Chapter 16
It was amazing how off-kilter life could feel. When Luke woke up Monday morning to find the world still dripping and drizzling, all he could think was how perfectly it matched his mood. The cut on his eye was healing, but the one in his heart was not. Sage still hadn’t texted back, and he had the sinking feeling that she never would.
So, true to every other time he had needed an escape from life, he headed out through the depressing drizzle to the workshop in the corner of their property. He thought about the calf hutches he was supposed to repair for Randy Carter, but that would have to wait. No way was he going out on a day like today and get soaked to the bone. Maybe by Wednesday when this was supposed to clear off.
Crazy how life looked like one long, interminable slog from here into eternity. At the little shop, he ducked inside, went to the back, and flipped on the dimming light over his work area. He needed to fix that thing, but for now, he really couldn’t care about that or anything else.
Reaching over, he grabbed a random piece of wood and flipped on the little scroll saw. It was stupid and sickening and ridiculous, but since he couldn’t tell her how he felt because she wouldn’t let him, he could pour those thoughts and feelings into the wood. Daisies. Somehow, when he thought of her, that’s the image that came up.
Straightening, he flipped the scroll off and grabbed the wood burner. In the state he was in, he’d probably burn the place down, but his mind showed him the design and he went to work on it.
Nothing other than sitting in her room was safe, and Sage had no courage to face anyone or anything anyway. So she sat curled on her bed with the covers in a jumble around her while the sounds of morning drifted through the door. She looked over at the books on the desk, but none of them held any fascination. Nothing did.
As the house beyond her door grew quiet, she considered her options. As crazy as it sounded, dusting and dishes seemed better than being trapped in here. So just after eleven, she dragged herself from the bed, threw on her jeans and a lacey white top. It didn’t matter what she looked like, she wasn’t going out of the house anyway.
At her door, she cracked it, listened, and cracked it some more. All was quiet beyond. There were breakfast bars in the pantry. She could grab one of those and scout the rest of the place out. Maybe everyone had gone. That was a blessing too great to ask for, but she asked anyway.
“There you are,” Luke’s mom said, coming in the shop. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“Here I am.” Luke cut the saw, turned, and ran his fingers up and through his hair to push it out of his face. It had become dislodged in the concentration of carving the edges of the daisy. He’d decided that he could attach it to the curve of the S on her name that he had made the last time he couldn’t get her out of his thoughts. Where he would ever put the thing, he had no idea, but he didn’t want to think about that right now, so he didn’t. “What’s up?”
“Hannah’s in the minor emergency clinic. She cut her finger or something. She thinks it’s gonna require stitches, so I’m going to run it over to the college. She doesn’t want me to, but…”
He smiled. “When has that ever made any difference?” Wiping his hands, he faced her. “So you need something?”
“Well, I called your dad to tell him what happened, and he was hoping I could go over to Greely to take the chop saw back to Uncle Dan.”
Luke laughed. “Let me guess, he should’ve had that taken back three weeks ago when we finished with the trees.”
His mother sighed. “Why would he take it back when he can weasel me into doing it?”
“The more things change.”
“The more they stay the same.” She smiled at him. “What am I going to do without you next year?”
“Just be glad I’m here now.”
Her hand lingered as Sage dusted the little pictures on the mantel. It had become her favorite part of the task. No, her picture wasn’t included, but she liked seeing them like this. Her father and Emily, smiling, happy. She wished she remembered them like that. She wished she remembered a lot of things.
There was the one of her father and Ryder in the lake holding up a fish, and the one of Jaycee in her basketball uniform. It was probably her first as she couldn’t have been in third grade in the picture. Nostalgia for moments she hadn’t even been a part of tripped across Sage’s heart. What it would be like to be a part of a family like that, a family that went to the lake and the beach. A family that did things together. Real things. Things to take pictures of and want to remember.
Yes, they had gone that one time, but she didn’t count that. It hadn’t actually been a good memory—more awkward and uncomfortable than anything. Just like all of life was with her around.
