The kid’s mouth snapped shut so fast Sawyer felt it in his gut. That alone would have told him his father was a sore subject even if Molly hadn’t given him a warning.
Maybe not right to it this morning. Sawyer sat down on the curb and motioned for Zack to do the same.
“Your dad used to what?” When Zack hesitated, he added, “It’s okay to say it to me.”
“He said Mom made the best coffee in the world.” His soft tone held a whole world of loss inside it. It stung even more that Sawyer had had the same thought once or twice. Molly made fabulous coffee.
“Your mom does make really good coffee.” While it seemed a dangerous thing to do, Sawyer couldn’t help but ask, “Do you miss him?”
Zack scuffed his shoe against the asphalt and stared down at the hot chocolate. “I miss him from earlier. From when he was nice. When he and Mom didn’t yell at each other. I don’t miss the yelling.”
This seemed way more important than the correct grip on a golf club. “Is he far away now?” It seemed the safest way to ask about the role Zack’s dad had in his current life.
“I never talk to him.” Five words that sounded as if they weighed a thousand pounds.
“That has to feel lousy.” There was no making light of a fact like that, no way to gloss over a hole like that in a boy’s life.
“Mom tells me all kinds of reasons. I know they’re not true.”
How had things gone so deep so fast with this little boy he hardly knew? The connection struck a fear—and a responsibility—so strong in Sawyer it was nearly a physical sensation. The same “run toward the danger” impulse that lived in the heart of every cop. The fact that he no longer wore a badge hadn’t changed that, just put it to sleep for a while. Waking it up wasn’t at all comfortable.
“You’re a really smart kid, you know that, right? Sometimes it’s not much fun to be that smart, is it?”
“It’s lousy some days.” The word had become a bond between them.
“Do you talk to your mom about it?” It seemed the right thing to say.
Zack gave him such a dubious look that Sawyer had to tamp down a laugh. “C’mon. Mom? She gets all weird about it.”
“Well, yeah, I could see how that happens. But that’s what moms do. They worry about stuff.” He started to say something about how his mom always worried about him on the force, but he didn’t want to go down that road right now. “But they also care, so it’s a good trade-off.” If what Molly said was true, Zack’s dad had stopped caring.
“How’d you learn to play golf?” Evidently Zack was ready to switch off the tender topic.
Unfortunately, that was the wrong question to make that switch. Still, the kid deserved the respect of the truth. “My dad, actually. I suppose I can blame him for what a lousy golfer I am.”
“So I’m gonna be lousy, too?” Sawyer was pleased to see it was a joke, not a complaint.
“I hope not. You’re smarter than me, and golf is as much about how you think as about how you swing.”
He wondered if Molly found Zack’s frown adorable or heartbreaking. Likely both. “I think a lot. Mom says sometimes too much.”
Sawyer stood up. “Yeah, thinking too much will get you every time. Let’s see if we can’t nail that swing today. Tiny ball, big circle on the grass, piece of cake, right?”
“Maybe.”
Well, then, maybe would have to do.
* * *
Molly stared at her phone, waiting on the too-long silence after asking Sawyer the question.
She’d gone too far. She was always going too far, but the smile on Zack’s face as she drove him home from the golf lesson had driven her to it.
Actually, it was more accurate to say Zack’s nonstop begging had driven her to it, but Molly wasn’t sure Sawyer would see it that way.
“He hasta come, Mom. He hasta,” Zack had pleaded all the way home. She couldn’t make her son embrace the idea that maybe he could practice a few more days before they sank the flowerpots to make a tiny golf course in their backyard. Zack would not entertain the idea that she—or anyone else—could help with this. It had to be Sawyer, and it had to be tonight.
The connection between those two had sprung up so hard and so fast Molly wasn’t quite sure it was safe. Or even wise. Then again, when had Zack thrown himself into anything with this kind of enthusiasm? Who could have guessed the ability to knock a small white ball into a spray-painted orange circle on a patch of grass could work such wonders?
