Worth The Effort (The Worth Series Book 4: A Copper Country Romance) (27 page)

Deni held the photo in front of Sawyer, but stayed behind him, resting her cheek on his back and sliding her other hand around his waist.

“Yep. The sketch is of what I wanted to see on this day. What I saw in my mind.”

“The hermit’s shack? Seriously?”

“Uh-huh. I’ve had a fascination with that legend since I was eight years old.” He started to turn around, but she clutched him tighter and dug her face deeper into his back, stopping his movement. “I so badly wanted to believe in him. For years, I drew floor plans and sketches of what I thought his hut looked like. It may be the reason I became an engineer.”

He held up her sketch in one hand. It was a dwelling of intricacy that blended in with the surrounding area, and yet was very much a pleasant place to live.

“I saw Bill’s shack before they tore it down. It didn’t look like this. It was—”

“Shhh,” she said. “I don’t want to know. I want to keep my memory of the hermit alive. I want to think that he lived in this place.” She kissed his back between his shoulder blades, feeling the warmth of his skin through his shirt. “And I want to believe that there’s a reason I’m dating the man who had been jokingly called the hermit.”

She placed the photo down on the table in front of him and turned to walk to the doorway. “Sawyer,” she said, looking over her shoulder at him.

“Hmm?” He was still looking at the sketch in his had, but his head finally picked up when he heard the whoosh of her robe dropping.

“Race you back to bed,” she said and ran, bare-ass naked out of the room.

He beat her back to the bed.

Chapter Twenty Four

The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keep out the joy.

~ Jim Rohn

“W
hat’s that?” Sawyer asked her when she entered her kitchen the next morning. He was dressed exactly like he’d been when she found him in her office—pants slung low, shirt undone, and chest bare. He was drinking a mug of coffee and looking suspiciously at her light box.

Time to face the SAD music.

“Oh, that,” she said breezily, like big light boxes often took up half her kitchen table. “That’s a light box. You know, to get the effects of the sun during the winter.”

“Yeah, I know what a light box is.”

Irritability started to crawl over her skin. She kept her voice even as she said, “Then why did you ask?” She got a mug out of the cupboard and poured herself some coffee. She’d been drinking tea most of the winter, trying to take in less caffeine, but coffee sounded good this morning. “Thanks for making this, by the way.”

“Sure thing. I’m not the one who has to be to the office by eight.”

“Nope, that’s for us worker bees,” she said. She retrieved her purse from the foyer where she’d dropped it last night—right before Sawyer had hoisted her in his arms and taken her at the top of the steps. Back in the kitchen, she rummaged in the fridge and pulled out a yogurt that she’d take with her. She’d barely make it in time as it was. Sawyer had pulled her back into bed when she’d tried to get up and she was now—happily—going to work with hair still wet from her shower.

“I
mean
, why do
you
have a light box on your kitchen table?”
 

“Listen, I’m running late. I’m very happy for the reason why”—she gave him a quick kiss as she passed him—“but can we have this discussion—”

“Deni,” he said, grabbing her arm, stopping her. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”

She looked at the looming white machine, then at Sawyer. “Last October I started sleeping a lot more than normal, had a lack of energy, and some other things.”

The look of suspicion on his face slowly turned to disbelief. “Are you shitting me? You’re only telling me this
now
?”

“It’s not major depression, Sawyer,” she explained, putting her hand on the hand that still held her arm. “It’s SAD. Seasonal affect—”

“I know what SAD is,” he said a little harshly.
 

“Then you know that it’s seasonal and will go away when the days get longer. And, I also have a very mild case of it. Nothing to worry about.”

“Christ. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ she says.” He released her arm and turned away from her, setting his mug on the counter.

The slivers of irritability were digging in now, as if little shards of glass were right on the surface of her skin.

“That’s right. Nothing to worry about. I’m sleeping a little more than normal, and I put some activities on hold, but it hasn’t affected my work—”

He whirled around at that. “Your work? You think I give a flying fuck about you taking a sick day or two? Or ten or twenty?” He grasped her upper arms in his hands and gently tugged her closer to him. “I don’t give a shit about work. I care about
you
.”

She placed her hands on his bare chest. The same chest she’d used for balance late last night as she rode him. This time she soothed him with her hands.

“I know you do. Sawyer, this isn’t Molly all over again.” She felt his chest stiffen beneath her hands, but she knew that was where his mind was going. “This is not clinical depression. I mean, technically it’s a diagnostic subtype of depression, or what they call a sub-threshold. But there are absolutely no suicidal thoughts. I’m just really tired and bitchy all the time. It’s mild and it’s seasonal. It may never even appear again, but Alison says now that we know about it, we can do the light therapy next October when the time change starts.”

“So, Alison knows.”

She nodded. “That’s when I started seeing her. It hasn’t even gotten bad enough that we’ve felt I needed to try anti-depressants.”

“So, what? Just seeing Alison and the light box?”

She nodded. “Yes, those things seem to be making a big difference.”

“Who else knows? Does Andy know? Should we have something in place at the office for you? A light box somewhere?”

Always the fixer, Sawyer. “Not necessary. I do it first thing in the morning for a half-hour and that’s it. And no, Andy doesn’t know and doesn’t need to. Charlie knows. And my mother. Alison, of course, and now you.”

“Charlie knows? You’ve told Charlie and not me?” There was just a tiny touch of petulance in his voice that wavered between making her happy and pissing her off.

