Page 84 of Theirs for the Holidays

A sales lady comes over, dressed in a crisp blazer and slacks. “Can I help you two?” she asks.

“I have an order to pick up,” Sawyer says. “Last name Sullivan.”

She consults her tablet and then smiles. “Sawyer? I see your order here, give me a second to go grab it.”

“What did you order?” I ask, unable to stop asking questions.

He just smiles and leads me over to one of the displays. On it is one of those fancy coffee machines that I’ve dreamed about. It does espresso and steams and froths milk, and can handle pods as well as brew big pots. It’s a gorgeous, shiny stainless steel thing, and my eyes are as wide as saucers as I look up at Sawyer.

“You didn’t,” I gasp.

“I did,” he says.

“Sawyer! This thing costs a fortune.”

“And it should last you for years. Think of it as an investment. You need coffee to function, and your shitty coffee maker was going to crap out on you before the new year.”

I don’t even know what to say to that. I just feel touched, warm all the way through. Especially knowing that he had to have placed this order days ago, before we all slept together. He just did it because he wanted to do something nice for me, and it’s a very sweet gesture.

“Don’t do that thing where you think you can’t accept it,” he says, giving me a look. “Or I’ll just take it and put it in your house anyway.”

“I wasn’t going to do that thing,” I assure him. “I’m just… it’s so nice of you. Thank you. Really.”

He reaches up and tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering just a little. “You’re welcome. It’s fun to do nice things for sweet people who deserve them. And you deserve all the nice things, Peaches. Trust me.”

There’s warmth in his eyes as he looks at me, and we just smile at each other for a long moment until the sales lady comes back with a large box on a dolly. She helps us get it outside and Sawyer loads it into the cab of his truck.

Once we’re back in the truck ourselves, driving back to Sweetwater Lake to head back to my house, I keep turning my head to look at the box in the back seat. A sort of giddy excitement fills me, and my mind races with ideas for all the drinks I want to try.

“You’re like a kid at Christmas,” Sawyer teases me. “Am I going to get to try some of your creations?”

“Of course. I have to make you drinks as a thank you.” It’s been a long time since I’ve had something like this to be excited over, and it feels good.

Finally, I turn back around and settle into my seat. His comment about Christmas reminds me that we’re getting close to it. Close to the holiday and to Isabelle and Andrew’s wedding. Once we’re past that, Sawyer will be leaving, along with his other two brothers, going back to their lives—away from here.

“Do you know where you’re heading next?” I ask him. “Once everything’s over here?” Unlike Lennox and Rhett, Sawyer doesn’t have one specific home to go back to. Thinking about him leaving puts a pit in my stomach. I’m going to miss him. Even more so now than I did the first time he left Sweetwater Lake for good.

“Not sure yet,” he replies, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t usually make a plan for it. I just wait until I get the itch to go somewhere and then I see where I end up. Sometimes it’s as simple as seeing where flights are thecheapest. Sometimes I’ll see an ad for a place on TV and just decide to go there. The spontaneity is part of the point.”

I nod. “Makes sense.”

Either he hears something in my voice—despite my efforts to sound neutral and unbothered—or it’s just good timing, because he looks over at me while I’m looking wistfully out of the windshield. I glance over at him, and there’s a look I can’t read in his eyes.

“Right now I like where I am quite a bit though. I’m not in a hurry to leave.”

My cheeks flush almost on cue, and I duck my head to hide a smile. “You charmer. I bet you have a swooning fan club from here to the Grand Canyon. You probably say that to all the girls in the towns you stop in.”

He laughs but shakes his head, something serious glinting in his eyes. “Nah. Just you.”

My heart stutters at the way he says it, his tone simple and straightforward, as if it doesn’t take a second of thought. I’m not quite sure what to say in response, so I gaze out the windshield instead, trying to tame the butterflies flapping wildly in my stomach.

28

SAWYER

I putmy focus back on the road as we keep driving, and I can feel the tension growing in the truck. Outside, fat flakes of snow fall on the road and the windshield of the truck.

Maybe I was too honest just now, but I spoke without thinking. Violet does that to me sometimes. Something about being around her makes it easy to just let my thoughts spill from my head out of my mouth, without me taking time to consider if I should be saying it or not. It’s just easy to be honest with her.