Page 5 of Taming His Honeydoll
Levi was going to love this.
Then she sighed and shook her head. Who was she kidding? Wishing didn’t make things so, as her mother always used to say. But what were the chances that there was a child who looked exactly like her son and his mother having the same name as the girl Sawyer used to like in college happening? She tried not to get her hopes too high, but she had a gut feeling that she was right. Now she just had to figure out how to get them back together. Whatever had gone wrong with these two young people, they needed to fix it. She needed her grandson.
At dinner that night, Rachel put step one into action. She’d fixed Sawyer’s favorite food for dinner—lasagna and heavenly garlic toast with a crazy combo salad of different dark greens and every finger food veggie you could name. Plus, a cobbler for dessert. Her men had always loved cobblers, and peach was Sawyer’s favorite. Now, to start digging.
Chapter 2
Sawyer eyed his mothercarefully. She was up to something, no doubt about it. He’d seen this same ploy with his dad over the years. First, the favorite food, then the homemade pie of choice, and once her prey was full, she pounced. She wanted something all right, and he was pretty sure it had to do with her favorite subject, marrying him off. Since the only girl who was persistent enough to keep coming back was Marie, he expected the questions to begin shortly.
He sighed inwardly. Marie was a nice girl, but she wasn’t the girl for him. That girl was long gone—he’d blown that chance all to hell years ago. He’d thought about looking her up when he came back to take care of his mom, but Emma had warned him not to.
Maybe she’d forgiven him after all this time though. Maybe?
He shook his head. Even if she had, she was married and everything had changed. No point in torturing himself over her memory. He’d tried to retire the note she’d sent him to the fireplace, but he hadn’t been able to do it. It was the last thing he had of her, something that she had touched. Of course, he was being a sentimental fool, but the problem was, there wasn’t anyone else who came close to raising his body temperature the way Emma had. He should never have slept with her, that had been a mistake. He hadn’t meant to; he just hadn’t been able to resist her and she’d responded so sweetly. One taste and he’d been hooked for life. He missed her all the time.
If his country hadn’t called him, they would probably still be together. The field stealth programming he’d been working on in college had garnered attention from the military. They had offered to pay for all his education plus the expense of developing the technology he was working on to aid warriors in the field. He insisted that the technology still belong to him, and they had agreed. No way he could pass that up.
His dad had already paid all he could for his college education, which included his bachelor’s degree, and he’d been at the point where loans were inevitable. The military offer had been a godsend. Now, with the patent on his programming finally in place, money was starting to roll in. Repairs his home badly needed, upgrades for the ranch, and the start of his programming business that he was getting off the ground in Boston were becoming a reality.
“Sawyer, what was the name of that little girl you used to like in college?”
Sawyer started, his eyes narrowing at his mother. Of all the tactics he’d expected, this hadn’t been one of them. He didn’t remember even telling his mother about Emma, but then he might have mentioned her. He was certainly a fool in love back then.
“Why are you asking me that, Mom?”
“I think it was Emma, right? What was her last name?”
His mother’s eyes were alive with curiosity and something else. A thrumming excitement he could feel in the atmosphere, as if she were charged with a sudden energy. “It doesn’t matter what her last name was, it’s in the past,” he replied firmly.
Rachel sighed and lowered her eyes to her plate. “I suppose so, but have you ever thought of looking her up?”
Sawyer knew in an instant he’d neatly fallen into a trap; he just wasn’t sure what it was. He studied his mother’s bent head. Her short fall of dark hair laced with white was hiding her face but he could feel the satisfaction oozing off her slender body. “No,” he replied shortly. “Why would I? She’s married.”
Rachel took a spoonful of the peach cobbler and waved it in the air before putting it in her mouth. “Oh, I just figured Marie must look a lot like her since you’ve allowed her to visit you.”
Then the penny fell for Sawyer and he realized his mother had tricked him into verifying that Emma was his girl’s first name. And he’d just opened his mouth to retort that Emma had been nothing like Marie because she’d been blonde and Marie was brunette. He popped his mouth shut and glared. She was slick, he’d give her that. “Why the twenty questions, Mom? What trick do you have up your sleeve now?”
