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“My house isn’t a disaster….”

Maya saw where he was headed. “Sawyer—”

“I apparently need a babysitter—” he grimaced over the word “—to make sure my headache doesn’t get worse and that I slap ice on my shoulder periodically. You need a place to stay for a while. I’ve got a spare room I never use. You’d be doing me a favor.”

What other options did she have? She wanted to be with her son, and that would be difficult at best in a hotel room. It could take weeks to find an apartment.

“So, what do you say?” he asked. “Are we going to be roommates, you and me and Joey?”

Maya hesitated. “Okay, but this is very temporary, just until you’re back on your feet and I find a place to live.”

“Temporary, right,” he said, still smiling. “Got it.”

But seeing the satisfaction on his face, Maya wondered if he did.

Dear Reader,

Well, as promised, the dog days of summer have set in, which means one last chance at the beach reading that’s an integral part of this season (even if you do most of it on the subway, like I do!). We begin with The Beauty Queen’s Makeover by Teresa Southwick, next up in our MOST LIKELY TO… miniseries. She was the girl “most likely to” way back when, and he was the awkward geek. Now they’ve all but switched places, and the fireworks are about to begin….

In From Here to Texas, Stella Bagwell’s next MEN OF THE WEST book, a Navajo man and the girl who walked out on him years ago have to decide if they believe in second chances. And speaking of second chances (or first ones, anyway), picture this: a teenaged girl obsessed with a gorgeous college boy writes down some of her impure thoughts in her diary, and buries said diary in the walls of an old house in town. Flash forward ten-ish years, and the boy, now a man, is back in town—and about to dismantle the old house, brick by brick. Can she find her diary before he does? Find out in Christine Flynn’s finale to her GOING HOME miniseries, Confessions of a Small-Town Girl. In Everything She’s Ever Wanted by Mary J. Forbes, a traumatized woman is finally convinced to come out of hiding, thanks to the one man she can trust. In Nicole Foster’s Sawyer’s Special Delivery, a man who’s played knight-in-shining armor gets to do it again—to a woman (cum newborn baby) desperate for his help, even if she hates to admit it. And in The Last Time I Saw Venice by Vivienne Wallington, a couple traumatized by the loss of their child hopes that the beautiful city that brought them together can work its magic—one more time.

So have your fun. And next month it’s time to get serious—about reading, that is….

Enjoy!

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

Sawyer’s Special Delivery
Nicole Foster

www.millsandboon.co.uk

NICOLE FOSTER

is the pseudonym for the writing team of Danette Fertig-Thompson and Annette Chartier-Warren. Both journalists, they met while working on the same newspaper, and started writing historical romance together after discovering a shared love of the Old West and happy endings. Their seventeen-year friendship has endured writer’s block, numerous caffeine-and-chocolate deadlines, and the joyous chaos of marriage and raising the five children between them. They love to hear from readers. Send a SASE for a bookmark to PMB 228, 8816 Manchester Rd., Brentwood, MO, 63144.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter One

This was not the way it was supposed to happen.

None of it—the wind and sleet, the rotten, rain-slicked mountain road, the idiot driver swerving into her lane, forcing her to yank the wheel hard to avoid a collision. The baby coming.

Definitely not the baby coming,

Not now, not here and not six weeks early. Another contraction gripped her, and Maya Rainbow clenched her fingers around the musty car blanket she’d been clutching like a life preserver, fighting the fear that was threatening to become full-blown panic.

“Are you okay? Maya, are you still with me?”

The contraction eased slightly. Taking a shaky breath, Maya managed to fumble her cell phone close enough to answer the dispatcher who’d stayed on the line after she’d called out the paramedics. “I’m still here.”

She didn’t have much choice. Short of crawling out the window—and right now she doubted she’d be able to do anything more gymnastic than sit up straight—she couldn’t get out. Her ancient Jeep Cherokee had skidded off the road, sideswiped a pine tree and ended up almost on its side in a narrow ditch. She’d blacked out. And when she’d come to, bruised and shaken, she’d managed to untangle herself from the seat belt only to discover the driver’s-side door was jammed and the passenger door was wedged against a tree.