“So will you come?” she asked—pleaded—into her cell phone.
“I need a few hours’ sleep,” Sawyer replied wearily. “Somebody made me stay up late already today.”
She had gone too far. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s just that Zack is...” What? Excited? Begging? Bordering on obsessive?
“I just meant I can’t come now,” he said, and Molly’s chest flooded with relief. “Like six maybe?”
“Six would be wonderful. I’ll make you dinner.” Molly wanted to bite the words back out of the air the moment she said them. Two dinners with the man in as many weeks? “Wander’s always watching” was a common saying in this town for good reason. Tongues might wag.
“Mr. Sawyer’s coming for dinner?” Zack’s delighted voice came from behind her. She’d thought he’d been outside.
Sawyer gave a small, low laugh. He had heard Zack, as well. “No backing out now, is there?”
“No?” It was more of an asking-for-permission-to-impose than it was an answer.
“He’s that happy about today, is he?” Was that a touch of wonder she heard in his voice? It sounded so out of place she couldn’t be sure.
“Ecstatic,” she replied.
“What’s that mean?” Zack asked.
“It means really happy.”
“Yeah, that,” Zack confirmed.
“Thank you so much. Six will be perfect. Do I need to find any tools or anything? Golf balls?” Earlier, he’d explained his idea of sinking plastic flowerpots as golf holes into spots in her backyard. It seemed like a good idea, but she had no idea how such a thing was done.
Sawyer almost gave a real laugh. Almost. “I’ll pick up what I need from the course.” He yawned, and she wondered if 11:00 a.m. was the equivalent of three o’clock in the morning for someone who worked nights.
“Thank you.” She tried to make the two words full of all the gratitude she felt.
“Glad he’s happy. I’ll see you at six.”
When Molly put down the phone, Zack was staring at the clock on the wall. “That’s seven whole hours from now.” He made it sound like seven months.
“That should give you more than enough time to get your homework and Saturday chores done before tee time.”
Zack scrunched up his face as if he was preparing to launch into his usual resistance. Molly calculated whether or not to pick the phone back up. She hadn’t had leverage like this to win Zack’s cooperation in years.
She never had to move her hand. Zack simply nodded and headed toward the dishwasher to empty it without even being asked.
I don’t know how You did it, Lord, but I sure am glad You did. If a heart could smile, that was what the glow in Molly’s chest felt like. Now if You could just get me through the next seven hours, I’d be obliged.
* * *
By six o’clock, Molly couldn’t rightly say if she was grateful or daunted by the anticipation Zack had shown all afternoon. The investment her son seemed to now have in Sawyer Bradshaw worried her. Enough people in Zack’s life had disappointed him, and she didn’t want Sawyer to be the next. It felt dangerous to entrust her son’s rare enthusiasm on someone so dark and gruff.
On the other hand, her own instincts about the man told her there was so much more to Sawyer than what he showed the world. Whatever it was that Zack felt, she had to admit t
o feeling a little bit of it, as well.
“Hi,” Zack practically shouted the moment he ran to the door and yanked it open.
“Hi, yourself,” Sawyer replied. The man’s questioning eyes told her he found Zack’s excitement as baffling as she did.
“Mom let me spray-paint the grass,” Zack said, pulling Sawyer toward the backyard before he’d even had a chance to set down the canvas bag he was holding.
Molly caught Sawyer’s raised eyebrow as he was dragged through the kitchen toward the back door. “By three o’clock I caved to just about anything,” she admitted.
She had, in fact, found a can of red spray paint and allowed Zack to “draw” a trio of two-foot circles on the grass just like she’d seen Sawyer do behind the maintenance shed at the resort. It had bought her over an hour of relative peace and quiet as Zack practiced hitting a plastic golf ball into the circles. They were far larger than the holes that would be installed tonight, but the bigger targets helped Zack succeed, and that was worth any amount of dead grass.
