Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
SAWYER
“ S awyer Malone, you’re not sneaking out, are you?”
I froze, my hand inches from the front doorknob, because that was exactly what I’d been trying to do. Well and truly caught, I blanked the guilt from my face and turned. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Mimi.”
Delilah Washington—otherwise known as Mimi to Ford and all the rest of the Wayward Sons—smiled knowingly from the kitchen doorway, a hand-thrown mug of coffee in her hands. Probably her own work.
“Come get some breakfast!” This disembodied order came from Delilah’s wife, Ford’s biological mom, Florence Donoghue—aka Mama Flo.
“Yes, ma’am.” Changing directions, I accepted my fate and joined the two women in the kitchen.
I hadn’t had any intention of crashing at Ford’s moms’ place last night, but in true island fashion, by the time Aubrey’s birthday party had wrapped up yesterday, they’d heard I was back on-island and insisted the guest room was already made up. I was beyond grateful for these women because they’d been mothers to me after my own had passed. But it still felt weird being here without Ford.
Mama Flo stood at the stove, a tall, slim woman with sun- and silver-streaked brown hair and a no-nonsense demeanor that served her well in her occupation as an environmental rights attorney. It was a marked contrast from Mimi’s soft curves and flowing hippie skirts, her own natural hair worn in a cap of short curls that accentuated the perfectly proportioned shape of her head and the fine features of her medium brown skin. They were a study of opposites, but somehow they worked. Mama Flo kept Mimi grounded, and Mimi kept her wife from taking anything too seriously.
“Over-easy or scrambled?” Mama Flo demanded.
I briefly wondered if I could get away with just having a cup of coffee, then rejected the idea. She was already staring at me in Mom tone. That probably meant they’d also heard about my injuries and were as displeased as Willa about my keeping them to myself.
“Over-easy, please.”
She gestured with her spatula. “Sit.”
Contrite, I struggled to keep my shoulders from hunching up toward my ears, both to hide my guilt and because the motion still made my bad shoulder twinge. “Yes’m.”
I sat at the kitchen table nestled in the bay window. The view overlooked the ocean at the south end of the island. That window was one of the original historical features of the house, which had once belonged to the lighthouse keeper. The lighthouse itself had been decommissioned many decades before, and the property fallen into disrepair. Florence and Delilah had bought it for a song and spent the past thirty years renovating and restoring it into the home it was today.
Mimi brought me a cup of coffee. “Sleep okay?”
I sipped at the dark brew, which was so much better than the swill I’d grown accustomed to in the Navy. “Mmm. I did, thanks.” It wasn’t a lie. My body seemed to recognize that I was finally home and had relaxed in a way I hadn’t managed for a long time.
Mama Flo cracked three eggs into a waiting skillet. “That shoulder’s not paining you too much?”
Yep. They’d definitely heard about my injuries.
“No, ma’am. It’s healing well.”
Both women gave me long looks that were about ten times more intimidating than any commanding officer I’d encountered during my service. This was one of those occasions when it would’ve been great if Ford had been here to either rescue me or for me to throw under the bus.
Mimi sniffed. “Well, you’re retired now. What are your plans?”
As I didn’t have the first clue what my life plans were, I opted to answer for the day. “I’m going up to Sutter House with Willa to help her deal with stuff up there.”
They exchanged another look before Mama Flo turned away to plate up the eggs.
What is that about?
Mimi sipped at her coffee. “It’s good she’s letting you help. She’s shot down everyone else.”
Willa wasn’t one to share her pain with others. Never had been, and that had only gotten more pronounced in the years since she came back to the island.
“You always had a way with her.” Mama Flo slid a plate in front of me. “Eat up. I expect there’s a lot to do.”
Dutifully, I dug into the eggs. “How has Willa been doing, really?”
These two women might not keep quite as close an eye on Willa as they would on one of the Wayward Sons, but they still looked out as much as she’d let them. Mama Flo had been instrumental in getting Willa into the grant writing she did for a living, including hiring her for freelance work from time to time, and Mimi dearly loved gossip, so if there was anything to know, she probably did.
