Читать книгу Sawyer's Special Delivery - Nicole Foster - Страница 8

A small noise woke Maya from a light doze and she stopped herself from groaning, wondering what the nurses wanted this time. In the past three days, she’d gotten used to being roused at odd hours to feed Joey, to answer more questions or to be poked, prodded, or tsked over because of her refusal to take any pain medication. Three hours of uninterrupted sleep had become a luxury. And she’d been tempted more than once to take the painkillers, especially the morning after the accident, when she’d awakened stiff as a hundred-year-old and with a thousand pains.

But no one should be here now. She’d been to the nursery less than an hour ago to feed Joey, and the doctor had already been by this morning to tell her she could go home tomorrow.

Forcing open her eyes, Maya found herself looking into a smiling face she’d hadn’t seen in years. Though the woman’s curves were more lush now and her dark hair shorter, her generous mouth and smiling eyes and a passion for brilliant orange and red hadn’t changed. “Valerie? Valerie Valdez? Is that really you?”

Valerie laughed and bent to give her a hug. “In the flesh, honey, although there’s more of it than you probably remember. And it’s Valerie Ortiz now,” she added, settling herself in a chair beside Maya’s bed.

“But how did you know I was here?” Maya asked as she struggled to sit up. Running a hand over her tangled hair, she tried to force her brain to start functioning. “I haven’t been able to reach my parents and I haven’t talked to anyone I know since I got back.” Except Sawyer. But she couldn’t imagine him looking up her old friends and asking them to visit her.

“You can’t have been gone so long that you don’t remember how fast news gets around here. Your baby’s day nurse is my sister-in-law. Rainbow isn’t exactly a common last name. Cat told me about your accident and your baby and asked if I knew you and so here I am. Oh, and I have this,” Valerie said and held out a crumpled and water-stained piece of bright yellow paper.

“I stopped by your parents’ house first to see if I could find them for you but instead of them I found this stuck to the door,” Valerie said with a look that said she was sorry to be the messenger. “It’s a little worse for the wear, but the gist of it is they’ve gone off to some rock in Sedona to commune with like souls. Sorry, I tried.”

“I know, and thanks. I’m not surprised. It’s just—” Maya stopped, then made herself smile. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just really glad you came. You don’t know how wonderful it is to see you.” After three days without seeing a familiar face or being able to share her joys and fears about Joey with anyone she knew, Maya felt close to tears seeing Valerie. She brushed quickly at her eyes, pretending to rub the sleep out of them.

“It’s okay, babies do that to you,” Valerie said, taking her hand and squeezing. “It’s good to see you, too, honey. You look a little banged up, but from what I hear, you’re lucky to be alive. You and your little boy.”

“Have you seen him?”

Valerie nodded. “He’s tiny and precious. But I hear he’s doing just fine. He’ll just need a little extra TLC for a while.”

“So the doctor keeps telling me.” Maya turned to look out the window into the bright sunlight, tears welling in her eyes. “He—he just looks so little and helpless right now. And they’re not going to let me take him home with me when I leave here. They still won’t tell me how long he’s got to stay, and I’m just so worried about him.”

“I know. But Lia Kerrigan is a good doctor,” Valerie said, echoing what Sawyer had told her. “Before you know it, your baby will be a boisterous, rowdy little boy and you’ll wonder how he ever could have been so small and quiet. Believe me, I know, between the twins and now the baby.”

“You have a baby?” Maya remembered Valerie had married her high school boyfriend shortly after graduation. The marriage had gone wrong almost from the start, and less than two years later Valerie had taken her twin daughters and left. “New husband, new baby—wow, has it been that long?”

Valerie laughed. “It’s been a few years since we were sixteen, dreaming up ways to cut algebra. I think my favorite was the time we took your dad’s motorcycle and skipped school for two days so we could go to that music festival in Taos.”

A flash of memories made Maya smile. “We were trouble, weren’t we?”

“And proud of it,” Valerie said. “Now I’m working to keep my kids in line. And not succeeding most days. If it weren’t for Paul, I’d be a crazy person by now. This time I got it right.” She hesitated, looking uncertainly at Maya before asking, “What about you?”

