Sage didn’t want to sit down in a restaurant, so Belmont went into a Dairy Queen and ordered chicken sandwiches to go. He was simultaneously anxious leaving Sage in the parked car and grateful for ten minutes alone. He needed to retreat into his head and wouldn’t have Sage feeling self-conscious over his silence. She seemed to understand. Of course she did, his Sage. His Sage. There was no debate on the topic now. He’d come here knowing he’d made mistakes and she was graciously letting him correct them.
God, he loved her. He loved her so much, his bones felt like they were made of liquid as he walked back to the Suburban. His heart hadn’t quit jackhammering since they’d left the gymnasium, hand in hand. Relief and fear and elation and determination had made permanent homes in his stomach, taking turns sending signals to his mind. I love her. There’s a chance she’ll love me back and make my life worth living. It could actually happen.
But he was lying by omission to her.
Belmont blew out a shaky breath. He’d never been anything but truthful with Sage. Sure, he continued to reveal his feelings for her in increments, out of worry that the entire thousand-ton magnitude of his obsession could scare her away. Not telling her that come tomorrow morning, he would be leaving for the mine and working off her father’s debts for far longer than the two months she’d expected? That was a betrayal of her trust. And it was making him ill.
There was nothing he could do about it, though. He knew enough about Sage’s backbone to sense she would dig her heels in. She wouldn’t understand that he would face any hell during the day, as long as he had the privilege of holding her at night. And it would be hell. Day in and day out. Belmont hadn’t allowed himself to consider descending into the darkness tomorrow morning, but with the moment looming close, his nerves were pulling taut. The only thing that would get him through the inundation of memories would be the knowledge that Sage waited on the other side.
God willing, she would still be waiting, once she knew he’d withheld information about her father and Augustine. Just until tomorrow.
His only option was to show Sage he was capable of overcoming the past, so they could have a future. Part of him even looked forward to that intangible point in time when she would smile over her pride in him. Unfortunately, he didn’t see a way around just going in. Not giving her an opportunity to stop him. Because God knew, if a pleading, tearstained Sage tried to stop him from doing anything and he was forced to deny her, it would rend him in two.
When he opened the driver’s side door, Sage smiled over at him shyly and Belmont almost blurted out everything, right then and there. He handed her a chicken sandwich instead.
“Thank you.” She started to unwrap the meal and stopped. “I know what you said about no more places and secrets, but I thought we could go see the church. If you wanted to.”
“Of course I do.” He avoided her gaze, even though he wanted to drink it in, and started the Suburban. “I only meant…that one wasn’t required for the other.”
“I know.” She reached out and touched his shoulder, not nearly as long or as hard as he needed. “I know what you meant and I’m glad. Maybe we just needed some help getting started.”
Her soft voice, nightfall, the low of the engine and that teasing fleeting touch of her hand, all worked to seduce Belmont. Already he needed Sage. Had needed her before the underwear had been peeled from her body. Her taste was at home on his lips, his tongue swiping at it for a fix every other second. It was as though some kind of Band-Aid had been ripped off his need, revealing how deep the cut she’d made really ran. All the way to his heart. But hell if it didn’t detour elsewhere first. Somewhere…insatiable. Somewhere only Sage had ever touched and tempted. Perhaps that was why his lust was so highly concentrated—it had only ever belonged to one woman.
“Is everything all right?” Sage asked, her fingers picking at the foil wrapper of her sandwich. “You haven’t said much since we left the school.”
He started to hedge, but the words halted in their inception. There would be no unnecessary lying to Sage. Ever. The necessary one was bad enough. “I’m thinking of having you again,” he said, his voice scraping out. “I’ll probably be thinking about it constantly now that I know how much you love to come.” His face was hot and Sage’s chin had dropped, but he forced himself to keep going. “That shouldn’t surprise you. I live to make you happy and I’ve never seen you as happy as when my tongue was between your legs. I want to see you that way as often as possible.”
“I like making you happy, too.” Her nipples had turned to points, making Belmont’s palms itch. “It’s harder to tell when you’re happy, though. Maybe you could say it out loud?”