Before Maya could call 911, she also realized her baby was coming.

“The paramedics are on their way. They should be there in a few minutes. Try to stay calm and remember your breathing,” the dispatcher’s voice was saying in her ear. “Tell me when you have another contraction.”

“I’m telling you now,” Maya gasped.

It had to be the fifteenth time in the last ten minutes the woman had coached her to breathe, to stay calm, and if she hadn’t been about to give birth sitting in the front seat of her wrecked car, Maya would have laughed. She’d spent the last seven years teaching others to cope with pain without medication, to release their stress and find an inner calm. For months she herself had been practicing all those focusing and pain-control techniques she’d touted to her clients.

But now all she wanted to do was scream, I don’t want to breathe! I’m not calm! It’s too early, my baby isn’t supposed to be this early. And where are those paramedics? It’s been hours. They should have been here by now.

What if they couldn’t find her? She hadn’t seen any lights from passing cars, nor did she know what had happened to the other driver other than his car had run off the opposite side of the road. She didn’t know if they could even see her Jeep, wedged as it was in the ditch. In the cold darkness, with the rain battering the roof and whipping against the windows, Maya had never felt more alone.

“Less than two minutes apart,” she heard the dispatcher say. “Hang in there. The paramedics should be there anytime now.”

The tears she’d been holding back slid down her face as all the worry and hurt and fear that had been building up for months now crashed her defenses. If only she hadn’t stupidly decided to drive home tonight, if she’d just waited until after her baby was safely born, none of this would have happened.

At the time it seemed the perfect solution, a welcome escape from the stress of Evan’s relentless campaign to force her out of the apartment they’d shared. It was less than a two-hour drive from Taos to her parents’ house in Luna Hermosa. The weather had been clear when she’d left. She’d had a trouble-free pregnancy and she wasn’t due for six weeks. It seemed nothing could go wrong.

And then everything had.

There was never a cat stuck in a tree when you needed one.

Sawyer Morente glared at the ringing cell phone he’d tossed on the desk beside him and, seeing his brother’s number flash on the screen, wished he’d had enough sense to turn it off. Right now he’d rather talk to anyone but Cort—even elderly Mrs. Garcia, who summoned the paramedics nearly every week, always making sure she suffered her chest pains on a day when Sawyer was on duty because she said she liked the way he took her pulse. At least he’d have a reason not to talk to his brother.

Tonight, though, had been unusually quiet for a Friday, especially after a week of what seemed like almost back-to-back calls. Apart from the small electrical fire keeping the three-man fire crew busy for the last hour, there hadn’t been any alarms at the main engine house centered in Luna Hermosa. The early-spring storm rumbling down across northern New Mexico from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains seemed to have kept most people off the roads and out of the kind of trouble Sawyer got called to handle.

His partner, Rico Esteban, slouching in one of the office chairs, his feet propped on Sawyer’s desk, glanced up from the Sports section. “You gonna answer that? It’s getting annoying.”

“Tell me about it,” Sawyer muttered. It was the fourth time Cort had called this week, and Sawyer was getting tired of telling his little brother he didn’t want to talk about the letter—the one that lay in a mangled ball somewhere in the vicinity of his kitchen trash can. Cort, for some reason Sawyer couldn’t fathom, wanted to answer it.

The only response Sawyer wanted to communicate to the letter writer was, Go to hell. After twenty-six years without a father, I don’t need one now.

On the fifth ring, Sawyer jabbed the talk button on his cell phone. “Go away, Cort.”

“Nice to talk to you, too, buddy,” Cort said, his voice slightly distorted by static.

Another streak of lightning slashed the sky, giving Sawyer hope that they’d suddenly be disconnected. “You know, it’s no surprise you’re the sheriff’s golden-boy detective. I’d take jail time over being hounded by you any day. Isn’t there someone else you can irritate this week?”

“Just you. And you’ve been doing your best to avoid me. Why bother having a house if you’re never off duty?”

