“I’m not playing games. I don’t know how long this will be, but I will call you the second I have news.”
Irene sighed, then there was the muffled sound of her covering the phone and the murmur of voices. Then she came back on the line. “We appreciate anything you can do on our behalf, Olivia. You’re like a daughter to us.”
A daughter who had to do them favors to get one in return...but still. They’d kept Olivia close after Mia’s passing, and in a way, it seemed to keep Mia’s memory alive for all of them.
“I’ll be in touch as soon as I can,” Olivia said. “I promise.”
After saying goodbye, she hung up the phone, and stared at it in her palm for a moment.
The Whites wanted results, and they were used to getting them. Wyatt White was a senator, and his wife had been the financial engine behind his political career. They were used to having to wait on results for things like elections, but not being forced to wait by people like Olivia.
She was putting off the very people who could lift the burden for her and Brian, but her conscience wouldn’t allow her to do any less.
Father, guide me, she prayed. She needed God’s blessing more than she needed the Whites’ money.
Coffee had been something familiar—making it, waiting for it, listening to the sound of the burbling coffee maker... And Sawyer had so little that was familiar. Olivia said he used to like his coffee sweet and creamy, so he was giving it a try. He took a sip, and made a face. Too sweet, a bit filmy on his tongue.
The screen door clattered shut behind Olivia as she came back into the kitchen.
“Don’t like it?” she asked. “Which one is that?”
“This is cream and sugar,” he replied, and turned to dump the mugful of coffee down the drain. He poured a fresh mug and took a sip of the black coffee. It tasted fresh, bitter, smooth. “Mmm. Yeah. This is good.”
Olivia pulled out her phone, glanced down at the screen, and then pocketed it again. She looked distracted, and he felt a wave of misgiving.
“Are you putting off plans for me?” Sawyer asked.
“Hmm?”
“You’re checking your phone,” he said. “If you have stuff to do, I don’t want to keep you here. I know my uncle is worried about me, but I can handle the girls for a while—”
“No, no,” she said quickly. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
He didn’t believe that. He might not remember Olivia, but he knew what tension looked like, and she had tension written all over her. It was brought out by baseball and phone calls, apparently.
“I’m not as helpless as I look,” he said, and he made a point of not touching the bandage on his head.
“I don’t think you’re helpless,” she said.
“Sure, you do.” He fixed her with a direct look. “And I might not have my memory, but I’m okay. I don’t want to be your obligation here.”
“Sawyer, you have a brain injury. You might have all the best of intentions, but you need a little looking after. Sorry to break it to you.”
A faint smile tickled at the corners of her lips, and he thought he saw some friendly teasing in that gaze. Maybe it wasn’t so terrible to be spending a few days with this woman. They’d been friends once, apparently, and he could tell what he must have seen in her before. She was likeable.
When she looked at him like that, he was reminded again of that fragment of memory—the woman in the black coat, how he had put his hand out to touch her. She turned...and he couldn’t remember more than that. Except this time, he recalled snow on the ground—mucky, wet, dirty snow on the edge of a sidewalk. Nothing else. It was frustrating having these little shards of memory that didn’t connect. He needed to find where they fit in.
And he had already tried doing that sitting inside.
“Okay, so even if I am recovering here, it doesn’t mean we have to sit in the house and stare at each other. You want to get out for a bit? I have a feeling Lloyd is going to be a while.”
“I have that same feeling,” she agreed. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, my uncle doesn’t want me helping out on the ranch until my memory’s back. So maybe we could start out where I used to work—at the barn maybe.” He looked down at his rough, calloused hands. “You said I used to work a lot, right?”
“You did,” she agreed. “It might jog a few memories.”
Bella and Lizzie looked up at them, and Olivia glanced around the kitchen. “We should bring something for the girls. What do they snack on?”
“Um...” Yeah, and he’d just been saying he could take care of things on his own. “I’m not sure.”
Olivia opened a cupboard, looked through the contents and then moved on to the next.
“Yesterday they each had a sippy cup around this time of day. Lloyd got it for them,” he added.
Olivia went to the fridge and opened it. “Ta-da.” She pulled out two cups, both filled with milk. The toddlers beelined toward her, holding their hands out for the milk, and she gave them the cups. The girls started to drink. Bella spun in a circle as she slurped on the rubber mouthpiece, and Lizzie sat down to drink.
“Cereal?” Sawyer asked, pulling a box of Cheerios out of a bottom cupboard.
“Put some into a baggie,” Olivia said.
“I don’t know where
