asked me for permission to come to Eric’s house. And you know that comparing Sawyer to...to Tom is absolutely unfair. Tom didn’t ask for cancer, darling. He didn’t want to leave us any more than we wanted to lose him.” Her heart ached over the impossible mess she’d made of things.

  Sawyer was the one person her son would talk to about Tom, and he was the one person Rebecca knew was capable of walking away from people without a backward glance.

  Ryan’s jaw had cocked to one side as soon as he’d mentioned Tom. She could tell by that defensive, withdrawn look of his that more discussion would be futile. Just like it had been last night after Sawyer left. And frankly, she wasn’t sure she was up to the task, either.

  Sure that she was taking the easy way out, but helpless to make herself do otherwise, Rebecca dashed her fingers through the hair tumbling across Ryan’s forehead. Her fingers lingered on his smooth cheek. He was growing so fast, her baby. Her boy. “You can stay the night,” she said.

  He darted forward and kissed her hurriedly. “Thanks, Mom.” Then he ran out of the room, looking for his friend.

  Rebecca followed, said good-night to the Fieldings, and drove home. She’d just turned into the parking lot when her headlights illuminated the end unit. The window was completely dark, with not even a slice of light showing from where the edge of the drapes would be.

  He couldn’t still be in her apartment, could he? Surely that was beyond even Sawyer. Still she hesitated, the engine rumbling smoothly in the dark evening. And when she turned around and drove back down Main, Rebecca figured she’d never experienced a more cowardly moment.

  Sawyer stood in the dark motel room at the window and watched Rebecca’s taillights as she drove away. He lowered his palm from the chilly windowpane and turned away. Now what?

  He’d goaded Rebecca into admitting they’d been involved at some point in the past, but in doing so, he’d strengthened the wall she’d built between them—a wall that even a man with a murky mind could recognize.

  He swore under his breath and sat down in the chair by the window. If he hadn’t been so blindsided by that bloody headache, he had no doubts that the afternoon would have ended quite differently. But instead of sharing her bed, he’d been alone in it. And he’d slept soundly for a solid two hours, more soundly than at any other time since he’d gotten out of the hospital.

  Yet when he’d wakened, one fresh-smelling pillow under his face and another fisted in his hand, the memory of another bed, another time, another place, had been swimming in his thoughts. He’d felt her in his mind. Known her taste, her scent. Known how her slender body had fitted against him, welcomed him.

  But could he remember anything beyond that? No. And when she’d been ready to tear into him for overstepping the invisible boundaries she’d set, he’d torn back.

  Not smart. And not his usual method, he felt certain.

  One step forward, five steps back. He pushed out of the chair, jamming his fingers through his hair. He shrugged into his jacket, and slipped the room key into his pocket.

  His mind didn’t seem able to find its way out of the dark, so he did the only thing he could think of at that moment. Which was to, at least, leave the dark room behind.

  The night air snapped and curled around him as soon as he left the protection of the motel room. The sky was impossibly clear, the moon slicing brightly across the town, as
he walked down Main. He turned up his collar and buried his fists in his pockets, and walked.

  Strands of festive lights and garlands hung across the windows of half the buildings. The arctic breeze churned at his hair, and he hunched his shoulders and quickened his pace, if only to get warmer.

  It wasn’t like he had any place to go.

  He shut off his mind at that, and just concentrated on putting one boot in front of the other. Walking. Using up time. Tiring himself out so that he had some hope of coming within a hemisphere of the satisfying sleep he’d found among Rebecca’s pillows.

  He stopped walking, admitting the futility of trying to shut off his mind. Or of trying to put Rebecca out of it.

  He realized he’d walked all the way to the end of Main and back up again, and now stood right in front of Colbys. And Rebecca’s Jeep was parked there in the lot between a fifteen-year-old Chevy and a late-model sedan.

  Full circle.

  He crossed the lot and pulled open the door with cold hands. The warmth inside hit him like a blast furnace and he stood there for a second, absorbing it as well as the sound of country music wailing from a jukebox, and the smack and roll of balls zipping across a pool table into the corner pocket. A man and woman were slowly circling the patch of wood that masqueraded as a dance floor.

  Sawyer’s gaze moved from the dancing couple to the long, gleaming bar. Rebecca sat at one end, her feet tucked on the rungs of the high barstool. She held a tall, slender glass between her long fingers, and the muted light from the bar made her dark brown hair look nearly black.

  As Sawyer watched, the bartender tossed a white towel over his shoulder and meandered down the bar toward Rebecca. He couldn’t hear their words, but he could hear the low tones of her voice.

  Whatever she’d said must have been amusing, because Newt Rasmusson—God, he remembered the short, wrinkled man and this bar—because Newt was cackling his crazy laugh before walking over to where the cash register was.