The back door banged, and she very nearly dropped the picture she was holding of a smiling Emily holding baby Jaycee. Shaking out of the thoughts and feelings, she put it back up on the mantel and finished dusting the rest of it. Her stomach rumbling said it was past lunch, and a glance at the clock said it was nearly one. The breakfast bar hadn’t gone far, and now Sage wished she had thought to grab something so she could have disappeared into her room before anyone got back.
“Oh.” Jaycee’s short syllable jerked Sage’s gaze over to her sister who was standing by the door. “I didn’t know anybody was here.”
“It’s just me,” Sage said, stamping brightness over the melancholy.
“Great.” On her toe she turned and went back into the kitchen.
Sage let out a breath and closed her eyes. She considered going to her room, but reconsidered when her body reminded her that she was going to become a mummy in there if she didn’t eat something. So, gathering her courage, she headed for the kitchen to grab something before she had to disappear again.
Luke hadn’t bargained on the three projects Uncle Dan had needed help with. Maybe there was a reason his dad put off going to see his brother. It was nearly one when he headed back home through the dripping, depressing day that wasn’t getting any better.
Going through the kitchen to the cabinet in the other corner, Sage put the dust cloth away. She might get it back out after lunch, but only if Jaycee decided to leave, which with the way she was banging the cabinet doors was a real possibility. It was hard to be alone, but it was harder to be with anyone, and Sage was always teetering between the two ways of being utterly miserable.
“Well,” Jaycee said as she slapped her sandwich together on the counter, “I hope you’re happy.”
“Happy?” Sage asked as if she’d never heard the word. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Everyone is talking about it. Coach even said he heard about it. Not that he told me that. I heard him talking with Ms. Bryer about it when I went into the office this morning.”
Fear took hold of her as worry clutched the other way. “They were talking about me?”
“Well, they were more talking about Rory and Luke, but…”
“About the fight?”
Her sister turned. “Yes, about the fight. What else would they be talking about? The whole town is talking about it. Everywhere I go. They’re all looking at me and whispering.”
“At you?’ Every syllable went up in pitch and volume.
With that, Jaycee spun, sandwich forgotten. “Yes, about me, Sage. About us. About you, about our family. What did you think you could come here and wreck everything and no one would notice?”
“I…”
“All these little games you play. All these head games.”
“I don’t…”
“Save it. Okay? Just save it. I don’t want to hear it.” She went back to the sandwich, every movement was filled with anger and disgust as Sage stood next to the table, wrapping her arms up around herself to thwart the venom spewing from her stepsister. “You waltz in here like Queen Elizabeth without the crown and start destroying everything one by one. Things I care about. People I care about.”
“I…”
“Rory. Okay. I get that. Captain of the football team, all-around hunk. I see why you’d go for him, but why you have to go and ruin Luke’s reputation… I don’t get that. I don’t. You should have stayed where you belonged. At least there you couldn’t destroy everything here.”
Sage couldn’t even breathe much less defend herself. She knew it. He was being dragged in the middle of the muck all because of her. “I didn’t want to come here. I didn’t… they made me.”
“And you just took full advantage of that, didn’t you? Just like everything else.”
“I never…”
“Don’t say you never. You never what? Made out with Rory? Got drunk? Lured Luke here in the afternoon when everyone else was gone? Face it, Sage, you don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
Letting out a breath so she wouldn’t start crying, Sage turned for her room. “I think this was a mistake.”
“You’re the mistake!”
The words physically hit her as she headed to the doorway. Sage stopped as they tore through her, ripping shreds off of her already wounded and bleeding spirit.
“Face it, you have been a mistake from minute one! I just wish you would leave and never come back! Or better yet I wish you’d never been born.”
Slowly Sage came back around, the barbs still splitting through her heart. “I… I’m not…”
But Jaycee was shaking her head now, a hollow smile on her face as she glared at Sage. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?” Sage could barely get the words out from the tightness of her heart.