“I will,” he vowed. “Every time from now on.” He reached out and raked his fingers through her hair, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb. “I’ve satisfied you, Sage. Provided you with food. You’re still here. I get more time with you tonight. And you’ve got a piece of me tucked into your underwear. I doubt I could get much happier than I am right now.”
Her wide smile let a flock of birds loose in his chest, but she seemed to catch herself and it dimmed. “You would make me happy if you let me continue working at the mine, the way I planned. I’m stronger than I look, Belmont. I can handle it.”
“I can’t.” He knew she was strong. Not years’ worth of strong, though. But if he told her about Augie upping the ante, she would try even harder to keep him out of it. So he’d take a different tactic by telling her an alternate truth. One he’d held inside for a long time. “Before we left San Diego, I was getting ready to sign a contract on a second boat. Been working on expanding for a while now.”
Her nod was hesitant, as if she didn’t understand the abrupt subject change. “I didn’t know. That’s great, Belmont.”
“The business was built for us.” He held her gaze, memorizing the sight of her absorbing that. “Maybe if I’d told you sooner that I already spend my days working and planning to make you mine, you wouldn’t doubt I can handle what’s ahead. It would be a given.”
“Belmont,” she breathed.
“When I found out you were down there, I almost lost my mind. At least if I take your place, there’s a chance I’ll stay sane.”
Her eyes went glassy. “Thank you for always thinking of me. For caring. But a chance you’ll stay sane isn’t good enough.”
He slid their palms together and squeezed her fingers. It took her a few beats, but she gave him a brave smile. One that made him a bastard for not being truthful. It also told him the argument was far from over.
“Go back through town toward the house,” she said quietly. “But turn right on the service road. The church is about a mile down.”
Belmont nodded and took his hand back. He ate with one hand as they drove, watching Sage out of the corner of his eye to make sure she finished her meal. The night had gone pitch black by the time they reached the church, and only one flickering streetlight lit the adjacent parking lot. Belmont retrieved a flashlight from the back of the Suburban and helped Sage from the passenger side, pride curling in his middle when she held his hand, so he could lead her up the steps.
Unlike the high school gymnasium, there was nothing to stop them from gaining entry into the church. The front door eased right open with a tired groan and they walked in, their footfalls sounding hollow as they walked down the aisle together. The impact of leading Sage toward the altar was like a shoehorn trying to wedge between his ribs, but he forced himself to retain the outward appearance of calm.
I’ll marry you one day. I’ll marry you, Sage Alexander.
Sage released his hand when they reached the end of the aisle. He let her go with a lump in his throat, watching through the thin beam of his flashlight as she slid open a drawer in back of the altar and removed candles, lighting them one by one. The mirrored glass and glossy idols glowed with reflection, illuminating the front of the church.
“You knew those were there,” Belmont said, taking Sage’s hand to help her back down the stairs. “Did you spend a lot of time here?”
“Not during the day.” She sat down in the front pew and he followed suit, watching the flickering flames dance in her eyes. “At night. Like this. When everyone was sleeping, I would come here and decorate. In my mind.”
Thinking of her there alone in the darkness made his arms burn with the need to lash out, but he wrapped himself in her voice and relaxed, little by little. “Do it for me now. Tell me how you would make it look for a wedding.”
Her lips tripped up. “Who’s getting married?”
“Us.”
Sage’s mouth popped open, her hands twisting in her skirt. Maybe it was too much, maybe he shouldn’t have said it, but he wouldn’t take it back even if the world were burning. They were the only two people alive in that moment, in this dark, empty church in Sibley, and he would have Sage for his woman, even if it were make believe. “Belmont…” He brought her hand to his mouth, laying a kiss on the inside of her wrist where her pulse beat wildly. “I would, um…I wouldn’t marry you here. I would want you near the ocean, where you would be relaxed.”
“The ocean.” His entire body felt as if it were expanding, his skin warming under an imaginary sun. Time squealed to a halt. Sage was actually talking about marrying him. “Sage, as long as you were with me, I could marry you at the bottom of a well.”
She made a harsh sound, turning luminous eyes on him. “You’ve never mentioned the well.”
Look at how she responds when I’m honest. Guilt sank its teeth into his gut once more over what would happen come the morning. “Will you finish telling me about the wedding?”
