Page 8 of A Deceitful Pact

“I’m not an agent anymore,” I tell him, trying not to show how sad that makes me. I loved my job, but after what happened with Jack, I couldn’t stick with it.

“Bullshit, you're here on one of those undercover cases you work on.” He points his finger and scowls at me.

“Sawyer, I have no idea what you're talking about; you're clearly paranoid. Maybe you should take some time off work, you're always at that bar. Jean says?—”

“Fuck what Jean says. I’m not paranoid, I went through your bag while you were in the bathroom that night, and I saw your badge. I saw your gun, and I saw a very convincing fake ID that you had in your purse. And…how do you know that I’m always at the bar?” He looks pissed and curious at the same time and I decide I need to get a handle on this conversation before it leads to things I don’t want to discuss.

“Iwaswith the bureau, but now I’m in Clearwater Creeks and I’m a sheriff, that's all you need to know, and all I’m going to tell you…Oh, and in case your mother never taught you, it’s rude to go through a woman's purse,” I add, furious at the idea of him snooping through my things. Does this man have no boundaries?

“My mother left me on a doorstep when I was an hour old. I don’t think she’ll be worrying all too much about my manners,” he snaps back at me, and I catch a flash of vulnerability in his eyes before he shakes his head and marches over to the fireplace. Resting his palm on the mantelpiece, he stretches out his arms and lowers his head between them.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper as I step toward him.

“What?” He quickly lifts his head and looks at me as if I’m crazy.

“I’m sorry for what I said, I had no idea about your mom,” I explain

“None of that's important.” Sawyer shakes his head, but something in my gut tells me he’s lying.

“Look, Sawyer, I like this town, I’m even starting to like some of the people in it. I hold a position that demands respect, and I’d be grateful if we could keep what happened between us to oursel?—”

“What's this?” His eyes narrow as he looks down at the coffee table, and when he reaches down and picks up one of the fertility clinic’s leaflets, I quickly snatch it out of his hand.

“This is none of your business.” I place it back down with the others and feel my cheeks go red hot. I don’t want to have this discussion with anyone, especially not him.

“Are you?… I thought you were single.” His head shakes in confusion.

“I am single, and like I said, it’s none of your business.” I feel myself start to panic as I stack all the donor profiles and flyers into a neat little pile.

“Riley, if you're single, why are you looking at fertility treatment?” Sawyer proves that he’s not going to let it drop.

“You don’t need to be with someone to have a baby, Sawyer. Women raise kids by themselves all the time.” I try not to sound overly defensive, but this is exactly the reason why I’m not prepared to share with anyone what I plan to do. People can be so narrow-minded.

“I know that, but you…you're just so…Riley…You just took the job of town sheriff,” he stutters.

“I’m fully aware of my situation, thank you. And I’m not making any rash decisions. Right now, I’m just looking into my options.” I hold my head up high and cross my arms.

“Options?” Sawyer shocks me when he picks up the pile of paperwork and makes himself comfortable on my couch.

“I take it these are the jizz providers?”

“We call them donors, and everything is very professional; they are all anonymous,” I correct him.

“And you don’t meet these guys, they just shoot their junk into a beaker and that's it?” He frowns at me while he waits for my answer.

“I’m sure it’s a little more technical than that, but yes, that's the general idea.” I can feel my patience faltering. I’ve not spoken to a single soul about this, mainly because I know they would try and talk me out of it.

“So you're gonna get yourself knocked up by a guy that you don’t even know?” All the anger Sawyer came here with seems to have vanished when he starts to laugh at me.

“I think you should leave now.” I go to take the paperwork out of his hands, but he holds it out of my reach.

“No, I wanna know more about this.” He keeps his arm outstretched as he starts to read some more.

“DONOR 4568, black hair, brown eyes. Mother - British, Father - Italian.” Sawyer reels off some stats while I sit back and sigh. “ Get a load of this guy, he likes to travel and uses his inspiration to come up with recipes for the restaurant he owns.” He laughs some more. “Come on, Riley, you can’t be considering this guy to be your baby daddy?”

“Why not? He sounds nice enough.”

“Because you don’t know him. For all you know, he could be ugly. Do you want an ugly kid?” he points out, and I don’t know why, but the thought of that never occurred to me.

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