Authors: Samantha Garman
“We’re seeing Reece’s parents first.”
“It doesn’t seem fair to just show up on their front porch.”
I paused. “They know I’m coming.”
“Yeah, I know you called them to let them know.”
“I called them again.”
“Oh. Do they know about me?”
“No, not yet.”
“What about the baby? Are we going to tell them?”
“Eventually.”
Sage turned her eyes to the closed window and lifted the shade. “I wish we were already there. The waiting is killing me.”
“They’ll love you.”
“Will they?”
“Of course.”
“What about your family? And don’t lie to me.”
“My grandmother, father, and brother will adore you.”
“But your mother?”
“My mother hates
me
right now, so there’s a good chance she’ll hate you too.” My tone and words had the desired effect I wanted—Sage laughed. I was kidding, sort of. I hadn’t spoken to my mother, but I didn’t need a crystal ball to know how she would react.
•••
It was just past lunchtime when we climbed the porch steps of Reece’s parents’ ranch house. We were tired and nervous. I’d had so much coffee I was jittery, but Sage remained calm.
The screen was closed, but the main door was open; I could hear pans clattering in the kitchen and running water in the sink.
I stared at nothing for a long moment, Sage’s hand gripping mine. I wondered if I ever would’ve found the courage if it hadn’t been for her. Probably not.
With a deep breath, I finally rang the bell.
A middle-aged woman with graying blonde hair and a flour-smudged face appeared through the screen. She opened the door and then threw herself at me, the sound of her crying in my ears. I hugged and patted her back as I rested my cheek against her head, closing my eyes. She dropped her arms and swiped the tears off her cheeks as she turned her curious gaze to Sage.
“Alice, this is my wife, Sage.”
Alice blinked. “Wife?”
“It’s nice to meet—” Sage began, but was clearly caught off guard when Alice enveloped her in a strong hug.
Pulling away, Alice smiled. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Sage. Go on into the kitchen. I’m going to run out to the barn and grab Keith.”
“No doubt to warn him,” I said. Alice threw me a look, raised an eyebrow, and went to find her husband. It was good to know that some things hadn’t changed with time. She still had a sense of humor after everything she’d been through.
“What was that?” Sage demanded. “I expected anger when you told her about me.”
“She doesn’t think it’s out of character,” I explained with a wry grin, “even for me. I’m the kind of guy that leaves in the middle of the night on a whim, remember? It almost makes sense that I’d return with a wife.”
We walked into the kitchen, and Sage settled into a worn chair while I opened the cupboard. Taking out two glasses, I went to the refrigerator and pulled out the carton of orange juice.
Sage laughed. “You’re certainly at home here.”
I smiled; it was both in pleasure and pain. The back door crashed open, and Keith Chelser stormed into the kitchen, his face wreathed in disbelief as if needing physical proof of my existence. The man was huge, a modern John Wayne, filling the kitchen with his height and breadth. He was what a cowboy hoped to look like.
When I was a kid, I thought he could crush me. But I’d seen his bear-paw hands deliver foals. I’d wanted to be him. Keith had heart and a moral code that ancient warriors could have lived by. Being near him now made me realize my own code was at the bottom of a lake. I’d have to hold my breath, swim down to the dark muddy goop and retrieve it if I wanted it back.
Keith embraced me, and then promptly withdrew and decked me across the jaw. I collapsed on scarecrow legs, but he immediately reached down to help me off the floor. I staggered like I was drunk, and Keith steadied me like I was a toy.
There
was that moral code.
Looking at Sage, I grinned. She hesitantly smiled back, but then she stared at Keith, shooting him an angry glare.
She stood and craned her neck to peer at him. The cowboy towered over her, and it made me swallow a laugh. A fight between Sage and Keith?
I’d bet on Sage—always.
“You punched my husband.”
“Yep,” Keith said without apology. “Sage?”
“Yeah?”
He grinned. “Welcome to the family.”
•••
After a dinner of meatloaf and potatoes, and many hours of talking, Alice insisted we stay with them. She didn’t take
no
for an answer. I didn’t want to stay anywhere else anyway.
The window drapes of the guest room were open, letting in the moonlight. Sage burrowed close to me.
