by T. L. Haddix
Archer stuck his tongue out at her, causing her to laugh. “You know what I mean. When you were a tiny little thing, I figured you’d eventually hit a growth spurt and be her double. But you never did. You’re her mini-me.”
Sydney shook her head, chuckling. “I’m five-four, not what I’d call ‘mini,’ thank you very much.” But she smiled at him, pleased with the comparison. Emma Gibson was a very beautiful woman, and Sydney could only hope she was half as pretty and smart and funny as her mother.
As they finished eating and cleaned up from the meal, they caught up on the goings-on of the rest of the family. As Emma had four siblings, it took a while. By the time they were done and heading back out to the front of the house, it was nearly one o’clock.
“So what time is Mom going to be home, do you think?” Sydney asked as they stood side by side on the front porch, looking out across the clearing that made up the yard.
“She was hoping to be back around three or four.”
“Hmmm… I wonder what Grandma and Grandpa are doing.”
Archer put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “Why don’t you go see?”
She looked at the truck full of mulch. “Seems to me you could use a pair of hands to help you spread that.”
He shrugged. “I have it. If I’d needed help, I could have commandeered your brothers.”
“Why didn’t you? A little hard work would do those two lazy sots wonders,” she told him with a wink.
Archer grinned. “Oh, they’ll work plenty this summer, believe me. But school just ended last week, and we figured they could use a little free time to have fun before the drudgery begins. Go see Owen and Sarah. You’ll make their day.”
“They might not be home.”
“I’ll bet they are.”
She tilted her head to the side, pushing her glasses up on her nose as she studied him. “You’re trying awfully hard to get rid of me for someone who was so excited when I showed up. What are you up to?”
Archer kissed her temple. “Not a thing. I don’t want you to feel obligated to stay here and help me when I know you’re itching to get to the farm.”
“Daddy, what am I going to do with you? Stubborn man, you could have been a Campbell.” With an exasperated sigh, she started down the steps toward the driveway. “Help me carry my bags in? Tomorrow will be plenty soon enough to go to the farm. You all do still do Sunday dinner, right?” she drawled.
“Yes, Miss Impertinence,” he shot back with a grin. “And Logan, Amelia, and their brood are planning to be there, too. So you’ll get to see them in addition to everyone else. Only Ben, Ainsley, and Lily won’t be there.”
“Good. I’ll bet Amelia’s kids are nearly grown.”
Archer nodded. “Colin is. And the rest are getting that way, yes. It’s been six months since you’ve seen everyone, and you won’t believe how much they’ve changed.”
She’d come in to Lexington, where Ben and Ainsley and their daughter lived, for Christmas. The visit had been wonderful but brief. “I’m looking forward to getting to spend some quality time with everyone. Short visits here and there just don’t cut it, you know?”
“Yeah, I do.”
As much as he’d tried to get her to go to her grandparents’ house, Sydney could tell Archer was pleased that she’d chosen to stay with him as they worked on the mulch. He wasn’t her biological father, even though he’d been in her life since the day she was born and had formally adopted her when she was five. He was the only father she’d ever known, the only man she’d ever wanted as her father despite the rough patch they’d hit when she was a teenager. And even though she was one hundred percent a daddy’s girl, going out of her way to never let him think she wasn’t, she knew he still had insecurities from time to time.
So, yes, she was itching to get to the farm, but she didn’t mind spending the rest of the day with her father in the least. There’d be time for everything else later.
Chapter Two
The water sluicing over his back and shoulders was warm, invigorating, and just what he needed the morning after the disastrous Saturday night before. Sawyer Carson Evans swam hard and fast against the current provided by the swim spa, working out most of the frustration that had kept him tossing and turning through the night. When he finally let his feet touch bottom, he was out of breath, but he felt worlds better than he had when he’d gotten in the pool.
He was still surprised to feel the longer hair that met his hands when he ran them over his scalp. For more than twenty years, he’d worn his hair in an extremely close-cropped style common among law enforcement officers. After his retirement, he’d let it grow out. He’d gotten quite a bit of teasing about the new look, but he liked it. To his mind, the growth signified something new, a different path than the one he’d been on. That old path hadn’t been a bad one, but it was in the past. And Sawyer wasn’t the kind of man who dwelled on the past. At least not the distant past.
Last night, however, was still fresh enough in his mind that it rode his back like an annoying monkey. He’d had a date that had sounded promising on paper, a blind date set up by a friend. But almost as soon as the evening had begun, Sawyer had known it wouldn’t turn out the way he’d hoped.
Oh, the woman had been nice enough, attractive, intelligent. But she’d been overeager, so much so that her attitude had ridden roughshod over her charms, leaving him cold. Five years younger than him and fresh off her second marriage, she’d made Sawyer feel like nothing more than a piece of meat served up on a platter. If he’d wanted to spend the night with her, he could have. No doubt about it. But he hadn’t wanted to.
The days of him having sex for the sake of having sex were gone. While he wasn’t really after a permanent relationship, he wanted more than just a slaking of lust with the woman of the week or month, as the case might be. At forty-six, he was looking for more from his bed partners than a good time.
