Sage set down her suitcase and stared across the unkempt lawn, the house from her nightmares looming at the end of the dirt path. She’d run fast and far, vowing never to set foot inside it again. Funny how she’d believed her own lies. One phone call from her mother. That was all it took for her to cave. Maybe deep down, she’d always known the new life was temporary. A fraud. That a daughter who’d taken the easy way out and left the people who depended on her didn’t get a fresh start.
Oh, she’d needed time to build up the courage to return to Sibley. That’s why she’d seized the chance to ride seventeen hundred miles with the Clarksons, Belmont’s grounding presence at the wheel. She’d watched them take leaps of faith and push one another to their limits. Armed with those memories, now it was her turn to face her family obligation. No matter how awful that connection had treated her in the past, it refused to be ignored.
What would she find inside the house after five years? She hadn’t been around to scrub the floors, beat the rugs, or kill the mice since leaving for California when she was twenty. No one would have done it in her stead, so she feared for the sight that would greet her on the other side of the door.
Her arm ached from carrying her luggage from the bus station—she’d had no choice but to walk. Her parents didn’t own a car, and a cab would have cost money. She needed every penny right now. Shaking out the fatigued limb, Sage plucked up the case and put a measure of steel into her spine. Careful not to step on any of the broken glass along the path, she sailed toward the house, trying desperately not to think of Belmont. Impossible, though. It would never be a feat she could accomplish, so she might as well let the inevitable happen.
If he were walking on the path beside her, he would sense her nerves. He’d give her just a brush of his shoulder or a low hum in his throat. And she’d know there was an invisible shield around her that he wouldn’t allow anything to penetrate. She’d told him he’d leaned on her too much, but it went both ways. That fact was never more obvious than right now.
I fought my own battles before and I’ll do it again.
The steps creaked as Sage climbed them, the porch groaning as she moved across it. She held her fist aloft a moment, before rapping loudly on the door. “Mom?”
When the door opened, Sage held back a sound of alarm. Her mother had aged. More than five years warranted. Most of her light brown hair, once the same shade as Sage’s, had turned a delicate gray. It threaded through the mousy color in an almost graceful way. Graceful. That was how people in Sibley used to describe her mother. Or so Sage had been told.
Bernadette Alexander had been a ballet dancer once upon a time, but wifehood and motherhood hadn’t allowed her big-city dreams to flourish. In the earliest stages of Sage’s life, Bernie had been satisfied with the path her life had taken. But being a miner’s wife wasn’t easy. Her husband’s long hours meant solitude. Time to think about what she’d passed up. And even more hours to lament her decisions over too many glasses of Crown Royal whiskey. When Bernie was sober, however, she was an angel. A doting wife. The most hospitable of Southern hostesses, if you overlooked the mess.
Sage was relieved to see she’d caught her mother on one such afternoon.
“My girl.” Bernie’s hands flew to her mouth where she pressed them tight enough to turn her knuckles white. “I knew you would come. Thank God. Thank the good Lord you’re home.” She threw a glance over her shoulder. “Your father is sleeping just now and I’m grateful for it. We’re long overdue a girl chat, just you and I, aren’t we?”
“Yes, Mama,” Sage murmured, her Louisiana accent flowing back like she hadn’t spent years learning to hide it. Not because she was ashamed. But because she needed the past completely tucked away, where she wouldn’t have to think of it every time she opened her mouth. “We’re long overdue.”
A pleased smile spreading across her lined face, Bernie ushered Sage inside. “Don’t mind the clutter. I haven’t had a chance to tidy up yet today.”
Sage held her breath out of conditioning, but the smell of cat urine caught her too fast to avoid it completely. Every few feet there were newspapers along the floor, covered in wet spots, probably weeks old. Maybe longer. Dirt caked everything. Paint peeled off the walls. It looked as if her mother had attempted to hang wallpaper at some point but stalled halfway through, leaving long strips hanging like a sad palmetto tree in the hall.