I inhaled deeply, and the muscles of my back relaxed as I exhaled. “You smell that?” I mumbled, pressing my head against hers. “It smells like sugar and nutmeg. It smells like home.”
“It wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be, was it?”
“No. They make it easy. Well, not easy, but they don’t make it worse.” The shock of seeing Alice and Keith had nearly felled me. I hadn’t been prepared for the tiny lines of pain at the corners of Alice’s eyes, put there by the grief of losing her only child. But she was like a rapier forged in fire now, hardened and almost unbreakable. Keith, on the other hand, looked like a tired, worn out saddle at the end of its life.
“When are you going to see Lucy?”
My voice was laced with guilt when I answered, “Soon. It’s going to be rough. I left her alone to deal with everything—she doesn’t have parents like the Chelsers. There’s no home for her like this…she’s alone.”
“What about Tristan’s family?”
“The Evanstons are proper, concerned with appearances. They’re the kind of people that retreat into themselves when bad things happen. Lucy might as well have been by herself.”
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like for her,” Sage said. “I don’t think I could’ve been that strong.”
I pressed my lips together in bitterness. “She shouldn’t have had to be that strong. I should’ve stayed.”
She ran a hand through my hair, but said nothing. Sage didn’t try to absolve me, and I doubted I would’ve accepted absolution anyway.
•••
The next morning, Sage lifted her head from the toilet and glared at me. “You rat bastard.”
“I asked if you wanted me to hold your hair—you said no.”
Rising from her spot on the bathroom floor, she went to the sink and washed out her mouth. “It’s bad enough I’ve had to give up coffee and scotch, but the constant puking? Not fair. I feel like I have chronic sea sickness.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“I’m green,” she snapped. “I look like Kermit the Frog.”
I rubbed a knuckle against my lips, trying to hide my smile.
“Fuck you.”
I laughed.
We went downstairs to the kitchen, and Sage sank into a chair. Alice was at the stove, flipping bacon. Keith sat at the table, enjoying a cup of a coffee and reading the newspaper.
“Good morning,” Alice said. “You guys hungry?”
“Famished,” Sage said. I stared at her and raised an eyebrow. She shrugged.
“Famished?” Keith asked, lowering the newspaper. “I could’ve sworn I heard you throwing up right before I came downstairs.”
Alice looked over her shoulder at Sage. “You feeling okay? Are you sick?”
Sage glanced at me, and I nodded. She announced, “I’m pregnant.”
Alice made a noise in the back of her throat, and Keith’s eyes widened.
“Can you not tell my parents?” I asked.
“You sound like a teenager,” Alice said with a grin.
I rolled my eyes. “I’d just rather tell them in person.”
“Like waiting to tell us about Sage until you were on our doorstep?” Alice teased. She patted Sage on the arm, and I knew I was right. Alice and Keith liked her. How could they not?
Alice set a plate of food in front of Sage. “Congratulations, but eat slowly. Trust me.”
Keith laughed. “Congratulations—to the both of you.”
After we ate, we showered and headed out. When we were on our way, Sage looked at the colored bruise on my jaw and said, “God, he really decked you.”
“Yeah, it hurt like a son of a bitch. He didn’t hold back.”
“It gives you a dangerous look. Not going to lie; I kind of like it.”
“Then it was all worth it,” I said with a wry grin.
Lucy lived in a small cottage along the edge of a glade in the house she had shared with Tristan. We parked the rental car and got out, but before we even reached the front door, it opened. A tall, slender, red-haired woman stepped out onto the porch.
She held a toddler.
My steps faltered. The baby made a noise, a cross between a squeal and a gurgle. His brown hair was mixed with traces of red, but his eyes were green.
Like his father’s.
“Hello, Kai.” Lucy’s voice was weary, resolute.
I tried to speak numerous times before finally spitting out, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lucy’s face was pale, her eyes wide. “I didn’t know for sure until after you were gone, and then there was no way to find you.”
The guilt of leaving washed over me, compounded by coming face to face with Tristan’s son for the first time. Lucy had needed me, and I’d left her. It was another reason to hate myself.
The toddler reached out, and without saying a word Lucy plopped him into my arms.
Tristan’s son.
I looked into the boy’s eyes, and my heart shattered into tiny shards of glass.
