The Renegade
Chapter 4

Sawyer had to be dreaming. It certainly explained how he’d felt so comfortable talking to Jo that he’d blabbed about his TBI and all the rehab he’d done after moving to Remington. It definitely explained how she’d grabbed his hand, turning to lift that gorgeous, bow-shaped mouth to his in a k**s he’d wanted since the second he’d clapped eyes on her last night. But now he was being rudely awakened, dumped back to reality by someone standing behind Jo, and he opened his eyes, fully prepared to tell whoever it was to move along.

But as recognition struck, he arched a brow, letting the edges of his mouth kick up as he gently spun Jo so they were side by side. “Jesus, Donnelly. I should’ve known.”

His buddy, Finn—who, funny enough, had been the guy who’d helped Sawyer get acquainted with the ice in the first place—cracked a smile that bordered on a smirk. “I saw you on my way out from practice and thought I’d throw on my skates and say hi. Didn’t realize I’d interrupt.”

Sawyer ran a hand over the back of his neck, stowing the thought of the k**s away for later. “No worries. This is Jo Rossi. Jo, this is my friend, Finn Donnelly.”

Jo’s eyes went round with surprise. “Finn Donnelly. As in, the superstar center for the Charlotte Rogues, part of the team that’s won back-to-back championships. That Finn Donnelly?”

Finn laughed. “Well, I kind of prefer to think of myself as just a guy who likes to play a little hockey now and then. Oh, and also the guy who taught this upstanding gentleman how to skate last year.”

“Holy shit.” Jo turned toward Sawyer. “Finn Donnelly taught you how to skate?”

Sawyer couldn’t help it. He grinned. “You want a real surprise? You’re wearing his wife’s skates right now.”

Jo blinked down at her feet, wobbling a little in the process. “Seriously?”

“She’ll be happy they’re going to good use,” Finn said.

“How’s January doing?” Sawyer asked. She’d made it partway through her second trimester before working behind the bar at the Crooked Angel had become too much for her, especially since her day job was running the day-to-day office operations at Station Seventeen. Sawyer missed her bubbly personality and meticulous organizational skills. In that order.

Finn’s face lit up, and man, even Sawyer could see how far gone for January the guy was. “She’s good. Pretty excited to finally meet the babies next month. We both are.”

“I bet. Tell her we miss her at the restaurant.”

“Will do. Well, I don’t want to keep you. Jo, it was great to meet you. You’re here for a few weeks, right?”

Jo blinked, and damn it, that’s what Sawyer got for telling January about his date with Jo. “I am.”

“Feel free to hang onto the skates until you head home. This guy has come a long way since he and I first started lessons. There’s no one better to show you the ropes.”

The words sent a pang of surprise through Sawyer, and he lifted his chin in both a wordless thanks and see ya later. Jo murmured a goodbye, and as soon as Finn was out of earshot, she turned to hit Sawyer with a brows-up stare.

“You are full of surprises,” she said, pushing off to skate around the perimeter of the rink again. She was holding her own on her skates—he’d meant it when he’d said she was far better at it than he’d been right out of the gate—but still, he grabbed her hand and held on.

“Is that a good thing?”

Jo squeezed his fingers, and damn, how could she be so sexy and sweet at the same time? “That’s a good thing.”

“We’ve spent a lot of time talking about me. Tell me more about you,” Sawyer said.

“Well, you already know about the not-exactly-famous thing. I put my full-time acting career on hold when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, Mikayla.”

Jo stared at her skates for a second too long, telling Sawyer there was more to that story than she wanted to let out. But that was fine. He was a patient guy, and getting pushy—even though he was curious as hell—wouldn’t make her do anything other than clam up.

But then her face brightened as she said, “She’s five. As sappy as it sounds, she’s totally the light of my life.”

“That doesn’t sound sappy at all,” Sawyer said. “I mean, I’m not a parent, but isn’t that how it’s supposed to work when you have kids?”

“Things don’t always pan out the way they’re supposed to,” Jo pointed out. “Yes, I have a great kid who I love more than anything. The happily ever after with her father? That was definitely never a thing.”

Sawyer trod carefully. “That must’ve made things harder.” He’d been single-parented by his old man after his mom had decided to run off with one of the bouncers from his father’s bar. Sawyer hadn’t heard from her in decades, and didn’t particularly want to. But he knew that raising a kid on his own hadn’t been easy for his father.

“For a little while,” Jo admitted. “But even though we were a terrible couple, we are weirdly great at co-parenting. Mikayla’s well-cared for by both of us. My ex gets to sleep around as he sees fit. Everyone’s happy.”

“What about you?”

A little crease appeared between her dark brows. “What about me?”

“Are you happy?” Sawyer asked.

“Yes and no,” Jo said. Her expression made it obvious that she was surprised to have admitted it out loud. But, to his surprise, she lowered her guard and kept talking. “You know the show Way Back When?”

Sawyer chuffed out a laugh. “Is there anyone in the country that doesn’t?” It was a hugely popular prime time drama, with loads of awards and killer ratings. He’d never watched it, but he’d certainly heard of the show. January and Kennedy talked about it all the time at the restaurant.

Jo nodded, focusing her attention on the ice as she skated beside him. “So, you know the part of Amanda, then.”

“That’s the role Priscilla Contreras plays, right?” The actress had pretty much become a household name after the show took off like a rocket five years ago.

“Yep. Only, she wasn’t the director’s first choice.”

