Sawyer's Special Delivery

Maya bit her lip, watching as Cat settled Joey in the incubator. The last thing she wanted to do was leave her baby to the care of the nurses, no matter how competent and caring they were. But she didn’t have much choice. Her insurance wasn’t going to pay for her to stay any longer since her doctor had said she was fit to leave.

Cat had said she could visit Joey anytime, but it was a poor substitute for having her little boy with her.

“I know how you feel,” Cat said sympathetically. “But Dr. Kerrigan says he’s doing so well, he’ll be out of here real soon. You’ll see, the time will fly by.”

Maya doubted it but she forced herself to smile at Cat before carefully levering herself out of the rocker. Her insides still felt weak and tender and her back and neck tended to stiffen up when she sat for too long. “I guess I’d better find something to wear besides this hospital gown,” she said. Pausing by the incubator, she touched the glass, tears welling in her eyes as she watched her baby sleeping.

“Is someone picking you up?” Cat asked.

“No. Actually I hadn’t thought about it.” Val had come back yesterday afternoon and brought her some clothes from the suitcases packed in her Jeep, but the Jeep itself was still sitting in a local tow yard, useless. She doubted the doctor would release her knowing she was going to drive herself, anyway. That meant she’d have to impose on Val and Paul and hope they wouldn’t mind giving her a ride to her parents’ house. And first thing there, she’d have to arrange for a rental if she was going to spend as much time as possible at the hospital with Joey.

“Go ahead and call Val,” Cat suggested. “Paul’s off shift, he won’t mind—oh, there’s Sawyer.” She waved, drawing Maya’s eyes to the nursery window.

Sawyer stood on the other side of the glass, hands in the pockets of his faded jeans, watching her. In a leather jacket and boots and his hair wind-ruffled, he looked nothing like her rescuer of four days past and everything like those dangerous fantasies his voice suggested.

Maya’s knees suddenly felt weak and she nearly sat back down in the rocker again. What was he doing here?

“You back again?” Cat asked him, going to the nursery door. She turned to Maya. “He’s been here every day since the accident, checking on Joey.” Grinning at Sawyer, she gestured to Joey. “He’s fine, but his mom’s not too happy about going home without him. Since you’re here, maybe you could walk Maya back to her room.”

“Oh, that’s all right, I can…” Feeling her face grow hot, Maya wondered if Sawyer felt as awkward as she did about Cat’s suggestion. She couldn’t read his expression, but she guessed the last thing he wanted right now was to play nursemaid to her. Then she realized she’d been staring at him again and quickly averted her gaze, deciding she couldn’t do much more to embarrass herself at this particular moment.

“Actually I came to see you,” Sawyer said easily. “Paul told me you were going home today, and since you don’t have a car, I thought you could use a ride.”

“Uh, well, I—” Maya began, but Cat interrupted.

“That’s great,” she said. “We were just talking about how she was going to get home. Now, problem solved.”

Far from it, Maya thought, but not wanting to argue in front of Cat, she turned to caress the glass of Joey’s incubator one last time before gathering her hospital-issue robe more firmly around her and walking out of the nursery to face Sawyer. “You don’t need to rescue me this time. I’m sure I can find a way home,” she said as they started walking back toward her room.

“Save yourself the trouble,” he said shortly. “I just got off shift and I’m on my way home. I can easily drop you at your parents’ house.”

Sawyer told himself this was the last thing he’d do for her. He’d see her safely to her parents’ home and that would be it. He was saving Val and Paul a trip to the hospital to get her, so his offer to drive Maya was really nothing more than a favor to friends. Besides, he’d been coming to the hospital anyway to check on Joey. It wasn’t as if he was going out of his way.

He caught Maya looking sideways at him as they waited for an elevator and figured he probably looked more than a little tired and out of sorts. It was no wonder she was reluctant to go anywhere with him.