Predictably, she was the one who answered. “She’s doing as well as can be expected. It was good and bad that she reconnected with her grandparents. Since she came back to the island, she’s done what her mother never did, devoting herself to giving back to Hatterwick, upholding the Sutter family name. Henry and Vivian were so incredibly proud of who she’s become. But for her to lose them like this, practically back-to-back…”
It would have left her reeling. Especially with Jace not around for support.
“What about her parents? Have they been back to the island since she moved home? She hasn’t mentioned it to me, but I don’t know that she would have.”
Mama Flo pulled out a chair and sat. “Both of them came back the first year she was here. They clearly thought they’d be able to cow her into doing whatever they wanted, but they severely underestimated her.”
I barely held in a growl. “They’ve been doing that all her life.”
“True enough. Anyway, her mother’s been back a couple of times, allegedly to check on Henry and Vivian, but Willa wouldn’t see her. Since then, they’ve left her alone, so far as we know.”
I scowled down at the remains of my eggs. “Did they really not come back when her grandmother died?”
“No. Vivian was in the hospital on the mainland when she passed, and Henry insisted they weren’t having a funeral or memorial at that time. That they wanted to be honored together after he went. So that’s what Willa’s planning to do.”
Mimi leaned against Mama Flo on the bench seat in the window. “Maybe you can use that influence of yours to get her to open up to the idea of taking help from the rest of us. She shouldn’t have to handle all this on her own.”
“I don’t know how much influence I’ve got, but I’ll see what I can do.” Shoving back from the table, I took my empty plate to the sink and rinsed it off before loading it into the dishwasher. “Thanks for breakfast. I need to be getting on.”
As I headed out to my truck, I made a mental note to find some time to look for a place of my own. I didn’t feel right just camping out in their guest room, even though I knew they were completely okay with it and probably would enjoy the chance to mother me a bit. I was afraid that mothering would turn more into smothering, simply because I was the only one of their adopted chicks here at the moment. But that all had to wait. Right now, Willa came first.
The shadows under her eyes, when she answered the door of the little bungalow she shared with Bree, told me she’d spent a restless night. I wondered if that was because of the stress over her parents’ impending invasion or if this was more of her norm than I’d realized. Had she kept as much from me in those texts and emails as I’d kept from her?
“Mornin’. Ready to go?”
She reached for her purse. “Yeah.”
“Why don’t I drive?” Small though it was, it felt like something else I could take off her plate. Plus, it meant more time with her. I didn’t really feel like analyzing whether that was for her or for me.
Willa hesitated. “Roy is coming with me.”
As if summoned by the sound of his name, the big dog appeared at her side like a ghost. Hell, he’d rival some of the SEALs I’d met for stealth.
“That’s fine. A little dog hair never hurt anything.”
She retrieved some kind of seatbelt attachment from her Jeep and loaded Roy into the backseat of my truck. As soon as he was secure, she slid into the passenger seat. For a moment, I flashed back to that long ago night when I’d snuck her out hidden under a blanket in the backseat. God, it felt like a million years since then, but I was still every bit as aware of her sharing the space. Instead of the palpable anticipation she’d radiated on her escape that night, with every mile closer to Sutter House, her anxiety ratcheted up. She didn’t speak, and I didn’t press for conversation, letting her feel what she needed to feel. Nothing about this would be easy for her.
The house was more rundown than I remembered, though still a grand example of the architecture of its period. A big place like this was probably a lot for her aging grandparents to have kept up, even with hired help. After working construction after school for years before I left for the Navy, it was habit to scan the place, looking for needed repairs. The whole thing could do with a fresh paint job and having the myriad of windows washed, and the driveway needed a fresh load of crushed shells to replenish the bare spots. But there was evidence of some recent pruning and shaping of the bushes and landscaping, so it wasn’t completely untouched.
Roy didn’t bound off to investigate all the interesting scents when he was sprung from the backseat. Instead, he stayed close to Willa’s side, clearly attuned to her mood. She strode to the kitchen door with purpose, her shoulders resolute. But there, she hesitated, her hand hovering just over the knob.
“Are you okay?” It was a dumbass question. I could tell she wasn’t.
“Not really.” She dropped her hand. “I haven’t been able to make myself go back inside.”
“How come?”
Sucking in a breath, she turned to face me, and her eyes were utterly devastated. “I was the one who found him.”
Oh God.