It was as if she wasn’t even here. On the one hand, it made getting the last of dinner ready sublimely easy. Fried chicken—Zack’s favorite—had to be timed just right, and it was a luxury of sorts to be able to devote her full attention to the meal.
On the other hand, it rattled her to share Zack with someone else. Sawyer seemed to do something for Zack that she couldn’t. Sure, she was grateful, but a corner of her heart was worried. Envious, even. She was his mother. She ought to be the one to reach him on such a level. Why was that chance afforded to Sawyer?
“You’re right, this is amazing,” Sawyer said to Zack later as he polished off a third piece of chicken.
“Is it better than Mom’s coffee?”
Zack’s nervy question made Molly’s face heat up.
“Tough call,” Sawyer replied. He gave Molly a quick look she couldn’t discern. Zack seemed oblivious to the slight tension she could feel between her and Sawyer. Neither of them knew quite how to handle Zack’s sudden and over-the-top response. Perhaps Mrs. Hollings had been right; all Zack really needed was just a tiny bit of success to turn the tide.
“Mr. Sawyer,” Zack began, looking a bit serious.
“I think we can just go with Sawyer from here,” Sawyer replied. He looked to Molly. “If that’s okay with you.”
Molly gave the reply she’d learned from her mother. “If Mr. Sawyer has invited you to call him Sawyer, you can do it. But only when a grown-up invites you.”
Sawyer leaned toward Zack. “Good advice. Some grown-ups get picky about that sort of thing.”
“Mrs. Binton would have a cow if I called her Biddy,” Zack offered.
Molly’s jaw practically hit the table. “Biddy is not Mrs. Binton’s first name! And where did you learn a saying like that?”
“Danny Masters says it all the time.”
“Sounds like Mrs. Masters has a whole herd of cows over her son’s behavior,” Sawyer said.
Zack broke into snickers of laughter, and even she couldn’t suppress her own giggles. It struck her, just then, that Sawyer was actually laughing. A full-out, actual laugh—one that reached all the way to his eyes. It seemed to surprise him as much as it did her.
The bigger surprise was what a stunningly handsome man Sawyer was when he laughed.
“Sawyer,” Zack said, still laughing, “I was trying to ask you something.”
Sawyer traded his lighthearted face for a more serious one. “Sorry, buddy. I interrupted.”
An unwelcome flash of memory shot into the moment. Steve, interrupting Zack at the dinner table. Repeatedly. Steve interrupting her, as well. It was something he’d always done. It seemed tiny at the time, but in hindsight it showed so much. She pushed the painful memory aside and returned to the present.
“After you put the holes in my yard, could you help me build my hippopotamus cart?”
Molly’s pulse ground to a halt. She had no idea Zack was going to make such a request. He’d never done anything even close to the impulsiveness of that question. Usually such things required days of thought, hours of worry, endlessly hashing possible outcomes with her. Oh, dear Lord, her heart cried out. What do we do with that?
Stumped for any other tactic, Molly said, “That’s an awfully big thing to ask, Zack. Sawyer hasn’t even put in your golf holes yet, and he’s a very busy man.”
She needed to have a long conversation with Sawyer before he gave an answer to that request. And that was a conversation impossible to have right now. Was this a breakthrough for Zack, or was she watching her son throw himself into a sea of disappointment?
Sawyer seemed to think about it for a long time. Be kind. She shouted the mental message to the man across the table from her. Please be kind.
“You’ve thought about this?” Sawyer asked. It was a completely different question than “What on earth are you thinking?” which was the question clanging in Molly’s brain at the moment.
Zack nodded. “Yep.”
“I’ve never done it before. I could be lousy at it.”
There was that word again. Molly tried to be grateful Sawyer was trying to let Zack down easy.
Zack got a look in his eyes that Molly could only describe as determined. Zack? Determined? It astonished her. “Or it could just be new.”
Zack had tried to explain to her the meaning of lousy and new in the way he and Sawyer meant it. She understood part of it, but most of it eluded her because new was always exciting to her. Possibilities were wondrous things to her, not the enemies they seemed to be for Zack.