Sure, a nice romp between the sheets would’ve been nice. It had been a long, dry spell, over a year if he was being honest. But even with that being said, he couldn’t bring himself to bed the merry divorcée. He wasn’t willing to offer himself up as a sacrificial lamb to someone who was looking to take out her anger at her ex-husband or worse, snag a third husband. And more than anything in the world, that’s the vibe Sawyer had gotten from her.
He got out of the pool and grabbed his towel, blotting away the majority of the wetness so he wouldn’t track it inside. He’d hit the shower, then grab a light breakfast while he looked over his paperwork as he waited for lunchtime to arrive.
Thinking about lunch brought a small smile to his face as he turned on the shower and waited for the water to heat up. He’d be spending the afternoon with Owen and Sarah Campbell and their large, extended family. Family that, after twenty years, they insisted he was part of. From what Sarah’s e-mail invitation had said, most of that family was going to be there. John and Zanny and two of their three kids, Emma and Archer and their sons, Rachel and her son, Amelia and Logan and their four kids… And who knew what other assorted cousins and nieces and nephews might show up. It would be a noisy madhouse, one Sawyer hadn’t visited in a while.
He’d first interacted with the family twenty years earlier when he was put in charge of an investigation Amelia was involved in. Out of self-defense she’d shot and killed the abusive husband of a friend, a man who’d been stalking her for months. Once she was cleared of any wrongdoing, the family had added Sawyer to the fold. He’d just moved to the area from out of state, was recently divorced, and had basically wanted to be left the hell alone. But one of his co-workers, Burke Lockhart, was engaged to Sarah’s niece, Michelle. Sarah had put pressure on Burke, who’d in turn put pressure on Sawyer. Michelle’s brother Rick, a county sheriff’s deputy, had happily jumped on the bandwagon.
Against his better judgment, he’d foun
d himself spending holidays with the family, in addition to the occasional Sunday dinner. He had an open invitation, though Sarah had learned early on not to press him too hard, so when she did explicitly invite him, he only turned her down if he had a prior obligation. When this invitation had come earlier in the week, he’d been happy to accept.
The connection to the family had grown stronger when Rachel, Sarah and Owen’s second daughter, had married another colleague, Ken Boyd. Though the marriage hadn’t lasted, Sawyer’s connection to the family had endured. He and Rachel had developed a very solid friendship, and he thought of her almost as the sister he’d never had. Even so, he still didn’t quite consider himself an insider, as he’d especially tried to keep his emotional distance from the kids as they were growing up. But he was closer to the Campbells and all their kin than he was to just about anyone on the planet, save his grandmother. They’d become his surrogate family of sorts, and Sawyer valued their friendship.
With a reluctant groan, he shut the water off and got out of the shower to dry off. Though he was looking forward to dinner, he’d really prefer to skip the tasks he had to do before the time came for him to leave for the Campbell farm.
When he’d started his own business as a private investigator, one of the things he’d been looking forward to most was a reduction in the amount of paperwork he had to do on a weekly basis. For most cops, paperwork was the bane of their existence, and Sawyer was no exception.
Owning a business—particularly a business that relied on meticulous record keeping, he was learning—was about as far from paperwork-free as one could get. If he’d had any idea how much of it he’d have to plow through on a weekly basis, he might have moved to Florida with his grandmother and taken up fishing.
“You’ve got to find someone, Evans. Surely to God there’s somebody out there who’s willing to work for a pittance and get you lined out.”
He wasn’t making a fortune doing private investigations, but he was doing okay. And he hadn’t really gotten into the business for the money. He’d done it so he’d have something to do in order to stay sane. That said, his budget didn’t allow for paying someone an exorbitant salary to do his busywork. He’d had two assistants already, one who’d lasted four months and one who’d only lasted three weeks. That experience had been so ugly he’d decided to forego hiring anyone else for the job. But the workload, nearly eighty hours a week, was starting to wear thin. He was retired, for crying out loud. He was supposed to be able to take some time off and do the things he wanted to do.
“I’ll place an ad tomorrow, see what comes of it. Who knows? Maybe the perfect person will fall into my lap. Stranger things have happened. Right?”
And right after he placed that ad, he’d head over to the animal shelter. He was starting to talk to himself more and more these days, and while a cat or dog wouldn’t warm his bed at night the same way a woman would, they’d at least be a companion to talk to so that he didn’t feel quite ready for the looney bin.
When he got to the farm, most of the family was already there, a good-sized crowd of Campbells and Campbell relatives already milling around under the picnic shelter Owen had built a few years back.
“We’ve grown so much now that it just makes sense. After all, we have the land,” Owen had said when his son John teased him about it.
The farmhouse was situated on top of a mountain in the middle of hundreds of acres of land that Owen and Sarah owned. It was private, secluded, and peaceful, and access was invitation only. Though no one had ever told him exactly why Owen was so determined to have such a large safe cushion for his family around his home, Sawyer had his suspicions. In any event, as many family gatherings as they held, building a structure that was big enough for everyone to fit in was a logical step.