“Them. You. Why you’re even here.”
She blinked back the tears. “Because Mom sent me.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean why you’re here.” Jaycee lifted and lowered her hands as if showing Sage a statue. “Why you’re on the planet.”
Where were the words? They were somewhere and yet they never appeared.
“My dad,” Jaycee said. “Your mom.” How she could put such lurid tones on such innocent words, Sage would never know. Jaycee shook her head. “Wow. Haven’t you ever, even for a second noticed that Mom and Dad have been married 20 years? Did you not see the frame of them in the living room?”
Of course she had. She had dusted it many times. “I don’t…”
“You’re 18, Sage. Eight. Teen. They’ve been married 20 years. How hard is this to figure out?”
And then things she had never really understood began to take shape in a horrid way she knew would never again let her be at peace.
“Don’t look at me and tell me you never knew that.” Jaycee laughed. “How stupid could you possibly be?”
Stupid? That she’d never realized… She couldn’t breathe, and the tears were yanking up so vehemently, she couldn’t keep them down.
“You arrived on the planet a home-wrecker, and that’s never changed.”
Volumes of hazy, awful gray and black began to ooze over her spirit, seeping there and coloring her world so that it looked completely different now. Things she had felt. Things she had asked. And things she had never wanted to know. Suddenly, they all made vile, abhorrent, repulsive sense. So it was all her fault. All of it. “I’m… I…”
“Go back to California, Sage. Go back to your home-wrecker of a mother. You two deserve each other.”
California. Suddenly that sounded like a very, very good idea. And with only that thought, she bolted out of the kitchen, through the back room and out the back door. She could walk, she decided as she did just that. She could walk and never come back.
You’re the mistake. You’re the mistake. The words dogged her every step as the cold rain began slithering down her spine, seeping into her clothes and her spirit. So they were right. All of them. They knew what she was. Who she was. Why she was. They knew and that’s why she could never get away from it.
Her mother. She had never told her that part. Only that her father couldn’t stay with them and that he had gone back home to North Carolina. And eventually, she had accepted that and let it go. North Carolina. His home was more important than she was. It always had been. He wanted to be here more than he wanted to be with her. She got that now in ways she never had before.
They were married. He was married. He was married to Emily when…
The blackness began to take over everything else as she stumbled forward, now on the road. The road that would take her back to California, to sanity, to a reality that made some sense. But would it? Would reality ever make sense again? Never again could she go back to the not knowing, to the not understanding. Never again could she climb into innocence and believe it to be real. Never again would this secret not be her secret, to carry, to live. Never, ever again…
Luke was halfway from her place to his when he saw the figure in the midst of the mist and rain. He slowed the car, wondering who would be out walking in this weather. However, the slower he got, the more confused he became. The blonde hair. That build. That walk. It could be no one else.
Hot tears were streaming out of her eyes melding with the cold rain falling from the sky. You’re the mistake, Sage. You’re a home-wrecker, and you have been from minute one. She had never hurt like this, never felt her heart being physically being ripped out of her chest like this. How she even kept walking was a mystery. Every step reminded her that Jaycee was right. Her existence was the problem. She was the problem, and she always had been.
“Hey.” The sound of the vehicle and the voice dragged through her, but Sage didn’t stop. She couldn’t. If she did, she would surely collapse and the world would follow suit around her. “Hey! Sage! What’re you doing out here?”
And then with horror, she realized who it was, and pain she could hardly bear tore her in two. It couldn’t be. No. Not now. Not now, Luke. Please not now.
“Sage! What’re you doing out here? Where’re you going?”
She shook her head, forcing her feet to keep moving, to keep walking. He didn’t deserve this. None of them did. If she could just get away, just disappear from the fabric of their lives…
“Sage.” Luke realized simultaneously that she wasn’t going to stop and that something was bad, bad wrong. With no other thought, he threw the car into park and jumped out. Racing through the rain to where she was still stumbling forward, he caught up to her. “Sage! Sage, stop!”
