Chapter 20 Sawyer
TWENTY
Sawyer
Goodnight, fake girlfriend. I'll be imagining you next to me.
That's presumptuous.
You're right. I should probably ask first... Can I imagine you next to me?
I suppose I will allow it.
Good, because I was going to anyway. See you tomorrow.
“You excited to be back here?” I glanced sideways at Ellie as we drove the winding two-lane road toward my house.
She had her legs curled up on the seat, her sleeves tugged over her hands, and her cheek pressed to the window.
The sweater—the very one I’d convinced her to wear after a full-on negotiation—was covered in glittery gingerbread men and topped off with an aggressively festive candy cane collar.
It should’ve been ridiculous. On her, it was unfair. She was so fucking adorable.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “It’s nice here. I’ve always been a big city girl, so this kind of quiet feels like a vacation for my brain.”
I smiled and tapped the steering wheel. “Well, don’t get too comfortable. I’ve got big plans.”
She tilted her head toward me, suspicious. “Big plans?”
“Hot cocoa taste test, drive-by Christmas lights judging, maybe a snowball fight if you're feeling brave.”
She smirked. “Should I be scared?”
I glanced at her, then back at the road. “Terrified. I take holiday spirit very seriously.”
“I’m not much of a holiday person.”
“I plan to change your mind in the next two days.”
I stole another glance at her—cheeks pink from the cold and lips you write poetry about even if you're terrible at it. Which I was, but fuck, she was that beautiful.
And yeah, this was fake. Technically. Contractually, even. But wanting her back at my house? That wasn’t pretend. Neither was the picture stuck in my head of her curled up in my bed, tangled up in my sheets.
“There’s been some work done on the place.” I turned onto my driveway and pulled under the big willow tree. “So it should look a little better than the last time you were here. Still not perfect, but it’s getting there.”
She tilted her head toward me. “I already love it.”
I shifted into park. “I have a little surprise, though. Close your eyes.”
Ellie raised a brow. “What kind of surprise?”
“The good kind. I hope.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“Just trust me.”
She raised a brow. “Is this when I get murdered?”
“I mean,” I said with a slow grin, “I wouldn’t complain about tying you up in some Christmas lights.”
She flushed pink, and my brain started doing that thing it shouldn’t: picturing her daring me back and calling my bluff. I gave a lazy wink, yanked the door open, and jogged for the porch.
I plugged in the Christmas lights, and the house exploded into a blinding, ridiculous glow. Then, I ducked inside to switch on the tree full of new ornaments, warm white lights, and ribbon Dotty claimed was tastefully rustic.
Had I gone too far setting this up for a house I was only crashing in for a few days? Maybe. But when Ellie told me she hadn’t put up a tree in years, something in me cracked.
I wasn’t sure the kind of man Harold was, and I didn’t need to know. Any guy who didn’t give this woman the most over-the-top Christmas magic possible wasn’t man enough for her.
Dotty had overseen most of the renovations while I was out of town. The whole place was cleaned, and the bedrooms were finished. Even the kitchen was stocked with three kinds of hot cocoa.
Yeah, I was that guy now.
When I came back out, Ellie was still in the truck, eyes dutifully closed, hands clasped in her lap. It seemed as if she was trying really hard not to smile, her lips jumping up at the corners.
I opened her door and leaned in. “Still closed?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, voice all soft and devastating all at once.
“Good girl.”
That devilish little smile of hers made my dick twitch. I cleared my throat and took her hand. I helped her out of the car and stepped behind her, covering her eyes.
“Okay. Walk straight. You trust me?”
“God help me, but I think I do.”
I led her up the walkway and stopped at the porch. The house was glowing, the tree sparkling through the window like a damn snow-globe come to life.
“You can open them now.” I eased my hands from her eyes and stepped to the side to watch her take it in.
She blinked, lips parting, and turned to me. “You did all this?”
I shrugged. Suddenly, I was twelve years old, trying to impress the pretty girl at school. “Dotty helped, but the tree was all me.”
She looked at it and back at me. “I haven't had a Christmas like this in years. It's… Wow…”
I had to bite back a grin.
“Wait till you see my dad's place,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching for her. “He finally got around to putting up the rest of his decorations last weekend. It's basically a Clark Griswold fever dream.”
She laughed, and something warm unfurled in my stomach at the sound. “Your family is kind of ridiculous, you know that?”
“I’ve been told. Frequently.”
“But like…in a very endearing way.” She scrunched her nose, and fuck if that wasn't the cutest thing I'd seen all week.
I couldn't help myself. I brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek, my thumb lingering against her soft skin. She didn't pull away.
“Stick around, Ellie baby. I've got more where that came from.”
Her smile spread across her face. “You trying to make me fall in love with Christmas again?"
Or me.
I held the door open and ushered her in. “Let’s go inside. It’s cold out here.”
If I didn’t get her inside soon, I was going to do something stupid—like kiss her senseless and forget this was fake for her.
The house smelled like pine and cinnamon.
I headed straight for the stack of kindling and grabbed a few pieces, dropped them in, and struck a match.
The flames caught quickly. Ellie settled onto the couch, and I slid in beside her as the fire started to crackle, casting a flickering glow over the room.
She noticed the journal sitting on the coffee table between us. “Finally decided to take it out of the floor?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Had to. Can’t have you losing a finger to a spider.”
She gave me a skeptical look. “How do I know you didn’t peek?”
I raised my hands in surrender. “I’m a man of my word,” I smirked. “Tonight’s research night—whatever you want to dig into. But tomorrow? You spend Christmas with me. No sleuthing allowed. Deal?”