I didn’t think, didn’t question. I just pulled her straight into my arms, wanting to do something—anything—to take away some of her pain. Unlike yesterday, when we’d had an audience, she burrowed in, pressing her cheek to my chest and wrapping her arms around my waist like I was the only thing keeping her from being lost at sea. I buried my face in her hair, inhaling the vanilla and lavender scent of it as I held on. This was the first truly real hug with genuine connection that we’d shared since I’d left for basic training.
My hand found its way beneath the fall of her hair to gently massage at the tension in her nape. The muscles at the base of her neck were hard as iron. “Is it seeing where his body was? Remembering?”
“That. And I’m terrified this is going to be the last time I ever see this place.”
“What do you mean?”
Willa pressed so close, her voice muffled against my chest. “They only had one daughter. Everything’s going to my mother, and we all know my dad controls her. So they’ll probably end up selling everything to developers and ruining the island. Relocating the horses. I’m afraid they’re going to destroy everything I love about this place.”
Given who her parents were, those were legitimate fears. Jesus, no wonder she wasn’t sleeping. I didn’t want to blow smoke up her ass, but maybe I could mitigate some of this. “Are you aware of what was in your grandfather’s will? Did he say he’s leaving everything to your mom?”
“No. We didn’t talk about any of that. We only reconnected in the last couple of years, and that just didn’t feel necessary to discuss or really any of my business. I didn’t renew my relationship with them because of what I could get out of them.”
Of course she hadn’t. That wasn’t her way.
I eased back just far enough to tip her face up toward mine. God, her skin was soft. “Then you don’t actually know what’s going to happen, so let’s not borrow trouble. Let’s just deal with what’s in front of us right now.”
She sucked in another breath and nodded. “Okay.”
Some of the tension bled out of her before she pulled away and opened the kitchen door.
We stepped inside. The air was stale and still. I noted a pile of clean dishes in the rack beside the sink. The flat cap her grandfather had so frequently worn hung on a peg by the door, above an urn holding umbrellas and the carved wooden cane he used when walking the beach. A fine layer of dust seemed to have settled over everything—the only real sign no one had been here in a while.
I trailed Willa as she moved through the room, scanning everything.
“The kitchen needs to be cleaned. Really, everything needs to be aired out and cleaned.”
“Why?” When she just looked at me, I rushed to add, “No disrespect to your grandparents, but why does this need doing now instead of later?”
“I’m the last Sutter. Or, at least, the only one who’s here. Everybody’s going to want to come through and pay their respects. The expectation is that I’ll open the house to the community.” As she tensed up again, Roy whined and nudged her hand with his big head. She automatically stroked him.
Mindful of the dog, I cupped the slim shoulders she’d piled so much on. “The island has always held immense respect for your grandparents and everything they’ve done for Hatterwick. I know it’s going to be hard on you, dealing with all those people, dealing with your parents. But you’re not going to have to do it alone. I promise, all of us are going to be there for you. And maybe it’ll be a good thing to hear from the community how much they’ll both be missed.”
“Maybe. I won’t be able to keep Roy with me in the middle of all that. He’s exceptionally well trained, but I’m going to be so wound up, I can’t be absolutely certain he won’t try to defend me, and I won’t risk him getting in trouble for that.”
It was so absolutely Willa that she was focused on the consequences to the dog.
“Then I’ll be your guard dog.”
Her brows drew together.
Her long, swoopy bangs had fallen into her eyes, and I couldn’t stop myself from brushing them back. “Look, I don’t have to know what happened with your parents to know that this is going to be rough. If you don’t want them to get anywhere near you, I won’t let them. Period. End of story. Consider me your bodyguard for as long as you need me.”
“You’d really do that for me?”
Wren, I’ll do anything for you. The certainty of it hit me like a Mack truck, but I kept my tone matter-of-fact. “Of course.”
The sudden release of tension in her posture told me she believed me. “My parents and I have been fully estranged for years.”
I’d suspected as much, though we hadn’t talked about it. That confirmed what Mimi and Mama Flo had said at breakfast. “Okay. Then I’ll make sure it stays that way.”
Because we’d slid well past the realm of friendly comfort, I forced myself to release her. “Now let’s finish making a list of everything that needs to get done, and we’ll activate the island grapevine to get you the help to do it.”