Sage nodded, her voice going softer than usual, burrowing right into his chest. “It would just be the five of us. The original five that started the road trip. But…Jasper, Elliott, and Grace would be there, too.” Mischief twinkled in her eyes. “I would have Rita become certified as a minister so she could perform the ceremony. You’re most comfortable with her, so, yes, I think that would be best. And then you would take us out on your boat. No parties or drinking or music…we could just drift. Just drift.”
Belmont had to turn his face away so she wouldn’t see how affected he was by her words. The vision she’d created. “If we were the kind of people that could turn our backs on this place and leave without looking back, I would give you that tomorrow, Sage. I would give it to you over and over again until the world stopped turning.”
“I know,” she whispered. “That’s why you have to leave, Belmont. This place could very well swallow me back up. The thought of it happening to us both is my greatest fear. You need to go back to the ocean and live for both of us.”
She might as well have stabbed him with a dagger. “Do you see and hear and feel me, Sage, but continue to think my leaving is a possibility?”
“No, but I can’t seem to stop trying.” She blew out a breath. “We might as well say everything out loud, right? You and me, Belmont…there’s been a connection since the beginning. It’s gotten so strong, I don’t know how we would manage apart. We know one another’s faults and strengths. We can predict and soothe each other and…we know what might cause the other to self-destruct.” Her grip on his hand squeezed tight. “I’ve been down there and I know what it’s like. I can feel what it’ll do to you.”
Lord, how was he supposed to communicate when she was saying the kind of things that would send him to the grave happy? “Sage,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “I’ve been down there, too. Into the earth. Some of me is still there.”
A long silence passed. “Will you tell me about it?”
* * *
Will you tell me about it?
Belmont had known this question was coming. Sage eventually asking about his four days in the defunct well in California had been a small part of the reason he’d begun trading her places for secrets. There had been a pressure building inside him since the first time they met. There. There was a person he could unburden himself to without being told what needed to come next. Or having his decisions questioned.
Now, though. Now that they were standing at this yawning doorway, he hesitated.
Sage’s hand shifted inside his. “If you need more time to talk about it—”
“No.” He softened his tone. “No, it’s just that I don’t like the idea of upsetting you.”
A pause. “I’m upset already knowing what happened.” He could feel her studying his face, reading him. The connection. “It’s worse than I thought?”
Belmont’s nod was stiff, his rib cage made of spikes. He took several deep breaths through his nose and battled the urge to drag Sage onto his lap. To band his arms around her so she couldn’t move and soak up all her clean, pure energy. “It was a field trip. Aaron’s class was going to a farm in Ramona for the day. I asked Miriam if I could call in sick to school and go with him. It was far away and…I just wanted to make sure my brother was all right.” His swallow was thick. “I didn’t realize until we got on the bus that Lawrence—Aaron’s father—had volunteered as a chaperone for the day.”
Sage’s confusion was tangible. The Clarksons didn’t speak of their estranged dad very often. Or maybe they only abstained around Belmont, since he had a different father than the other three. Whatever the reason, Sage clearly hadn’t been expecting the man’s name to enter the conversation.
The center of Belmont’s back heated, knots forming beneath his spine. He couldn’t dive straight into the deep end yet. Not yet. “I could tell Aaron wanted to be alone with his father. It was important for him to have that time. So I went off on my own.” Sage slid closer and pressed their legs together, hip to knee, giving Belmont some added strength. “I knocked myself out with the fall, so I didn’t wake up until it was dark. They were used to me wandering off, same way I do now. They were used to me showing up when I was good and ready. So they weren’t looking yet when I started to…call out.”
His vocal cords throbbed with the memory of waking up in the pitch black and shouting himself hoarse, the memory of how he’d gotten down there making him question the decision to call out at all. Maybe I should stay silent? he could remember thinking.
“There was a baby goat down there. It was still alive, but I think maybe it had been down there for a while. It must have wandered off from the farm.” His shrug was tight. Everything was tight. “That’s when I really started trying to get someone’s attention. But I should have waited until morning, because I lost my voice.”