Reaching out, he grabbed her arm and pulled her around unprepared for the sight that met his eyes. “Sage? What in the world?”
“Let me go.” She yanked on her elbow, trying to disengage it from his grip as she plowed her gaze into the ground at their feet. “Let me go, Luke. I’m not worth it. I’m not. Just. Let. Me. Go.”
“Sage, what happened? What’s… what’s going on?”
“It’s nothing. It’s not. Okay? Just let me go.” This time she was successful in getting her arm out of his grip, and she took two stumbling steps away from him. “Just let me go,” she said to the rain which was picking up again though she hadn’t realized it. “I’m not worth it.”
“What…? Sage. Stop.” He came abreast of her again, his hands on his beltline now. “Where are you going?”
“California,” she spat back. “And if you’re smart, you’ll let me go.”
Luke looked the situation over even as she started away from him again, and he shook his head. “Well, no one’s ever accused me of being that.” Knowing he was in for a battle, he caught up with her. “Come on. You’re coming with me.”
“What?”
But before she could get away from him again, he swept her up into his arms and settled her there.
“Luke, what’re you…? No. Put me down. Don’t!”
“I’m taking you home.”
“What?” All-out panic hit her eyes, and she kicked at him wildly. “No! I’m not going home! I’m not! Put me down! Put me down! I’m going to California!”
He was having a devil of a time keeping her in his arms. “Fine. Then we’ll go to my house.”
The look she gave him ripped his heart out. “Luke, no. Please. Don’t. You don’t want to do this. They’ll know. They’ll find out.” She was out of her head now, shaking and shivering and talking so that nothing was making any sense. “Luke, please. Don’t. Please don’t. Please.”
However, he had determined that he was the sane one here, and he was going to get her out of this weather and calmed down enough so that he could make heads or tails of what had happened. At his car, he opened the passenger’s seat and sat her there, realizing that she could just bolt again. So carefully, he reached in and buckled her seatbelt as she closed her eyes, emotions and ache quaking across her beautiful face. “Sit there,” he commanded, “and don’t you dare move.”
Satisfied that she wasn’t going to try to escape, he closed her door and ran around to his. Once inside, he considered asking but it was clear that getting her to safety was more important, so he put the car into drive and headed out into the gray sheets of rain now falling on the whole world around them.
The word mistake was on a permanent loop in her brain and heart. It went round and round and round, slicing deeper with each pass. And now she was here with Luke, and they were going somewhere. Somewhere she couldn’t remember. California crossed her mind. Yes, maybe he was taking her back to California, and she was going to wake up and this whole nightmare would be over.
However, long before he got to California, Luke stopped the car and shut it off. The whole world seemed to be shrinking in on her, collapsing in a way she’d never experienced.
“Don’t move,” he said, and she felt him gazing at her. Then he was out of the car and coming around to her side.
When he opened the door, Sage could hardly get up enough strength to unclick the seatbelt, and once she did, she sat there, spent. If she never moved again, that would be perfectly fine. But then the memory ripped through her, and the tears came up again, and she gasped at the fury of them. She shook her head as all the horrible thoughts rampaged back through her mind and spirit.
“Come on,” he said gently, and then his hand was on her elbow, turning her out of the car, helping her up from the seat. “Let’s get you inside.”
Sage followed because nothing was making any sense anymore. Where they were. Why. How. They were all a mystery to her. And then she was sitting on a couch, and he was putting a blanket over her. She looked up at him, knowing she had to get him to stop. Stop being so nice to her. Stop trying to help. He was only making things worse for himself. “Luke…”
Not listening to her feeble protests, he pulled up an ottoman and sat on it right in front of her, his knees on either side of hers. “Okay. Now, are you going to tell me what the heck happened? Why were you out walking in the rain like that? You’re going to catch pneumonia.”
“Good,” she said back, anger and hurt melting in the middle of the word. “That would sure solve a lot of problems.”
