Sage woke up beside Belmont.
She’d never seen him asleep before, and it was such a quiet, important moment that she slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from breathing too fast and waking him up. He was a giant man, not only in stature but in character, and not even the softness of sleep could steal those qualities. He was shirtless with the white, starchy sheet twisted around his waist, leaving his sea captain physique bare to Sage’s gaze. One arm hung off the bed, the other buried beneath her pillow, the crook of his arm creating a cradle for her neck.
What time was it? She hoped it was the middle of the night, so they could put off his leaving for a matter of hours. The strip of light on the wall made it unlikely, but she wouldn’t be his wake-up call. Seeing him like this was a gift and she wouldn’t squander it.
Unfortunately, that was the moment she realized Belmont had hair under his arms. Such a stupid thing to make her giggle, because obviously he had hair there—he was the most masculine man on the planet—but that didn’t stop Sage from laughing into her pillow. When she finally came up for air, she found Belmont watching her with amusement.
“What is it?”
She didn’t trust herself enough to speak, so she reached over and tickled the patch of black in question. And he laughed. But it wasn’t just a laugh. It was a throaty, sleepy, Belmont laugh that lit up the dim room and she never wanted her ears to encounter anything else. Not as long as she lived. “You have armpit hair and you laugh.”
He turned onto his side, propping his head up on a fist. “Your bangs are messy when you wake up. They look like pick-up sticks.” A smile curved his mouth. “I love it.”
“Now I want to go fix them,” she sighed around a grin.
“Don’t.” They stared at each other for long moments before Belmont spoke again. “If we were home right now, I’d make you coffee. I know your habits. They’re going to become mine.”
“Just not yet,” she whispered, trying to keep her eyes off the clock.
His easy demeanor slipped a little. “Just not yet, sweetest girl.”
She scooted closer. One inch, two, three. His chest started to rise and fall faster, but he maintained their eye contact. “What about you? What was your morning habit before me?”
He clearly had to think about it. As if the notion of before her was a foreign one. “Orange juice and push-ups.”
“Oh.” Her nipples went stiff beneath the sheet. “I’d like to see that sometime.”
“You’re going to see it every time.” Reaching out with his free hand, Belmont pulled the sheet down and exposed her naked body. She was still new enough at being unclothed with him that her face turned hot. But any shyness vanished in the presence of his hunger. It flared in his expression, followed by the visible tightening of his muscles. Barely a second passed before Belmont prowled over her, ripping the remaining sheet out of their way. When he settled between Sage’s thighs, her hands flew up, fingers clutching at the pillows. “You’re going to be my new morning habit.” He dragged his tongue along the seam of her lips, catching the bottom one with his teeth. “Understand?”
It was more than a show of dominance, it was a promise of things to come, and Sage responded to it like a rose being watered, something new thrilling inside her. “Yes.”
He moved his hips, the molten look in his eyes telling Sage he felt her wetness. And with a gritted version of her name, Belmont seated himself, knocking the headboard into the wall. “Mine.”
* * *
A few hours later, Sage leaned back against the bumper of the Suburban with Peggy, the other Clarksons, and their companions loitering close by. After she’d made love with Belmont, he’d asked her to stay in bed while he showered and dressed, saying he wanted to remember her with messy bangs and a rosy mouth. She wanted him to know how confident she was in him, so she’d given him a brave smile after he kissed her a final time. And left. Not crying and begging him to get behind the Suburban wheel where he belonged was the hardest thing she’d ever done. Actually driving away without him would be the second most difficult.
None of them were okay with leaving Belmont behind. Not remotely. Aaron hadn’t shown a hint of emotion upon finding out, which spoke volumes in itself. Now they waited. For what? Probably for someone to do the wrong thing, so everyone else could follow suit. But going on a search for Belmont would yield no results, if he didn’t want to be found.
“We have to go,” Sage said to Peggy. “This is what he wants.”
“I know.” Peggy nodded and sipped her paper cup of coffee. “It’s just kind of funny…”
Sage looked at her best friend. “What?”
Peggy leaned into Elliott’s touch when he approached, smiling sadly, but gratefully when he cupped her cheek. “Bel is the reason we’re all here, isn’t he? He’s been nudging everything into action this whole time. Aaron and I weren’t going to come on the trip until he agreed.”
Aaron nodded. “Outside Wayfare.” He rubbed his eyes. “Seems like that morning happened a decade ago.”
Rita gave a wry laugh. “Feels a little fresher for me.” She leaned into Jasper. “But yeah…Belmont left my luggage in the kitchen of Buried Treasure, didn’t he? Made it so I would have had no choice but to go back to Jasper.”
The man in question squinted into the sunlight. “Not to mention, he suggested I get my shit together on more than one occasion.”
“Same here,” Elliott said gruffly, brushing a curl back from Peggy’s face. “He told me I didn’t see Peggy. He was right. I owe him for that. And I’ll never repay the debt.”
“He knocked me on my ass once, too,” Grace said, her wide smile revealing that front crooked tooth, only one of the traits that made her irresistible. “Literally.”
Aaron pulled Grace into his side. “Better than having a tooth knocked out.” The group laughed, but it was short lived. They were all still looking over their shoulders, hoping Belmont would appear. “Yeah, our brother has been pulling the strings all along. Hard as it is, we have to let him pull one more. Sometimes he does things that don’t make sense until later. Much later. He’s kind of like Miriam in that way, isn’t he?” His throat worked. “We’re heading out in five minutes. Use the bathroom, refill your coffee, whatever.”