Whatever Zack was trying to say to Sawyer, whatever persuasion he was trying to make, Molly got the surprising feeling it was working.
“Kind of a risk, pulling me on board,” Sawyer said, but there was little refusal in his tone.
“Yep. Figured that.”
Molly looked back and forth between the man and boy and the conversation that went beyond her. Stumped. That was how she felt. Utterly stumped.
“Can I think about it?” He spoke to Zack like an equal. The simple respect in his words made Molly’s throat tighten up. So many people wrote Zack off. Steve had abandoned any regard he’d ever held as the boy’s father. But Sawyer took Zack seriously. They are two serious people who understand each other’s seriousness. Molly couldn’t think of any other way to describe what she was seeing.
“Sure,” Zack said. There wasn’t any disappointment in the fact that her son hadn’t gotten a yes. In fact, he seemed—there wasn’t another word for it—pleased that Sawyer was going to give it careful thought.
“Okay, then, what do you say we get those holes in?”
A quick collection of dirty dishes from the dinner table had the three of them standing in the backyard considering the layout of the Kane Family Three-Hole Golf Course.
“Tell me why you chose those spots,” Sawyer said as he and Zack walked to each of the wobbly circles spray-painted on the lawn. He’d known—as she would have—that Zack didn’t just spray circles willy-nilly. Her son had a detailed explanation for why he’d chosen each location.
The conversation went on for thirty minutes until Molly was swallowing the urge to shout, “Get on with it!” And yet Sawyer showed an endless patience for Zack’s thoughts.
Finally, Zack walked back to stand beside her and point about the grass. “So we’re gonna put them here, here and here.” Only one of the spots was inside the circles he’d painted.
He’d changed plans. And he seemed remarkably calm about it. The doubt-filled, whirring gears she’d normally associate with him changing plans wasn’t there. “Seems like good choices to me,” she replied. Although she had no idea why they were good. Any spot on the grass looked as fine as any other to her.
Sawyer produced a small shovel and the plastic flowerpots out of the bag he’d brought, and got to work. It was a small job
, but she couldn’t help but admire his physical strength as he worked. Toned muscles showed when he pushed up the sleeves of his shirt to finish off the holes. If she looked past the darker parts of his personality, she supposed any woman would admire his physique. She’d never gone for the dark and brooding type, but then again, Steve hadn’t done her much good as the complete opposite, had he? Steve’s bright and blinding determination had left her and Zack in the dust. Maybe, if the dark could lighten up a bit, and brooding could soften up to mere thoughtful, there was hope for the man currently digging up her grass. After all, she’d seen something powerful in his eyes when he’d laughed at dinner.
Her thoughts were starting to head in dangerous directions. She was seeing unwise possibilities in the man. The pull she was starting to feel was dangerous. Molly told herself to stuff all such ideas away.
Until she heard the delightful plunk of a golf ball falling into the sunken flowerpot. And saw her son’s smile. Then her mind went all kinds of unsafe places before she had any hope of catching it back.
Nine sets of sunken golf balls later, Sawyer piled his tools back into his bag, gave Zack a sedate little high five and said, “Yes.”
“Yes what?” Zack questioned.
“Yes, I’ll help you build your hippo cart.” Molly’s heart filled with a burst of sparkling light until he added, “But it might be lousy.”
“I know,” said Zack, returning Sawyer’s gaze with one equally direct and serious. “I know.”
Chapter Seven
“People usually ride the carousel when they come in here, not stare at it.”
Sawyer turned to find a man about his age wiping his hands on a red bandanna. He hadn’t even seen the man working on the other side of the carousel.
“Then again, we’re closed on Mondays, so I’m guessing you didn’t come to ride. You strike me as long past the ‘you gotta be this high to ride’ age.” He held a hand about as high as his waist.
“No,” Sawyer said, a bit stunned the denial even needed to leave his lips. “Not here to ride.”
A Mother's Strength Page 6
