Chapter 4
RILEY
I sit with a glass of wine, reading through the profiles that are scattered on my coffee table. Sure, this isn’t the traditional way to pick out who the father of your child will be, but I like how it feels to be in control.
DONOR 3456
Blond hair
Blue eyes
I’ll bet they aren’t as blue as Sawyer’s are… My mind wanders, and I quickly take another sip of wine. Now is not the time to be thinking about him.
Height 5ft 10 inches
Athletic build
Enjoys diving, has a degree in chemistry, and once climbed Kilimanjaro to raise money for a children's hospital.
I place donor 3456 on the consideration pile, and just as I’m about to judge a new donor, a loud bang thuds at my door.
“Hale, let me in.” I recognise Sawyer’s voice and it immediately makes my stomach flip.
“Shit.” I look at all the fertility clinic’s paperwork that’s laid out on my coffee table and attempt to gather it all together. Then I wonder why I’m so worried. There is no way I’m letting Sawyer Anderson into my home. Not tonight, or ever. Not only is he a temptation, but he’s dangerous.
“Hale…I know you're in there, and I will break through this door. We need to talk.” He sounds angry, and I have no idea why he seems to be directing that anger towards me. Since I came to town, I’ve made a point of staying out of his way, questioning him and Jace over what happened to Devon Laney earlier was just me doing my job, and that's something he’s going to have to get used to.
“Alright, I’m coming.” I rush to the door and open it just enough to see him through the crack. “What can I do for you?” I smile sarcastically.
“What can yo– are you fuckin’ with me?” Sawyer forces the door open, barging past me so he can pace my living room floor.
“Why would I want to fuck with you, Mr. Anderson?” I remain calm and professional as I watch him grip his hair in his hands in frustration.
“There ya go again, with the Mr. Anderson bullshit. Actin’ all like we ain’t familiar with each other. You remember that night, right?” He looks at me with wild, desperate eyes. The blues in them seem darker tonight, and they’re swirling like a storm
“Yes, I remember.” I stare back at him blankly, trying to hide the way remembering feels.
“You remember how we…you and me?” He points his finger between us while he catches his breath, and I can see that he’s really worked himself up over this.
“Yes.” I nod. “Sawyer, are you okay?” I check.
“No. It’s been five weeks and two days since you showed up here, and not once have you mentioned… that night ,” he whispers, scrubbing his hand over his face and growling.
“What’s there to mention? We met in a bar and we fucked. I’m sure I’m not the only girl to have fallen for your charm.” I shake my head and laugh while he stares back at me like I’ve hurt him.
“I just…I thought…” He’s all out of words, and I can see now that he’s far more frustrated with himself than he is with me.
“What do you want, Sawyer, some kind of performance score? Tips for further improvement?”
“You think I need improvement?” His eyebrows rise in horror, and I roll my eyes impatiently. This guy clearly isn’t used to rejection. You’d think after three years, he’d be over it.
“If this is about me leaving without saying goodbye, I?—”
“It ain’t about that. It’s just…” Sawyer looks tired and disappointed with himself. “What are you doing here, Riley?” he asks weakly, and I suddenly realize it’s the first time he’s used my name. It sounds so normal and familiar, I have to really pretend not to like it.
“I’m here to do my job, this town needed a sheri–”
“A sheriff, not an FBI agent,” he interrupts me. “I need to know what you’re really here for.”
“I’m not an agent anymore,” I tell him, trying not to show how sad that makes me. I loved my job, but after what happened with Jack, I couldn’t stick with it.
“Bullshit, you're here on one of those undercover cases you work on.” He points his finger and scowls at me.
“Sawyer, I have no idea what you're talking about; you're clearly paranoid. Maybe you should take some time off work, you're always at that bar. Jean says?—”
“Fuck what Jean says. I’m not paranoid, I went through your bag while you were in the bathroom that night, and I saw your badge. I saw your gun, and I saw a very convincing fake ID that you had in your purse. And…how do you know that I’m always at the bar?” He looks pissed and curious at the same time and I decide I need to get a handle on this conversation before it leads to things I don’t want to discuss.
“I was with the bureau, but now I’m in Clearwater Creeks and I’m a sheriff, that's all you need to know, and all I’m going to tell you…Oh, and in case your mother never taught you, it’s rude to go through a woman's purse,” I add, furious at the idea of him snooping through my things. Does this man have no boundaries?
“My mother left me on a doorstep when I was an hour old. I don’t think she’ll be worrying all too much about my manners,” he snaps back at me, and I catch a flash of vulnerability in his eyes before he shakes his head and marches over to the fireplace. Resting his palm on the mantelpiece, he stretches out his arms and lowers his head between them.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as I step toward him.
“What?” He quickly lifts his head and looks at me as if I’m crazy.
“I’m sorry for what I said, I had no idea about your mom,” I explain
“None of that's important.” Sawyer shakes his head, but something in my gut tells me he’s lying.
“Look, Sawyer, I like this town, I’m even starting to like some of the people in it. I hold a position that demands respect, and I’d be grateful if we could keep what happened between us to oursel?—”
“What's this?” His eyes narrow as he looks down at the coffee table, and when he reaches down and picks up one of the fertility clinic’s leaflets, I quickly snatch it out of his hand.
“This is none of your business.” I place it back down with the others and feel my cheeks go red hot. I don’t want to have this discussion with anyone, especially not him.
“Are you?… I thought you were single.” His head shakes in confusion.