It was the closest Valerie would come to outright asking her what had brought her back to Luna Hermosa, unmarried, with a baby. And what could she say? She’d left shortly after high school graduation to find something her parents had never been able to give her—stability, commitment, someone willing to share responsibility. She thought she’d found those things in Evan, but she couldn’t have been more wrong.

“I decided to come home to have my baby,” she said at last, not ready to rehash the last miserable year with her ex-fiancé. “Unfortunately that turned out to be a really bad idea.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. You’re here and you’re both okay. And I hear it was our finest resident knight in shining armor, Sawyer Morente, who came to your rescue. You remember Sawyer, don’t you?” Valerie prodded. “You know, Mr. Captain of Everything in high school, Air Force hero, the guy with the killer smile?”

“I remember him.” Maya suddenly felt warm and restless. The memories of the accident, of giving birth, of the moment she first held her son, were as clear as if they’d happened minutes, not days ago. And they evoked the same uncomfortable mix of emotions, somewhere between embarrassment at having to be rescued and to give birth in the back of an ambulance and an odd lingering sense of intimacy with the man who’d safely delivered Joey. Avoiding Valerie’s eyes, she fidgeted with the blanket, reached back to adjust her pillow. “I suppose everyone in town knows what happened by now.”

“Well, it hasn’t been in the newspaper yet,” Valerie said, then laughed when Maya shot her a wide-eyed look somewhere between horror and disbelief. “Paul is a firefighter. He and Sawyer work the same shift most of the time. So—”

“So everyone knows I’m not married and that Sawyer delivered my baby on the side of the road. And next week it probably will be in the paper,” Maya muttered.

“It’s not that bad. I’m sure there are at least a few people who don’t know what happened,” Valerie said with a wink. “Oh, I almost forgot. These are for you.” She reached over to the bedside table and tugged forward a plastic pitcher filled with an eclectic mix of brightly colored wildflowers. “I caught Sawyer bringing these to you when I was on my way up to see you. He didn’t want to wake you, so I offered to deliver them for him. Sorry about using your water pitcher but it was all I could find.”

“Sawyer? Brought these?” Maya almost couldn’t believe her ears. Sawyer Morente had brought her flowers? The most drop-dead gorgeous guy in town, every girl’s idea of the perfect romance hero, had picked wildflowers for the hippie girl no one ever wanted to be seen with? Don’t make more of it than it is. “I suppose it isn’t every day he delivers a baby by himself in a thunderstorm,” she murmured as much to herself as Val.

“No, but it figures it was Sawyer. Paul calls him Zorro because he always seems to be the one riding to the rescue whenever someone’s in trouble around here. Although…” Val turned thoughtful. “Paul said delivering Joey seemed to really affect Sawyer. Maybe it’s because he understands what it’s like.”

“You lost me,” Maya said.

Shrugging, Val didn’t quite meet Maya’s eyes. “I guess you don’t remember hearing the gossip, but Sawyer’s father abandoned him and his brother when Sawyer was about seven. He completely cut those two boys out of his life. He never acknowledged they existed ever again, even though he still lives less than fifteen miles from them.”

An odd ache touched Maya, hurting her heart and burning her eyes with unshed tears. Whether for Sawyer’s loss or her and Joey’s, she didn’t know, but she felt like crying, giving in to the sadness that had shadowed her since Joey’s birth.

To distract herself Maya brushed a finger over a daisy, breathed in the fresh scents of lavender and sage. “I guess he thought wildflowers would suit me better than roses,” she mused, still wondering at his gesture. “They do remind me of home.”

“You are home now,” Valerie said firmly. “And you’re not alone, no matter how much it might feel that way sometimes.”

Tears rushed to Maya’s eyes. “Thanks Val,” she said, reaching for her friend’s hand. “I know we’re going to be fine. I just need to get out of here and get settled at Mom and Dad’s for a while.”

“If you can call staying at your parents’ place ‘settled.’ They haven’t changed much.”

“Changed from tie-dye to spandex and back again, but finding the next Grateful Dead concert is still their top priority.” Maya sighed. “Maybe it’s better they’ve taken off again. If they were here, I’d have three kids to keep up with.”