They entered the kitchen and it only got worse. Dishes stacked to overflowing in the sink, cats on the counter licking at the dirty plates. And all the while, her mother smiled as if nothing was wrong. As if they’d just walked into the pristine parlor of one of the big estates on the other side of town.
Thank God she had a place to sleep outside the house. The cottage might require some clearing out and shining up, but she couldn’t abide a single night within her parents’ walls.
Knowing how perceptive her mother could be, despite her seeming lack of awareness, Sage kept her features schooled and set down her suitcase near the archway. She watched as Bernie planted her hands on either side of the sink and dropped her head forward. And just stayed that way, exhaustion evident in the slope of her shoulders.
“Mama?” Sage winced at the way her voice suddenly sounded so young. “How is Daddy doing?”
“Terrible.” Bernie turned and slumped against the sink, moisture coating her cheeks. As far back as Sage could remember, her mother’s moods had changed with the wind, but it never failed to set off a rhythmic pounding behind her breastbone. “I told you over the phone, daughter, that man is being run into the ground. Your daddy can hardly walk up the steps by the day’s end, all hunched over like he is.” She sucked in a long breath through her nose. “He won’t see retirement at this rate. And it’s only two months away. I live in fear of him keeling over or killing himself with that machinery.”
Guilt packed a powerful punch. Nothing in this life came without a cost and here was the proof. Sage hadn’t escaped this place free and clear. Oh, no. Her father had been paying for the agreement she’d made the whole time. “I won’t let that happen.”
There. Now that the words had been said, Sage had to make them true. Make things right. A scream built up in her throat, but she swallowed it down and focused. She centered her attention on a spot above her mother’s head and thought of Belmont. The smell of his neck. Ocean and salt and eternity. She’d stolen one of his shirts yesterday before they’d set out on the road. As soon as she was alone, she intended to wrap herself in it. How long would the smell last? A couple weeks if she was lucky.
The spot above her mother’s head wavered, but she blinked and it came back into focus. She’d been raised in this squalor. No, she hadn’t been raised—she’d reared herself, instinctively knowing from a young age that her parents weren’t capable. That they were dissolvable people who turned to the bottle at the first sign of strife. She’d tried to live so small they wouldn’t notice her or use her as an excuse to drink more, but they’d drowned themselves anyway. Drowned and drowned and drowned again.
So as soon as she was old enough, she’d struck a deal with the devil to get out.
For a short time, she’d enjoyed the illusion of being free, cultivating a career that she loved. Wedding planning. Who knew she’d have such a knack? It had even led Sage to a friendship with Peggy, her best friend whose spunk she already missed. Yes, she’d had it good for a short time. Better than good.
Perfect. Too perfect.
The devil never really left a person in peace, once hands had been shaken, though. In her heart of hearts, she’d known the fallout would eventually rain down. She’d been waiting for the call home to face the desperate decision she’d made, so she’d spent the last five years playacting. Pretending to be someone other than that poor Alexander girl. But that’s who she was. Not some fashionable wedding planner with a perpetually sunny disposition. No, sometimes Sage was selfish, too. And now she would pay for the last five years of freedom with her future.
Sibley was where she was needed. She wouldn’t abandon her parents again. Even if she survived what was to come, they would never stop needing her. And she couldn’t leave it to chance that the devil wouldn’t find another way to hurt them.
“I’ll go to see him,” Sage whispered.
“Today?” her mother asked too fast, so fast, clasping her hands beneath her chin. “Today, Sage?”
She nodded. “Okay, Mama.”
* * *
The town of Sibley was divided into two halves. Rich and poor.
Augustine “Augie” Scott lived smack in the middle.
Once, while picking up cigarettes for her father at the tobacconist, Sage had overheard two stock boys debating Augie’s reasons for building his massive, four-story house smack on the dividing line. It’s so he can keep an eye on both sides. See which one is coming for him next. Sage had logged those words away, not really grasping their meaning at the time. But as she’d got older, they’d begun making sense.
