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“I’ll drink to that.” Bubba lifted his fresh beer, and Tulsi and Sawyer clinked their half-empty glasses against his.
Sawyer drank deeply, but his third beer wasn’t calming him down any more than his first. He needed to be with Mia. He wasn’t only worried; he was missing her. In three short weeks, they’d established a rhythm to their days, an easy, sexy, companionable rhythm that he missed now that she’d cut him out of her life.
Now there was nothing to look forward to at the end of a long day at the site. There was no reason to make plans for the weekend. If Mia wasn’t with him, he didn’t care about bike rides through the desert, or that camping trip in the river valley. They hadn’t been together long, but it had been long enough to convince Sawyer that no experience was nearly as worthwhile if he couldn’t share it with Mia.
He was in love with her, real love, the kind that grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go. He’d thought he’d been in love once or twice before, but now he knew that had been puppy love, love on training wheels. Loving Mia was flying down the road on his Harley at seventy miles an hour. Heather had insisted that she loved him, but her “love” had only made Sawyer feel trapped. Mia’s love made him feel free, hopeful, and happier than he’d ever been.
Assuming she did love him back. Tulsi said Mia was pushing him away because she cared about him, but as the days ticked by with nothing more than terse texts from Mia saying “yes, I’m fine,” or “no, I don’t need anything, thank you,” Sawyer was becoming less sure. Maybe Mia was glad she’d had an excuse to end things before they’d gotten in any deeper.
The thought made his stomach clench around his last swallow of beer, and something deep inside of him demand he take action. He wasn’t going to let Mia slip away. Respecting her wishes and boundaries didn’t mean he had to lie down and give up. Sawyer wasn’t going to let her history with a crazy man force him into sitting on his hands while she pushed him away, and he wasn’t going to give up on the woman he loved without a fight.
“I’m going over there.” Sawyer slammed his empty beer glass back on the bar and slid off his stool.
“You want company?” Tulsi asked, to which Sawyer replied—
“Not even a little bit.”
“Oh.” Tulsi giggled, her big blue eyes crinkling at the edges. “Well, good! Do all the things Bubba and I wish we were doing.”
“Will do,” Sawyer said, dropping a twenty onto the bar before he turned to go.
“But not together,” Tulsi called after him. “Bubba and I don’t do those things together. I mean, unless you want to, Bub. I have had a lot of whiskey. I could probably forget that you’re practically my brother if I closed my eyes.”
Sawyer heard Bubba tell Tulsi she was cut off, but he didn’t turn around. Now that he’d decided to go to Mia, he couldn’t get to her fast enough. He pushed through the door to the saloon and out into the night, taking the stairs at a jog.
Outside, the wind whipped through the trees, filling the air with a whooshing sound interspersed by the occasional snap as a branch lost its battle against the impending storm. Last he’d heard, the forecast had been calling for thunderstorms all night tonight and tomorrow. He’d had the crew take the lumber for the next stage of the saloon refurbishment inside, and cover it with a tarp before the end of their shift today, and had called off work for tomorrow. He’d planned to spend tomorrow meeting with the antique brick people in Clint, and chatting with the seismic expert who had done tests around the cavern last week to make sure the ground beneath the old jailhouse would remain stable during an earthquake.
But as he walked down the street, Sawyer was already figuring out when he could reschedule both meetings. If he had his way, he’d be spending all day in bed with Mia, making up for the four days they’d spent apart. He ached to hold her, to smell the lavender scent of her hair as she lay on his chest, to listen to her breath grow slow and even as she fell asleep in his arms. With Mia, sex was about so much more than getting his rocks off, it was about connecting, celebrating what a miracle it was to have finally found the one who was meant for him.
