Chapter 27
“Do you want me to come here in the morning?” Luke somehow asked as Sage walked him out. How could he still think straight about anything? Her thoughts were so jumbled, nothing was coming out with any sense attached to it at all.
“I don’t know,” she breathed. “I should probably go with Dad. If he’s still going…”
At the car, Luke wrapped her in his arms and held her. “I think he will.”
She melted there into his arms and closed her eyes. “I hope so.”
When Sage awoke the next morning, her heart said she should be grateful, but her spirit couldn’t quite get there. They were scheduled to be at the good pastor’s house at nine. Letting out a sigh as she looked at the clock, all she wanted to do was roll over, pull the covers over her head, and call in sick. Did nervous stomach count? How about a panic headache that was already gnawing on her brain? Or maybe she could fake an injury. Run her finger through the sewing machine or slam it in a drawer or something. Nothing horrible. Just enough to have to go to the ER rather than the church. Anything but the church.
Luke threw on the only clean pair of jeans from his closet, a yellow T-shirt, and one of the darker plaid shirts. It would be hot again, but he didn’t want to show up looking like the lawn boy. He considered texting her, thought better of it, then rethought that thought. It couldn’t hurt.
His fingers flew over the keys, telling her he would be there, and that he was praying. Knowing no more he could do, he hit send and headed for breakfast.
Sage had just applied the deep red lipstick and was in final-preparation mode when the knock sounded on her door. “Come in,” she called as if she and sunshine were one in the same.
Her father poked his head around the door and stopped when he saw her as she turned from the little vanity. “Well, I was going to ask if you’re ready, but…”
Standing regally, Sage put on her brightest smile. “All done.”
His gaze slid all the way down her and then back up again, and he smiled, kind of. “Um, Jaycee’s going to be watching Ryder. So I guess when you’re ready.”
She lifted her shoulders and squeaked a giggle. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Why this walk was so incredibly intimidating, Luke would never understand, but from the parking lot to the pastor’s door, he felt like a marathon runner with ten miles to go. Steeling his nerves and his courage, he climbed the steps and rang the doorbell. Now if God would just help him keep breathing for however long this took, he would be great.
“Oh, Luke,” Mrs. Mitchell said when she opened the door. Her hesitation told him she was trying to protect those inside.
“Hi, Mrs. Mitchell.” What to say and how to say it? “I came to be with Sage if that’s okay.”
Soft understanding drifted into her eyes. “Certainly. Come on in.”
Stepping inside, he followed her not to the office as he had anticipated but down the long hallway beyond.
“They’re in the living room. Would you like something? Water, tea, lemonade?”
“No. I’m…” However with one step into the living room and one glance at her, all of the words in him fled for their lives. Satiny silk, cream-colored blouse that actually shone in the soft light, black slacks that were somehow at once fitted and flared, hair up in a bun that had angry librarian written all over it, and make-up looking ready for a runway or Paris, Sage stood there flanked by the two older men. Luke’s heart did a perfect swan dive into his shoes. Square-one was starting to get really frustrating.
When she looked over at him and her gaze fell to the floor, Luke squelched the frustration rising in him. This wasn’t a test. It was her navigating intimidating waters the only way she knew how. He just wished he could get through to her that she didn’t have to retreat into perfect to deal with the world.
“Luke?” Pastor Steve asked, looking to the others in concern.
“Pastor.” Luke stepped up and shook each hand in turn.
“We… This…” the pastor started only to be interrupted by Sage.
“I… I’m sorry, Pastor.” She looked first at the one and then the other. “Dad. I hope you don’t mind. I asked Luke to come.” Suddenly she seemed to hesitate at their puzzled and concerned faces.
Luke could see the ship tipping, and he scrambled for something to say to right it. “I know this is about the family stuff, but I also know that Sage could really use a friend. I hope you don’t mind if I just stay out here while you all talk. I promise I won’t be no bother.”
The two men exchanged glances and finally nodded.
Her father put out his hand again. “Thanks for coming. I know Sage appreciates it.”
