“Thanks.”
The awkwardness between them bothered her, but Molly tried to reason that it was safer than the simmering connection she’d felt the other night. The distance between you is your ally right now, she told herself. You don’t know enough, and he’s not telling.
“Zack will see you at two thirty?” she asked. It seemed too cautious, even cruel, that she’d not said, “We’ll see you.”
He noticed. Why wouldn’t he? He always paid careful attention to everything about her. Guilt at her cowardice poked under her ribs as she added the third shot and handed over the coffee.
He fished in his pocket for the extra charge for a third shot, but she waved him off. “Still on the house.” Molly told herself she would have done that for any customer looking like he’d had the day—or the night—Sawyer had.
He nodded in thanks, then started to leave. Halfway to the door he stopped and then turned back. “Did Steve ever get back to you or Zack at all about the parade? The ribbon?”
It wasn’t fair how the question sliced at her. Why had she even told Sawyer she’d sent it to Steve? She should have known her ex wouldn’t reply. She should have known she was setting herself up for disappointment, done in by her own insistent optimism.
“No.” She didn’t quite hide the anger in her answer, nor did Sawyer hide his disgust at Steve’s inattention. Her heart snagged on how he seemed ready to stand in her defense. Her heart was going a lot of places it shouldn’t these days.
“Does Zack know? I mean, in case he brings it up.” It was as if Sawyer was apologizing for caring. Here this guy was making excuses for caring too much while Steve couldn’t be bothered to care at all. Some days it stunned her how she’d ever loved Steve.
“No,” she replied. The weight of the word didn’t need any further explanation.
Sawyer took a step back toward her. “Do you think you could maybe send me a photo of the ribbon with Zack this afternoon? The resort wanted to put the golf cart on display, and I think the ribbon should be with it. If it’s okay with you, that is.”
Another gesture that pulled at her resistance. How lovely would it be for Zack to see his cart on display with the ribbon at the resort when he went for lessons? Everyone was so quick to cast Mountain Vista as this merciless corporate giant. Maybe they weren’t as bad as all that. “Of course.” Had Mountain Vista offered? Or had Sawyer asked? Maybe it was better if she didn’t know.
Sawyer nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll see Zack this afternoon. We’ll try to make it a good day.” They were struggling to have something close to a regular conversation, but it wasn’t working. There was so much unsaid, so much hiding behind the pauses and deflected looks. And to try to pretend that the simmering connection wasn’t there? Well, that was just about useless.
Molly watched him walk out the door, down the little steps from the train-car coffee shop. For a moment he sipped his coffee and stared at the big red barnlike structure that held the carousel. Did he regret it? Getting involved, saying yes to helping Zack? Saying yes to the golf lessons? Molly knew she’d dragged him into something way more complicated than the simple “Can you teach my son to hit a golf ball” request she’d made five weeks ago. But how could she have known the connection he’d have with Zack? The powerful effect he had on her son?
The powerful effect he was having on her?
Molly shook off the admission and began wiping down the espresso machine with vigor. Don’t go there. You don’t know what he’s hiding. That man is a mountain of pain and guilt, and that’s the last thing you need. Keep it to golf teacher. Well, and choir pianist. And coffee shop regular.
And right there was the problem: the list of things Sawyer Bradshaw was to her kept growing.
Lord, she prayed as the next customer came in the door, You know what he’s hiding. Show me what I need to know.
* * *
Sawyer stared at his cell phone late that afternoon, a few hours after Zack had left. Sitting on the screen of the phone was the number for Detective Dana Preston. His finger had hovered over the icon to connect half a dozen times, but he’d been unable to bring himself to press Call.
He’d not called anyone from his old Denver Police Department in months, even though Dana had left several messages. They’d been something close to friends, and she’d been one of the few people who didn’t disappear into thin air after everything had gotten messed up.
Then again, he’d done the disappearing.
It felt like a monumental thing to call Dana, but every moment Sawyer had spent in Zack’s company this afternoon had screamed “Do something!” to him. The boy was so beaten down. Reverting back to something too close to the jittery, closed-off little guy he’d first met. Life had piled up an unfair heap of obstacles in front of Zack, and it bugged Sawyer endlessly not to be able to pull some of them down.
And he had pulled some of them down, hadn’t he? He liked to think golf was working. Zack was getting okay at it, and you could say they were having fun. He was proud of that.
Sawyer also found himself dangerously proud of Zack’s work on the hippo cart. He was equally ticked off at how it had all turned out. It scared him how invested he’d become in Zack. How angry he was on the boy’s behalf.
But it didn’t end there. Something was lurking under all that—lurking under everything, probably—that wouldn’t leave Sawyer alone. The kid just wanted someone to care about him. Someone other than his mom, because, well, moms were supposed to care. They had to, right?
Shouldn’t dads have to, as well?
Even he could see what Zack was doing in their time together. For whatever misguided reason, Zack had latched on to him as a stand-in for all the attention his father was denying him. Maybe it was their similar personalities, the isolation or some ill-advised twist of fate. Molly would surely put it down to God and answered prayer.
He was not the answer to Molly’s prayers for Zack. That person should be Steve. Someone had to wake Steve up to his inexcusable absence and make him pay attention.