“Look, I’m sorry if I snapped. It’s been a long week already and I haven’t had my transfusion of caffeine yet this morning.” He tried a smile. “Why don’t we start over? I’ll be glad to give you a ride home as long as we can stop for coffee and bacon and eggs on the way. What?” he said when she grimaced. “Please don’t tell me you’re one of those health-food freaks who only drinks weed tea and refuses to eat anything that used to breathe.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you,” Maya said, flashing him a smile in return that lit up her eyes and temporarily banished the shadows from her face. The elevator opened and he followed her inside. “But I won’t deny you your drug of choice.”

“So does that mean we’re outta here?”

“Just as soon as I lose this lovely hospital gown and sign whatever stacks of papers they have waiting,” Maya said. The elevator shuddered to a stop and he walked her to her door, where she stopped him by touching her fingers to his arm. “One thing, though.”

Sawyer looked down at her and decided at this point it didn’t much matter what she asked. He’d committed himself to helping her, at least for today. “One thing?”

She nodded. “I’ll accept your offer of a ride. But you have to let me do something for you in return.”

And before he could ask what that might be, she smiled and ducked inside her room and closed the door.

Chapter Three

“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Sawyer said nearly two hours later as he followed her, pushing a cart, through the organic-foods market. Instead of the café, she’d managed to talk him into stopping at this new-age excuse for a grocery market, offering him breakfast at her parents’ house in exchange for helping her stock the shelves.

He’d agreed only because he figured she needed the supplies and, without a car, she’d have a hard time getting them. And she’d also reluctantly agreed to let him pick up breakfast at the café after shopping.

But watching her, Sawyer was beginning to regret giving in to her. She hadn’t bothered with makeup, and in loose-fitting jeans and an oversize gray sweater, her hair loosely pulled back, she looked small and pale and unequal to a half an hour of grocery shopping, let alone the demands of time and strength raising a baby alone would take.

“You shouldn’t be on your feet this much,” he said. “You just got out of the hospital.”

“That’s the fifth time you’ve mentioned that,” Maya told him as she reached for a container of yogurt. “Like I said, I’m fine. It’s good for me to get up. If I sit too long, I get so stiff I can’t move at all. Besides, it won’t be too much longer and I’ll be getting up all the time with Joey.” She added a carton of soy milk, smiling as he winced.

“You weren’t kidding about the weeds and sticks. It’s a wonder you haven’t starved to death.”

“It’s a wonder you haven’t poisoned yourself.”

“As far as I’m concerned, that stuff is poison,” Sawyer told her. “Give me caffeine and cholesterol any day.”

“Mmm…guess that’s why you’re so cranky.”

“Who’s cranky?” he grumbled. “I just don’t like mornings without espresso.” Catching the laughter in her eyes and the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, he shrugged off her teasing. “Hey, I let you drag me here, didn’t I? And this place is enough to make anyone with a healthy caffeine addiction cranky.”

Maya laughed outright, remembering the look on his face when one of the clerks had offered him a sample of herbal tea. “Healthy and caffeine aren’t two words you should use in the same sentence.”

“If you’re trying to convert me, you’re wasting your time.”

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s a bad habit I have, always working.”

“What? Your job is helping hopeless caffeine addicts?”

“Some days,” she said, laughing as she added bananas to the cart. “I practice alternative medicine.” When he looked blank, she added, “You know, massage, aromatherapy, herbal remedies, meditation—that sort of thing.”

She could see the effort he made to keep from rolling his eyes. “I guess that explains the weeds and sticks.”

“That was pretty good,” she told him. “Most people at least make a joke.”

Maya remembered how embarrassed her ex-fiancé had been whenever one of his friends or business associates asked what she did for a living. Evan had cringed every time the subject came up and had done his best to change it before she could answer. And when she’d gotten pregnant, he’d blamed her, saying it would never have happened if she’d gotten over her “fetish” about medication and taken the pill.

Her shoulders slumped and Sawyer noticed how she suddenly looked drained. Despite her continually telling him how fine she was, he’d been right and she’d tried to do too much too soon. But it wouldn’t do him any good to tell her that again. The woman had a stubborn streak a mile wide.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, touching a hand to the small of her back and urging her toward the checkout. “I think I’m crashing after going without coffee this long.”