Augie was the private owner of a large salt mine. One of the biggest in the state. If he didn’t employ a person’s father, he found a way to own them some other way. Sage’s daddy was a miner, and he’d been one a few years before Augie opened the doors on the company. The rumors regarding how exactly Augie had pooled enough resources to start Scott Explorations had led to seemingly endless speculation, until one of the most vocal critics had ended up slumped over the wheel of his pickup truck, a bullet hole clean through his head. No one had talked about Augie’s rise to the top much after that. They’d simply accepted.
If Sage had learned one thing while navigating Sibley life as a teenager and young woman, it was that life was full of necessary evils. When she was fourteen, she’d let the school bus driver look beneath her skirt once a week so he would change his route, meeting her at the end of her street, so the students wouldn’t laugh as they drove past her house. More often than not, her father would be passed out on the lawn, her mother weeping and wringing her hands on the porch. She’d wanted to slug that bus driver right between the eyes, but she’d decided the laughter was worse than the man leering at her worn panties.
Necessary evil. And Augie was the worst one.
Her parents had a past with Augie. One that Sage had latched on to, like a rope from a rescue ship. Seeing the loophole and, in turn, her ticket out of Sibley so clearly, Sage hadn’t taken the time to wonder what grabbing that shiny ring meant about her character. How using that lifeline had made her an opportunist. A deserter of her own family.
As she stood in the very same spot she’d stood five years earlier, evening darkening the sky, those weaknesses in herself were all she thought about. She was on the sidewalk outside Augie’s estate, staring up at the giant, sweeping American flag he flew from the roof. A few yards away lay a wrought iron gate and a Call button. Already, she could feel electronic eyes on her. Someone watching from inside, maybe even laughing. He’d very likely known the moment she’d got to town, because the man didn’t like surprises.
Allowing herself some time to stall before meeting Augie, she’d cleared out the tiny, abandoned cottage on her parents’ property. The small structure had served as staff quarters, once upon a time, when moneyed people had owned the house. She’d stumbled on it at age nine, and over the years, it had gone from playhouse to…home. Sage had stacked crates and dragged her thin, ratty mattress across the backyard and started sleeping there. Away from the stench of liquor and the screaming fights. Her cottage still needed some cobwebs cleared away, but she would get to that later.
Right after she met with the devil and struck a second deal.
Pasting a serene expression onto her face—the one she usually reserved for nervous brides or prickly mothers-in-law—Sage marched to the buzzer and pressed it. She refused to show alarm when the gate clicked open immediately, instead holding her chin up as she closed it behind her and glided toward the front door. It opened before she even reached it, Augie leaning against the frame, a coffee mug in his hand.
“Would you look at that?” His eyes were hard, but somehow they still twinkled with amusement. “Sage Alexander. West Coast life has done you good.”
“Thank you.” She stopped at the foot of the steps, guilt licking her insides. “Me being away hasn’t done my father good, though.”
No reaction. “Why don’t you come inside and we’ll talk about it.”
“I’d rather stay out here…”
He was already gone, his unhurried footsteps echoing inside the foyer, growing fainter as she stood there trying to calm the disquiet in her blood. I could do it again. I could walk right out of this yard, get back on the bus, and forget everything in this town. She knew what would happen, though. Knew her parents would suffer for those actions again, and Sage wouldn’t shirk her responsibilities this time. As a daughter. As a good person.
Reminding herself that Belmont’s shirt was waiting for her back in the cottage, Sage nodded and followed Augie inside, leaving the door open on purpose. She’d only been in the house once before, but nothing had changed, as far as she could tell. Only the barest muted light came in through the windows. Gleaming dark wood, antiques, statues, paintings, furniture that looked totally uncomfortable. Expensive without a hint of practicality. But it was clean. So clean. She remembered envying that about the house during her first visit.