At that moment, Luke sure hoped so.
“Well,” the pastor said, “as I was saying, I’d like to speak with you, Gregory, first. Maybe 20 or 30 minutes, and then I’d like to speak with Sage.”
Feeling it more than hearing it or seeing it, Luke noticed her swallow and shrink back even as she forced her head upward. He stepped closer to her and put his arm around her as he bent to her ear. “Nothing to worry about. I brought my brass knuckles in case he gets out of line.”
That caused her to laugh despite the palpable fear surrounding her, and once again she was breathing.
“And then, finally, I’d like to do a session with all three of us. Just to see where we are and where we would like to go from here.”
No one protested, so after a minute, the pastor nodded. “Okay. Then we can get started.”
However, before they moved more than an inch, Luke spoke up. “Uh, Pastor, not to, you know, step on any toes or anything, but could you maybe say some words, a prayer, you know, so we know God’s here with us?”
He felt the look she gave him, but he didn’t look down just held the pastor’s gaze with his sincerity.
“I think that’s a great idea.”
A breath and all five of them came together.
“Lord,” Pastor Steve said, “we come before You today humbly and in need of miracles. Miracles in our thinking and in our hearts, in ourselves and between each other. We ask that You guide us in the path of healing and wholeness so that all those whose lives intertwine with ours will be profoundly affected for the good from this day forward. Amen.”
“Amen,” they all said.
Backing up, the pastor looked at her father. “Gregory?”
One nod and they headed off to the office.
Why the swimmy headed thing had to attack Sage at all the worst moments, she would never know, but it hit now with a vengeance. Carefully she sat on the blue couch with the small pink flowers but just on the edge and making sure to keep her chin up and her hands perfectly still in her lap. Thinking through, blinking through the situation, part of her said she should not have asked Luke. Her dad and the pastor were clearly taken off guard by his arrival, and he wasn’t even going to be allowed into the discussions. More to the point, she should have been able to handle this on her own. Why had she thought otherwise?
“If you two don’t mind,” Mrs. Mitchell said, “I have some dishes to do.”
“Oh, no,” Luke said. “Don’t mind us. We’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” With one more look, she went through the other doorway.
When she was gone, Sage fought against the swimmy-headedness swirling around her. It was getting much worse.
“So,” Luke finally said from the spot he had chosen both behind and to the side of her on the couch, “wanna tell me what’s up with this whole get-up?”
Anger slashed into her as she spun on him. “Get-up? My outfit?”
Face open and questioning, he nodded. “You look like you’re going to negotiate world peace or something.”
That angered her further. “If you haven’t noticed, this is an important meeting. I could hardly show up looking like a sea monkey.”
He lifted his chin and his eyebrows. “A sea monkey, huh? Okay.” That settled between them as he scratched his chin, and then slowly he sat forward and rubbed his hands together. “You know, I get it.”
“Get what?” Defensive annoyance crawled out of her. “What do you get?”
“You.” And his gaze came over to hers reading the whole story in her eyes with one glance.
Sage ducked, but she knew it was too late.
“And I guess I don’t blame you none, hiding like that. I mean it’s a good con.”
The anger was starting to mix with the swimmy-headed thing in a dangerous, precarious combination.
“It is,” he continued as he rubbed his hands together, “puts you up here.” He lifted one hand to eye level. “And it puts everybody else down here.” He put the other hand near waist level. “Tells everybody loud and clear that you’re important and special, and it totally keeps them at arms’ length.”
Sage gritted her teeth, determined that he would not make her cry here. He of all people knew how important that was to her, how afraid she was of breaking down. Why was he doing this now?
“And everybody buys it,” he said as if he had no clue what he was doing to her. “Everybody falls for Sage Hollywood, and as long as that pedestal stays standing, it works.”
“I don’t want to be on a pedestal. You know that.”
“Do I?” His eyes dug into hers. “More importantly, do you?”
She had no answer for that other than wanting to scream at him, but she would not do that here. There were people here, important people, people she would not disappoint. “I don’t see anything wrong with wanting to look nice.”