I can’t be what Zack wants, Sawyer told himself. But maybe I can get him what he needs. He hit the button to connect the call.
“Sawyer?” Dana’s usually low voice pitched up in surprise. “Whoa, Sawyer, is this really you?”
“Yeah,” he said, suddenly feeling stupid. Why had he thought this was a good idea?
Her voice softened again. “Where are you? Are you okay? You dropped off the planet after...” She didn’t finish the sentence.
Sawyer paced a bit, working up his nerve. “I know. I needed to get out of there. I’m fine.” He didn’t really know if he was fine, but this call wasn’t about him.
“Nobody’s fine after what happened to you.” Not too many people understood the weight of what had happened to him, but Dana always had. She had incredible instincts about people. It was what made her such a great detective. Her work with abused kids would have made most people hard and bitter, but she’d managed to stay open and human. Sawyer hoped that would work in his favor.
“I’m okay, really. But listen, I need a favor.”
That sent her radar off. “So you’re not okay.”
“No, really,” he insisted. “I’m all right. Promise. But I need to find someone and I’m hoping you can help.”
“You’re not in any kind of trouble?”
For a woman with no kids of her own, Dana mothered everybody. “No, Mom, I’m fine,” he teased her by calling her Mom the way he always had. It felt good to do some tiny thing from his old life. “I need to find a kid’s dad. Can you do that?”
“Is there a mom in the picture?”
“Yes. She’s...” he balked for a minute, stumped for how to classify Molly “...someone I know. The dad’s checked out, and the boy is hurting on account of it. She’s given up on her ex, but I...” His words fell off. Suddenly his plan felt like a giant dose of
ill-advised meddling.
“You want to help reunite this little guy with his dad?”
It would have been better if Dana didn’t sound so shocked. Good deeds weren’t that far out of his wheelhouse, were they? “Well, yeah.”
The pause on Dana’s end of the phone made his skin itch. “This isn’t some kind of penance, is it? You’ve got nothing to make up for, Sawyer.”
He didn’t see it that way, but now wasn’t the time to get into that. Besides, lots of people didn’t see it that way, so no point in trying to convince Dana.
“I’m just trying to help a kid out, okay? His mom works at the shop where I get my coffee.” That sounded innocent enough. “He’s seven, his dad doesn’t give him the time of day and it would feel good to set it right.”
Dana sighed. “You probably can’t. You know that, don’t you?”
“I want to try. Come on, haven’t you ever just wanted to give something a last-ditch try?” He knew that would get her. Dana was a sucker for a lost cause, especially when it came to kids.
He could practically hear the detective narrow her eyes at him over the phone. “All right, then. Have you got a name?”
“Steve Kane. With a K. Mid-to-late thirties, formerly married to Molly Kane. Kid’s name is Zack.” An odd chill of nervous exposure raced down his back at giving away that information.
“Have you got an address?” she asked.
Sawyer stopped pacing. “Well, if I had this guy’s address and phone number I wouldn’t be calling you, now, would I?”
“For them,” Dana insisted. Sawyer cringed and hoped she couldn’t sense how far out of his comfort zone this ask was for him.
He gave Molly’s address, his mind pulling up the sight of the cluttered garage and the wacky little golf course in the backyard. The places where he’d always lived were housing. Every little touch about Molly’s house made it a home. He wanted to spend more time in that home so badly it scared him.
“Sawyer.” Dana’s mom voice was back. “I hate to ask, but mind telling me what you’re going to do when you find this guy?”
He wasn’t ready to explain that. He wasn’t even sure he knew the answer anyway. “The little guy needs his dad.” The words came out too thick, as if the raw emotion of them caught in his throat. “Somebody needs to convince Steve Kane to pay attention to his son.”
“And why is that someone you?”
This was why he’d hesitated calling Dana. She’d analyze the living daylights out of why he was doing this, and there weren’t reasons. Not ones he wanted analyzed anyway.
Sawyer started pacing again, trying to find some way to explain his urgency without having to explain his feelings. “I like Zack. I’ve been teaching him to play golf and...”
“You what?” Dana cut him off midsentence.
Sawyer squinted his eyes shut. “His mom asked me because I work at the golf resort out here. He didn’t need real lessons, just someone to show him the basics. He’s a good kid—really smart—just really...nervous. Worries about everything, you know?”
“Including why his dad isn’t in his life?”
“I don’t know that he worries about that, as much as he’s just disappointed.” Frustration twisted Sawyer’s gut. “I just want to help him, and this is the way I think I can. Molly won’t hunt this jerk down and tell him to step up to the plate.”
“So you will.” Dana’s statement sounded more like she clearly thought it wasn’t a good idea.
“So I’m willing to,” he countered. “This kid needs his dad.”
“Every child has a father,” Dana replied. “Some of them definitely don’t need the dads biology gave them.” He knew she spoke from experience. Dana had seen the worst of what a parent’s attention—or neglect—could do. “If you care enough about this Zack to go hunt down his dad, maybe you care enough about him to fill the hole his dad has left.”
“No.” He hoped Dana would leave it at that.