“Obviously not my best or I wouldn’t be talking to you—again,” Sawyer said, ignoring the familiar jab about his working hours. Already restless with the conversation, he pushed away from his desk and paced to the office window. “And I wouldn’t be avoiding you if you would just let this go.”

“You can’t ignore it forever,” Cort said, repeating the same argument he’d been making since Monday, when they’d gotten the letters.

Sawyer wanted to ask him why, but the question would be wasted on Cort. Instead his brother would patiently drive him crazy until Sawyer either finally gave in or relocated and changed his identity.

“Sooner or later, we’re going to have to deal with this.”

“I am dealing with it,” Sawyer snapped. Rico looked up from his paper, then pretended he hadn’t when Sawyer scowled in his direction. Sawyer turned his back on him to stare out the window. “I’m dealing with it just like he dealt with us all those years after he finally got tired of knocking us around. I’m pretending he doesn’t exist.”

Despite the static, Cort’s frustration came through loud and clear. “The man only lives a few miles out of town. He does business here. Hell, we went to school with his son. Although if things had been right, Rafe wouldn’t have grown up a Garrett—”

“Don’t go there,” Sawyer interrupted. “We had nothing to do with that.”

“My point is, Garrett’s not going away.”

“Maybe that’s where you inherited it from.” Sawyer gave up trying to argue his point with Cort. Their father had never wanted them from the beginning. Big and rough, with a nasty temper made nastier by his love affair with Jim Beam, he’d made Sawyer the target of his rages early on. Then when Sawyer was seven and Cort barely five, he’d kicked them off his ranch and out of his life completely without a word of regret or explanation.

When Sawyer had asked about his father, his mother refused to talk about him, except to say that Jed Garrett loved his ranch above anything and anyone else and that Sawyer and Cort didn’t need a father who didn’t want them. And she’d made the break complete by legally dropping Garrett’s name and giving her sons her proud family name, Morente.

Sawyer might have believed what she’d told him if he’d never known that his father had adopted Rafe, remarried and had another son with his second wife. But he did know. And because he knew, he’d wasted years wondering what made he and Cort so unlovable that their own father despised them and completely denied their existence.

Now their mother was dead and suddenly Garrett wanted a reunion with his two oldest sons.

Sawyer didn’t know what had prompted Jed Garrett’s questionable display of fatherly interest and he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want anything from Garrett, now or ever.

“If it’s that important to you, then you answer him,” Sawyer said at last. “But you’re on your own, brother. I don’t want anything to do with him.”

The strident tones of the station alarm followed by the dispatcher’s voice drowned out whatever reply Cort started to make.

Two-vehicle accident with injuries. Woman in labor. Mile marker 223, Highway 137 at Coyote Pass.

“Gotta run,” Sawyer said, hanging up and cutting off Cort’s exasperated curse.

The wail of sirens jolted Maya and she whispered a prayer of thanks as the flash of red and yellow lights broke into the darkness around her. She had been trying in the last few minutes to convince herself everything was going to be fine, but her attempts had been a miserable failure, underscored by visions of herself delivering a premature baby alone in her Jeep and everything going more wrong than it already had.

At least now she had a hope of safely delivering her baby in a hospital bed.

A man’s face suddenly appeared at the window, blurred by the rain. He took a quick glance at her and around the vehicle, tried the driver’s door and then flashed her a reassuring smile.

“Be with you in a minute,” he called through the window.

Maya closed her eyes against another contraction, and about the time it eased, she heard glass break and the rear door open and then the Jeep creaked and shifted. It took her a moment to realize someone was climbing over the backseat toward her.

“How are you doing?” he asked as he managed to somehow maneuver himself around jumbled boxes and suitcases and into the seat beside her. Already cold to the core, Maya clutched her blanket closer and tried to keep from shuddering as his shoulder brushed hers, sprinkling her with the droplets clinging to his hair and clothing.

It was the man she’d seen at the window, and the small space suddenly seemed filled with him. In the dimness, broken only by the strobe of the emergency lights, she could only see he was dark, with a smile as potent as any remedy for terror she could think of right now.