“Nice, yes.” He nodded. “Princess of Iceland? Not so much.”
“You have got some nerve.” Spinning, she stood and took a step away from him, going nowhere because there was nowhere to go. The satin blouse was in severe danger of becoming hopelessly and forever wrinkled by her arms latched in front of her, but she couldn’t get herself to care enough about that to release them. Her arms and her spirit wouldn’t let her.
His breath behind her was soft but audible. “Sage, I love you. You know that, but this isn’t you. This is an act. A very good act. One I know you’re holding onto for really good reasons.” And then he was right there beside her, turning her, and lifting her gaze to meet his. “But it’s not you.”
As the tears stung her eyes, the anger returned. “I’m trying here. I’m doing my best. Why can you not see that?”
The laugh and smile were breath soft. “Oh, I see that perfectly.” Then his face softened even more. “Believe me, I know how hard you’re trying.” He pulled her into his arms although she never unwrenched her arms from in front of her. A second, a breath, and he released her, putting his hands on her arms. “Do you like… being this?” His gaze slid up and over her before coming back to rest on hers.
There were those tears again, and she exhaled them down with force. “I know you don’t understand, but this is me. This is who I’m supposed to be.”
Frustration poured across his face as he put his head down and shook it. “Darlin’…”
“No. Luke.” She squeezed her eyes closed, forcing the tears not to fall. When she opened them again, it was with hard determination. “I can’t be the other Sage, not today, not here, not like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like.” She picked her hand up. “In there, with them. I might not be able to do it anyway. If they thought…”
“If they thought what, Sage? What do you think people think of the real you?”
Her gaze came up to his, and she let go of the fight to hold the tears. “That she’s a total disappointment.” She shook her head and dropped her gaze. “I want Dad to be proud of me. I mean, I know, he’ll never be proud of me like he is of Jaycee. I get that, but I at least don’t want him to have to apologize for me. Oh, that’s Sage. She’s not very bright, but at least she looks okay.”
Luke let out the air in one whoosh and put his hand to his head. “That’s really what you think, isn’t it?”
Petulant annoyance spread across her face. “It’s the truth.”
“No. It’s not, Sage. It’s not in any way, shape, or form even a distant relative of the truth.” He took her hand and led her back to the couch only this time he chose to sit right next to her. “Ice Princess or not, you are the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever laid eyes on. And Ice Princess or not, you could go in there and blow them away with your smarts and your kindness and your spirit.” His gaze swept over her again, and he knew then. “And you know what? I don’t even care. If the Ice Princess thing makes you feel less vulnerable, then I guess I’ll just have to put on my gloves and deal with it.”
Taking her in his arms, he pulled her back with him against the couch. “But just so you know, either way, you are completely amazing. And as for your dad, I think he’s starting to figure that out.”
At that moment the two older men came through the doorway, still talking softly. A nod and her father went to sit in one of the chairs flanking the couch. The pastor stood in the doorway as she sat up, swiping at her eyes and fighting to get back into perfect mode.
“Sage?”
Her gaze jumped to the other two there, and fear snaked through her. Pushing that down, she wobbled to her feet, wishing she hadn’t worn the high heels. They might well pitch her into the floor as unsteady as she felt. “Sir,” she said, and it squeaked out.
“Please.” He held his hand out in front of him for her to pass.
Licking her lips, she fought to stay vertical because dizzy was taking over. The inside of her heart thudded to life, and her breathing clawed its way out of her chest. Settle, Sage. Settle down. Just stay calm.
They had been sitting there in silence for several minutes with Luke saying every prayer he knew and many he didn’t, hoping she was all right and that she hadn’t already run out the front door. He knew her nerves were one wrong move away from fraying completely, and really he couldn’t blame her. He couldn’t imagine being back there, in that room, expected to spill your guts out because everyone else thought you should.
Suddenly he began to beg forgiveness for putting her in this position. First talking with the pastor and then her dad... If he had just kept his mouth shut, she wouldn’t be going through this right now.