Fuck
.
“You must be Sage.”
“News travels fast,” Sage said.
“Alice called, but I didn’t believe her at first,” Lucy explained. “Come in.”
“Christ,” I muttered. “If Alice called you, then she definitely called my mother.”
Sage took a seat on the couch, and Lucy made her way to an old scarred recliner and collapsed into it. I saw exhaustion in the grooves around her mouth, the bags under her eyes. How much of it was heartache, and how much of it was raising a child alone?
I bit my tongue hard, stopping myself from asking her all the questions I didn’t deserve answers to. “What’s his name?” I sat down next to Sage with the baby on my lap.
“Dakota.” She peered at her son. “He doesn’t usually take to strangers.”
I stared at her—I wasn’t supposed to be a stranger, yet I was. “I should’ve been here.”
“Yeah, you should’ve been,” she stated. Dakota cooed and turned big green eyes to Sage, luring her attention.
“May I?” Sage looked to Lucy, asking for permission to hold Dakota.
Lucy nodded and without hesitation, I handed Dakota to Sage. I became mesmerized by the sight of her entertaining the toddler. It gave me a glimpse of our future—it was closer than I thought.
“So you’re back.”
“We are, but only for a little while,” I explained.
Lucy closed her mouth, but her cheeks suddenly flushed red with anger. “Damn you.”
I looked at Sage, who nodded in tacit understanding, stood up, and took Dakota out onto the porch. The front door clicked shut, and I was left alone with Tristan’s widow.
Widow.
The word was supposed to be reserved for old women, wrinkled by time and with many years of love in their lives. Widow was not a word for Lucy. Vibrant, passionate, warrior—those were the words I would’ve called her.
“I’m so mad at you I can barely see straight,” she seethed. “How could you—”
“I had to.”
“You have no idea what the last two and a half years have been like for me.”
“You have no idea what they’ve been like for me either.”
“You should’ve stayed.”
“Why? To be constantly reminded that they’re gone?” I stood and faced her, no longer shying away from Lucy and all that I had run from—we dueled with words and hurt feelings. The years of grief burdened us both, but I wanted to claw my way out—I had too much to live for.
“When they died, everything was dark. All I saw was the next bottle of bourbon, the next place to move. I never thought I’d meet a woman I wanted to marry. She’s more than that, Lucy. She’s the reason I came back.” I sighed wearily. “She’s pregnant.”
Lucy’s ire diffused, replaced by shock. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. We’re going back to France.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean,
why
?”
“What’s keeping you there?”
“We bought a house.”
“So sell it.
This
is your home.”
“No.” My voice was unyielding granite. “I can’t, Lucy. I can’t walk around every corner expecting to see my two best friends. If I moved back here, I’d never sleep well again. I don’t get how you can stand it here.”
“Where else am I supposed to go?” she demanded. “Take my son away from his grandparents? Away from the Chelsers? Away from—”
I looked at her, sharp and assessing. “Away from who?”
She took a deep breath. “Wyatt.”
The name was like being thrown into an avalanche of snow; the air left my lungs and I felt cold and buried. “Wyatt? My brother?”
Two patches of red appeared at the top of her cheekbones, only this time it wasn’t anger coloring her. “Yes.”
“I’ll kill him.”
“I love him, Kai.”
“You love
Tristan
,” I gritted out.
The sharp contours of her face softened. “Of course, I do, but am I supposed to be alone the rest of my life? Am I supposed to never love again?”
“How long?”
“
What?
”
“How long did you wait before you got together?”
Her blue eyes were stormy. “Fuck you, Kai.”
“How long, Lucy?”
“None of your goddamn business!”
We glared at one another. I wondered if learning to love again was a betrayal. But Tristan was dead; he’d left behind a wife and a son. Didn’t Lucy deserve some measure of happiness? If I’d been here, would it have happened? Thinking about the what-ifs
of my life would sink me. I couldn’t change them.
“He’s loved me for years. Did you know?” Lucy asked.
“No, I didn’t.”
She paused before saying, “A year—nothing happened for a year. Dakota was sick and in the hospital. Wyatt had been coming around, checking in on me. I called him, and he came. I could depend on him; he’s been solid, steady.”