Page 65 of One Kind Goal

“My paper got wrinkled though.” Nia smoothed out the creases in a clean white sheet of paper.

“That’s okay,” Sawyer said. “It’s still good for showing us your name.”

“Yeah.” Nia’s tongue came out as she fumbled with her grip on the crayon. When she finally got it right, she pushed her curls out of her face and bent over the paper. “You make the N like this, Morgan.”

Morgan, bless her, got onto the floor beside Nia, giving the kid her full attention. Well, maybe not her full attention because she did look back at Sawyer a few times while Nia labored over forming the letters of her name. Each of those looks set off sparks inside Sawyer. Sparks that said his daughter had to hit dreamland like pronto.

When Nia was done, she held up the paper triumphantly. The letters N-I-A were scrawled in shaky, red writing right in the middle of the sheet.

“Impressive,” Morgan said, clapping.

“I can’t spell my last name yet,” Nia said. “But I know the first letter.” She picked up the crayon again and made a wiggly R. “Mommy said she’d teach me the rest.” Nia looked back at Sawyer. “Can you write it?”

He pushed to the edge of the couch and held up his casted right hand. “I can try, but it might be tricky because this is my writing hand.” He took the crayon with his left hand, probably looking as Nia had positioning the writing implement the right way. When he finally got a satisfactory grip on it, he wrote Rodeso. It pained him a bit not to be able to share his own last name with his daughter, but Carina hadn’t wanted there to be any easy way to trace Nia to him. Slapping Lundin at the end of her name would link her to a famous hockey player. His name wasn’t even on Nia’s birth certificate. Nothing legal declared her as his.

With Carina in a more giving mood lately, however, perhaps he could change that. So much seemed possible now. Maybe Morgan was good luck.

Maybe she was exactly what his life needed.

****

Morgan awoke with her head resting on Sawyer’s chest. Unfortunately, a layer of thermal T-shirt was between her cheek and his skin, but sleeping naked in February in Vermont wasn’t practical. Neither was sleeping naked with a child in the adjacent bedroom. They’d risked it a few times, but Nia could definitely barge in at any time. That should have bothered Morgan. She’d never been with a guy who had a kid. Those weren’t the men who typically ran in the same circles as she did. Honestly, if she’d known Sawyer had a child before she’d hooked up with him the first time they’d been at the cottages together, she probably would have passed him over.

That would have been a ginormous mistake.

Looking at him now with his black hair all disheveled and his face relaxed in slumber, she didn’t want to entertain the idea of not being with him. These past few days had been among the best in her entire life. Sawyer and Nia together had made them among the best.

As she’d read books to Nia last evening, a sense of purpose like she’d felt in Trixie’s Attic had flowed over Morgan. Running that shop was part of her purpose, but so was spending time with Nia.

So was falling deeper for Sawyer.

She hadn’t expected people to factor into figuring out what to do with her life, but here she was. Snuggled up to a wonderful man and enjoying the company of his four-year-old. If you’d asked her a year ago if she’d be considering moving to a small town in Vermont, she would have flicked her salon-perfect hair over her shoulder, smoothed whatever designer outfit she’d been wearing, and laughed at you.

Now?

Now she couldn’t even remember if she’d washed her hair last night and chunky sweaters with leggings had become her go-to ensembles. She’d had a brief phone conversation with Samira yesterday and her friend had commented about this change in Morgan.

“You sound like someone else, Morg,” Samira had said. “You sound . . . I don’t know . . . happy and shit.”

“I think I am happy and shit,” she’d replied. “I haven’t been happy since I lost my parents when I was a young teen. And then losing Summer was another blow. I mean, I party, but that’s me trying to be happy. I’ve been faking it, Samira. For a long time.”

“Oh, honey . . .”

“No, it’s okay. I didn’t realize I was faking it until I didn’t have to,” she’d said. “I haven’t been miserable this whole time. I think if I were to go back to before meeting Sawyer and Nia though, I would be. Because I know now. I know what it’s like to have this.”

“Glad you came to that club with me, aren’t you?” Samira had teased.

“Of course. I did meet Sawyer on my own before that night, but I wouldn’t have reconnected if you hadn’t dragged my ass out to that club,” Morgan had said. “So thank you.”

“Anytime, sweetie. You know I’m always here for you.”

Samira had spent the rest of the conversation talking about skipping down to Rhode Island to visit “Teddy Bear.” She didn’t go so far as to admit she was super into Sawyer’s friend or anything, but typically Samira didn’t leave New York if she didn’t have to. The fact that she was willing to for Teddy said something.

After the phone call had ended, Sawyer had put Nia to bed then he’d thoroughly made good on his promise to get naughty. Morgan let out a soft moan now as she thought about what this man lying next to her had done to her body.

“Careful,” he said now in a scratchy voice as he turned his head toward her. He cracked open one hazel eye. “Noises like that will get you into trouble.”

“I didn’t know you were awake.” Morgan glided her arm along his chest and hooked her hand on his hip to draw herself closer.