Before she could answer him, he flicked on a penlight and began checking her over. “Now there’s a stupid question. I’m going to have to work on my opening line.” He worked quickly, asking her several questions about the accident and her pregnancy.

“This is not supposed to be happening,” Maya said just as another contraction started.

“I figured that. Here—” he took her hand in his “—go ahead, squeeze tight.”

She hesitated, torn between hating the weakness that made her want to cling to a stranger for comfort and needing someone to lean on, if only for a few minutes.

As if he knew everything she was feeling, he said, “You’re gonna make me look bad if you do this all by yourself. That’s it…”

Holding on to something—someone—besides a moth-eaten car blanket helped, but Maya had a crazy urge to ask him to go on talking. She wished she could bottle his voice and use it as a remedy for daily disasters. Rich and dark, with an intriguing hint of an accent, it—coupled with the reassuring warmth of his hand against hers—soothed some of the rough edges, distracting her from the bubble of panic waiting to burst inside her and making her feel a little less afraid.

She almost convinced herself she could relax a little when the growl of a motor followed by the crunch and shriek of metal being twisted apart next to her ear jolted her upward in her seat.

Gently he pushed her back. “They’re just getting the door open,” he said, gesturing at the firefighters outside. “Then we’ll get both of you out of here and to the hospital.”

Sawyer didn’t add that he doubted they’d make it to the hospital before her baby arrived. She was obviously already frightened enough. Her small, cold hand trembled in his. The tracks of tears clearly showed on her face and she had a death grip on the blanket in her lap. But Sawyer admired the way she fought her fear despite being trapped, in pain and on the verge of giving birth. He could feel her strength as she tightly grasped his hand.

He wondered why she was alone. What kind of man let his pregnant wife drive by herself on a night like this? Pale and bruised, she looked like something delicate and finely made that had been treated roughly.

“What’s your name?” he asked when she drew in a deep breath.

“Maya…Maya Rainbow.” She hesitated, glancing down at her hand still in his, looking as if she desperately wanted to him to tell her that it would all be fine. But she didn’t ask him for the comforting lies that would make it all the worse if things went wrong.

“It’s okay,” Sawyer said. “Nothing is going to happen to either of you if I can help it. Boy or girl, do you know?”

“Boy—Joey. I’m afraid he’s either going to be very impatient or very dramatic, being born too early, in a storm, on the side of the…oh—”

The pain came at the same time the driver’s door wrenched open and a draft of cold rain rushed into the Jeep. Everything happened so quickly that Maya couldn’t have said exactly how she got from the driver’s seat onto a stretcher and inside the ambulance. It all seemed to pass in a blur of people and lights and voices until she heard someone saying her name and looked up into the only familiar face there. Trying to focus, she heard enough to understand he needed to check on the baby.

“I don’t even know your name,” Maya said irritably, then thought how idiotic she sounded. Under the circumstances, she didn’t really have the luxury of modesty. “Oh…never mind—”

“Sawyer Morente. And this will only take a minute.”

The name momentarily distracted her from what he was doing. Of all people to come to her rescue, again. She hadn’t thought about him in years, hadn’t even known he’d come back to Luna Hermosa. And now…

From the business end of the stretcher Sawyer looked over at her. “Joey isn’t going to wait until we get to the hospital, and my partner is busy with the guy who ran you off the road. So it’s just you and me.”

“Alone? Here? Oh, no, I—you can’t. Not by yourself.”

“Sure I can,” he said firmly. “Don’t worry, I’ve done this before.”

When she just stared blankly at him, Sawyer reached over and touched her arm. “We’ll do this together, Maya.”

“I can’t—” Her head twisted on the pillow, her whole body clenching. “Not, not here…”

“It’ll have to be here. Has someone called your husband for you?”

For a moment Sawyer thought she couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Finally, in a voice that sounded oddly strangled, she said, “There isn’t one. Joey doesn’t have…a father.” Defiance flared with hurt in her eyes. “There’s…only me.”

Her words slammed Sawyer hard against the memories of the past, catching him off guard. He wanted ten minutes alone with the jerk who’d decided this baby and his mother could be abandoned like something broken and worthless. He wanted to comfort Maya and reassure her that she and her son were better off without a man who could turn his back on his own child. He wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter—except that it did, and he understood that better than anyone.