Luke let out a breath, his gaze never leaving her face. “Sage, what are you talking about? This is not making any sense.”
And then the fight to keep her horrible self from his sight left. He might as well see her for what she was. Then he would surely realize being anywhere around her was a mistake. Mistake. The word slashed through her. “I was a mistake.” She willed herself to hold his gaze. “I am a mistake.”
She spoke the words so softly that Luke thought he hadn’t heard them correctly. He sat forward, putting his hands on her thighs.
“A mistake? What do you mean you’re a mistake?”
Her gaze came up to his, now hollow and defeated. “My dad and my mom. I…” The words slipped into the quaking of her body as tears flooded over her face.
“Sage.” He abandoned the ottoman and folded himself next to her on the couch, gathering her into his arms.
“I never knew.” She shook her head, the moisture from the rain transferring onto his already-soaked T-shirt. “I didn’t. I didn’t think… They never told me.”
“Shhh.” Luke bent and kissed the top of her head. “Slow down. Who never told you?”
“My mom.” Sage sniffed. “She said my dad had to go back home to North Carolina. She never told me why.”
“Okay,” he said softly.
She exhaled hard. “He was married, Luke. My dad was married… to Emily.”
And then he saw it too, and he understood deeper than he had ever seen. “Oh, Sage.”
“I know. Right? And stupid me. I never even knew it. I never put two and two together, never even questioned it. I am such an idiot. Of course, they would be mad. Of course Emily hates me. Why wouldn’t she? I almost caused their divorce.”
“Divorce?” Luke backed up to look at her because the word stunned him so badly.
“They were talking about it the other day. I heard them.”
Then more pieces fell into place in Sage’s mind, and she wrapped her arms over themselves. “No wonder.”
“No wonder… what?”
“No wonder.” It was amazing how clear it was all becoming, like someone had opened a window on a pitch black room to reveal all that had been there forever.
“Sage, you’re not…”
“They said it.” Sage shook her head. “They were going to get a divorce, just like…” And suddenly she couldn’t breathe again. The air was going in and out, making her head swing and sway.
“Sage, calm down. Okay? Just calm…”
“He didn’t want them to,” she said like a ghost. “Dad… Dad was worried about Mom and Jason.”
The deeper they went, the less sense any of this was making.
“Worried why?” Luke asked. “What was he worried about?”
When her eyes came up to his, he had no words to put to what they were saying.
“He cheated on her.”
This was getting worse, and her confusion was starting to overtake him. “Who? Who cheated on who?”
“Oh, my…” Sage sat forward and put her face in her hands, shaking her head and fighting a battle he had no idea how to defend her from.
Gently, Luke put his hand on her back and rubbed it there, though he had a pretty good feeling that she didn’t even know he was there.
“They knew,” she said, her words like hollow tipped bullets. “They all knew. They all knew about me. They knew about my mom. They knew about everything.” And then she was standing, walking somewhere, but Luke couldn’t tell she even realized she was moving. At the wall, she stopped and just stood there. “I shouldn’t be here.”
That frightened him more than anything she had said to this minute, and he stood from the couch and went over to her. At her side, he put his arms around her and drew her to him.
“I have to leave. I can’t stay here. I can’t.”
“Sage.”
“No, Luke.” She looked up into his eyes. “I can’t. I can’t stay. I can’t put them through this. I can’t put you through this. I have to leave.”
“Okay. Okay. Hang on. Before we start goin’ anywhere.” Carefully he turned them back for the couch, walked with her there, and sat her down. He let out a breath to settle his own racing thoughts although it did no good. “Okay, first of all, I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”
Horror crashed through the crazy thoughts now spiraling through her brain, and Sage looked at him. “You. You can go back and get my stuff. Just pack it up. Get it ready. I can get a flight out. Tonight. Now.”
“Sage.” He sat on the ottoman and took her shoulders in his hands. “Listen to me, darlin’, you ain’t going anywhere like this.” He shook her softly. “You hear me? Now, I don’t know what’s happened, but we’re going to figure it out, and we’re going to fix it together.”