“I am single, and like I said, it’s none of your business.” I feel myself start to panic as I stack all the donor profiles and flyers into a neat little pile.
“Riley, if you're single, why are you looking at fertility treatment?” Sawyer proves that he’s not going to let it drop.
“You don’t need to be with someone to have a baby, Sawyer. Women raise kids by themselves all the time.” I try not to sound overly defensive, but this is exactly the reason why I’m not prepared to share with anyone what I plan to do. People can be so narrow-minded.
“I know that, but you…you're just so…Riley…You just took the job of town sheriff,” he stutters.
“I’m fully aware of my situation, thank you. And I’m not making any rash decisions. Right now, I’m just looking into my options.” I hold my head up high and cross my arms.
“Options?” Sawyer shocks me when he picks up the pile of paperwork and makes himself comfortable on my couch.
“I take it these are the jizz providers?”
“We call them donors, and everything is very professional; they are all anonymous,” I correct him.
“And you don’t meet these guys, they just shoot their junk into a beaker and that's it?” He frowns at me while he waits for my answer.
“I’m sure it’s a little more technical than that, but yes, that's the general idea.” I can feel my patience faltering. I’ve not spoken to a single soul about this, mainly because I know they would try and talk me out of it.
“So you're gonna get yourself knocked up by a guy that you don’t even know?” All the anger Sawyer came here with seems to have vanished when he starts to laugh at me.
“I think you should leave now.” I go to take the paperwork out of his hands, but he holds it out of my reach.
“No, I wanna know more about this.” He keeps his arm outstretched as he starts to read some more.
“DONOR 4568, black hair, brown eyes. Mother - British, Father - Italian.” Sawyer reels off some stats while I sit back and sigh. “ Get a load of this guy, he likes to travel and uses his inspiration to come up with recipes for the restaurant he owns.” He laughs some more. “Come on, Riley, you can’t be considering this guy to be your baby daddy?”
“Why not? He sounds nice enough.”
“Because you don’t know him. For all you know, he could be ugly. Do you want an ugly kid?” he points out, and I don’t know why, but the thought of that never occurred to me.
“No one thinks their own kid’s ugly.” I shake my head, refusing to admit that he has a point.
“No, they don’t, but you only have to see Jean’s face every time she looks down into Cheryl Rushford’s baby stroller to know how it would feel when the world sees what you don’t.”
“Sawyer, I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation; this has nothing to do with you.” I stand up and take a long, calming breath.
“Someone’s gotta have the conversation with you, this is crazy. You don’t know these guys, and I’m pretty sure a serial killer ain’t gonna put that down as a weekend hobby. Not only could you end up with an ugly child, you could end up with a psychotic one.” His voice is getting louder, and I’m trying to understand why this is making him so angry.
“I’ve made my decision, I want to be a mother. I don’t have, or want, a partner. So I’m doing this alone.” I can’t believe I’m even trying to explain this to a guy like him, he’s probably got brain damage from the amount of thighs his head’s been crushed between.
“I never said there was anything wrong with you wanting to be a mother, Riley, and you're right, women raise kids on their own all the time. But this ain’t the way to go about it. Didn’t ya ever think about meeting someone, falling in love, and doing this the traditional way?” He softens his tone sympathetically, and I hate the pity I see in his eyes.
“Yeah, and it didn’t work out, so this is the new plan.” This time, I succeed in snatching the papers from his hand, and while I shove them all into the top drawer of the cabinet, he scratches the back of his head thoughtfully.
“What if…” He pauses and takes a breath. “What if I…ya know?” His head gestures toward the lower section of my body before he slides his hand over his mouth nervously. I remember all the confidence there was in the guy I met in the bar all those years ago, and wonder what he’d say if he saw himself now.
“ You? ” Now it’s my turn to laugh. “You have got to be kidding.”
“What if I’m not?” He shrugs before chewing on his thumbnail and letting his leg tap nervously.
“Sawyer, I don’t want a father for my child, I just want–”
“I know, I get it, and trust me, I’m not cut out to be anyone's father. I’d just be giving you the ingredients to make the bun, and once you're cooking it my job’s done, right?”
“Do you know how crazy you sound right now?” I sit back down when I start to consider that he’s being serious. “Sawyer, you can’t get me pregnant.”
“I’ll bet I fuckin’ could.” He rolls his tongue around his cheek and fucks my body with his eyes. I have to ignore the flutters I’m getting from the idea of having him inside me again
“No.” I quickly shake my head before my thoughts outweigh my senses, and I let him convince me.
“Come on, you can’t tell me that our kid wouldn’t be beautiful.” He stands up and drags me over to the mirror by the door. “Look at us, we’d be doing the world a fuckin’ service.” He stands behind me and wraps his arms around my middle.
“Sawyer, you're talking crazy, and you're missing the point. It would never be our kid, it would be my kid. I told you, I want to do this by myself.” I struggle out of his arms when it starts to become too comfortable inside them.
“I get it, Riley. I get it loud and clear. Your baby, I'd just be the doner guy. Wouldn’t you prefer to know the person who you made your kid with?” He tilts his head and stares at me thoughtfully.
“Get out of here.” I open the door for him and roll my eyes.
“I’m just givin’ ya something to think about, Sheriff.” He lifts the collar of his jacket up and pauses as he steps up beside me. His lips linger real close to mine, making it hard to resist temptation.
“Goodnight, Sawyer.” I turn my head sideways, and when his lips softly press against my cheek, I feel my stone-cold heart thaw just a little as he leaves.