“I wanted to tell you thanks,” her father said, cracking through the silence like a shot, and Luke sat forward in surprise.
“Thanks?”
“For last night. I know you weren’t expecting to walk in on World War III.”
Luke shrugged. “Never know what I’m going to get when I come over anymore. It’s World War III more than it isn’t.”
Across the way, her father shook his head. “I should have done something right away. I knew Em… I knew it wasn’t going well.”
This one piece had always baffled Luke. “If you don’t mind my asking, why didn’t you?”
Her father regarded him and then dropped his gaze. “Because I’m a coward, because I’d already hurt her so much and I knew how much this was killing her.”
“Mrs. Lawrence? You’re talking about Mrs. Lawrence?”
“Yeah. About Em.” The older man couldn’t hold his gaze though he tried. “I think after we patched things up, we both just buried this stuff. A couple times we had Sage out, but she was really little. Tiny little thing. And we only had her for a week or so at a time. The last time she came… I don’t know, it was like it was so hard on everyone. It just seemed easier to stop having her.”
Luke squinted into that information. “Was that before or after her mom got married?”
Her father exhaled. “After, I think. Why?”
The question spun in Luke’s head, around and around as fear told him he was crazy to ask it. “Have you ever met him? Her stepdad I mean?”
For a moment, her father didn’t move. Then he shook his head. “We always said we should get together, meet each other, but it never happened. They were all the way out in California, and… Not that any of us probably even wanted to, to be honest with you. I don’t know. It never happened, and it wasn’t until now that I thought that was a bad thing.”
“Why now?”
“Because I just wonder if it would’ve made this easier, if we could’ve handled this better.”
“This… meaning?”
“This visit, having her here.”
“She’s trying, you know,” Luke said in her defense.
Her father nodded but said nothing.
Luke knew there was a line here somewhere, but it was fuzzy and kept moving in front of him. “She doesn’t know how to be around you.”
Her father’s gaze came up to his. “Be? What do you mean?”
“I mean, she doesn’t know how to be around you, who to be around you.”
“I’m not following.”
Right or wrong, he was going for broke because someone needed to say it. “She needs you, Sir. She doesn’t always know it, but she does. That other guy, Jason. He must be a real piece of work. I don’t know the whole story, but he’s got her all tied up in knots about being this perfect little porcelain figurine. So she puts on the make-up and the clothes…”
“Trying to be perfect.”
Luke nodded. “When the truth is, she’s scared out of her mind about what everyone is thinking about her and saying about her.”
“And she’s right.”
He couldn’t disagree. “Some of them. But she can’t live like this. It’s not living. It’s trying desperately not to get smashed. I know when you look at her, it’s easy to think she’s this put-together egotistical brat, but none of that is real. I’ve never seen anybody as good at hiding what’s real as she is.”
A shake of his head and her father sat back. “This is all so frustrating. I want to help her. I do. And I want to help Em. I want to help Jaycee and Ryder. But I don’t know how to fix any of it.” He sat forward and put his head in his hands. “It’s just such a mess.”
Although he had wanted to be mad at the man, Luke found he just couldn’t be. He really was a good guy, a little mixed up, but Luke couldn’t fault him for that. He wasn’t exactly the most together guy on the planet either. “You know, when I talked to the pastor the other day, he said that God can do miracles. If this mess needs a miracle, then maybe only God can fix it.”
“Man, I sure hope so because I’m hitting a brick wall every time I try. No matter what I do, it’s wrong.”
“Well, at least you’re doing something. Who knows, maybe it’s doing more good than you realize.”
“So you didn’t know about your mom and dad, how that all happened until recently?” Pastor Steve asked, his pen touched to the little yellow notepad.
“No, Sir.” Sage kept her gaze on her fingers on her lap. It was safer that way. So far, they’d covered her general living situation in California—Mom and Jason, no siblings, her high school experience—senior, not sure where she would go to college, her perception of why she had come here, her life since she’d been living with the Lawrences, and only now were they getting into the truly intimidating part of the story.
“You never asked, were never curious?”