Augie’s office was located in the back and he’d left the door ajar, a greenish light glowing from the Tiffany lamp she knew sat on the right corner of his desk. Sage walked inside and took a seat in a leather wingback, shaking her head when Augie held up a bottle of bourbon. It was clear he got a kick out of asking if she wanted alcohol and that smugness gave Sage the desire to throw him off-kilter. She might never shake the identity of that poor Alexander girl, but she’d developed a backbone while living in California. While driving with the Clarksons. “My mother called me crying, begging me to come home.”
The bourbon bottle froze on its descent to the mini bar, before being plonked down hard. “Your mother made her bed. If she finds it lumpy now, that’s none of my concern.”
“You’ve made it your concern. You always have.” Sage heard the note of distress in her voice and reined it in, knowing Augie would pounce on any sign of weakness. “It’s a little clichéd, don’t you think?”
He lifted the tumbler of liquor to his lips with a flourish. “Do explain.”
“Making a man suffer thirty years later, just because the girl chose him.” She didn’t take any satisfaction from his flinch. There was none to be had in the room. “Time should have made you more accepting. But you’ve ground him down under your thumb instead. Are you really willing to kill him? Working him to death when it would be so easy just to let him be?”
Augie licked his lips of excess bourbon and smacked them together. “The short answer is yes. And that’s all I’m required to give.” He dropped into his chair. “But you didn’t come all the way back to Sibley to criticize me, did you, little Sage Alexander?”
She cursed the flush of indignation rising in her cheeks. Augie hated her. It was there in his hard gaze now, just as it always had been. She was the representation of her parents’ marriage. The proof that they’d chosen to start a life together and leave him—the third member of their young trio—in the dust. Sage had allowed Augie to use her as a pawn, taking his money and going to California. A move that had hurt her parents in more ways than one. They’d lost a daughter and a caretaker. Her father had suffered the indignation of another man funding his daughter’s freedom and he’d hit the bottle twice as hard.
Taking advantage of a necessary evil had left her fragile parents vulnerable. This slow, brazen murder of her father would be on her head, unless she could stop it.
“I came here to take his place,” Sage said, clear as a bell.
Augie lost a fair amount of his smug smile. “You’ve come to take your father’s place in the mines.” Not a question. She thought he might go on staring at her forever, but a rumble began in his chest, turning into a full-fledged laugh. “You won’t last a day.”
“I guess we’ll find out.” Until that moment, she hadn’t allowed fear to enter the equation. Leaving Belmont had been enough to contend with. But now, with her fate resting in the devil’s hands, a cold shiver snaked up her spine. “He has two months until retirement. If…when…I make it to that day, you sign the paperwork for his pension and leave my family be.”
“So they can drink themselves to death?” Augie spat, surging to his feet.
“If that’s their choice.”
His disgust was palpable, like she’d splashed him with holy water. The inner joke made her think of Peggy. Peggy would have said something like that. Don’t lose your cool now.
“Do we have a deal or not?” Sage asked.
Augie’s superior air returned in a blink. “You know, your father has one of the hardest jobs, little Sage.”
Her stomach lining turned to lead. “He has the hardest job because you gave it to him after I left. You put him in a younger man’s position, when he should be doing the light lifting until retirement rolls around. Like the rest of the men his age.”
He didn’t bother denying it. “You’re prepared to operate a drilling rig?” He lifted a gray eyebrow. “Underground.”
“As long as I get the proper training.” She stood and extended her hand. “Yes.”
When they shook hands, Augie squeezed tight enough for Sage to feel her bones grind together, but she refused to flinch. She knew what it meant. He wasn’t going to take it any easier on her because she was a woman.
The hint of excitement in his eyes said he might even go harder.
A vision of Belmont caught her unaware. He walked into the mine’s darkness, looking back at her over his broad shoulder. Reassuringly, like always. But in the dreaded, moving image that had recurred over the last couple weeks, he emerged more withdrawn and haunted than ever, having faced his greatest fear: dark, enclosed spaces. Or worse, he never came back out at all.
Sage had never felt more alone than in that moment, but she’d never felt more justified in facing the upcoming test by herself.
“I’ll report for work in the morning.”
She turned and left the office on shaky legs.