Reaching the ranch Monday morning, Sage bypassed the circular drive out front and parked next to the four-car garage. With the towering house looming over her as she unbuckled Leah from the car seat, Sage felt like she was going to work in a rustic palace. Only there was no prince inside, just Adler Turk, a man who was both her new boss and her brother’s brother-in-law. That was all Adler could be to her. Last night’s kiss had been nothing more than a mistake—no matter how perfect it had felt.

Kneeling outside the car, she helped Leah shoulder her backpack then grabbed her own bag from the back seat. Determining that there was nothing left to delay their entry into the house, she drew a deep breath and hooked her finger around one of Leah’s. With so much tension running through her body over the prospect of seeing Adler so soon after the kiss, she didn’t trust herself to hold the small hand without squeezing too hard.

“Do you know the way to Gam-Gam’s kitchen from here?” she asked.

Leah nodded and pointed to a stone path that led around the garage. Together, they followed the walk to the rear porch. Lindy was there, seated at an outdoor table with a tumbler of lemonade, a teapot and some breakfast biscuits that smelled of blueberries and bananas. One of the chairs had a step stool in front of it. Leah climbed up, wiggled out of her backpack and reached for a biscuit, dainty and meticulous in the way she lifted it with her thumb and index finger, the other fingers fanning upward.

“Tea,” Lindy offered, lifting the ceramic pot off its warmer.

“Yes, please.”

As Lindy poured, Sage looked over the lake. She imagined all the mornings Dawn had started her workday this way. Her beautiful little girl, her loving mother, fresh air blowing off a lake that rippled with early sunlight.

It was a different world than the one Sage had grown up with. Small apartments, cold cereal, a mother always rushing to and from work except for the rare nights she had a sitter come by to watch Sage and Jake while she went out, the even rarer nights when her date stopped by for a few minutes, always the same man who would stare intently and ask how Sage and Jake were doing in school, maybe ruffle their hair before her mother checked to make sure the outside hallway was clear so he could leave.

How much of an outsider Jake must have felt walking into Lindy’s home and watching all the affection bubble over. At least that was how she felt despite Lindy’s kindness and Adler’s generosity. That feeling could only grow the longer she was there while Jake’s lies remained unexplained.

“You’re not nervous about work are you, dear?” Lindy asked as Sage stared at her untouched mug of tea.

Sage shook her head and counted out two spoons of sugar then added a little cream.

“Good, Adler seemed very impressed with the type of work you were doing in Baltimore. He’s worried you might get bored with what he has to give you.”

“I’m sure I won’t,” Sage answered between sips, her mind running in a dozen dirty, salacious directions. “I mostly worked with companies that were all in one industry. This is a whole new world to learn, to look for efficiencies…”

She took another sip, a blush creeping across her cheeks at the implication there were efficiencies to be found. Judging by the property and furnishings, the family was good at what they did. They continued to work their business instead of eroding the base provided by the generations before them. To think she could improve the Turks’ processes without even looking at them was no small measure of hubris.

Lindy reached across the table and gave her hand a reassuring pat. “There’s always something to improve, especially when everything keeps changing. Used to be you grazed your cattle then sent them off for processing. Now we’re part of a study adding seaweed to their diet to reduce the methane production.”

“Farts!” Leah chimed in, putting down her biscuit long enough to pinch her nose and roll her eyes.

Lindy smashed her lips together, a smile dancing in her gaze.

“That was two, love,” she said as Leah reached for another breakfast biscuit. “Did you want some, Sage?”

Sage waved off the offer as Leah finished the last of her lemonade and climbed down from her chair. Sage helped her put the backpack on once more then let Leah lead her through the kitchen and great room to the hall with all the offices and the playroom.

“Adler should be by soon,” Lindy said, staying in the hall. “He had some paperwork to pick up from the stables. I’ll be back in a few hours with snacks.”

Taking a step back from the doorway, she pointed further down the hall. “In the meantime, if there’s anything either of you needs, there’s a galley kitchen just past Adler’s office and, right after that, the restroom.”

Bending down, she beckoned Leah forward for a kiss then left. Leah escaped her backpack and placed it on a drawing table then went over to the bookcase with the stuffed animals. Each of the three she had introduced to Sage before that first Sunday dinner received a few gentle strokes. Moving on, she stood on her tiptoes to pull down a slim picture book and handed it to Sage.

“Do you want me to read this Honey Bee?”

Leah answered by hooking Sage’s fingers and leading her to where two beanbags rested side-by-side. Sage sat down. Leah climbed onto her lap then opened to the first page. Sage began to read.

I spend my day where dolphins play.

Outside my door, along the shore.