She felt like the ditzy blonde she knew he thought she was. “Mom just said my dad had gone back home when I was little. I guess I never thought to question it.”
He made a note of that, which she didn’t like at all. She was failing this test, miserably.
“But you came here, when you were small?”
“I did, but it was more like visiting your second cousin from the other side of the family.”
“So the concept of them being your family…”
She lifted both shoulders. “They were my family. He was my dad. I never really thought about it.” Anger and panic were coming up, and she let out a long breath to silence them.
“And how have things been since you found out? Good, bad, difficult?”
“Oh.” She giggled softly. “Well, I think we were all trying to make it work, keep walking and hope we make it to August in one piece.”
“And you were happy with that? With the arrangement? You didn’t want to go back home?”
The maze forked in two different directions, and Sage couldn’t tell which way was the safest. “I… Well,… I mean…”
“It’s okay, Sage, there are no right and wrong answers here. I’m just trying to figure out where we are so we can formulate a plan for how to go forward.”
If she said she had wanted to go home, they might send her there now. If she said she hadn’t ever wanted to go home, she would be lying. Lying was bad. She knew that. Lying to a preacher was worse. She knew that even more. Her nerves started taking over the conversations colliding in her head. “I’m sorry. Um, what was the question again?” She reached up and splayed her fingers onto the slicked back hairstyle and a flash of Luke holding her and telling her it was going to be all right surged into her consciousness. He was wrong. Oh, so very wrong. Her heart told her that now, slamming into her ribs like a bass drum gone mad.
Pastor Steve regarded her for a long moment, and Sage began to feel the sweat beads form under her blouse. No way would she pull it away from her, but doing that would surely feel good. She knew now how a microbe felt under a microscope—exposed and unprotected. It was a horrible feeling.
“Sage, this is not an interrogation. No one is on trial or guilty here. We’re just trying to figure out who is where with this thing.”
She nodded, hearing him but not at all believing him. “I know. And I want to help. I do. They’re a nice family. I want to help them.”
“They’re your family, Sage.”
The words smacked her spirit like a punch, and it took her breath away. She squeezed her eyes closed both to keep the scream and the tears inside of her. If she just took in small breaths, that would help.
“They are. Your dad…”
Buzzing started in her ears, blocking out everything else. She didn’t want to hear what he was saying. He didn’t know, didn’t understand. Why had she come? Why couldn’t she just leave? She wanted to leave, but leaving meant going back, and going back meant...
The talking, his talking stopped.
“I’ll tell you what, why don’t we take a little break? Get something to drink. Stretch our legs a bit.” He stood, and Sage did too, and the wobbly thing was now much worse. She held onto the chair arm to keep from meeting up unceremoniously with the floor.
Afraid of the sentence he was about to pronounce on her when they went into the living room, Sage forced herself upright, lifted her chin and beat back the tears. Small breaths, Sage. Small breaths. She followed him to the door and out into the hallway. “I’m sorry, Pastor,” she said softly. “Truly.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” He let her go first, and she broke into the living room once again feeling like that microbe when her father and Luke looked up.
Luke stood instantly and came over to her, gazing at her with incredible volumes of concern. “What happened?”
She looked up at him and very, very nearly cracked. Just like that, he put his arms around her and she latched onto him, praying he would never make her stand on her own again. Squashing it all down was becoming impossible, but she sniffed trying very hard to do just that. However, Luke backed up and his gaze asked questions his mouth didn’t.
“Would you like something to drink before we start again, Greg?” the pastor asked her father who stumbled through an answer Sage didn’t hear.
More? They were going to do more? She couldn’t take any more. No. She wanted out now.
“Come here.” Luke took her hand and together they turned and went back down the hallway. Nearly to the office he stopped, turned to her and leveled his gaze on her. “Okay, talk to me, Sage. What’s going on?”
“I… can’t,” she squeezed out of her heart. “I can’t do this.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t talk… to them.” Now she was shaking her head as if she could dislodge it from her shoulders. “Not like this. Not the two of them. Not together.” Her eyes came up to his and suddenly she knew if she could convince him, she wouldn’t have to. “Don’t make me. Please. Don’t make me talk to them, not like this, not alone. Please.”
