“Why’s that?” Travis asked, rubbing his eyes, his stupid grin still flipping up the corners of his mouth.
“Katherine Celeste,” Sawyer said.
“It fits her,” Travis said softly. “She’s so damn beautiful, man.”
Sawyer heard the emotion in Travis’s voice and he was so fucking happy for his brother. After all the heartache Travis had brought on himself, he deserved complete and total happiness. Clearly he’d found that with Gage and Kylie. Took him long enough, but at least he’d finally gotten to that point.
Travis glanced back at the empty hallway before meeting Sawyer’s gaze. “I really should get back there.”
“Yeah, you should,” Sawyer confirmed, glancing over his shoulder at Mason. “We got this.”
Travis got to his feet, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Thanks for bein’ here, bro. It really . . . It means everything.”
“Wouldn’t’ve missed it for the world,” Sawyer told his older brother truthfully.
Travis nodded and then headed back down the hall he had emerged from a short while ago, leaving Sawyer sitting there on the floor in the waiting room, his elbow propped on his raised knee as he watched Travis’s retreat.
A good twenty minutes passed before the rest of the group returned, just as loud as he expected them to be, everyone talking over each other. Mason stirred behind him, and the next thing he knew, his hat was knocked askew, the little boy grabbing his hair and laughing. Sawyer pulled him over his shoulder, flipping him upside down and blowing onto his belly, making him giggle even more before he set him upright.
“You’re pretty good with kids, you know that?”
Sawyer’s eyes trailed up to the voice, meeting Kennedy’s gray gaze. “Hey,” he greeted, unable to hold back the smile. She was the absolute last person he had expected to see there. Part of him worried that he’d fallen asleep sitting up and in a minute he was going to wake up to find this was all a dream. “What are you doin’ here?” he asked, pushing to his feet, keeping Mason close to his chest.
“I wanted to see the football,” she said, her eyes glowing with amusement.
“Well, you’re just in time,” Lorrie said, interrupting their conversation as she reached for Mason while handing Sawyer the coffee Zoey had promised. “You ready to go see your cousin?” she asked the little boy, smiling at Sawyer before she headed toward the rest of the group hovering near the door.
“Boy or girl?” Kennedy asked, still not moving as she stared at him.
She’d obviously been at work or was on her way. She was wearing a pair of dark blue scrubs, which he knew was her uniform of choice.
After taking a sip of his coffee, he said, “Girl. Katherine Celeste. They’re gonna call her Kate.”
“Beautiful name.”
“Come on,” Sawyer said, nodding his head toward the hallway.
He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do or say, so he simply kept an even pace beside Kennedy as they walked down the hall toward the nursery. He was doing his damnedest not to read too much into her appearance there at the hospital. After all, she’d also been at Ethan’s wedding as well as Zane’s. Her father, the sheriff of Coyote Ridge, was a friend of Curtis’s, so her presence wasn’t necessarily unheard of. It still gave him hope. Especially after what had transpired between them last night in the parking lot.
“Have you been up all night?” she asked, glancing at him sideways as they walked.
“Yeah. Walkers are known to be stubborn, and Travis’s little girl was proving just how stubborn we can be.”
“Stubborn’s a good word,” Kennedy said, chuckling softly.
“Yes it is,” he agreed.
When they reached the nursery window, Sawyer saw Ethan hoisting Mason up on his shoulders while the rest of the group stared inside at the little forms sleeping in the little plastic beds.
“She’s the only girl,” Beau stated.
Sure enough, Kate was the only girl out of the five babies in the room.
Kennedy waited her turn, unable to see over the others, but when Kaleb and Brendon backed out of the way, Sawyer urged her forward, purposely using the opportunity to touch her. Surprisingly, she didn’t try to pull away, nor did she flinch when his hand touched the small of her back.
Another round of hope took flight in his chest and he swallowed it back, again doing his best not to read too much into it. That was damn hard to do, considering Kennedy was there. And she had come all on her own. Not to mention, when she looked at him, she didn’t look as though she wanted to box his ears.