“Shotgun,” Peggy said with a wink.
They started to disperse, but were brought up short by the appearance of a woman. It took Sage a moment to recognize Libby, the only other woman in town beside her mother she’d seen ostracized. They’d never spoken, but once upon a time, Sage had fancied them kindred spirits, silly though it was. “You’re Belmont’s Sage?”
Hearing his name was like an ice pick to the heart. “Yes.”
Libby wrung her hands at her waist. “Well, I just wanted to stop by and make sure everything was all right for you folks. I’ll be heading home now.”
“Wait,” Aaron said, then turned to Sage. “Sage, Libby is the one who helped us find Belmont this morning.”
It only took a split second for Sage’s lungs to empty, gratefulness inflating her chest instead, like helium. She pushed off the bumper and went to the startled-looking woman, wrapping her arms around her. “Thank you.”
Slowly, Libby’s arms lifted to return the embrace. “Trust me when I say it was my pleasure.” She stepped back from Sage, running shaky fingers through her hair. “What is it about the eight of you anyway? You all seem to…put a change in the air or something.”
Sage turned to look at her friends, but the sun was so strong, she could only make out their silhouettes. Aaron cocky with his arms crossed. Grace beside him, her hair flying in seventeen directions. Jasper and Rita pressed together, her head lying on his shoulder. Peggy twirling a curl around her index finger, Elliott observing, his legs braced apart. Ready to take on the world. All of them were. And she was one of them now.
When Sage saw a shadow move on the ground, she realized Libby was walking away. She turned and caught the woman’s arm just in time. “You should come with us to New York.”
Was it her imagination or did the lines on Libby’s face seem to soften, almost fade? “I couldn’t, I…” She glanced around, at the town in general, it seemed. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Grace stepped up beside Sage. “We can help with that.”
“Yeah,” Rita chimed in. “We specialize in fresh starts.”
There were a few beats of silence before a smile bloomed across Libby’s face. “Can you give me half an hour to pack?”
* * *
On the second day in the mine, the walls stopped closing in.
Yesterday, Belmont’s anxiety had stemmed mostly from the knowledge that Sage was traveling without him, so he’d had trouble separating the nausea that created with his fear of being penned in. He’d sent away the woman who could very well be carrying his child already. That thought would not stop occurring, to the point where he wondered if Sage had encouraged him to make love to her without protection on purpose. Subconsciously, of course. His Sage didn’t have a calculating bone in her body. Either way, it had worked. The urgency to pull himself together was so high, he couldn’t see the peak.
Maybe that was why on day two in the mine, Belmont rode the transport into the bowels of the earth…and no longer experienced the memory of voices calling. His muscles still locked up, dread clawing up the inside of his throat. The insides of the mine beat and pulsed, as if he were trapped inside a giant heart. But the voices were gone and that was a start.
A vision of his siblings crowding around him on the ground, wiping blood and dirt from his eyes, flashed. And even more calm invaded. More and more, when he remembered his brother’s steady reassurances during the drive that they would make it to the church on time, come hell or high water. And still more calm—the most of all—coasted down his raw insides when he thought of Sage dropping her bouquet and coming toward him in the church. Rescuing him from going insane over her standing beside another man in front of the eyes of God.
Belmont hopped off the vehicle once they reached the deepest point of the mine, breathing through his nose to combat the urge to throw up. The smell. It was damp and dank. The opposite of fresh. The cloying scent of gasoline from the equipment was welcome, because it saved the workspace from feeling like the bottom of a well.
He swallowed hard when the ceiling appeared to cave in, but held his ground. The scratching hoof noises rubbed the inside of his ear canal, but he shook them loose and breathed. He breathed.
A few feet away, the white wall of salt mocked him, moving like a fun house wall.
The pickax was in his hand before he registered the weight. Twirling the cold metal once against his palm, he lifted the tool up over his head and swung it down with all his might. Which turned out to be a lot. Salt rushed to the floor like a waterfall. And his nerves did the same. They were still there, jangling and sensitized, but with every fall of the ax, a weight lifted from his shoulders, his heart.
Something was different inside of him. Wasn’t there? There’d been a shift. He couldn’t pinpoint where, though. He was alone in this section of the mine. In a sense, he’d always existed inside his own space by himself. But he didn’t feel alone. At his back, he could feel five sets of hands, supporting him, encouraging him. He could feel the cool water on his face from Rita and the crushing arms of his brother. He could hear Peggy’s laughter and tears and sarcasm. He could taste the pride in his mother’s food.
And God knew on top of everything, Sage shined bright as the sun. Leaving him behind on the train platform because she loved him too much to let him turn outward, instead of inward, to beat back the darkness. Forcing him to be a better man because she believed in him. Yes. That was when the shift had started. Where everything else began. With Sage.
Belmont removed his hard hat so he could strip off his sweatshirt and T-shirt, leaving him bare-chested. The red streaks left behind by Sage’s nails caught his attention and he let the wall see them. Nothing was insurmountable when he could win a woman like that. Make a woman like that his wife.
He picked up the ax once more, cocked his head, and listened. His ears were greeted by nothing but silence, nothing but the quiet walls around him that could not hold him any longer than he desired. He was down there in the earth by choice. And he would walk out and go find his woman the same way he came in. Standing on his own two feet.
With five sets of hands at his back.
By the hundredth swing of the pickax, Belmont was laughing.