Her eyes came to his, wild and frantic. “No, Luke, don’t you understand? We can’t figure it out. We can’t fix it. It can’t be fixed. But if I’m not here…”
“Okay, now hold up right there. Let’s just not even talk about you not being here. First of all, your folks would freak if you just up and left.”
“No.” Her eyes searched his, desperate and out-of-control. “Don’t you see? They don’t want me here. They don’t.”
Luke exhaled slowly. “Well, maybe I want you here. You ever think about that?”
His words somehow pricked through all the blackness, and she realized that he wasn’t kidding. “No, Luke. Don’t you understand? I’m a home-wrecker. I’m bad news. I’m trash. I ruin everything and everyone who gets close enough.”
“No,” he said softly. “You don’t understand. I’m not going to just up and let you walk out of my life. I’ve done that once, and it was about to kill me.”
Sad acceptance dropped over her as she looked at him. “Luke, sweet Luke.” She put her hands on the sides of his face. “I’m no good. Go. Be with Jaycee.” That name nearly swept her under the tears again, but she beat them back for his sake. “She’s the good sister, the one who was meant to be here, the one who was meant to be with you.”
He took her hands in his and drew them down between them. “I wish you’d quit saying that.”
“Well, it’s true.” Her gaze dropped then. “It is, and everybody knows it. They all know what I am.”
Now that she was calmer at least on the outside, Luke thought maybe they had a chance of sorting some of this out. “So what happened anyway?”
Sage settled back, her hair in wet strings around her, her gaze down. “Jaycee just set me straight about how things went down, that’s all.”
“Jaycee,” he breathed. “I should have known.”
“No, Luke. It wasn’t her fault. I just… I didn’t know.”
“What did she tell you? What did she say?”
She shrugged. “That I’m a mistake. That I’ve been a mistake since minute one.”
“She said that to you?”
Sage shrugged. “It’s the truth.”
“Oh, my…” It was his turn to bolt off the couch. He took a couple steps away and raked his hand through his now-dry hair. “I can’t believe her. How could she be so mean?”
Sage was beginning to see the turmoil she was creating in his life, and she hated that for him. “Really, Luke. It wasn’t Jaycee’s fault. She just… she just said what everyone else is already thinking, that I’m….”
He turned and gazed down at her. “Don’t. Okay? Don’t take that on. That word. That’s not what you are.”
The back door banged, and Sage sat straight up as Luke’s gaze jerked that direction.
“Luke? You here?” his mother called, and Sage wanted more than ever to disappear.
Luke looked down at her and put up his hand. “Don’t move.”
Not truly believing she would do as he said, Luke glanced at the kitchen. “Yeah, I’m here, Mom.” His gaze came back to Sage. “Just stay right there.”
He dragged in a breath, praying for the words and the sanity to get through this as he went into the kitchen.
“I was wondering if you were here. Your car’s parked kind of funny.” She was at the sink, washing out asparagus.
“Yeah. How’s Hannah?”
His mother waved him off. “She’s fine. Two stitches. Probably could have made due with a butterfly.”
“That’s good.” His heart and gaze slipped back to the living room. “Listen, Mom, we need to talk.”
Her gaze came to him. “It sounds serious.”
“It is.”
On the couch, Sage wound her arms over themselves and fought not to run. She shouldn’t be here—at his house. Luke’s house. She shouldn’t have let him bring her here. He didn’t need the insanity of her life messing up his. Going sounded like a fabulous idea, but where would she go and how would she get there?
“She’s here?” his mother hissed. “Why in the world would you bring her here?”
“What did you want me to do—leave her out in the rain?” Heat boiled into his blood. “Look, Mom. I know what you probably think of her, but none of it is true. She’s been through hell and back today, and I’m not going to just toss her to the wolves.”
“You don’t think Greg and Emily can deal with this?”
“They’re part of the problem.” He leaned closer. “Did you know about her? About her mom and Mr. Lawrence?”
