That's when I see her.
Lisa Graham, walking up my front path like she belongs here. Like she's done it a thousand times before.
She's wearing a blue dress that brings out her eyes, her dark hair pulled back in a way that accentuates her cheekbones. Professional. Determined. Beautiful in a way that hits me like a punch to the gut, just like it did when we were kids.
Just like it has every day for years.
I haven't seen her in three months. Not since her sister Emma's funeral, when she stood graveside holding that baby boy, tears streaming down her face while she promised him everything would be okay. When she looked at me across the cemetery and nodded once, acknowledging the silent support I'd offered but couldn't voice.
She knocks on my door at exactly six AM, and when I open it, her green eyes are red-rimmed from crying. But her chin is set in that stubborn line I remember from childhood, the onethat meant Lisa Graham was about to do something brave and probably stupid.
"Sawyer." Her voice is steady despite the tears. "I need to talk to you. About Tommy. About... about something I need to ask you."
Tommy.Her nephew. The baby she's been raising since Emma died in that car accident six months ago. The kid she loves like her own son.
"Come in." I step aside, letting her into my space for the first time in years. She smells like vanilla and something floral, the same perfume she wore to senior prom when she went with Bobby Martinez instead of me.
Not that I'd asked her. Not that I'd ever been brave enough to risk the friendship we'd had since we were eight years old.
She sits on the edge of my couch, hands folded in her lap, looking anywhere but at me. "There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to say it."
I wait. Patient. The way I've learned to be with victims, with witnesses, with people who need time to find their courage.
"Emma's ex-husband is trying to get custody of Tommy." The words come out in a rush. "Derek. He left Emma when she got pregnant, wanted nothing to do with the baby. But now that she's gone, now that there's life insurance money and Tommy's trust fund..."
Understanding hits me like ice water. Derek Morrison. I remember him from high school, a piece of shit who thought his daddy's money made him untouchable. The kind of guy who'd abandon a pregnant woman and then circle back when there was profit to be made.
"What do you need?" The question comes out rougher than I intend.
Lisa finally looks at me, and the desperation in her eyes makes something primal and protective roar to life in my chest.
"I need you to marry me."
2
LISA
The words hang in the air between us like smoke from a wildfire, dangerous and impossible to take back.
"I need you to marry me."
Sawyer's face goes completely still. Not surprised, exactly, but like he's processing information, filing it away in that methodical way he's had since we were kids. The way he used to look when Mrs. Peterson would call on him in math class and he'd take that extra beat to make sure his answer was exactly right.
His blue eyes search my face, looking for the joke, the punchline, the reasonable explanation for why his childhood best friend just asked him to marry her at six in the morning while sitting on his couch in a wrinkled dress.
"Lisa." His voice is careful, controlled. The sheriff voice. "What's going on?"
I've practiced this conversation a hundred times in my head during the sleepless hours between midnight and dawn. I've rehearsed the words, planned the explanations, prepared for every possible reaction. But sitting here, looking at SawyerMcKenna in his kitchen with his dark hair messy from sleep and yesterday's stubble shadowing his jaw, all my careful planning crumbles.
He looks older than I remember. Not just the silver threading through his temples or the lines around his eyes, but something deeper. A weariness that settles into a man after years of picking up the pieces of other people's broken lives.
"Derek filed a custody petition yesterday." The words taste bitter. "His lawyer called me at five PM to inform me that they're seeking full custody of Tommy, effective immediately."
Sawyer's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. "On what grounds?"
"That I'm an unfit guardian. Single, unemployed, no stable housing." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "The fact that I've been taking care of Tommy since Emma died, that he knows my voice, my touch, that I'm the only mother he's ever known, apparently that doesn't matter."
"You're not unemployed. You're a freelance graphic designer."
