This made her take a second look at him. “You don’t think you’re sweet?”
He grimaced and didn’t answer.
“It’s a compliment,” she said, amused. “Sweet is a positive quality.”
“Yeah,” he said. “In puppies.”
Chloe laughed, a little disconcerted by how easily and effectively he disarmed her, every single time. “Don’t worry, Sheriff. I won’t tell anyone.”
His concentration was on the road. Apparently he’d exhausted his word usage for the day. “So does this happen to you a lot?” she asked, perversely determined to make him talk. “The rescue thing?”
He shrugged. “It’s my job.”
Maybe. But he wasn’t on the job at the moment. “Tell me about the calls yesterday, the ones Lucille brought up.”
“They were nothing.”
“Fine. I’ll just go read Facebook. Probably it’s not too overly embellished.”
He glanced over at her. “Do you ever use your powers for good?”
“Not if I can help it. Tell me.”
He blew out a breath. “I got called out to Mrs. Perez’s house because she was shining a light in her neighbor’s windows. Apparently the neighbor-Mrs. Cooper-had cheated at bunco earlier in the week and pissed Mrs. Perez off, so Mrs. Perez was retaliating by scaring Mrs. Cooper.”
“What did you do?”
“I took the batteries out of Mrs. Perez’s high-powered flashlight.”
“Fast thinking,” Chloe said, impressed. “What else happened?”
“I got called to the Sorenson house.”
“Bill and Joanne, with the eight daughters?” she asked.
“Yes. Bill had plowed a pile of mulch in front of his neighbor’s driveway.”
“Why, had the guy been cheating at bunco too?”
“No,” Sawyer said. “The neighbor’s son got caught…in a compromising position.”
“Compromising position?”
“Pants at his ankles, in the company of one of Bill’s daughters.”
“Uh-oh. In that case, you’re lucky there weren’t gunshots.”
“No luck involved,” he said. “I took Bill’s rifle from him two weeks back when I heard the two teens were dating.”
She laughed. “You took his rifle? Are you allowed to do that?”
“
“How do you accidentally dispose of a rifle?”
Sawyer turned and flashed her a heart-stopping grin, full-wattage. “You go sailing with Ford and dump it three miles out at twelve knots.”
Ford had been a world-class sailor, with an Olympic medal and many other awards for his efforts. He didn’t go out on the racing circuit so much anymore, but he did sail with Jax and Sawyer on their mutual days off. Chloe had seen them on the docks at the marina. Hell, she had a permanent kink in her neck from all the times she’d stared out the marina building window at the three of them wearing board shorts and nothing else.
The truck’s heater was decadently warm on her chilled skin, but the dried mud was still a huge irritant and she squirmed some more.
“What’s the matter?”
“You ever go naked on the beach and get sand in places that no sand should go?” she asked.
“Ah. I take it the same applies for mud.”
“Little bit.” Plus, she’d never worn jeans without underwear before, and it wasn’t nearly as fun as she’d thought it might be. The center seam kept riding up, and the zipper was cutting into her. She looked out the side window to distract herself, but all she could see was Sawyer’s reflection next to her.
Though he hadn’t been so relaxed when Lucille had been recounting the story about how he’d helped Suzie because she was a single mom. Chloe turned to look at him in profile. His hair was windblown, his face tanned. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and his square jaw was scruffy. She liked it. But there were lines of tension along the outside corners of his eyes.
He wasn’t as relaxed as he appeared to be.
He worked hard. He always did. From what she knew of him, he’d gotten that from his father, a hard worker himself, and a single dad. And it hit her. “How old were you?”
“When?”
“When your mom gave up being a mom.”
For a brief beat, he took his gaze off the road and looked at her before turning back. “Eight.”
Her heart squeezed. “You were eight when your parents divorced?”
“They were never married. Or together, for that matter. I went back and forth between them until I was around eight.” His hesitation was brief. “That’s when she left town.” He lifted a shoulder, like life happens, no big deal.
But it was a big deal. Chloe knew all too well what it was like to have only one parent, a parent who wasn’t always so keen on being one in the first place. It had left its mark on her, and the older she got, the more she was beginning to understand how deep the wounds went. Or maybe being here in Lucky Harbor with her sisters was what had stirred the pot, but all her relationships seemed to be affected by her childhood. Not only that but also her search for stability, for a home, and the ironic fear of those very same things.
Which left her to wonder what the loss of his mother had done to Sawyer. “You ever hear from her?”
“No.”
He said it easily enough, but something made her throat tighten a little. Maybe it was the thought of him at eight years old being utterly abandoned by the one woman in his life who he should have been able to count on. She knew what it felt like to be without a parent, too. It was possible, she supposed, that her own father hadn’t known about her at all, but she thought it far more likely that he’d known and simply hadn’t wanted her. “Are you close to your dad?”
He let out a low laugh.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“There’s bad history. I haven’t exactly been a model son.”
“You were a motherless little boy,” she said in his defense.
“I was a complete shit,” he corrected. “A holy fucking terror. My father did what he could.” He gave a slight shrug. “At least you and Phoebe were of like minds. She was the original wild child.” A small but fond smile crossed his lips, taking any of the possible sting out of his words.
“You liked her,” she said in surprise.
He glanced at her. “Is that so odd?”
“Well, yeah. You’re not always so fond of me, so…”
“Says who?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“Wow. I just made you speechless. That’s new. I like it.” He paused. “And yeah, I liked Phoebe, too. She did as she pleased, lived the life she wanted to live.”
“Sometimes,” she said, staring at him, “you surprise me.”
He shot her a rare smile. “So what about your dad?” he asked after a minute. “I’ve never heard anything about him.”
“No? Me either.”
“You don’t know him?”
“I don’t even know who he is.”
Again he glanced at her, and she once again turned to the window, annoyed at herself. She never told people that. First of all, it was embarrassing, and second…
