Shaking Belmont Clarkson wasn’t going to be easy for Sage Alexander.
For several reasons.
One, she didn’t want to.
To an outsider, the dependency Belmont had on Sage appeared to be one-sided. Over the course of the road trip from San Diego to New York, she had fielded several sympathetic looks lobbed in her direction. To the other Clarkson siblings, none of whom were left in the rattling Suburban as it lumbered down the highway, it probably seemed as if Belmont merely used Sage as a crutch for his anxiety. Every time he teetered a little too close to the edge of his comfort zone, Sage would get bundled up in Belmont’s big arms and rocked until he relaxed. They didn’t see Sage’s need for reassurance, too. They didn’t realize she stockpiled those moments in Belmont’s arms like a hoarder, memorizing the sensation of being anchored, the feel of his hard chest beneath her cheek, his heart laboring in her ear.
When she was growing up, those moments of solace had been nonexistent, so she’d allowed herself to accept Belmont’s. Until now. Now she had to stop. Unfortunately, cutting off the growing dependency they had on each other meant welding shut Belmont’s escape hatch…in order to escape herself. And ripping off this particular Band-Aid would take ten layers of skin along with it. Right down to the bones he’d invaded.
They were only five miles from the train station now. Five miles to convince Belmont to pull over and leave her there. Continue driving to New York alone, where he and his siblings would fulfill his mother’s last wish by jumping into the freezing water of the Atlantic on New Year’s Day. Something she desperately wanted to witness, but knew all along she wouldn’t.
Sage closed her eyes and went to her happy place. Long white satin aisle runners, strewn with pink and red rose petals. Proud fathers walking their daughters toward the altar, faces freshly shaven. The joyous strains of organ music cueing the congregation to stand and marvel over the bride. If she squinted, Sage could see herself in the back hall, clipboard in hand, marking off her checklist.
No more, though. No more fairy tales and flower arrangements and flowing gowns. Had she earned the right to escape inside those things? Just beneath the polish of her new life, the real Sage, a grimy-faced girl from Louisiana, never stopped reminding her of the answer. She had a responsibility to attend back home. One she’d neglected long enough. In order to make it right, she needed Belmont gone.
Panic lifted like an elevator in her sternum, lodging against the base of her throat. Would he be all right? Would she? Ever since that first wedding she’d planned for Peggy, Sage and Belmont had fed each other’s need for contact. Severing it would be like choking off a mighty oak’s water supply. There was no other way, though.
If Belmont knew where she was headed—and why—he would go berserk. There would be no calming him down to explain. There would be no talking him out of helping. And she knew Belmont better than anyone. She knew the kind of help she required would kill him.
“Belmont,” Sage whispered. “Can you take the next exit, please?”
As always, he’d gone on high alert the second she spoke, hands tightening on the wheel, back straightening. So intense. So much. His energy spun like spiked boomerangs around the Suburban, all of them careful to avoid her. “You’re hungry,” Belmont said, slowing the vehicle.
“No.” She twisted handfuls of her dress in her hands, even though Belmont’s eyes were sharp to catch the movement and remain there. “No, I need you to take me to the train station.”
Back in Cincinnati, right before they’d left Peggy behind, she’d almost confessed everything. Almost exposed all her skeletons. But the two of them maintained a balance. He’d been too off-kilter after losing his third sibling in a matter of weeks, and hesitating to confess had bought Sage enough time to come to her senses. Thank God. But she couldn’t shake the feeling Belmont had been watching, waiting, for this moment. The man saw everything.
Sage just hoped she’d prepared better than him.
Belmont’s eye twitched as he pulled off the highway. “What are you doing, Sage?”
She couldn’t help but take a moment to appreciate him once more, his brutally powerful silhouette outlined in the sunny driver’s side window. If this was the last time she’d see Belmont, she needed an image to bring along. A perfect vision to tuck into her memory and keep safe, where no one could touch or tarnish it. The place she was headed could muddy up almost anything, but it couldn’t reach into her mind. She wouldn’t allow it. She never had.
Belmont was attractive. Yes. That much was made obvious by the way women got a certain look in their eyes as he passed. He evoked a chemical reaction that started in your stomach, as if he’d tucked his coarse index finger into your belly button and twisted. His height might have made him rangy, if it weren’t for all the muscle, honed from hours working on his salvage boat. His skin had an all-weather texture, bashed with salt water and sunshine, but his inner glow kept it from dulling in the slightest. Dark hair skirmished around his face and collar, no style to speak of, but thick and inviting and gorgeous in its disarray. The first time she’d set eyes on Belmont, she’d thought of far-off places. Grassy moors and mist and trench coats. Things she’d never witnessed, but read about in books. He was the only one of his kind. For some reason, he’d chosen her to crowd into corners, to worry about, to beg for eye contact. And now she had to destroy their connection to keep him alive.
“I’m going home,” Sage said, forcing her fingers to stop fidgeting. “There’s nothing for me in New York. I want to see my family.”
“I’ll come with you.” His voice was calm, but she knew if he turned his head, she’d get burned by the sparks coming from his eyes. “I’ll find a place out of your way. You don’t have to introduce me to them. I’ll just be there if you need me.”
Sage shook her head, cursing the red light where they were forced to stop and wait. The longer this took, the more impossible it would become to keep up a front. Already the foundation was cracking. What she wouldn’t give to have Belmont come with her. God, what she wouldn’t give. “I…” She barricaded herself against the rushing river of guilt. “I need some time away from you, Belmont.”