That took some of the direct confrontation out of his mother, and her gaze dropped to the sink. “Yeah. I knew.”
“Well, she didn’t.” Protectiveness surged forward in his spirit. “Her mom told her that her dad had gone back home. She never knew what that meant until today.”
“Look, Luke, I’m sure this must be really hard on her, but I don’t see how she is our problem.”
“Problem? She is not…” He ratcheted his voice and volume down. “She is not a problem, Mom. She’s a person. And she’s hurting and scared, and I am not going to abandon her now, and I don’t care what you think.”
Sage heard the angry voices, and although she couldn’t quite put words to what they were saying, she knew enough to know it was time for her to go. She stood, carefully holding her balance because it was swaying every which way but straight. Oh, how her heart hurt, but she pushed that down and picked her chin up.
A slow step at a time she went to the door between the living room and kitchen. If she could just get out of here…
“Oh, my!” His mother’s gaze slipped behind him, and Luke turned to find Sage standing there looking like a sopping wet, forlorn orphan. His mother’s gaze came over to him, and worry shot through her eyes before she looked back at Sage. “You’re soaking wet.”
Luke wasn’t much better, but disheveled was kind of in his nature. It was not in Sage’s, and it showed.
“I’m sorry,” Sage said with barely any volume to the words. “I should be…”
“Luke, why didn’t you get Sage some dry clothes?” his mother asked, and he heard the mothering tone. “She’s going to catch pneumonia like this.”
“I…”
“Come here, darlin’,” she continued. “I’ll make you some hot chocolate.”
“Oh, that’s okay.” Sage dragged her hand up her arm and to her elbow. “I think I’d better be going.”
Mother and son exchanged a look, and Luke knew he needed to say no more.
“No, now you listen to me,” his mother said as she crossed over to collect Sage. “My goodness you’re freezing. She’s freezing, Luke. Go get her some of Hannah’s things. Some sweatpants or jeans, maybe and a sweater.”
“No, really,” Sage said feebly as she was led into the kitchen. “I should be going. I don’t want to…”
But his mother was having none of that, and for that, Luke was thankful.
“She could take a shower,” he offered.
“Oh, I….”
“Yes. That’s a good idea. The girls’ shower has clean towels. I just put them in on Friday. Why don’t you take her? I’ll get something hot for her to drink and start supper.”
“I… really…” Sage said as Luke came to get her from his mother’s wing. “I should be…”
“No. Now you go get warmed up,” his mother said. “No arguing. I will not have you traipsing all over the country like that.”
This was not at all what Sage had had in mind.
“Really, Luke,” she said as she followed him slow step for slower step down the hallway. “I probably need to go home. They’ll be wondering where I am.”
“The girls’ bathroom is right here,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her. “Like Mom said, there’s fresh towels and shampoo and stuff in the shower. Feel free to use whatever you need.” He flipped on the light of the little pink bathroom. “I’ll get you some of Hannah’s clothes. You’re about the same size…”
“Really, Luke, this isn’t…”
“You heard Mom, no arguing. Now get in there before you really do catch pneumonia.”
“But…”
He went into the room next to the bath and flipped that light on as well. That room was pink too. Leaning on the doorframe, Sage watched him cross the room to the dresser. Why did he have to be so gorgeous and sweet and…?
“Sweatpants or jeans?” he asked.
Sage couldn’t remember ever having worn sweatpants. They reminded her of Jaycee, and that thought sent her heart skittering.
“Gonna have to be sweatpants,” he continued. “Pink or navy?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. All of her energy had drained away from her body. If she could just go to sleep right here… A shiver quaked through her, and she shook with the aftershocks of it.
“Here.” He came back to her and shut off Hannah’s light. “These should help.”
The clothes landed in her hands, and Sage looked at them, unsure why she was even holding them.
“Now get,” he said, turning her and pushing her into the bathroom. “We’ll be out here when you’re done.”
That’s what she was afraid of.