In an all-out battle with himself to figure out what was going on and what to do about it, Luke spun through the options in his mind. “Listen, I know you don’t want to, darlin’, but…”
“No. No, I don’t. I don’t want to. I can’t.” She was clutching his collar now, quietly slipping off into hysteria.
“Why not? Sage. Stop.” He took hold of both her shoulders and shook her gently. “Just stop.”
However, when her gaze came up to his, fear like he’d never seen twisted there. “They can’t know.”
“Can’t know what?”
Her eyes pleaded with him to do something, but Luke couldn’t tell what monster they were facing anymore. They seemed to be everywhere, one more dangerous than the last.
“Okay, come here,” he finally said, and gently he took her into the pastor’s office and over to the couch where he sat down and pulled her down with him. Once down, she huddled into his arms, like a turtle in a shell when it’s threatened. He reached for something solid in his heart. “Look, I know this is scary for you. I get that, but they need to know what’s going on so they can help you.”
One sniff. That’s all it took to tell him they were once again treading in the shards of her brokenness. “Don’t you get it? They can’t help. No one can.”
“Well, they surely can’t if you won’t even let them try.”
She picked her head up, and it frightened him to the core that there were no tears there. “You have a family, right?”
He couldn’t argue with that. “Yeah, I do.”
“Well, I don’t. Okay? Not like yours.” She sat forward away from him. Her head fell, and she shook it slowly. “My families… one doesn’t want me, and the other one…”
Twice now, Luke had gotten the feeling that this was about more than the Lawrences’ situation. He slowed his breathing, preparing for whatever she was going to tell him because he knew it was bad, deep bad, the kind of bad that makes you know you shouldn’t ever talk to anyone about it. “Sage, darlin’, whatever it is, you can say it. I want to know.”
She let out a long breath and nodded. “Things haven’t…” The words yanked to a stop, and she mashed her lips together and shook her head violently. Putting her hand to her head, she rubbed it there like she could press whatever it was out of her brain.
Helplessly Luke watched her falling apart. It was killing him, but he knew no other way than to go through it.
“At home, in California.” She yanked her hand down to her lap and exhaled very slowly. “Things at home are not… They’re not the way they’re supposed to be.”
Lifting his hand, he put it gently on her back. “Okay. Then how are they?”
“My mom.” It was crazy how slowly words could come.
With each and every one he wondered if he would ever get to hear another.
“She…” Sage sat there, just breathing, closing her eyes as if imagining whatever she wasn’t saying. “When I was little, it was just parties and things. Lots of parties. All the time. They went out a lot. Like a lot, a lot. And then she started drinking at home, like wine for dinner, and something when she got home, and then before dinner and then sometimes in the morning.”
Understanding came over him, and Luke’s hand drifted over her. “Does Jason know?”
This laugh was bitter and ironic, and she wiped her nose with her wrist. “Jason doesn’t care about anyone but Jason.”
That much Luke had already surmised.
Then her gaze fell, dragging her neck along with it. She hunched over, her elbows now on her thighs. He watched her, praying she would finally put this down whatever it was.
“One time.” And once again the words slowed to a stop-and-go crawl. “When I was 15…” Her whole body bobbed forward and back, swaying there in the sunshine streaming in from the window. “Mom was gone on a trip. She did that a lot. She… does that… a lot. I was staying at Pate’s house for the weekend, and I’d forgotten something… my swimsuit or some shoes or something. I don’t even remember anymore.”
This breath was hard and ragged, and she sniffed again. Her head shook slowly, barely, side-to-side. “I had a key, of course, and I know he didn’t know I was coming home.” The words were getting slower, the memories harder to remember. “I came in the front door, and there was this trail… of clothes. It went right from the front door into the living room. I heard them in there, and I knew it wasn’t Mom. I knew…”
Luke’s eyes fell closed as he processed the unbelievable moment she had somehow survived.