While she waited for the clerk to tally and bag her groceries, he used his cell to call ahead to the café and order breakfast, so it was ready by the time they’d stowed the bags in his truck. Making a quick stop to pick up the food, he easily found the road to her parents’ house, and less than fifteen minutes later they were pulling up in the drive.

It was as bad as Sawyer remembered.

The story-and-a-half adobe house looked as if no one had bothered to do anything but live in it for the last fifty years. The peeling paint on the window frames revealed chips of about a half-dozen different colors, several tiles were missing from the roof and a crack in the front window had been mended with duct tape.

He switched off the engine but didn’t make any move to get out of the truck. “Are you sure about this?” he asked Maya. “I mean—” He gestured to the house.

“It could be worse,” Maya said with a shrug.

“How?” Sawyer wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.

She grinned at him. “We haven’t been inside yet.”

“Can’t wait,” he muttered as he pushed open his door and went around to offer her a hand out.

She looked up at him as she started to step down, and her foot slipped against the running board. Sawyer instinctively reached out and grasped her shoulders as she stumbled a little. Another step and she would have landed squarely in his arms. A jolt of awareness hit him of how close she was, the warmth of her against his hands, of how she looked at him, as if caught off guard by the same feeling.

In the next moment cold reality doused him. What the hell was he thinking? She’d just gotten out of the hospital after having a baby. He dropped his hands. “Are you okay?”

“Sure, fine—thanks.” She didn’t look at him as she stepped away from the truck. “Sorry, I’m not usually such a klutz. I guess I haven’t gotten used to the sleep deprivation yet.”

Sawyer tried to match her casual tone. “Take it from me, you never get used to it. At least I have caffeine to lean on.” He glanced at the house. “You still have a key?”

That brought her eyes back to him and she laughed. “What key? Azure and Shem’s doors have always been open to anyone the universe brings to their doorstep. Well, ready or not, I guess I’d better go in.”

The bricked path leading up to the front door was overgrown with a tangle of wildflowers and vines. Blue paint peeled from the decades-old Spanish-style door that someone had embellished with a large yellow plastic peace sign.

“I don’t think I’m ready,” Sawyer said under his breath as Maya shoved open the door to a whirl of dust and a foul smell, some evil combination of sandalwood incense and neglect.

“I think they had a party in here before they left,” Maya said, wrinkling her nose.

“For all we know, someone did, considering the way they let anyone walk in the place,” Sawyer grumbled, fumbling for a light switch in the dim room. Finding one on the wall, he flicked it. Nothing.

“Don’t waste your time. They have this habit of forgetting to pay utility bills.”

Sawyer banked his growing irritation. He scanned the room for windows. Spying drawn curtains, he stopped Maya from going any farther into the room with a hand on her arm. “Wait here a minute while I let some light in this dungeon.”

Maya groaned as morning sun streamed into the room. “Oh, you’re going to wish you hadn’t done that,” she said, stepping carefully inside. “I think I was right about the party.”

Empty beer and wine bottles, ashtrays, plastic cups and paper plates were strewn all over the house. All sizes, shapes and colors of pillows lay haphazardly flung about the small living room. Strings of brightly colored beads hung from the blades of the ceiling fan, and the air hung heavy and cold, as if no one had bothered to bring any warmth or light into the house for months.

“You’re right, it’s worse,” Sawyer said flatly. “This place ought to be condemned. How could anyone live here?”

Maya shrugged as she bent to pick up a pink-and-green-striped pillow she almost tripped over. “Well, what do you know? My happy pillow. Azure made this for me when I turned seven,” she said, absently hugging the worn pillow. “And she made that blue-and-yellow one over there, stuck between those two candles, when I was nine. Every year she made me a new happy pillow out of fabrics with the lucky colors for the number of my age.”

“Nice,” was all the response Sawyer could muster.

“Actually this isn’t as bad as it’s looked after some of their parties. A little elbow grease and a few dozen gallons of disinfectant and the place will sparkle.”

Sawyer lifted a doubtful brow. “Sparkle?”

“Okay, so at least it won’t stink.”

Biting back a curse, Sawyer wondered how she could so casually accept her parents’ complete lack of responsibility. He’d had an idea of what it was like for her growing up with parents like the Rainbows, but it hadn’t come close to this.