Rachel was coming out the front door of the farmhouse, plates in hand, and Sawyer changed course to intercept her. “Hold up, Teach.”
She laughed up at him and accepted his one-armed hug. “Where’ve you been, stranger? And what did you bring?”
He held the large bowl of fruit salad down so she could see through the clear plastic. “The usual. Where’s the kid?”
“Easton is at the beach with his father, enjoying an early summer vacation,” she told him as they walked toward the shelter. “How’ve you been? You haven’t come around much lately. I was starting to think we’d offended you.”
Sawyer laughed. “No, I’ve just been busy. Very, very busy.”
A woman’s laughter rang out across the meadow, carried by the wind, and the cheerful sound caught his attention. Looking around, he saw a dark-haired, attractive young woman who was playfully flirting with Rachel’s nephew Noah as they came toward the shelter from the opposite direction. “Who’s that? Don’t tell me Noah finally got a girlfriend. At least the kid has good taste. She’s gorgeous.”
Rachel’s laughter sputtered out. “What are you talking about. You don’t mean Sydney?”
Sawyer stopped dead in his tracks, his jaw dropping even as his cheeks flushed. “That’s Sydney? Little punk-rocker in-your-face rebellious Sydney?”
From the cheeky grin Rachel was wearing, he knew he’d stepped in it big time. They were close enough friends that she knew Sawyer didn’t make casual observations about women.
“Yes, that Sydney. I can’t believe she’s changed that much since you’ve seen her. How long has it been?”
He shrugged. “Five, six years?” More like seven, if he wanted to be accurate. Almost seven years to the day.
“Hmmm. She has changed, I guess. She went and grew up on us. She looks so much like Emma that it’s scary.”
“Says the woman who’s practically a doppelgänger for her own mother. You all have strong genes.”
Rachel’s smile was pleased. “That we do.”
In the ensuing chaos that surrounded the family as they got ready to sit down to eat, Sawyer didn’t have a chance to say hello to Sydney. To be honest, he didn’t go out of his way to greet her, either. He wanted a few minutes for his brain to accept what his eyes had seen.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d been nineteen and in trouble for something that she hadn’t done. As the LEO who’d pulled her over, Sawyer had been drawn into the scheme she and her friend had cooked up to hide the truth about what had happened. He’d been coerced into helping her, not unwillingly. He’d made her a promise then that he’d kept for years now, a promise freely given. But that wasn’t all.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d kissed him.
It had mortified them both.
Given how viscerally he’d reacted to the sight of her now, that innocent kiss from seven years ago felt different. The context had changed. And he had to admit to himself, even as he carried on conversations with the people around him, that if this Sydney kissed him? He might have had an entirely different reaction than the one he’d had back then.
Chapter Three
She’d seen Sawyer come across the yard with Rachel. He’d been hard to miss, especially since she’d been looking for him. As soon as her grandmother had mentioned he’d be attending, Sydney had gone on alert.
As covertly as she could, she examined him. There was no limp, no obvious sign that he’d had knee surgery. Clad in jeans and a polo shirt, he was as handsome and masculine as ever. His hair was different—longer, softer, though still incredibly short compared to non-law-enforcement types. Though there was gray at the temples, it in no way took away from his attractiveness. If anything it added to it, God help her. And if his flat stomach and wide shoulders were an indication, her father was right—the man was more active now than he’d been while he was wearing a badge.
The noise of the crowd around her was almost overwhelming, and once lunch was mostly finished, with only a few people lingering over their food, Sydney got up. “I need to stretch my legs,” she told her grandf
ather, kissing him on the cheek. “I think I’ll head into the house for a few minutes.”
Owen winked up at her. “Need a break?”
“Something like that.”
He patted her hand. “We’ll be here when you come back.”
Grabbing some empty bowls, she hurried inside, sighing with relief as the noisy chatter from outside faded with the closing of the storm door. In the kitchen, she set the dishes down and closed her eyes, leaning against the counter as she took in the quiet.
Though she’d grown up in the middle of the loud, boisterous family, she’d been away now for long enough that it felt a little foreign.
Once she was settled, she glanced around. There were several empty dishes on the counter that she could get a start on washing, and starting the hot water in the sink, she lined them up in preparation. She’d just dipped her hands in the water when a man spoke from behind her, causing her to jump.
“Steal any cars lately?”
Even though she’d been half expecting someone to sneak up behind her, she hadn’t been expecting Sawyer. And she hadn’t heard him come in, the dratted man. He’d truly startled her. She closed her eyes against the shiver of awareness that went through her, even as she laughingly answered, her wet hand going to her face.
“Not lately, no. Sorry to disappoint. Damn, Sawyer, you need to wear a bell or something. You scared me half to death!”
A wide, ever-so-slightly off-center grin met her when she turned around. “Sorry.” He reached out and wiped the soapy bubbles off her forehead, blowing them off his hand and back to the sink before folding his arms across his chest and leaning his hips against the edge of the counter. “When did you get in?”
