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“See you soon,” Gram said, looking even smaller in Sawyer’s big arms. “Keep an eye on our Mia, and don’t let her get you into any trouble. She’s got an arrest record, too, you know.”
“Gram!” Mia propped her hands on her hips. “I was fifteen, and getting a ride to the station in Uncle Ned’s police car is hardly the same as getting arrested.”
Gram shrugged, but Mia could see that she was fighting a smile when she stepped toward the counter to reclaim her after dinner coffee. “Well, it’s only a matter of time. At least if Cousin Lula has anything to say about it. She was trying to talk Ned into fingerprinting those panties to prove you were the one who defaced her property, but Ned said that would be a misuse of public funds.”
Mia stuck her nose in the air. “I don’t know anything about those panties, except that they went missing from my shop the day before the incident.”
Her father chuckled. “I grabbed a pair off the parking meter when your mother and I went into town for brunch. It took a little sweet-talking, but I managed to convince Jenny to model them for me when we got home.”
“Jim, please!” Mia’s mom slapped his arm, but that only made her dad laugh harder.
He was still laughing when Sawyer and Mia made their escape, slipping out the front door and crossing the yard to where Mia’s truck was parked.
“I’m so sorry,” Mia said. “My dad is a hopeless sex pervert. I’ve learned to deal with it, but I know it can be traumatizing to the newly initiated.”
Sawyer smiled. “You’ve got a good family,” he said, opening the driver’s side door for her.
Mia snorted. “If by good, you mean insane, then yes, I do.”
Sawyer laughed. “No, really. They’re great. I’ve never met parents I actually liked before, it was…nice.”
Mia’s smile faded, but the happy, hopeful feeling that filled her up whenever she was alone with Sawyer returned. “I was a little worried that it might be too soon, but I should have known you were tough enough to get through a Sherman family dinner without getting scared away.”
Sawyer slipped a hand into her hair, the affection in the gesture making Mia’s heart do a swan dive in her chest. “It’s going to take a hell of a lot more than that to scare me away.”
Sawyer leaned down, slanting his mouth across her own, and Mia answered him with a kiss, a kiss that said she was a lot less scared than she used to be, and that one day she hoped to be fearless. Fearless enough to throw open the rusty doors to her heart and let herself finish falling in love with this man who made her feel like there might be a happy ending in her future, after all.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
Monday morning came soonerthan Sawyer would have preferred—he and Mia spent the weekend floating the river, grilling with Bubba and his friends, and making love until neither of them could muster up the energy to roll out of bed to run down the street for bagels, and they ended up eating ice cream for breakfast instead. Work called, but Sawyer would have traded a kidney for another three days of nothing but fun, sun, and Mia.
Or just Mia.
Let the sky open and the rain flood down for all he cared. As long as he had a certain redhead in his arms, he had everything he needed to ensure each day was better than the last.
By Tuesday afternoon, when Mia surprised him with a late afternoon picnic at the site, Sawyer knew he was getting in deep. He was so damned glad to see her he couldn’t keep the goofy grin from his face, even though the sub-contractors were standing right there, bearing witness to the fact that their new boss was more Gentle Giant than Badass Biker. Any man points Sawyer had earned from their ten-minute discussion of the poor gasket materials used in many vintage Harleys were lost when Mia greeted him with a hug and tucked a daisy behind his ear, insisting it was the perfect bald man accessory. By Thursday, when they sought refuge from an especially warm summer night in the dollar theater—sharing a giant tub of popcorn and laughing as they whispered alternative dialogue for the bad actors in the even worse horror movie—Sawyer’s chest was starting to feel uncomfortably full whenever he was alone with Mia.
There was something growing inside of him, something overwhelming that didn’t want to stay caged. It wanted to break free and come spilling out of his mouth, rushing from his hands as he let them whisper over Mia’s body. He was falling—hard and fast—but he knew better than to drop his guard. Mia had come a long way, but she still held him at a distance. Not too far, just far enough that it hurt when she dodged his questions, or turned away from him in bed after he woke her from a bad dream.
Eighty percent of Mia was still better than one hundred percent of any other woman he’d been with, but he had a greedy streak when it came to this woman. He wanted all of her, the light and the dark, the happy and the sad. The quiet, thoughtful moments, and the side-splitting laughter when she surprised him the way she did when he pushed through the new swinging doors to the partially restored saloon Friday evening to find the stage on the far side of the room filled with anatomically correct male blow up dolls in cowboy hats.
“Holy shit,” he said, smiling so hard something in his jaw cracked. “What have you done?”
Mia popped up from behind the bar. “Surprise! It’s my latest fund raising idea. Don’t you think Gram’s going to love it?”
Sawyer’s skeptical grunt turned to laughter as he crossed the room. Now that he was closer to the stage, he could see that someone had drawn little cartoon faces on the ends of the blow-up dolls’ obscenely large inflatable cocks. “Did you draw on these, or did they come this way?”
“I drew on them,” Mia said, dancing out from behind the bar. “You like?”
Sawyer nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a nice touch. Think your gram will notice before she starts hyperventilating and pulling all the plugs?”
“I think so.” Mia stopped beside him, staring up at her tableau with an impish grin. “Gram’s big into details. I told you she sent back my proposal for a benefit concert marked up with about one-hundred chicken-before-the-egg questions, right?”
“Nope.” Sawyer slipped his arm around her and drew her to his side, needing her close after spending almost twenty-four hours apart.
He’d gone back to the hotel last night after their movie date, feeling like he owed it to his uncle to use the room the company was paying for at least once or twice a week. Sawyer had been looking for a short-term lease. But so far all the apartments were on the other side of the highway, a ten-minute drive from Mia’s place, and he wasn’t ready to give up the luxury of living two blocks away just yet.
“Well, she did,” Mia said. “And I—” She was cut off by a country song blasting from her pocket. “Hold on, that’s Bubba. He said he’d try to get some advice from his new manager. She’s put on a few benefits. I’ll just be a sec.”