“Maya—”

She turned from frowning over the mess as he strode over to her. He took her shoulders between his hands. “You can’t stay here. And you sure as hell can’t bring a baby home to this. Besides the fact it’s a man-made disaster area, you don’t have electricity and probably no gas or water either.”

“There’s a well out back,” she said steadily, although there were shadows of worry and doubt in her eyes. “And there’s a butane tank for cooking. I’ll get the electricity turned back on and things cleaned up. We’ll be fine.”

“Are you telling me you honestly want to bring Joey home to this?”

“Honestly?” Maya lifted her chin. “Of course not. But right now I don’t have a choice. We’ll make do.”

Maya waited for his next argument, but instead he stood for a moment, still holding her, his expression clearly saying he wanted to scoop her up and carry her out of this place, compelled to rescue her once again. And it was tempting right at this minute to throw herself into his arms and let him do it. Since she’d been a kid, she’d been the one taking care of others, fixing their problems. It would be a new experience to let someone take care of her.

Someone with great hands and a killer smile, who could make her warm inside with just a look and who attacked her defenses with his determination to help her.

Tension breathed in the silence between them. From their argument. Had to be. From words, not feelings. Yet she was so close now that one step, the smallest move and she would be touching him and…

And don’t even go there. How crazy was she for even thinking like that? New single mothers with four-day-old babies and a life to reorganize had fantasies about undisturbed sleep and winning the lottery, definitely not about men who inspired wicked cravings.

Besides, there was no way she could believe that Sawyer Morente, who surely could have his pick of any woman in New Mexico, would ever see her as anything more than just a needy single mother. Even ignoring the fact he’d delivered her son a few days ago, in her baggy clothes, with her hair a mess, with her face colored with bruises and still moving stiffly, she hardly qualified as a temptation.

“Care to share the joke?”

Maya blinked, startled out of her musings. “Joke?”

“You were smiling,” Sawyer said. He let his hands slide away from her shoulders. “I figured I was missing something, because there isn’t anything remotely funny about this place.”

“Give it up. I’m staying. Which means I need my groceries.” She made to turn toward the door.

“Hold on a minute.” Sawyer raked a hand through his dark hair, trying to quickly come up with a compelling reason for her to get as far away from this dump as possible. “You don’t have to stay here. You have a choice. You and Joey can stay with me.”

Maya stared at him. A faint pink flushed her pale skin. “You…I don’t quite know how to answer that,” she said finally.

Sawyer was beginning to feel he really had lost his mind where she was concerned. But it was too late to retrieve it now. “It wasn’t a proposition. You’d be on your own most of the time. I’m hardly ever there, ask anyone. Besides, I’ve got the room and electricity and running water. It’s a much better place for Joey than this.”

“No retro decor, though, I’ll bet.” A smile tugged the corner of her mouth. She touched his arm. “Thanks for the offer, but I can’t. Joey is my responsibility, not yours. Besides—” her smile broadened into a grin “—what would people think if they found out you were living with the hippie girl?”

“That she had more sense than to raise her son in a place like this,” Sawyer snapped back, earning a frown from Maya. He took a breath. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not my business and Joey is not my responsibility. I just wanted—” What? He couldn’t find any words for what he wanted, because at this moment nothing made any sense anyhow.

“You’ve already rescued us once,” Maya said, her eyes and mouth soft again, as if she knew what he didn’t. “Listen, this is only temporary. As soon as I’m working again, I’ll find us our own place. Trust me, I had enough of the love shack growing up. I mean, my parents were really good to me in their own way, but I don’t want that kind of life for Joey.”

Sawyer didn’t understand her parents. But he kept quiet, not wanting to bring her frown back.

She seemed to read his thoughts all the same. “They weren’t abusive. They’re…who they are. They’re good people. I have some really happy memories of this place. You just can’t count on them for anything. But I always know they love me even if sometimes it seems they forget they have a daughter.” She glanced around the room with a rueful smile. “I guess that’s hard to understand, looking at this and comparing it to your family.”

“There’s no comparison,” Sawyer said shortly. Avoiding her eyes, he started toward the door. “I’ll go and get your groceries. I’m sure you’re starving by now.”