A crackle of radio static snapped Sawyer back to the present.

With a stab of guilt he saw Maya was looking at him with something close to alarm. Immediately shifting his focus back to her, Sawyer didn’t waste time with apologies or self-rebukes he could make later.

“Okay, Maya,” he said, catching and holding her gaze. “Get ready, and when I tell you, push. Now—”

With all his attention focused on a safe delivery, it seemed hardly seconds from when he told her to push to the moment he cradled the tiny infant in his hands. Sawyer worked gently and quickly, and after a few moments the baby made a small mewling sound and then started to cry.

“My baby…is he—?”

Sawyer looked up from the baby long enough to give her a brief reassuring smile. “He’s small, but he seems to be doing okay.”

Bothered by the hedging in his words, Maya anxiously watched him bend over her baby until Sawyer finally straightened and laid her son in her arms. The tears she couldn’t hold back slid down her face unchecked as she touched the odd little tuft of red hair, the scrunched up little face, the tiny hands that flailed softly against hers.

“Welcome to the world, Joey,” Sawyer said softly.

Maya couldn’t think of any words powerful enough to express her feelings. He seemed to understand, and for a moment, as they looked at each other, everything felt right to Maya.

“I never knew,” she whispered. “I never knew it was so…amazing. How could anyone not want—” She stopped. She wouldn’t think of Evan, not now, not again.

Reaching out, she put her hand on Sawyer’s, linking the three of them. She tried to say something, to thank him, but she couldn’t find her voice. Meeting his eyes, she knew it didn’t matter.

Her touch and the love for her child he saw shining on her face stirred again all the emotions Sawyer had pushed away after he’d learned Joey’s father had abandoned her and her baby. In that moment, he almost said something stupid, almost admitted that after helping her through the birth he felt a connection to her and her son.

Then common sense kicked him hard. It was bad enough he’d had that momentary lapse earlier, he certainly didn’t need to convince her he’d totally lost it by telling her this had been some sort of bonding experience.

He smiled at her before gently breaking the hold she had on him and focusing on doing his job. Because that’s all this was, doing his job, and whatever else he’d imagined was the result of a long week of double shifts, too little sleep and that letter he’d wished he’d never opened.

Maya lay staring at the ceiling of the emergency-room cubicle, seriously considering getting up and going to find Joey and reassure herself he was okay. She wanted to find someone, anyone, and demand they tell her where her son was. But exhausted and aching all over, she didn’t know if she could sit up, let alone do battle.

They’d whisked her baby away minutes after she’d been wheeled into the emergency room. No one since then had been able or willing to tell her anything about Joey or when she could see him again. Instead, after being questioned, prodded, probed, cleaned up and offered painkillers she refused, she’d been left alone in the curtained-off room to wait until someone could get her a bed in the maternity ward.

There was a murmur of voices just outside, and Maya pushed herself up on her elbows and then sat up, swinging her feet off the bed, determined to get someone’s attention.

“Just a few minutes,” she heard a woman say, and then the curtain was pushed aside and Sawyer looked in.

“Hey, I just thought I’d—” The smile she remembered vanished, and in two strides he was at her side, scowling. “What are you doing? You’re not supposed to be up.”

“If someone would tell me how my baby is, I wouldn’t be. What are you still doing here anyway?” she asked, then immediately looked contrite for snapping at him.

“It’s okay,” Sawyer said, heading off the apology she started to make. He didn’t have a good answer for her question and he didn’t want to look too closely for one right now. Taking her by the shoulders, he gently guided her back down on the bed. “And Joey is, too.”

“You saw him?”

“Right before I came to see you. The pediatrician is with him now—Lia Kerrigan. I know her. Don’t worry, he’s in good hands.”

Maya closed her eyes and let out a long breath. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ve been going crazy. No one would tell me anything and—” She stopped, looking up at him. “You’ve done so much for us. I—”

“Need someone to keep a closer eye on you.”