Sage turned and knelt beside him on the pew, throwing her arms as far as they would go around him and holding tight. “I know this part and I hate thinking about it.”
“I don’t want to upset you.”
“Belmont,” she burst out into his neck. “This is about you. Not me.”
Everything is about you, he wanted to explain, but knew it wasn’t the right moment. And Lord, getting out these words that had been sitting on his sternum, making it difficult to breathe for over two decades, was getting easier as he went along. It would be over soon. He just wanted to get it over with so he could get on with comforting Sage. She would need it.
“I could hear them in the distance, but I couldn’t get my voice loud enough to get their attention,” Belmont continued. “And when the goat died, I didn’t try again for a while.”
Sage sagged against him and he released her hand, in favor of putting an arm around her waist. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
This was it. There was nothing else lying between the goat dying and rescue, except for a lot of losing consciousness and being thirsty. They’d found him when the farm owner pulled out an older property map that depicted the well, which hadn’t been added to the newer set. He’d told her everything, except the main thing.
“There’s more, isn’t there?” she whispered, kissing his shoulder. “You’re so stiff.”
“Lawrence pushed me,” Belmont shoved through numb lips. “Aaron’s father. He followed me while the class was eating lunch.” Sage froze like a statue and he ached to hold her, rub warmth into her arms, but the end was so close. No more keeping it inside. “I tried to walk faster, because I knew he didn’t like me. I reminded him of Miriam being with someone else. And I think, maybe even still loving that man. My father.” He strummed her waist with his thumb. “Every time we were in the same room alone, he would stop smiling and just…stare at me. So I walked faster and eventually I started to run.”
Moisture dripped onto his shoulders and rolled into the neckline of his shirt. His Sage was crying, so he rushed through the rest, already searching his pockets for a second handkerchief so he could dry her eyes.
“I can still feel his hands punching into the middle of my back.” The right side of his forehead started to throb at the memory of being bashed off hard stone. “I’ve always wondered if the well actually saved my life, because if I hadn’t fallen into it, I think he might’ve found another way.”
By the time he finished, Sage was doing her best to crush him with her small arms. And he just let her, rubbing comforting circles onto every part of her he could reach.
“But Belmont…” Sage’s voice was muddled in his hair. “Didn’t Lawrence stay in their lives after that happened?”
He nodded. “Only for a while. I tried to be gone whenever he came to pick up the others and…I think Miriam sensed something was off.”
“You were only ten.” Sage’s body shook with a sob. “They would have rallied around you. They would have protected you. Oh God—”
“One day, he stopped coming,” Belmont said. “And I never wanted that, either. I know what it’s like to wonder why your father isn’t around. To wonder if you weren’t good enough or if you did something wrong. If you were just…wrong.” His siblings’ faces filtered through his mind. “I didn’t want that for them. I didn’t tell anyone what happened because they deserved that chance I never got with their father. He was decent to them, even if he wasn’t to me.”
Sage released him and sat back on her folded legs. The candlelight made her tears look like two golden rivers, cascading down her cheeks. Her expression was one of incredulity, which he’d expected, but he hadn’t counted on the love. She was full to brimming with it, and there was no mistaking the emotion on the person he knew best in the world.
He could almost hear some of the tiny rifts inside him closing up. Sealing tight. He’d never told anyone about Lawrence for a reason. In his mind, he knew his mother and siblings would have been upset by what happened, but maybe his heart hadn’t believed it. Not completely. What if he’d been friendlier to Lawrence? What if he hadn’t hidden his envy over them having a father well enough and it made the man angry? He knew they would never ask him those questions, but he’d been asking them of himself for years. So much that he’d started to doubt their reactions.
That doubt faded now as Sage’s tenderness caged him in. “You’re not in danger from him anymore or I don’t know what I would do. The unfairness of it will never be all right.”
“I don’t want them to know, Sage. I never want them to know.”
“You didn’t even have to tell me that,” she whispered. “I already knew. Because you’re a man who values everyone’s happiness above himself. And that’s what makes you the greatest man any of us will ever know. There’s never been anyone like you, Belmont. There never will be again. How lucky am I that I get to love you?”
Belmont’s heart stopped beating…then it started again in a new rhythm.