“Deal.”
I nudged the journal gently toward her. “Ready?”
Her eyes met mine. “God, yes. I’ve been waiting for this. My mind keeps spinning, trying to guess what she might’ve written next.”
Letting out a breath, she picked up the journal and started reading aloud.
He asked me again whose eyes he has.
I told him mine, but that’s not true. Not entirely. He doesn’t look like him. He never has.
When he was born, I remember feeling terror underneath the joy. I prayed no one would see it, that time would blur the lines, but time hasn’t helped. If anything, it’s made everything worse.
I see him watching us. Quiet, calculating.
He said something yesterday: I'm not a fool, you know. Just that. Nothing more. But it chilled me to the bone.
Some days, this house feels like a cage I built for myself. I breathe borrowed air. I speak borrowed lines.
I wish someone could tell me what to do.
Ellie stared down at the journal in her lap, her fingers still pressed to the edge of the page as if she was afraid to let go of it.
“So, what’s first?” I asked.
Ellie opened her phone and started scrolling.
“Okay, I looked up L. Lauren. From this, we definitely know her son wasn’t her husband’s.
Let’s see if we can find anything about her.
Old social media, friends, news articles, maybe high school stuff.
We need to find her to find him. Maybe there’s something that can give us a clue.
Whoever he is, I’m guessing he’s the key. ”
I folded my arms. “How old was she when all this went down?”
“Mid-thirties, I think,” she said without missing a beat, still searching, “based on records I found.”
“So probably a little older than me.” I lifted an eyebrow.
Ellie looked up with a smirk. “Wait, how old are you?
“Thirty-three.”
“Wow, you’re ancient.”
“Hey, I’m still young enough to keep up with you.”
“Yeah, cause twenty-five is so young.”
I laughed. “When I was twenty-five, my knees didn’t sound like an old, creaky floor every time I moved. Alright, smart ass. So, on the agenda, we need to find this mystery guy and see if Lauren’s still around.”
“Yup. There are no obituaries for her, no death certificates. She’s probably alive.” She swiped to a new note on her phone. “I’ll keep checking public records, old news reports from that time, and cross-reference anything about the husband. Something has to show up.”
I raised a brow. “An interesting way to spend Christmas Eve.”
She grinned. “Think of it as the coziest cold case in history.”
I reached for the blanket draped over the back of the couch and tossed it over both of us. “Fine, but first, we need hot cocoa and cookies. And you’re not allowed to get murder-board crazy until next time.”
She scooted closer, her knee bumping mine as she turned the screen toward me.
For a second, I forgot about everything else—forgot about the story, the journal, the tragedy of what had happened in this house.
I was just watching her get excited, lighting up like the Christmas lights I’d strung on the porch.
She was beautiful when she was curious.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” she said, eyes scanning the screen. “This is the article from six years ago. A domestic incident on Maplewood Lane.”
Four-year-old boy dead in Domestic Dispute Tragedy.
We sat there, and then Ellie turned toward me, her features softer now, a little more tentative.
“I know you didn’t buy this house because of what happened here,” she murmured. “But maybe…there’s a reason it ended up in your hands.”
“I don’t know if I believe in fate.” But I believe in you. “But I’m on your side, and if this is something you want to figure out, I’m in.”
Her lips parted as if she might say something, but instead, she bumped her shoulder against mine. “Thanks, fake boyfriend.”
I grinned. “You’re welcome, fake girlfriend.”
We spent hours combing through everything we could find online—old news articles, public records, social media scraps, anything that might give us a sliver of a clue about the Hutchinson family and what really happened that night.
We found out that Lauren’s father had worked for her husband’s father for years, and the two of them were married young.
After a few hours, Ellie broke the silence and turned her phone toward me. “Hey, look at this.”
On the screen was a social media profile for someone named Lauren Boone.
Private account. No profile picture. But there were a couple of public posts in local groups.
The most recent one was a giveaway—free furniture and kitchen stuff, left out on the curb with an address on the outskirts of Shadow Ridge from a few months back.
I sat up straighter. “Lauren Boone?”
“Her maiden name was Boone, according to public records. She probably changed it back after everything.”
“You think this is her? Still living nearby?”
“There’s no picture of her, but maybe. It’s worth checking out. It could be interesting.”
“You want to go to this house, don’t you?”
She gave a weary smile. “I mean…”
“Not tomorrow,” I said, “but maybe the day after?”
“Okay.”
I tilted my head at her. “You think she’ll actually talk to us?”
Ellie shrugged. “Probably not, but we won’t know unless we try.”
We worked through the night until I abandoned all pretense of helping. Instead, I studied her—the way she chewed her thumbnail when she was stuck on something, how her whole face lit up when she thought she'd cracked a code.
When her phone died around midnight, we moved to the floor by the fire. We reread the first three entries together and stopped there—that was the deal. She kept pushing for one more, but I needed her to have a reason to come back. Honestly? I hoped we’d never run out of mysteries.
She ended up using my shoulder as a pillow. Every small movement, every hum when she was thinking, made the world shrink until it was only the two of us, the fire, and those old pages.
There was something in that moment, something impossible to fake. We weren’t just reading a tragic story—we were marking the start of our own.
Not a bad Christmas Eve, all things considered.
Sitting there with her against me, watching the firelight catch her face while she got lost in someone else’s words, I realized I was already hooked to something else entirely.
And I knew she wouldn’t be something I could easily walk away from.