“I can take care of myself. And Joey,” she said, giving him a look that dared him to disagree.

Sawyer stopped himself from saying she didn’t look as if she could have stood up without help. Except for the purpling bruise darkening her temple and cheek and the long tangle of dark red hair, she looked completely drained of color and strength. She shouldn’t be alone, not now. She needed someone to take care of her, no matter what she said. “Isn’t there anyone you can call?”

She raised her brows at his abrupt question, then shook her head. “I was on my way to my parents’ house, but apparently they’ve either gone out or forgotten I was coming, because they aren’t answering the phone.” Even though she’d talked to her parents two days ago, reminding them for the third time she’d arrive today, their absence hadn’t surprised her. It would be typical of her parents to have gone off to a party or some weird festival in the middle of the desert, expecting she’d fend for herself until they got back.

“Your parents…” Sawyer studied her a moment. “Of course, now I remember. You’re the hippie girl.”

Maya sighed. “That would be my parents. I grew up.”

He grinned sheepishly at her. “Sorry, but I remember that’s what all the kids used to call you. Your parents still live out at the old commune at the edge of town, don’t they?”

“When they’re not living in their van. They disappear every few months in search of spiritual enlightenment.”

Maya didn’t add she’d had no trouble remembering him once he’d told her his name, even though he was four years older and she’d never said more than two words to him the years she’d grown up in Luna Hermosa. She’d been the barefoot girl in ragged jeans whose unmarried parents lived in a run-down house with their cats and chickens and various people who’d stay for days or months, depending on their whims.

He, on the other hand, had grown up on the Morente family estate, excelled at everything, dared anything and been the object of many a young girl’s fantasies. And she’d bet the fantasies had grown up with the girls. She didn’t doubt his competence on the job, but the uniform looked out of place on a man who conjured images of a midnight rendezvous, and temptation whispered in that dark voice.

She realized she was staring and quickly looked away. “I’m surprised you remember me. You left town years before I graduated high school.”

“How could I forget the only time I actually got to rescue a cat from a tree? Of course—” he flashed her that smile “—I ended up rescuing the girl along with it.”

“Now there’s something I’d hoped you wouldn’t remember.” She’d been twelve years old and had followed her favorite kitten up a tree only to find herself literally out on a limb and unable to get back down. Sawyer and several friends had been driving by and he’d stopped and climbed up, bringing her and the cat down. “You seem to have a bad habit of being there to rescue me.”

Sawyer studied her with an intensity that made Maya blush. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said softly. Then he shrugged, and abruptly he was back to the competent professional again. “I was just doing my job.”

“Luckily for me. That’s twice you’ve been my hero,” she said lightly.

The smile went out of his eyes so suddenly, Maya blinked.

“So,” he said in a very obvious change of subject, “are you planning on staying in that house alone?”

“I’m sure my parents are around somewhere. I just talked to them the other day. And if not, they won’t mind if I crash there a while.” She knew that wasn’t what he’d meant, but right now she didn’t want to think past making sure Joey was healthy. Her head was starting to pound, and all she wanted to do now was see her baby and then get some sleep.

Sawyer easily read the exhaustion in her eyes and the droop of her body. He didn’t want to press her, but he knew the Rainbow house and he was surprised it was still standing. The idea of her there alone with a new baby, with no one to look after her, bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

It wasn’t even remotely his problem. He didn’t even know her, except as a memory of a scrawny girl with red braids and wide green eyes, a girl that everyone called weird. He’d done his job, gotten her and her baby to the hospital safely. There was no reason why he should care what she did or where she went.

Except that he did.

Before he could come up with a good reason why, Rico stuck his head into the cubicle. “We’re up. Another accident on 137.”

Sawyer looked at Maya. “I’ll see you later.”

She made herself smile. “Sure, and thanks again.”

Then he was gone. A sense of loss stabbed her and Maya felt silly for it. He’d only been doing his job. And now that it was over, she doubted, despite his parting words, that she’d ever see him again unless it was an accidental meeting in town.

She and Joey were a family now. There wasn’t going to be anyone else. And the sooner she accepted that, the better off they’d both be.