Listening, Leah toyed with the bracelet Sage wore, a string of azurite beads, their color matching the water in the pictures of the book’s pages.

They jump for me, they jump so high.

From deep green sea to pale blue sky.

Leah snuggled closer. Her hand surfed up Sage’s sleeve to fist the material like she would a favorite blanket. Sage drew a deep breath, the strawberry scent of Leah’s shampoo coaxing Sage’s muscles into relaxing. When it was just her and Leah, it was the simplest thing in the world to be at ease.

Reaching the last page, Sage closed the book and Leah put it up. When she returned, Sage gently took hold of her hands.

“Your uncle Addy needs help,” she started, refining the words she had practiced in the guest room as she fell asleep the night before. “Is it okay for me to be at your mommy’s desk?”

A frown marred the child’s features. Slipping from Sage’s grasp, Leah walked into the office, stretched high up on her tiptoes again and rested her arms on the desk without saying anything.

Sage came to stand by her side.

Leah looked up.

“Mommy no come back, mommy no…”

There was a question in the toddler’s tone. Swallowing down the thick lump that suddenly clogged her throat, Sage shook her head.

“No, Honey Bee. She loves you more than anything, but she can’t come back.”

Leah captured Sage’s hand and guided her over to the chair. Looking up, she pushed lightly at Sage’s hip.

“You work,” she ordered with a soft rasp in her voice.

“Okay, thank you, Honey Bee.”

Leah returned to the playroom, shoulders sagging until she picked up Quigley and the book Sage had just read and began describing to the stuffed rabbit how the dolphins played all day long, but there weren’t any dolphins in lakes, only oceans.

From the office doorway, Adler cleared his throat.

“Thank you for that,” he said with a tilt of his head toward the playroom. “It didn’t cross my mind.”

“I wasn’t sure…” Faltering, she shrugged. “I mean, the reminder, you know?”

“Yes. But it was the right thing to do.”

Clearing his throat, he pointed at the computer. “We should probably get started.”

Just like that, he went from solemn and grateful, to businesslike and then wooden as he explained the first set of tasks she should start on.

For the first hour after he left, she put together the reports he had shown her. Lindy came in at ten, as promised, and spent some time with Leah before waving at Sage on her way out. With everything Adler had left her to do done, she looked over the other spreadsheets in the folder, created a duplicate folder she named TEST and proceeded to automate some of the data transfer between workbooks that Dawn had done manually.

The entire time, her mind kept drifting back to Adler’s demeanor as he wrapped up the initial orientation. By the time he departed, he had been like a toy soldier carved from some inflexible hardwood.

With nothing left to do until Adler ran her through more of the record keeping duties, she pulled out her favorite pen and notebook. She brushed her hand down the sleeve of her blouse to unbunch the material. Her thumb grazed one of the azurite beads as a small sneeze erupted from Leah.

Leaning forward, Sage watched as her niece reached across the drawing table, plucked a tissue and dabbed at her nose. Finished, she marched on toddler legs over to the trashcan then returned to the table.

Watching Leah do anything was like having massive fists curled around Sage’s heartstrings, tugging at them constantly. She knew she couldn’t freeze the little girl in time, wouldn’t want to because there were so many more stages filled with wonder for Leah to live through. Sage only wanted to always be a part of her niece’s life.

Adler walked down the hall, back from his errands around the ranch. His face was set, his head down. He didn’t pop into Leah’s area or Sage’s office. He went straight to his room. A call ensued, the words mostly garbled but his voice rough-edged steel.

And then this: He lied to me! He looked me straight in the face and lied. He’s through with this family!

Blood fled Sage’s extremities, her fingertips going cold as she crossed her office and glanced through the door at Leah drawing, the activity absorbing all the child’s attention so that she didn’t notice Sage peeking in or the volume and emotion of her uncle’s voice one room over.

Sage pushed the door until there was just a two-inch gap through which she could continue to watch Leah.

The call ended, Adler left his office, his attention laser-focused on the space ahead of him instead of the rooms he passed. Once he had left the corridor, Sage fully opened the playroom door then returned to her desk, pen in hand and her notebook open.

Good times never last, she thought, drawing a small circle as a bullet point. The sweeter the time, the briefer the experience. And Sage’s time with Leah had been so very sweet. What was important now was making sure Jake didn’t lose his daughter.

She wiped at her eyes, carrying away the tears before they could escape down her cheeks.

Coming to Montana had been wrong and entirely selfish. Once she had Jake tracked down and a number for him, she could have just called. But she’d jumped on a plane and only contacted him once she was stranded at the Billings airport late at night, the car rental booths shut down.

