closer to where he was watching me curiously. “Did y’all forget something last night?”
“No, just coming to check on you.”
“Oh. Well, I—” I waved toward the kitchen and living room just beyond it, trying to shrug as I did. “Everything’s fine today. Nothing needs to be fixed. I don’t need help with anything.”
He stepped back to lean against the kitchen archway, folding his arms across his chest as he did. “Yeah, that isn’t what I meant. Where are the kids?”
“School,” I answered a little uncertainly, even though I was sure of that, and Sawyer would’ve known the answer to that too.
“Levi?”
“Napping. Why do I feel like you’re interrogating me?”
“Do you have guests checking in?”
I straightened my back and tried to stare him down. “Sawyer Dixon, I am not playing twenty questions with you. Why are you here?”
He gestured to my kitchen. “I’m trying to figure out why you have enough desserts to feed all of Amber sitting in your kitchen when none of that shit was here last night. I wanna know if you’re okay. I need to get a feel on where you’re at after what we told you last night.”
“Stop looking at me like that. I couldn’t sleep,” I ground out, refusing to let him make me feel worse than I already did. “You already know I’m not okay, and as for last night?”
“Beau showed up at the ranch yesterday morning,” my mother-in-law had informed me after dinner had ended.
A ragged breath had ripped from my lungs as I’d looked around to make sure my kids weren’t within hearing distance of her.
Both Sawyer and his girlfriend, Rae, looked at her as if they couldn’t believe she’d mentioned it at all.
“That’s, um . . . yeah, good.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” she’d said thoughtfully, then looked to Sawyer.
After a long sigh, he’d met my stare. “He isn’t doing well, Savannah. He’s a mess without you and the kids.”
“And I’m doing much better?” I’d challenged, voice trembling.
“You need to talk to him,” Sawyer had gently pleaded. “It’s been more than two weeks. You can’t keep him from his kids like this.”
I knew that.
I’d known that.
But I was afraid of what would happen when I saw Beau again.
Would I fall apart and say something I could never take back? Would I fall into his arms and forgive everything simply because that man held my heart and soul in his hands? Would I ever be able to look at him and not see him and the girl who had been my best friend? Because every time I’d thought of him since the day I’d found out, all I could see was him and Madison.
Worse yet? The vow he’d broken.
“Sawyer, he made me a promise,” I said shakily. “He promised no more fighting.”
“I know,” he began placatingly.
“And I promised that I would be done,” I hurried over him, voice a pained cry. “I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t watch him destroy our future, and I don’t know—” My chin trembled as I fought the quick-to-build tears. My steps were hurried as I pushed past him and moved through the kitchen to sit at the large table.
Once I sank into a chair, Sawyer was there, sitting next to me and waiting patiently.
“I never wanted to change Beau,” I said when my breathing had returned to normal and those jagged pieces in my throat had disappeared. “But his anger had changed . . . heightened. And I just had this terrible, crushing feeling in my gut each time he lost control that I wouldn’t get the chance to have a future with him because he wouldn’t be there for it. So, as much as it killed me, I knew if there was going to be any hope of a life with him, I had to stand up for myself and mean it.”
“What if he hadn’t been able to stop fighting back then?” Sawyer asked after nearly a minute had passed in silence.
“Then we wouldn’t be here at all,” I answered and swiped at a tear that slipped free. “And now . . . I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back on my word when a broken promise is why we’re here. And I don’t know how to keep my word when that means losing him.”
“Don’t do either. Don’t think of it that way,” Sawyer urged as he leaned forward. “It was bad, yeah, I know. He promised you he wouldn’t anymore. I get it, Savannah, I do—but this was different.