How could he compare living on his grandfather’s estate with Maya’s chaotic commune life? he thought as he hefted the bags out of the back and retrieved his own breakfast from the front seat of his truck. Somehow Maya had felt wanted and loved even though her parents had never bothered to marry or give her any stability.

His mother, on the other hand, had been the complete opposite of the Rainbows. She’d been a woman driven by her determination to provide her sons with everything their father would never give them. Teresa Morente could never have been accused of neglecting her sons, at least when it came to material things. But neither she nor his grandparents had ever been warm and nurturing, had ever looked at him or his brother with the soul-deep tenderness and love that he saw in Maya’s eyes every time she looked at her son.

Joey would always have that even if he never knew his father. And that would be enough. Because it was obvious, as far as Maya was concerned, it would have to be.

Shouldering his way into the house, he found the living room empty. Sawyer followed the sound of banging and scraping to the kitchen, where he found Maya pushing the litter of cans, bottles and candle stubs off a battered oak table into a garbage bag.

“I think we might be better off eating in the living room,” she said, indicating with a helpless wave of her hand the dirty dishes heaped up on every available counter space, along with what looked like dead weeds optimistically planted in clay pots.

Sawyer set the bags down on a square of table she’d managed to uncover. “I think you’re right.”

They carried breakfast into the living room, shoving pillows aside to share the slightly lumpy couch. Sawyer made short work of his bacon and eggs, and while Maya picked at her yogurt and banana, he moved to take a look at the fireplace. There was a stack of wood piled next to it and matches in a jar on the mantle, but he was unsure about what might be blocking the flue.

“It should be okay,” Maya said, answering his silent query. She set her yogurt carton on an end table and drew her feet up, hugging her arms around her knees. “Since we couldn’t always count on having gas or electricity, my parents made sure they at least had the fireplace to fall back on.”

Sawyer didn’t comment but set to work building a fire, and in about fifteen minutes his efforts paid off as the first tentative flames curled up between the chunks of wood.

“Much better,” Maya said when he returned to sit next to her. Sighing, she looked at the flickering fire and wished she could be back at the hospital sleeping close by her son.

“You’re going to need an army to get this place livable,” Sawyer said, interrupting her reverie.

“Hardly. Just a lot of garbage bags.”

“Come on, Maya, I can—”

She held up her hands, fending off his next attempt to convince her she needed his help. “Stop trying to fix everything. Just because I’m on my own doesn’t mean I can’t handle a dirty house. Your mom managed to raise two kids by herself.”

“My mother lived with parents who didn’t disappear into the desert on a whim and who had a staff to take care of her kids and clean the refrigerator. It’s hardly the same.”

“Maybe not, but I’ll survive anyway,” Maya said firmly. She shifted on the couch, laying her head back. “I’ve got to do something about my car first. And then, once Joey and I are settled, I need to look for work. Maybe there’s something at the hospital.”

“Yeah, surely some department there needs an expert in weeds and sticks. Hey, just kidding,” he said, fending off the pillow she threw at him.

Maya didn’t feel like defending her work to him so she just smiled. “Don’t worry, Joey won’t starve.”

His expression turned from teasing to serious. He hesitated a moment, then said, “Joey is lucky to have you. But it’s not going to be easy bringing him up alone.”

“I can’t change that.” Regret, sadness, anger mixed up inside her but she pushed them away. It was too late to cry over what might have been. Any love she’d ever felt for Evan was long dead, and it was very clear he’d never cared enough about her to stick by her when she needed him most.

“Where the hell is Joey’s father?” Sawyer blurted out, then immediately held out a hand in apology. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry that way.”

“You have a better way?” Maya gently teased him. “It’s okay,” she said before he could say anything else. She looked away, plucking at a woolly strand on her sweater, not sure what, if anything, she wanted to tell him. Finally she raised her eyes back to his, deciding it would be better to say something. There would be enough rumors going around as it was.

“We were supposed to get married next month. But that was before he found out I was pregnant. Then he decided he couldn’t handle being a husband and father all at once. So he walked out.”