“Well, don’t you worry, Paul and I are here to help. And then there’s Sawyer…”

“Oh, no—” Maya held up her hands “—don’t even go there. He was only concerned about Joey. Like you said, he can sympathize. End of story.”

“Oh, right, that’s why he brought Joey flowers. I’m sure at three days old he’ll really appreciate them. Yikes, look at the time. I hate to run mi amiga, but Paul’s shift starts soon and I need to get home to the kids before he goes.”

“Thanks so much for coming,” Maya said, returning Valerie’s quick hug. “I can’t tell you what it means to me.”

“Then don’t, just invite me over when you break out of this place.”

“You’re on.”

“Catch you soon.” With a wave Val left.

The room felt cold and empty without her friend. Despite Val’s comforting words, Maya had trouble shaking a sense of utter loneliness, although she guessed that would pass once she and Joey were out of the hospital and the drama of the last few days was a distant memory.

She reached out and touched the soft petals of a daisy once more and suddenly her whole being ached to be with her new baby. Moving carefully, she swung her legs out of her bed, grabbed a robe and headed down the hallway to the nursery.

Sawyer slammed the door of his truck and strode across the parking lot of Firehouse No. 1. The bee sting on his hand was annoying him. He turned his wrist over to look at the red swell. “Morente, you’re a freakin’ fool,” he muttered under his breath.

What had he been thinking? Picking wildflowers for that girl—woman and mother now, he reminded himself. Maya Rainbow wasn’t a scrawny kid anymore. Even bruised and disheveled and swollen with child, Sawyer had thought she was beautiful, so different from the pale girl with eyes too big for her face he remembered.

After three days he hadn’t been able to shake the image of her struggling to hide her pain and fear, determined to bring her son safely into the world and to care for him alone. Those big green eyes seemed to hide lifetimes in them.

It was those eyes and the way she’d looked at him the other night when she’d told him Joey had no father, coupled with the miracle of her little boy, that had messed with his mind so much, he’d wound up in the middle of some field on the side of the road, picking wildflowers and getting stung by that damned bee.

As he yanked open the door to the station, he thanked the guardian angel of masculine pride that one of his buddies inside hadn’t driven by and seen him with a handful of daisies.

Sawyer strode straight to the coffeepot and poured himself a mug, wishing it were a double espresso instead of Paul Ortiz’s “lite” coffee. He needed to clear his head and he needed a jolt of caffeine to wake him up. He’d hardly slept since Maya’s accident; the whole night kept turning over and over in his mind like a movie stuck on replay. Why that night, that accident, that birth should be any different from any of the others he’d dealt with over the years, he couldn’t figure.

Lost in thought, he didn’t hear Paul come into the kitchen until a slap on his shoulder nearly caused him to drop his coffee mug.

“Wildflowers, Sawyer? Wildflowers?”

Cursing under his breath, Sawyer refilled his mug to avoid Paul’s smirk. “If Valerie wasn’t your wife, I’d put a muzzle on that woman.”

“Don’t worry, your little secret is safe with me,” Paul said, laughing. A few inches shorter and broader than Sawyer, his dark eyes seemed always to reflect a smile. “A little above and beyond the call of duty, though, wouldn’t you say?”

“The kid could have died,” Sawyer said, wondering why he bothered trying to explain himself. “They both could have. I— I just thought she needed a boost, you know, something to remind her it’ll get better.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet of you. I never figured you for the sensitive type.”

“Go jump,” Sawyer muttered. Taking his coffee, he headed for his office with the idea of locking himself in. Unfortunately Paul followed. Paul was a great guy, the kind of guy you’d want watching your back when it counted. But he was also the type of guy who didn’t know when a joke was old.

“I’ll bet the next time you visit her, she’ll have the flowers in her hair,” Paul teased.

“I’m not going back. I saw the kid and he’s doing fine. That’s all I needed to know.”

“Sure, that’s what you say now.” Paul said, leaning against the door to Sawyer’s office. “But Val and I already have money on it. Once you see that dump of a house Maya’s moving into, you’ll be over there with a hammer and a paintbrush all ready to remodel the Rainbow love shack. We all know you can’t resist riding to the rescue. Besides, from what Val says, your damsel in distress has grown up rather nicely.”