He was going to tell Mia how he felt tonight. Screw taking things slow. He needed her to know that he wanted this to last longer than the summer, or even the year he was scheduled to be in Lonesome Point. He wanted to put down roots. With her. He wanted them to be in this for the long haul, and he wanted that to start right here, right now, with him moving in and watching her back the way he knew she’d watch his if their positions were reversed. Surely she wouldn’t turn him away, not when he was standing on her front step with his heart on his sleeve and rain pouring down all around him.
By the time he reached the end of the block, thunder rumbled from the west and the first fat, heavy raindrops had begun to fall. He hustled across the street to Lavender and Lace’s front steps, but took time to scan the street and the sidewalks before he knocked, ignoring the drops pinging against his shoulders. The sidewalk was deserted, and the road empty except for a few cars parked on the opposite side of the street, closer to the hotel.
Still, he didn’t drop his guard as he knocked on Mia’s front door. He kept his attention divided between the door and the street over his shoulder, wanting to be prepared in the event of any unexpected visitors. From what Mia had told him about this guy, Sawyer doubted Paul would risk going head to head with someone his size—Paul seemed to prefer picking on people smaller than him—but it was better to be cautious than caught unaware.
The thought had barely flickered through his head when he heard the lock turn on the shop door, and Mia opened it wide enough to stick her head through. The streetlights were muted by the rain, but he could see well enough to realize that Mia’s face was pale and drawn. She looked like she’d lost weight in just the few days since he’d last seen her, and there was a tension in her usually soft, generous features that made Sawyer hate Paul more than he did already.
He hated the man for forcing a woman who had begun to move beyond her fear back into a world where terror followed her around like a shadow she couldn’t escape.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking up at him with flat eyes nothing like the warm, expressive depths he’d become accustomed to. “I’m not feeling up to that Bingo game tonight, after all.”
Sawyer’s brows drew together. He started to ask her what Bingo game, but in the split-second it took for the thought to become words, he realized something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, his heart coiled into a tight knot at the center of his chest, and every one of his five senses snapped into high alert. Suddenly the worry lines on Mia’s face were clues telegraphing a secret message, and the smell of the hot pavement letting off steam held a warning that a predator was near—hidden, but close enough to touch.
“Are you sure?” he asked with forced casualness, knowing he couldn’t afford to give himself away if Paul was inside with Mia. “Bingo is fun. Might cheer you up.”
He thought he saw relief flicker in Mia’s eyes, but it was gone before he could be sure. “No, that’s okay. Tell Perry and Lisa that I’m sorry, but I’ll try to make it next week. I know it’s silly to be upset about a cat running off, but I was really attached to Whiskers.”
“I’m sure they’ll understand,” Sawyer said, pulse kicking into high gear as his hands balled slowly into fists at his sides. Mia didn’t know anyone named Perry or Lisa, they hadn’t been invited to a Bingo game, and she sure as hell didn’t have a cat named Whiskers. This was her way of telling him that something was wrong, and he was getting the message loud and clear.
“But seriously,” he said, stopping her before she could shut the door. “You should think about putting a treat out on the back porch. I know you’re worried about raccoons, but it might be worth giving it a try. Whiskers never could resist a bowl of turkey meat.”
“I might do that.” Mia nodded, but she was already retreating into the house, and Sawyer couldn’t tell if she’d understood that he was trying to tell her that he was going to circle around and come in the back door. “Good night, Sawyer.”
“Good night,” Sawyer said as Mia closed the door and locked it behind her. His ears strained for the sound of more than one pair of footsteps on the stairs, but the rain was picking up and all he could hear was the drum of raindrops on the tin roofs up and down this side of Main Street.
Cursing beneath his breath, Sawyer turned and started down the steps and across the street. Just in case Paul was watching from one of Mia’s windows, he acted like he was heading back to the hotel, jogging toward the Blue Saloon with his arms over his head. As soon as he was out of sight of the shop, he broke into a run, racing through the hotel’s parking lot and shoving his way through the hedge where Mia had first tumbled into his life, heart hammering at the thought that he might never hold her again, never see her smile, never get to tell her that he was in love with her before a monster stole her away.
