The fact that he remembers my work, that he's kept track of my life even though we barely speak anymore, does something warm and dangerous to my chest. I push the feeling down. I can't afford to get distracted by the way Sawyer McKenna has always been able to see me, really see me, when most people look right through.
"Freelance doesn't look stable on paper. Not compared to Derek's corporate lawyer salary and his new wife's trust fund." I stand up, needing to move, to pace, to do something with the nervous energy crawling under my skin. "They've been married six months. Six months, Sawyer. He couldn't even wait a year after Emma died before he was shopping for a replacement family."
"And you think marrying me solves this problem how?"
There it is. The practical question. The logical follow-up that cuts straight to the heart of my desperate, half-formed plan.
"Married couples are given preference in custody cases. I need the outlook of a stable two-parent home, financial security, and community ties." I turn to face him, wrapping my arms around myself. "You've been sheriff here for over twenty years. You own your home outright. You're respected, trusted. On paper, we'd look like the perfect family."
"On paper." His voice is flat.
"Derek's lawyer is good, but he's not expecting me to fight back. He's expecting me to roll over, to accept that a rich man with connections gets whatever he wants just because he can afford better representation." Heat rises in my voice, the anger I've been holding back for months finally finding an outlet. "He's expecting the scared, broke girl who can't afford a custody battle."
"But you're not that girl."
"No." I meet his eyes, letting him see the steel Emma always said lived in my spine. "I'm not."
Sawyer stands slowly, all six feet three inches of mountain-bred muscle and quiet authority. He moves to the kitchen window, looking out at the pine trees that surround his property like sentries. The early morning light catches the silver in his hair, and I'm hit with the sudden realization that we're not kids anymore. That somewhere between Emma's funeral and this moment, we became adults with adult problems and adult solutions that our eight-year-old selves could never have imagined.
"Tell me about the hearing," he says finally.
"Two weeks from today. Emergency custody review. Derek's lawyer is claiming I'm emotionally unstable, financially irresponsible, and living in unsuitable conditions." I can't keepthe bitterness out of my voice. "The fact that I'm grieving my sister apparently makes me unfit to raise her son."
"You're living in Emma's apartment."
"Was living in Emma's apartment. The lease is up next month, and I can't afford to renew it on my own. Derek's team knows that. They're timing this perfectly, waiting until I'm most vulnerable."
Sawyer turns back to me, and something in his expression has shifted. The careful neutrality is gone, replaced by something darker. More dangerous.
"What else aren't you telling me?"
I knew he’d ask. He's always been able to do that, cut through my defenses with surgical precision. It's infuriating and comforting in equal measure.
"Derek came to see me last week." The admission comes out barely above a whisper. "Offered me fifty thousand dollars to sign over my parental rights voluntarily. Said it would be easier for everyone if Tommy just forgot about Emma's side of the family entirely."
"Jesus Christ, Lisa."
"I told him to go to hell." I straighten my shoulders, remembering the look on Derek's face when I shut the door in his face. "That's when he filed the petition. When he realized I wasn't going to make this easy for him."
Sawyer is quiet for a long moment, processing. I can practically see the wheels turning, the way his mind categorizes information and sorts through possibilities. It's the same expression he used to get when we'd play chess on his grandmother's front porch during summer visits, thinking three moves ahead while I was still figuring out how to get my pieces out of immediate danger.
"A fake marriage." His voice is carefully neutral. "For how long?"
"Just until the custody case is settled. Six months, maybe less. Long enough to prove to the court that Tommy has a stable home with two committed guardians." I'm talking faster now, the words tumbling over each other in my eagerness to make him understand. "It would be completely platonic, obviously. Separate rooms, separate lives. Just a legal arrangement to protect Tommy."
"Obviously." There's something in his tone I can't quite read.
"Sawyer, I know this is crazy. I know I'm asking you to put your reputation, your career, everything on the line for a fake marriage to help me keep a baby that isn't even biologically mine. But I don't have anyone else to ask."
That's the truth I've been avoiding all night. The painful reality that my circle of support is exactly one person deep, and that person is standing in front of me looking like he's trying to solve the world's most complicated equation.
"Emma made me Tommy's guardian in her will for a reason," I continue, desperation creeping into my voice. "She knew Derek would come back eventually. She knew he'd try to use Tommy as a meal ticket. She trusted me to protect her son from that."
"And you trust me to help you do it."
It's not a question, but I answer anyway. "Yes. I trust you."
The words hang between us, heavy with the weight of our shared history. Years of shared secrets and inside jokes and the kind of bone-deep friendship that survives high school drama and college separation and the messy complications of adult life.