Confusion crowded Sawyer’s brain for just a second before realization smacked him in the face. “Holy shit. You were supposed to star in Way Back When?”

Jo let go of a slow exhale that puffed around her face in the cold. “Yeah. It was a huge break for me. I’d only ever done small roles before that, and half of them had been things like ‘woman at coffee shop’, where my character didn’t even have a name. But Way Back When’s director wanted a new face in that role. I auditioned twice, once on my own and once with Gray Davis, who plays the male lead. They offered me the part less than a day later. I was on top of the freaking world.”

“I bet,” Sawyer said, even as he sensed the but from a mile and a half away. Still… “I’m sure it took a lot of hard work to land that role.”

Jo lifted one shoulder in a haphazard shrug. “All for naught. I found out I was pregnant three weeks later. It was a surprise, but I always knew I wanted at least one kid. I thought I was in a good relationship”—she gave a tiny roll of her eyes—“so I was happy. But the show’s producers were definitely not.”

Damn. “So, what happened?”

“I asked them if we could work around it. Loads of actresses hide their baby bumps with props and carefully angled camera shots. But it would mean reconstructing some of the plot—there were things I just wouldn’t be able to do, not to mention they’d have to write in something to explain my six-week absence for maternity leave. One of the producers had worked with an actress who had needed to go on bedrest in her second trimester, and her extended absence really hurt the show’s ratings. They knew they had a potential blockbuster on their hands. They didn’t want to take the risk, so they let me go and hired Priscilla. And the rest is history.”

Sawyer said the only thing he could think of, even though he knew it wasn’t enough. “I’m sorry.”

To his surprise, Jo broke into a smile. “Thanks. In a way, I am, too, but I don’t have any regrets. I have a fantastic kid. I have a decent job as a drama teacher. I don’t love it,” she added, that honesty that Sawyer liked so much showing in her eyes. “But I don’t hate it, either, and it pays the bills.”

“You’re here in Remington, though,” he said. “So, you must still want to act.”

“I do, but—”

Sawyer stopped on the ice, tugging her to a halt before sliding in front of her. “It’s a complete sentence, Jo.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I do,” he repeated, “is a complete sentence. If you still want to land a big role, there’s nothing wrong with that. Clearly, you’re talented as hell, and you want it enough to make a trip out here to audition. There doesn’t have to be a ‘but’.”

Jo stood perfectly still, staring at him with a look he couldn’t decipher for all the world, and shit. Shit! Yeah, he’d meant what he said, but she was obviously nervous for this audition. He shouldn’t have been so damned direct. Sawyer opened his mouth—to say what, he had no f*****g clue—but then Jo gave up a tiny smile.

“For someone I’ve known for twenty-four hours, you have an awful lot of faith in me.”

Sawyer’s pulse picked up in his veins as he smiled back. He liked her more than he should, but it felt too good, too full of possibility, for him to care.

“I do.”

He let the sentence hang there until she laughed. “Point taken. It’s a complete sentence.”

They began to skate again, the conversation moving to lighter topics. He asked Jo about her daughter, and she asked him about his father in return. They traded stories until her legs got tired, then traded at least a dozen more over cups of hot chocolate that turned into dinner at a local café. Sawyer discovered her love for action movies (she was firmly on Team MCU, even though he’d tried to argue that the DC Universe had a shitload of merit, not to mention Superman), her dislike for tomatoes (“I know, I know. My Italian family considered disowning me.”), and that her favorite color was green. The conversation lasted until the dishes had been cleared away and their server had started giving them that polite but pointed look that said they were her last table for the night, and even though he didn’t want to, he said, “I guess we should probably head out before they start putting the chairs up around us.”

Jo’s lips parted in surprise as she looked around the otherwise empty café. “Oh, my God. I didn’t even notice.”

Sawyer slipped an extra twenty on the table before standing to usher Jo toward the door. “Can I give you a ride back to wherever you’re staying?”

“Actually, that would be great. Thanks.” They walked the handful of blocks back to the sports complex where his Jeep was parked. She gave him the address to Frankie’s former apartment, which wasn’t far at all—much to Sawyer’s disappointment—and they made it there in less than ten minutes.

“I know I may never live this down,” Jo said with a smile. “But this risk-taking thing isn’t so bad.”

Sawyer knew he could tell her he was glad she had a good time, make sure she got inside the building safely, and leave it at that. In fact, it was probably the smart thing to do. Jo lived in Savannah, where she had a five-year-old and a job and a life, and anyway, they’d only just met. But Sawyer had learned the hard way to live in the moment, and in this moment, he didn’t want to say any of those things.

He wanted her.

“Well, in that case,” he said, leaning toward her while still giving her the option of regaining her personal space if she wanted it. “Maybe we should do it again tomorrow.”

“I want to, but…this could get complicated,” Jo murmured, but Sawyer simply shrugged.

“Or it could be a fun couple of weeks. Look”—unable to help it, he reached out, tracing two fingers over the curve of her cheek—“I don’t suffer any illusions, here. I know you have a daughter. Priorities in Savannah. I would never mess with that. But I’m not going to lie and say tonight wasn’t the best date I’ve had since…hell, I don’t even know how long. I know there’s an expiration date on whatever we do, and I’m not asking for any strings. I just want to spend time with you again.”

A beat passed that felt about two hours long, but probably lasted more like two seconds, before she said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

Jo smiled, closing the space between them to lean over the Jeep’s center console and k**s him softly, just once. “It’s a complete sentence, Sawyer. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And without another word, she slid out of the Jeep and into her apartment building.