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She took a sip of wine and he watched, hypnotized by the movement in her throat as she swallowed. Not good.
“Eleven years,” she said, setting the goblet back onto the table and sliding her fingertips up and down the long, elegant stem.
Sage’s gaze fixed on to that motion, and his brain fogged over even as his body went rock hard. He had to force himself to pay attention when she continued to speak quietly.
“When my father got sick, it was such a blessing to be able to help my mom take care of him.” Old pain etched itself into her eyes briefly. “After he died, I realized that I was more interested in taking care of people one-on-one than in a hospital setting. I decided to become a private nurse. So I could make a real difference in the lives of families who were going through what we went through.”
Was she really as selfless and kind as she appeared? He wanted to spot deception, gamesmanship in her eyes, but those soft blue depths remained as clear and guileless as ever. Was she really that good an actress, he wondered. Or was she really an innocent?
No, he mentally assured himself. There were no innocents anymore. And a woman this staggeringly beautiful had no doubt learned before she was five just how to work a man.
Pleased that he’d managed to wrest control of his own urges, he asked, “How long ago did you lose your father?”
“Six years,” she said softly and her features once again twisted with sorrow.
“Then,” she added, “Mom and I both decided we needed a change, a chance to get away from the memories, so we left California and came here.”
“Why Cheyenne?”
She laughed a little and her blue eyes sparkled with it. Instantly, his control drowned in a sea of pulsing desire that grabbed hold of him and wouldn’t let go.
“You won’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
“Okay.” She leaned in a little closer, as if telling a funny story. Unfortunately, this increased his view of the delectable cleavage that dress displayed.
“We laid a map of the U.S. out on the dining room table and Mom closed her eyes and poked her finger down. She hit Cheyenne and here we are.”
Surprise and a bit of admiration rose up inside him, however reluctantly. “Just like that. You packed up and moved to somewhere you’d never been before.”
“It was an adventure,” she told him with a smile. “And we both needed one. Watching someone you love die by inches is horrible. At least you were spared that. I know it’s not much comfort though.”
He didn’t speak because, frankly, what the hell could he say? She’d obviously had a much better relationship with her father than he’d had with his.
“Although,” she added, “the snow was hard to get used to. We’re California girls through and through, so we needed a whole new wardrobe when we got here.”
“I can imagine.” His mind brought up the image of her seeing her first snowfall, and he almost wished he’d been there to witness it.
“When your winter coat is a sweatshirt and you can wear flip-flops year-round...” Another bright smile. “Let’s just say it was even more of an adventure than we’d thought it would be.”
“But you enjoy it?”
“I love it,” she said simply. “I’d never had a change of season before. I love the fall. And the snow is so beautiful. Then the spring when everything comes alive again. Mostly though, I love the mountains.”
“Me, too.” Funny, he hadn’t thought they’d find common ground, but here it was. Unless, his mind chided, she was saying what she thought he wanted to hear. After all, if J.D. had talked about him as she said, then she knew Sage owned a ranch in the high country, and why else would he do that if he didn’t love the mountains?
“I know... J.D. told me about your ranch.”
Ha! Proof then. But he played along. “If I can help it, I rarely come down off the mountain into the city.”
“I know that, too,” she said, her hand stilling on the wineglass. “J.D. talked about you a lot. How you preferred your ranch to anywhere else in the world. He missed seeing you, but said that you almost never left the ranch.”
A flare of something hot slashed through him. Guilt? He didn’t do guilt. “J.D. didn’t have much room to talk. You could hardly blast him off the Big Blue with a stick of dynamite.”
“True,” she said, agreeing with him. “He told me. Truth is, he used to worry that you were too much like him. Too ready to cut yourself off from everything.”
“I’m not cut off.” Hadn’t Dylan said the same thing to him just hours ago? Why did everyone assume that because a man was happy where he was that he was missing out on other things?
“Aren’t you?” It was softly asked, but no less invasive.
He stiffened and the desire pumping through him edged back just a little. Sage hadn’t brought her there to talk about him.
“No,” he assured her, and even he heard the coolness in his tone. “Just because I didn’t visit J.D. doesn’t mean I’m a damn hermit.”
Hermits had a hell of a lot more peace and quiet than he ever got. It wasn’t that Sage didn’t love his family, he did. He only preferred the solitude of his ranch because nothing good ever came of mixing with people—
He cut that thought off and buried it amid the rubble of his memories.
“He missed you.”
Three words that hurt more than he would have thought possible. Sage and J.D. had been at odds for so many years, it was hard to remember a time when things were different. He didn’t want to feel another sting of guilt, but how the hell could he avoid it? J.D. had been old and sick and still Sage hadn’t been able to get past their differences. Would that haunt him for the rest of his life? Would he have yet another regret to add to the multitude he already carried?
Shaking his head, he told her, “Our arguments were legendary. J.D. and I mixed about as well as oil and water. There’s just no way he missed me, so you don’t have to worry about telling pretty lies and trying to make me feel better. I know the truth.”
About that, anyway.
“It’s not a lie,” she said, pausing for another sip of her wine.
What was it about the woman’s throat and the slim elegance of it that fascinated him?
“He did miss you.” She smiled at him again and the warmth in her eyes washed over him. “He told me about your arguments. And really, I think he missed them. He had no one to butt heads with, and that must have been frustrating for a man as strong and powerful as he once was.”
