Because Derek could still take all of this away.
"Lisa." Sawyer's voice is sharp with concern. "You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Worrying yourself into a panic attack." He shifts Tommy to one arm, and reaches out to touch my face with his free hand. "Talk to me. What's going through your head?"
The gentleness in his voice, the patience, almost breaks me. Here I am, spiraling into worst case scenarios on our firstmorning as a married couple, and he's still trying to take care of me.
"I'm sorry," I say, the words rushing out. "I'm being ridiculous. It's just..."
"Just what?"
"It's just that this feels too good to be real. You, Tommy, this house, this family. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to go wrong and ruin it all."
Sawyer is quiet for a moment, bouncing Tommy absently while he thinks.
"You know what Emma used to say about you?" he asks finally.
The question catches me off guard. "What?"
"She said you were the strongest person she knew, but that your strength came from always being prepared for the worst. She said you'd rather expect disappointment and be pleasantly surprised than hope for good things and get crushed."
The accuracy of the observation, coming from Emma, makes my eyes burn with unshed tears.
"She wasn't wrong."
"No, she wasn't. But Lisa, sometimes you have to take the risk. Sometimes you have to believe that good things can last, that people can be trusted, and that love is strong enough to weather whatever comes."
"And if I'm wrong? If I let myself believe this is real and permanent and then lose it all?"
"Then you'll have had something beautiful for however long it lasted." His voice is serious, intent. "But you're not going to lose it. You're not going to lose me, you're not going to lose Tommy, you're not going to lose this family we're building."
"You can't know that."
"I can." The certainty in his voice is absolute. "Because I won't let it happen. Because Derek Morrison is going to learnthat there's a difference between a woman alone and a woman protected by a man who loves her."
The primitive satisfaction in his tone, the promise of violence barely leashed, should probably worry me. Instead, it makes me feel safer than I have in months.
"Okay," I say quietly.
"Okay?"
"Okay, I'll try to stop borrowing trouble. I'll try to believe that this is real and good and permanent." I take a shaky breath. "But Sawyer, you have to be patient with me. I've never had anything this good before. I don't know how to trust it."
"I can be patient." He leans down to kiss me, soft and sweet and reassuring. "As long as you need me to be."
Tommy chooses that moment to grab a handful of Sawyer's shirt and make a sound that might be approval or might just be baby commentary. We both laugh, the tension of the morning finally breaking.
"Come on," Sawyer says, shifting Tommy to his other arm. "Let's get some breakfast in this kid and finish getting you settled in. Our lawyer wants to meet with us this afternoon to go over strategy for the hearing."
"Right. The hearing." The reminder sends another spike of anxiety through me, but I push it down. "What time?"
"Two o'clock. That gives us the morning to get organized, maybe take Tommy for a walk around the property so he can get used to his new home."
His new home.The words should make me happy. Instead, they make me think about Derek's messages, about the custody hearing, about all the ways this perfect morning could turn into a nightmare.
But I follow Sawyer to the kitchen anyway, watch him make Tommy's bottle with the same competence he brings toeverything else, let myself pretend that anxiety and love can coexist.