“Charlie has been my best friend for a lot of years. I’ve known you two weeks,” she said in as much of a matter-of-fact voice as she could muster. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Now I’m running late.” She moved her hands up his chest and placed them against his face. She could see the confusion, pain, and a little fear in his beautiful green eyes. After gently kissing his lips, she whispered, “Besides, being in a good mood does almost as much for SAD as therapy and the light box. And Sawyer?” She kissed him again. “You put me in a very good mood.”

H
e trusted that Deni had told him the truth about the severity—or non-severity—of her disorder. He really did.

Still, as he sat at her kitchen table after she’d left for work, he eyed the light box warily.

The day he’d found out about Molly’s depression—to have it diagnosed and with an actual name—came flooding back to him. He’d been unable to help her, had felt so useless. It was something he’d never felt with her.

Had never felt useless, period. At least not since his father had left, making Sawyer the man of the house.

He turned the light on, moving to the chair Deni must sit in each morning. He drank his coffee as the light blazed at him. As if it shone a bright light onto his biggest failure—his inability to save his wife. He leaned over and shut it off.

He knew everything Deni said was true, that it was different from Molly’s case. And yet, that same sinking feeling he had when Molly was in a spiral crept over him.

He rose from his chair and took his mug to the sink, where he washed it out. Lucy rose from where she’d been in a corner of the kitchen and slowly walked over to him.

Last night when he’d let Lucy out, he’d brought in some dog food and the dog dish for her that he always kept in his truck. He’d fed her there, just putting the bowl in the foyer and not even going into the kitchen. This morning while Deni showered, he’d fed his dog again, but this time he got a bowl from Deni’s kitchen and filled it with water. That was when he’d seen the light box.
 

“Come on, girl,” he said to Lucy after he’d unplugged and washed out the coffee pot. “Let’s go home and get some fresh clothes. Then we’ll go back to the office. You liked it there, didn’t you? Didn’t you, girl.” Lucy barked her approval of his plan.

He wasn’t sure what all he’d do at the office on day two, but he knew he’d spend a fair amount of time Googling seasonal affective disorder.

B
y the end of the workday, he was both more reassured and more freaked out about Deni and SAD.

He hadn’t spent the entire day surfing the net. Andy had given him a file of projects that he’d heard wind of across the U.P. and in Wisconsin but hadn’t pursued.

“I haven’t had a chance to look at them to see if they’re anything viable, or even if we’d want to bid on anything. I’m sure some of them are well past deadline.”

“I’m not a numbers guy,” he told Andy. “I can’t tell you whether we should bid on these or not.”

“Just see if you find any of them interesting. If you’d want to take on any of them yourself. Then we’ll worry about if we could competitively bid it or not.”

He figured Andy had probably handed him the equivalent of a junk drawer—full of odds and ends that nobody cared about or had time to sort.

He spent the rest of the day weeding through the files, putting the dead ones in a different pile and going online to check on a few. Before he knew it, Deni was standing in his doorway.

“Um…I’m heading home now. I just wanted to say good night.”

Holy wah, was it five already? He looked at the clock on his laptop. Nearly six. Yes, most of the lights in the office behind Deni were out.

He got up from his chair quickly. “I had no idea it was so late. Were you working on something in particular?”

She shrugged. “No, not really.”
 

He reached for his coat. Lucy rose from the doggie bed he’d brought down with him from the house and stretched. “What do you feel like? Pizza? We never did get to eat it last night. Or how about Chinese?” he asked as he neared the doorway.

He saw her body relax, and he realized she wasn’t sure…what? Sure about him? About them? After telling him about her SAD, did she think he’d dump her? That he couldn’t handle it?

He slung his arm around her. “I know, I know. No PDA at the office. But everyone’s gone.”

She didn’t balk at his arm around her; instead she slid hers around his waist and walked with him until they reached her cubicle where she disengaged herself to pull on her coat.

“Chinese sounds good,” she said, flashing him that dimple.

Chapter Twenty Five

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

~ Lao Tse

H
e spent the night at her place. They also had dinner Wednesday night after work, and then made love on the foyer floor, not making to the bedroom, or even the stairs.

When she got up and started for the bedroom, he told her he needed to spend the night in Laurium.

“I told Andy as I was leaving that I’m going to stay at home tomorrow and Friday. With the weekend, I can get the floor laid in the house.”

“Three days in the office and you’re already chomping at the bit to get out of there?” she asked. She’d thought he was enjoying being back, but maybe he’d spent too much time alone to truly be happy in office life again.

As if knowing what she was thinking, he took her in his arms right there in the foyer with his pants undone and her skirt wrinkled, panties and tights still lying on the floor.

“Relax. I
want
to be back at work. In fact, I think I may have found my next project. And if that’s the case, I want to get this house in Laurium finished, pronto. No taking my time on this one. It’s going to be on the market within a month.”

She made sure her voice was perfectly calm when she said, “And then what?”

He took a step back, sliding his hands down her arms and clasping her hands in his. “Well, we have a couple of options. I really like this place, and you’ve put a lot of work into it.”

“I have.”

“But it’s a rental, you said, right?”

She nodded.

“Once the house in Laurium is done, we can figure out what makes sense.”

“What are you thinking?”

He shrugged. “I could keep the house in Laurium, not even put it on the market, and you move in there. Or, I can sell it and move in here, and we can talk to the owner about selling. Or, we can find something totally different, maybe another fixer-upper and do it together, just like we’d want it.”

She took a deep breath, stunned.