Nicole Foster - Sawyer's Special Delivery

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.”