“Always,” Sawyer said with that smile he reserved just for her. He plucked a blade of grass off her overalls, not looking at me. “So, haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Yeah, I’ve been busy. Job, rehearsals.” I dug my toe into the dirt. I’d caught my breath but my heart was still pounding loudly. “How are your finals going?”
“Good. Finished two. Two more to go.”
“And then the bar exam?”
“Yeah, in Sacramento in a few weeks. Three days of motel living.” He made a face. “Can’t wait.”
“Three days? Will Elena be watching Olivia?” I asked. “Because I can help. If you need it.”
“Maybe,” Sawyer said. His dark brown eyes were soft as they met mine. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
A silence fell and then Olivia squirmed. “Down. Down.”
“Well, we’d better get back before someone steals our wheels.” Sawyer nodded his chin at the bulky, second-hand stroller. “It’s such a beaut.”
I smiled and tried to think of something witty to say but my brain was addled by the V of Sawyer’s tanned chest revealed by his shirt, and the flexing muscles in his arms as he set Olivia down.
“Yeah, I’d better get back…to…more running.”
More running? Seriously?
I felt a tug on my hand. “Ball, Dar-een?” Olivia pulled me toward their blanket. “Ball?”
A joyful laugh burst out of me, erasing my nerves. “Oh my God, she just said my name.” I knelt down beside her. “Did you just say Darlene?”
“Dar-een,” Olivia said, and pointed toward her yellow ball sitting on the green grass. “Play?”
“Well, if it’s okay with your daddy?”
I looked up to see Sawyer watching his daughter.
“I didn’t know she knew your name,” he said quietly.
“I didn’t either,” I said. I got to my feet. “I’ll play with her if you want. Or if you’d rather I not…”
“No, that’d be great. If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
I joined Sawyer and Olivia on their patch of grass and played three-way catch—Sawyer threw to me, I rolled the ball to Olivia, and she threw it to Sawyer who inevitably had to go chasing it down or pick it up when she torpedoed it straight into the grass.
Olivia’s thirteen-month-old attention span wore out five minutes later, and she dropped the ball, game over.
“Snag? Snag, Daddy.”
He scooped Olivia up. “Do you want a snack? What about a swing first?”
“Swing!”
Sawyer swung her down and then tossed her up in the air in the way that guys did that made babies squeal with laughter, and made every human with ovaries in a twenty-yard radius inwardly panic.
“Oh jeez,” I whispered.
I peeked at them through my fingers, but Sawyer caught his little girl smoothly and planted her on his hip.