She didn’t. “Maybe it’s time to crawl out of that valley you dug for yourself. Helping this kid could be a first step. How much longer are you going to stay wherever it is you are playing unworthy hermit?”
There were days he hated Dana’s ability to turn a phrase. “I’m not here to make friends.”
“Sounds like you’ve made two. Why is that so awful?”
Sawyer swallowed his urge to toss the phone across the room. “Are you going to help me or not?”
“Relax,” Dana replied. “I’ll help. I just want you to think about the fact that you may already have what the kid needs while you’re going on some wild-goose chase for help that isn’t coming. Fathers like that don’t change.”
“I just need to know I’ve done what I can.”
“That’s just it, Bradshaw. You haven’t. You can do something—something really important—but you won’t admit it.”
“Call me when you have the info?” It was long past time for this conversation to be over.
“I will.” After a pause, Dana added, “It was good to hear from you. I miss arguing with your grumpy mug.”
They’d been good friends. Everyone always thought it was going to turn into something more, but there’d never been any hint of that sort of thing between them. She was like his little sister. His bossy, know-it-all little sister.
He was taking a breath to say goodbye when she asked, “Will you come back? Ever?”
Sawyer pushed out a long breath. All the missing hours of sleep felt like they caught up with him in one instant. “I don’t know.”
“You can, you know.” Her voice was too gentle. “You can always come back.”
Sawyer rushed through a quick goodbye and ended the call. He sat for a long time in the corner of his sad, sterile little kitchen. The shadows grew long across the wall as one thought hung thin and hollow in the air.
I don’t think that’s true.
Chapter Fifteen
Molly wiped the shower mist away from the bathroom mirror, stared at her pale face and tried to remember how to breathe.
No. Dear God in Heaven, no.
Her fear was too shocked for tears, too bone-deep even for words. She moved her hand over again to the spot a few inches under her left collarbone, pleading for her fingers to lie to her.
Small, round, unnatural. The lump shouted Catastrophe! at her from just under her skin.
She couldn’t stop the instant response, no matter how irrational it was: I’m going to die. Followed immediately by the overwhelming horror of I’m going to leave Zack all alone. Some small distant part of her knew that was far from certain, that she was overreacting on insufficient information, but none of that could get through the thick fog of fear.
Molly’s head spun while her vision sharpened. She gripped the sink, worried she might faint. The outside world was just as it had been moments before, the happy launch-of-summer ease of Memorial Day still lingering in the air. And now everything was completely different. She thought of the moments just before an avalanche, where the snow lay perfectly still before a crack ran across its surface. And then everything slid downhill. Crashed downhill, burying anything and anyone in its path.
She sank down onto the rim of the tub, thoughts scurrying in a dozen panicked directions. She wanted to cry out, to sob or howl or something, but shock closed her throat. A blessing, perhaps, as Zack was twenty feet away at the breakfast counter, happily munching French toast as if it were an ordinary morning.
No ordinary morning. A dreaded, desperately feared morning. Molly gulped for air, reaching for a foothold that wouldn’t come.
You don’t know, she tried to tell herself. You don’t know. It could be anything. It could be nothing. You don’t know. The thunder of her pulse in her ears refused to listen.
Molly forced herself to stand, staring hard at the terrified woman in the mirror. She tried to command that f
eeble woman to get a grip on herself. She leaned over and splashed cold water on her face twice, three times.
“Mom!” Zack’s voice cut through both the closed bathroom door and the fog around her. “What if I don’t like day camp?”
How little and impossible that fear seemed in the light of what threatened to pull her under just now.
“You’ll be fine,” she called, then almost sobbed for the lie that suddenly felt like. It won’t be fine. How can it be fine? “Go get dressed.”
Turning back to her reflection, Molly gave whispered orders. “Get him to day camp. Call Dr. Swanson after you get him to the community center. Just get that far. That’s all you have to do. You can do that. God, help me do that.”
Molly moved through the motions of getting Zack off to summer day camp in a stunned blur. She packed a lunch and checked his backpack on autopilot, barely able to think about it. She was grateful for the spring rain, as it meant they could drive rather than walk. She didn’t have it in her to go through the long list of concerns Zack posed today.
He noticed. “Mom?” he asked as they turned into the community center parking lot. Zack looked at her with worried eyes.
“Yes, hon?” She hoped she sounded cheery.
“You okay? You seem...I dunno...weird.”
She tried to give him a playful smile. “I’m always weird, right?”
He wasn’t buying it. “I have a bit of a headache this morning,” she offered. “Must be the rainstorm. A little coffee should clear that right up, won’t it?” The sharp edge of her lie cut into her heart.
She instantly realized she should never have said anything even remotely medical. Zack’s eyes went wide. “Are you sick?”
Molly had been careful to never refer to anything of that sort in front of Zack. Granted, he only had a seven-year-old’s understanding of cancer and remission and reoccurrence, but he could spin that into a storm of worries in a heartbeat. She was watching it right in front of her eyes.
“No, sweetheart.” Another lie. Or possible lie. A kind one, if nothing else. “Grown-ups get headaches all the time. It’s why we sell so much coffee at The Depot.”
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