A Sweetheart For The Single Dad (The Camdens Of Colorado Book 8) Read Free Page A

know you don’t want to move out of state. You’ve
never
wanted to move out of state. You gave up a college scholarship and used loans to pay your tuition rather than go away just for four years. Now this guy snaps his fingers and says he wants to move, so you’re willing to do it? No way! Try standing up for yourself!”
    “Vermont is nice...” was the wishy-washy answer to that.
    They had been going round and round this issue for the past half hour and, so far, Sawyer hadn’t gotten anywhere. He was fed up and pulled out what he hoped was his ace in the hole. “I’ve already talked to Sean.” Sean was his younger brother and his attorney. “If I have to go to court, I will. If you don’t have the guts to tell Harmon that you don’t want to move, then feel free to make me the bad guy and use that as your out. But one way or another, I won’t sit idly by and have you and
Harmon
take my son across the country to live.”
    He hung up without saying goodbye. Frustrated, angry, worried. And cursing himself for the choices he’d made in the women in his life.
    “You’re falling for it, too,
Harmon
,” he muttered as if his ex’s husband could hear. “I’m betting that she’s letting you think she’s okay with moving when she really isn’t. Then she’ll get there and be unhappy and blame you. But you’re not taking my kid along for that ride!”
    Sawyer was sitting behind the desk in his office. His door was closed for privacy so—knowing no one who worked for him could see—he dropped his head forward and reached back to try to rub the tension out of his neck.
    It was bad enough to have his son living with another man half the time, to have Sam following some other guy’s rules—because, of course, Candy wasn’t going to be the boss. But at least Sawyer still had plenty of his own time with his son. Sawyer could be at T-ball games and school conferences and programs. Sawyer could pick Sam up from school. Sawyer could get to him in the blink of an eye if Sam was sick or hurt. He could
be there
for him.
    If Sam was in Vermont, Sawyer would be relegated to phone and video calls, and he’d only actually be with his son a few times a year. And there was no way he wouldn’t fight to keep that from happening.
    The trouble was that he wasn’t altogether sure it was a battle he would win.
    Being part of Sam’s life had been an uphill battle for a while now. Things had gone smoothly enough at the beginning. Candy hadn’t known she was pregnant when their relationship had ended, but had told him as soon as she’d found out. She’d declined his suggestion of marriage but had agreed to let him have an active role as Sam’s father. Or, at least, she’d conceded to it. He could never be too sure with her—or with any of the women who had passed through his adult life—whether agreement meant they were genuinely on board or just that they were going along against their will and not letting it show.
    Either way, Candy had consented to letting him share custody, and even to naming Sam after Sawyer’s father. Then she’d also accepted Sawyer’s request for equal time with Sam, along with the ample child support he’d offered her.
    It was only when Harmon had come on the scene two years ago that problems had started.
    Sawyer’s visitation with Sam had mysteriously gotten harder to schedule. Sawyer had stopped being included in decisions about Sam and was no longer informed about whatever was going on in Sam’s life. He hadn’t even been invited to Sam’s last birthday party, and now Sawyer had to rely on the four-year-old to tell him most things, which, more often than not, resulted in only hearing about it after the fact.
    But even though the problems started with Harmon, Sawyer couldn’t be sure the other man was actually to blame.
    He’d learned the hard way that just because Candy
seemed
okay with something, it didn’t mean she was. That under the surface things could be simmering that he was