Jake’s worry that the Turks wanted to take Leah away had been paranoia hardcoded into him as a child. How many times had they been told, their mother clutching at their arms, that if they ever told anyone about her special friend, someone from the government would take them away, lock them in rooms with children who had done very bad things, watched over by cruel adults the government paid—

Enough! she scowled at herself and at the memory of her mother’s tear-streaked face, mascara tracking black lines down her cheeks. Sage didn’t want those memories in her head, had exorcised them as she took care of her dying mother, the woman otherwise friendless because of the man she had chosen to fall in love with no matter how shabbily he treated her.

What Sage wanted was to fix the problem her arrival had created. Jake would have gotten past his paranoia. He could not, absent Sage’s help, get past the lies he had told.

Jake wouldn’t tell the truth, wouldn’t confess to how, looking up at that family tree, surrounded by his future wife’s loving relatives, he had felt small and unworthy. Surrounded by people who wanted to embrace him as one of their own, he could only feel the pain of an outsider, his life as alien to theirs as some creature visiting from another planet or the bottom of the ocean.

Grip on the pen tightening, Sage put a header above the small bullet she had drawn.

Give Jake a reason for denying I exist

She added a subheading.

Rules—no danger to others, not in front of or around Leah, nothing criminal

Re-reading the constraints, Sage frowned with doubt that she was clever enough to come up with something.

Touching pen to paper, she added a second rule.

Must accomplish before Leah gets any more attached to me

It was too late in terms of her own attachment to the little girl. But Sage had learned to live with her brother’s back turned to her for almost half a decade. Eventually, the pain of leaving Leah would fade.

Sage could even look at it as a fresh start. She would leave Jake an email contact created solely for him. Then she could make herself invisible to the people so interested in her parents’ affair. Maybe she would even change her name.

But first, she needed to undo the damage done upon her arrival to Willow Gap.

Her first idea was best described as “meh.”

Pretend to be drunk? Pro: no actual danger. Con: never drunk in my life.

Definitely a backburner idea, Sage thought. If her ploy was obvious, it would backfire on Jake.

Crazy talk? What kind? Rabid hate speech? Pro: easier to fake. Con: shockingly, what if they agreed? Feel sick even thinking about what I would have to say.

Honesty, Sage thought. Honesty and family were at the root of the problem she had created in Willow Gap. Her solution had to include those elements.

Run off with advance, make them sue me, or at least demand return under contract? Con: Could hurt business reputation. Pro: not a state I’ll ever step foot in again, biz rep not likely to spread; unlikely to result in criminal charge (well, not if I burn this note before doing anything); doesn’t endanger anyone; Leah not exposed. Question: is it enough for them to believe Jake had a reason for walking away from the family? Should I tell him I’m doing this so he can say I did it to him in the past?

Absorbed with plotting the demise of her reputation among the Turks, Sage jerked when Leah touched her arm.

“Oh, Honey Bee,” she said, her smile genuine but shaky. “I didn’t hear you. Do you need something?”

Eyes glancing coyly to the side, Leah rolled her lips together as her hand crept toward the notebook.

“Paper gone,” she said.

Sage glanced at the table to see that the toddler had filled all the sheets on the table and stuck them to the wall with washi tape.

“Do you want big sheets from the printer?”

Leah answered with an almost imperceptible shake of her head, her gaze never straying from Sage’s notebook.

Sage looked at the perforated pages. The paper was an unprofessional shade of pale lilac that she mostly used as a scratchpad for things like coding and list making. The color soothed her and improved focus—a portable pleasure for those rare times when work became an unwelcome labor.

Carefully she detached five sheets and handed them to Leah just as Adler appeared in the doorway, his mother standing next to him.

Careful not to overtly study the man, she noted he carried a small canvas duffel and a clipboard with a pen attached.

“The water stations need checked,” Adler said, the clipboard bouncing against his thigh.

Leah forgot about her precious lilac sheets for a second and did a little jump while clapping her hands.

“No, Honey Bee,” Adler said. “Today Sage is learning how to do everything. Next time she checks, you can go with her.”

A pout instantly formed. Grabbing her pretty paper and holding it to her chest, she cast a serious side eye at her uncle and returned to the playroom, Lindy following after her.

“She’ll forget she’s mad at you after I take her to the kitchen for lunch.”

Still acting like he had a two-by-four nailed to his spine, Adler shrugged.

“It’ll take about two hours,” he told Sage. “I already have lunch and something to drink for the two of us packed in the truck. You probably want to visit the restroom first.”

Grabbing her bag, she nodded. “Shall I meet you by the garage?”

“Sounds good,” he answered, already walking away.