The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

They didn’t make sense together and a maybe baby wasn’t going to change that. The best thing she could do for her own sanity was remember that this wasn’t a real engagement. It was a job. One that would pay for her trip to Australia and more adventures after that. To imagine anything else would just lead to heartbreak. Even if there was a baby, that couldn’t be the cornerstone to a lasting relationship. She may have spent her life fighting against going down the same path as her mom, but there was no denying that her mom and dad loved each other. Really loved each other. She wouldn’t settle for anything less and she wasn’t cruel enough to raise a child in an environment where its mom and dad didn’t have that.

“Morning,” Sawyer said, crossing to the kitchen island and setting everything down on it. “Please tell me your dad taught you how to make pancakes.”

Despite her black mood, she laughed. “He did.”

“Thank God.” Sawyer winked at her as he started measuring out pancake mix according to the directions on the box. “I was gonna feel really bad if I helped your mom burn down the house.”

Some of the tension ebbed out of her shoulders. Whatever else happened, Sawyer wasn’t going to let this be awkward—at least not at her parents’ house. Later they’d deal with it, but for now they were just two people pretending that everything was as it seemed. She plugged in the large griddle on the island and grabbed a spatula from a drawer. If he could do this, so could she. Together, they just might carry it off.

“Morning, pumpkin,” her dad said, ambling over for a hug and a surreptitious look at the ingredients Sawyer had gathered and how he was mixing them together.

She squeezed her dad as tight as she dared. “I thought we were picking you up in an hour?”

“Well I—”

“Bullied the doctor into letting him out first thing this morning,” Laura cut in. “The damn fool took a taxi home.”

“Don’t listen to a word she says,” her dad said, looking every bit like someone caught with his hand in the cookie jar but denying it anyway. “Dr. Thornson was totally on board with the plan.”

Leaning into his arms, she inhaled the familiar scent of his aftershave and offered up a silent prayer of thanks for some things that didn’t change. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Dad.”

“Me, too, pumpkin.” He gave her a kiss on the top of her head and then wandered out of the kitchen to the worn chair in the living room that he refused to let her mom take to the county landfill.

And so things settled into a comfortable silence with her dad reading the paper while her mom set the table and she and Sawyer made the pancakes. It was the kind of domestic scene that would normally make her feet itch, but today it didn’t—and she refused to question why.

Half an hour later, the syrup had barely been poured on top of her pancakes before her mom went into inquisition mode.

“So this all happened pretty fast,” her mom said, not touching the three pancakes, hash browns, Canadian bacon, regular bacon, and berry assortment on her plate. “I gotta tell you, Clover, your dad and I were very surprised when we heard secondhand about the engagement and then you’ve been avoiding my calls since then and it has us worried.”

Subtle, her mom was not.

“I know, Mom, and I’m sorry about not saying anything but…” She got to the end of her words before her brain had time to think up anything.

“It was my fault,” Sawyer picked up the slack. “I talked her into surprising you, but word snuck out before we had a chance.”

“Uh-huh,” her mom didn’t sound convinced.

“So why the big rush to an engagement? It’s not like you two have known each other for that long,” her dad asked, his mouth half full of pancakes.

Her gut clenched and, reflexively, she put a hand on her belly. “It just sort of happened.”

“It freaked me way out. You see, I’m a big-picture person and marriage has never figured into the plan.” Sawyer picked up the coffee pot and gestured toward her mom’s half-empty cup. “Refill?” After waiting for her mom to nod, he went on. “But my mom had it in her head that it was past time I got married.”

“That sounds familiar,” Bobby muttered, his eyes glued to the science journal laying by his plate. “The parental unit actually thought I was a better hope for grandkids than Jane.”

“You’re in the lab too much,” her mom said with a sigh.

Her dad nodded. “Yeah, we want to make sure you have kids early before one of your experiments turns you into a superhero.”

Clover perked up. This was news. Her family had given up on her doing the whole marriage and kids thing? Okay, maybe her dad had, but mom had never stopped with her little reminders. Sawyer must have sensed the tension stiffening her spine because he reached under the table and took her hand in his before continuing.

“Well, my mom was on a formal campaign and my brother thought it would be funny to put out an ad for someone to act as a buffer between my mom and me,” he said, obviously omitting the timing of that occurrence.

“What?” her mom gasped.

“No, not like that,” Sawyer said in a rush. “Like a personal assistant who could dissuade my mom from trying to twist my arm to go on dates with her wife candidates.”

“Please God, don’t ever let our parents meet,” Bobby said, shaking his head. “Can you two elope or something?”