“She’s not mine,” he said, then, unable to stop himself, he added, “So she really is going to move back to that rattrap of her parents’?” She’d told him so the night of her accident, but he’d put it out of his mind, half hoping she’d change her mind before the hospital discharged her and her baby.

“Val says so. Man, I remember that party we went to at the love shack right before graduation. The incense was so thick, my throat hurt for days.”

Sawyer remembered he’d been glad to get out of the Rainbow residence before he caught something. He also remembered Maya, a thin girl with tousled hair, sitting against the railings of the upstairs loft, gazing down at the strange mix of revelers with a solemn look as her parents called and waved up to her, trying to get her to join the party.

“Her parents were something. They still are, from what I’ve seen,” Paul mused. “I guess it shouldn’t surprise anyone, Maya coming home the way she did.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Sawyer said more sharply than he intended.

Paul held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, you’re pretty quick to defend someone you plan on never seeing again.” He grinned at Sawyer’s glare. “I didn’t mean to insult your flower child. It’s just her parents were never married and everyone knows they basically raised Maya in a commune. Val says half the time they’d take off on that banged up Harley of theirs and leave her with whomever happened to be staying at their house at the time.”

“She told me they’re gone again,” Sawyer said.

“Yeah, and Cat said Maya’s doctor plans to release her tomorrow. So, just in case you want to drop by the old love shack…”

“Why, so you’ll win the bet with Val? Wait a minute. If you two are so sure what my next move is, what’s there to bet on?”

“That’s for us to know and you to figure out.”

Sawyer began sorting through the pile of paperwork on his desk, ignoring Paul’s attempt to bait him. “Don’t count on my losing any sleep trying.”

“What, you sleep?” Cort, in his usual jeans and battered leather jacket, was standing in the doorway. He walked around Paul, greeting the other man before dropping down into the chair beside Sawyer’s desk. “That’s not what I hear.”

“Superheroes don’t need the rest we mere mortals do,” Paul said, laughing. “I’ll let you annoy him for a while. I’ve done my duty for the day. Oh—” he leaned back around the door before leaving “—don’t forget to ask him about his flower girl.”

“Now my morning’s complete,” Sawyer said. He rubbed at his temple, really wishing he had that espresso.

“Girl?” Cort looked expectantly at Sawyer. “Don’t tell me you’re actually seeing someone. Although I’ve probably already missed it, since your idea of a long-term relationship is two weeks. So who is she?”

“There is no she. We delivered a baby the other night and I went back to check on the boy and his mother. Now Paul and Val have decided I’m ready to propose. So what are you doing here?” Sawyer asked, wanting to shift the conversation away from Maya before Cort got wind of his temporary insanity with the wildflowers. “As if I didn’t know.”

“You won’t return my calls or come see me, so I came to you.”

“This isn’t the time or the place.”

“C’mon, Sawyer, it never is with you,” Cort said. “But we have business, like it or not.”

“Not,” Sawyer said flatly. “I need more coffee.” Pushing back from his desk, he strode out of the office, hoping this would be the morning Mrs. Garcia would decide she needed her pulse taken.

The next morning, fed and content, Joey lay nestled in Maya’s arms, sleeping peacefully. She rubbed her fingertip over his cheek, marveling at the softness of his skin, wondering how he could be so perfect.

“Looks like he’s finished.” Cat Ortiz walked over to where Maya sat in a padded rocking chair next to Joey’s incubator. Maya liked the petite nurse, with her ready smile and gentle touch, but she dreaded her arrival in the nursery—especially today, because it meant leaving Joey in the hospital while she went home to her parents’ house.

“I don’t want to leave him,” Maya said, holding her son a little closer.

“I know, but he needs to go back to the incubator now. It won’t be long,” Cat said as she rearranged the blankets in Joey’s incubator. “Then he’ll be able to go home with you.”

Maya bent and kissed her precious little boy before grudgingly transferring him to Cat’s arms. Joey sighed, wriggled a little, then let out a satisfied gurgle.

“’Bye for now, sweetie,” Maya said softly. “I’ll see you at feeding time.”

“You’ll probably want to give him a bottle for the next several feedings since you’re going home today,” Cat reminded her.

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.