“When Mom got home, I told her everything, what he was doing, what I heard, what I saw. I told her, and she said that she wasn’t stupid. That’s what she said to me, ‘I’m not stupid, Sage.’ I couldn’t believe it. It was like she didn’t even care… She told me to never tell anybody, that they wouldn’t understand. I wanted to leave. I told her I wanted to leave, that I didn’t want to be there anymore. I didn’t want to be there when she was gone, and I didn’t want to be there when she wasn’t gone…” Sage lowered her head all the way into her hands. “One time I came home from school, and I found her passed out in the kitchen. I didn’t know what to do. I thought she was dead. But she wasn’t.” Sage collapsed forward, putting her face into her hands. “If anybody ever found out… If anybody knew…”
“So you never told anyone?”
She tipped her head and stopped there like a raging hurricane that someone just paused. “Only once. One night I told Mac when we were up real late telling secrets. I told her about Jason, about finding him that night.” Then the fight left her, and Luke heard the breath of acceptance. “She told me I should’ve joined them I might have learned something.”
“Oh, my… Sage, darlin’.” Luke pulled her back into his arms and held her there. “Darlin’ none of that was your fault. None of it.”
However, she nodded, bumping into his shoulder. “Yes. Yes, it was.”
“What? How? How could that possibly have had anything to do with you?”
Looking up at him with those same hysterical eyes, Sage’s gaze drilled into his soul. “Because Mom told me it was. She said we had to stay, we couldn’t leave because she wanted me to have everything she never did. She wanted me to have the life she never had, and the only way we could do that was if we stayed.”
“Everything okay in here?” The pastor appeared at the door, and horrified, Sage dove into Luke’s embrace and huddled there.
He let his gaze fall to her, and he thought through everything. They had to tell them, to figure out how to get her out of there, how to protect her. “Uh, yeah,” he finally said to the pastor. “Can you give us another minute?”
Pastor Steve nodded. “Sure. We’ll just be in here.”
“Okay.”
When he left, Luke held her as he thought through everything she had told him. “Sage? Darlin’?”
She was breathing. That was good. But that was also it.
“We have to tell them. Okay? They need to know.”
The intake of air was six jerky breaths followed by gasps and pauses.
“Sage, they aren’t going to judge you. They want to help.”
Her head shook slowly. “I’m not supposed to tell. I’m not supposed to say anything.”
That pulled up his fighting spirit, and it crushed the fear in him. “Don’t talk. Don’t tell. Don’t say anything. Don’t you see, Sage? It’s a trap. If you don’t talk about this, if you don’t tell somebody, you’re stuck.”
“They don’t want anyone to know.”
“Of course they don’t. Would you?”
“No.” The word was soft, nearly inaudible.
“But we can’t fix this by pretending it doesn’t exist.”
“It’s okay. It is. I’ve only got one more year. By next year…”
The thought shook him to the core. “No. Sage. We’ve got to tell them. We’ve got to get you out of there. I don’t want you going back…”
Pulling herself up, she shivered and shrugged away from him. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have told you.”
Slowly and carefully, Luke slid off the couch and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in his. “I love you. You know that, right?”
A second and she nodded.
“Okay, that means I’m not going to sit here and watch you get thrown to the wolves. Not the wolves here, and definitely not the ones back in California.”
Sage tipped her head clearly fighting the tears.
“I’m not.” He gripped her hands tighter. “This whole don’t tell anyone thing, it dies here. Right here. Right now. Today. Now, we’re going to go in there, you and me, and we’re going to face this thing, and we’re going to get help.”
Her gaze came up to his, confusion clawing there.
However, solid had never felt so unbreakable as it did in his chest at that moment. “Do you trust me?” He wasn’t at all sure how she would answer that question.
She blinked, searched his eyes, and blinked again before she nodded.
“Okay. Good.” He leveled his gaze on her so she would have no doubt of his sincerity. “And I trust them.”
A tiny gasp in, but she never let go of his eyes.
“Can we do this together? You and me?”
The nearly imperceptible nod never made it an inch, but he would take it.