The Suburban rolled forward a few inches, as if he’d lost the power to keep it braked. “I won’t ask you why. I already know I’ve been…needing you so much lately.” He said the next part to himself. “I could see it was too much.”
It wasn’t too much. It was exactly what she craved. Which was part of the issue. “It is. It’s too much, the way you rely on me.” She rolled her lips inward and tasted the bitterness of her memories, the self-hatred at hurting the man she’d fallen deeply in love with. “My father…he does the same thing to my mother. And vice versa. Depending on one another for support until they have no energy left to worry about themselves. Or desire to accomplish anything. There’s no encouragement, only excuses for what is.” She shook her head. “And I don’t want to be like that. I’m not a stuffed animal you can pull off the shelf whenever necessary.”
His face was stricken as he turned. “Sage…”
“You don’t treat me like a woman,” she blurted that genuine insecurity, heaping as much fuel as she could on the fire. “When men hold women, it’s usually because they have romantic inclinations. But you drop me and walk away so fast, I feel like a freak sometimes.”
Behind them, a car beeped and Belmont applied the gas too hard, jerking the car forward. She’d visibly shocked him, bringing up their physical relationship. Or lack thereof, rather. They must be the only two people on the planet to log hundreds of hours in each other’s arms, without kissing even once. She cared about Belmont. She didn’t know where his pain originated, but she respected and sympathized with it. Sometimes, she swore they shared a fractured pulse. But she was a red-blooded female and the man treated her like a fellow monk. Intentional or not, it hurt.
Stop. Stop trying to solve problems that won’t exist five minutes from now. The ache in the middle of her chest intensified. “What matters is…it’s wearing me out. Not knowing when you’ll demand I drop everything to…be held by you. Or calm you down.” She resisted the impulse to cover her face. To hide the lies. “I can’t do it anymore. You’re suffocating me.”
By the time she’d finished speaking, Belmont’s hands were shaking on the wheel. Sage turned away so he wouldn’t see her misery. So she wouldn’t be tempted to demand he stop driving so she could crawl into his lap and beg his forgiveness. “Once we get back to California, I’ll get myself back under control. It’s just all the change happening.” His throat muscles shifted. “I don’t do well with change.”
“I’m not going back to California.”
It was a good thing she’d braced herself, because Belmont slammed on the brakes, skidding the Suburban to a stop mid-avenue. Just a few blocks ahead, she could see the train station. A three-minute walk at best. She just needed to get out of this car and make sure Belmont didn’t follow her. Was it even possible? “Sage,” Belmont began, his impatience beginning to bleed through. She could almost see his rope fraying through the window of his eyes. “You’ve been scrapbooking. There’s glue all over your fingers. And paper cuts. I hate the paper cuts. But I knew I was crowding you, so I didn’t pull over and bandage them. Even though that’s all I’ve wanted to do for the last two hundred miles.”
Would she ever breathe again without experiencing the sharp pain in her side? “What does this have to do with anything?”
“Because you only scrapbook when something isn’t right.” He ignored the cars honking as they were forced to pass in the opposite lane. She barely registered them, too, because Belmont was hypnotic, his every feature imploring her, his voice resonating deep inside her mind. “Just come over here and whisper it in my ear. I’ll stand between you and whatever it is. I’ll make up for being so greedy with your time. I will. Nothing touches Sage while I’m around.”
Don’t break. Don’t break yet. “There is nothing wrong. Except for your…reliance on me. I need to go somewhere I won’t be smothered every minute of the day.” She touched the door handle and he jolted, blue eyes fixating on that signal she’d be leaving. “Go to New York, Belmont. Meet your sisters and Aaron on the beach for New Year’s Day, like your mother wanted. I’m not your worry. I never was.”
“You can take yourself away from me, but you can’t take away the worry.” His tone was concrete, unbreakable. “Don’t try. I covet my right to fear for every hair on your head.”
“I never asked you to,” she half sobbed, half whispered.
“You did.” He reached across the console, his fingers hovering just above her thigh, branding the skin beneath her dress. “Your heart asked mine. And mine was already begging.”
“Stop,” Sage pushed through clenched teeth. “Just stop. Can’t you see how…how confusing and forward every word out of your mouth sounds?” Acid rose in the back of her throat as she laid the final nail in the coffin. The one that would keep him sitting in the Suburban while she fled and saved his soul. “Whatever you feel, Belmont, it’s not the same for me. I’ve tried to help you because Peggy is my best friend, and she loves you. But you’re not good for me. You’re stopping me from living a normal, happy life.”
The color drained right out of his face. “I’m sorry, Sage.” Slowly, he removed his hand, stealing back the blessed warmth along with it. “Go. You have to go.”
Now of course, she couldn’t manage so much as a blink, fear over being parted from Belmont stabbing her in the back. “Okay. I’m going.”
“Will you…” His voice had gone from robust to deadened. “Check in with Peggy, please. At least check in with Peggy. And bandage those cuts.”
“Yes,” Sage breathed, scrambling to get out of the car. She saw nothing, heard only the wind rushing in her ears as she staggered to the back door. Retrieving her luggage was the easy part. It was passing the front window again without glancing inside that presented the challenge. In the end, she couldn’t manage it.
So the final time she saw Belmont, a war was taking place behind his eyes. And both sides were losing.
“You’re doing the right thing.” Her breath hitched, suitcase wheels catching on a sidewalk crack. “You’re doing the right thing.”
Sometimes the right thing was the most painful. Sometimes it gutted you and ruined you forever, so a single second wouldn’t pass without a reminder.
Sage knew that lesson all too well.