“Why?” he echoed incredulously. “Because she’s smart and tough and sweet and a little bit geeky and… everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“A lot of women are all of those things,” Donovan said. “What makes her so special?”
“It’s...I can’t explain it,” Sawyer muttered, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. Zelda whined softly at his side, bumping his hand with her snout. He soothed his palm over her head. “It’s just...her. It’s always been her from the moment I met her.”
Donovan grunted. “Still not good enough. If you love her, you know the real why.”
Sawyer didn’t have to think about it. He didn’t have to search his heart or his mind for the answer. It was simple. It was pure. “Because she makes me feel alive.”
He’d gone into the cave planning to save her. But, instead, she had saved him. He hadn’t even realized how lonely he’d been until she came into his life, and the prospect of losing her now was unbearable.
Zak gave a low chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Sawyer demanded, not seeing the humor in the situation at all.
“Nothing,” Zak said, obviously trying to smother his laughter. “It’s just… Man, you’re screwed.”
Sawyer groaned and dropped his head into his hands, but he couldn’t really argue. He was screwed. His heart was tied to a woman who seemed to be slipping further and further away from him every day.
“So what do I do?” he asked helplessly.
“Fight for her,” Shane said from across the circle, his statement simple yet full of undeniable conviction.
“How? How do I make her see that I’m more than just… this?” He gestured loosely around his face.
“Well, for one, stop talking about yourself like you’re broken.”
“But I am.”
Donovan grunted. “What you need is some confidence, my man.”
Zak hummed in agreement. “You once told me we’re all broken people carrying our busted pieces as best we can, and some days are harder than others. But every day, you have a choice to either let that break define you or use it as fuel to become something greater than the sum of your shattered parts. You forget that?”
Sawyer felt a small, unexpected smile tug at his mouth. As much as they sometimes annoyed him, he really did love these guys like family. “I didn’t say that. I told you therapy works because we’re all here to help you glue the pieces back together when you crack.”
“Okay, so I paraphrased.” Zak’s chair creaked as he leaned forward in it. Sawyer saw him reach out a hand. “We’re here with the glue. Let us help you put yourself back together into something even a stubborn woman like Lucy Harper can’t resist.”
Slowly, Sawyer reached out and grasped the proffered hand, surprised at the sudden surge of emotion that swept through him.
And for the first time since Lucy had walked away, Sawyer felt a glimmer of hope. The guys might be right. It wasn’t going to be easy; hell, it could very well end up being the hardest thing he’d ever done. But Sawyer had never been one to back down from a challenge.
“I’m going to get her back.”
Zak released his hand and settled back in his chair with a satisfied chuckle. “Good. So what’s the plan, and how can we help?”
Sawyer scanned the room. He could pick out the shapes of his friends around the circle—Donovan’s big, muscled frame, Zak’s leaner one sprawled carelessly in his chair, Shane’s military rigid posture, Veronica’s curvaceous silhouette—and felt a surge of gratitude. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do...”
The group leaned in as he laid out his plan.
Veronica broke into an abrupt laugh and shook her head. “This is either the cutest or stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He looked in her direction. “But will it work?”
Veronica said nothing for a moment. “If Lucy ran because she’s afraid of what she feels for you…” She sighed. “Well, I know what that fear is like. I did the same thing with Connelly for years. I found reasons to be angry with him and push him away, but he wouldn’t let me. He reminded me of how much he meant to me. He reminded me of how good we were together. That’s what you need to do. Remind her that you’re the guy who held her in your arms and kept her alive in that cave, the one who sat by her hospital bed, the one she clung to up there on the mountain when the world was going to hell around you. Make her remember that she already trusts you, Sawyer, and, yes, if she really loves you, it will work.”
chapter
twenty-nine