Frowning now, Sage saw that she might just have a point. Even though his relationship with J.D. had never been a close one, he knew that his adoptive father had gone through life like a charging bull. Putting his head down and rushing at problems, determined to knock them out of his way through sheer force of will.
J.D. Lassiter had been the kind of man who let nothing stand between him and his goals. He’d bent the world to his whim and pushed those around him into line—or in Sage’s case, had tried to. For him to be reduced to a sick bed because his heart had turned on him must have been wildly frustrating. Surprisingly, Sage felt a twinge of sympathy for the old man rattle around inside him before he could stop it.
“He told me that he and his wife adopted you and Dylan when you were boys.”
Seemed J.D. had talked her damn ears off. Which gave him hope that somewhere in there, he might have confessed the reasons behind his will.
“They did,” he said and reluctantly was tossed into the past.
He had been six and Dylan four when they went to live on Big Blue. Their parents had just been killed in a traffic accident and they’d clung to each other in an unfamiliar world. Then J.D. and Ellie had swooped in and suddenly, everything was different. Their lives. Their home. Their parents. All new. All so damned hard to accept. At least for Sage. Dylan, maybe because he was younger, had accepted the change in their lives with much more ease.
Sage had refused to let go of his memories...of the life he’d been forced to surrender. He’d bucked against the rules, had fought with his new parents and in general been a pain in the ass, now that he thought about it. He’d grumbled about everything, comparing their new life to the old and the new always came up short.
Ellie had tried relentlessly, through patience and love, to get through to Sage and eventually she’d succeeded. But J.D. hadn’t had the patience to carefully win Sage over. Instead, he’d simply demanded respect and affection and Sage had refused to give either.
The two of them had fought over everything, he remembered now. From doing chores as a kid to driving as a teenager. Sage had instinctively gone in the opposite direction of anything J.D. recommended. There’d been plenty of battles between them, with Ellie stepping in as peacemaker—until she died after giving birth to Angelica.
And the love they shared for Sage’s sister was the one thing he and J.D. had ever agreed on. She had been the glue in their shattered family. Without Ellie there, they would have all floundered, but caring for Angelica kept them all afloat. Then Marlene had moved in and because she hadn’t expected their love, she’d won their hearts.
Shaking his head now, Sage reached for his wine and gulped it down as if it were water. The waiter appeared, delivering their meals, and for a moment or two, there was silence. Then they were alone again and Colleen finally spoke.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring back unpleasant memories.”
“You didn’t,” he lied, smoothing his voice out as easily as he mentally paved over memory lane.
“Okay.” She took a small bite of her ravioli, then chewed and swallowed. “Well, I’ve been talking forever. Why don’t you tell me about your ranch?”
Sage stared at her for a long minute as he tried to figure out what she was up to. But damned if he could see signs of manipulation on her features.
So he started talking, grateful to be in comfortable territory. He watched her face as she listened to him, and enjoyed the shift and play of emotions she made no attempt to hide. But as he told her about his place, Sage realized something. He wasn’t going to be getting the information he needed tonight. She was either really skillful at turning the conversation away from her—or she was as sweet and innocent as she appeared to be. But either way, it was going to take longer than he’d thought to find out exactly what she knew.
Oddly enough, that thought didn’t bother him at all.
* * *
“You can’t be serious.” Laura Falkner dropped into her favorite chair and stared up at her daughter as if she’d just sprouted another head. “Three million dollars?”
Colleen drew a deep breath and realized that over the past few days, she had actually gotten used to the idea of having three million dollars. Okay, it was still a little weird to know that she wasn’t going to have to worry about paying her cable bill—or anything else. But she’d finally come to grips with the idea that J.D. had meant for her to have this. That he’d wanted to help her reach her dreams, and she only wished that she could look him in the eye and say thank you.
Now, seeing her mother’s reaction to her news made Colleen excited all over again. She was so glad she’d waited a few days to tell her mom. Colleen had wanted to get everything in order, have her plan set in stone so her mom couldn’t argue with her over any of it. It hadn’t been easy to wait. The past three days had been a whirlwind of activity. She’d hardly had a chance to really sit down and appreciate just how much her life had changed.
And thanks to J.D.’s generosity, her mother’s life was about to change, too.
Looking around the apartment she and her mom had shared when they first moved to Cheyenne, Colleen smiled. There were good memories here, but soon her mother would be making new memories. Enjoying the dreams she’d always tucked aside. And that pleased her, even though she knew she would miss her mom being so close by.
“I’m completely serious,” Colleen replied, sitting in the chair opposite her mother. She reached out and took her mom’s hands in hers. “It’s all true. I’m going to get my nurse practitioner’s license and buy myself a cabin in the mountains as soon as possible.”
“Honey, that’s wonderful.” Laura pulled her hands free of her daughter’s grasp, then cupped Colleen’s face between her palms. “It’s been your dream for so long, having a rural practice.” Leaning back in her chair, she smiled even more broadly. “I’m delighted for you. Of course I was so sad to hear that Mr. Lassiter had died, but it was so good of him to remember you.”
“It really was.” She could see that now and accept J.D.’s bequest for the gift it was. She didn’t care anymore if people talked. As Sage had pointed out, either way, she couldn’t stop them, so why shouldn’t she be grateful to J.D. and enjoy what he’d tried to give her?
Sage.
Just the thought of his name sent ripples of anticipation racing through her. It had been three days since their dinner together, and the one-time-only night to talk about J.D. had turned into something more. Sage had taken her to a movie two nights ago, and last night to a country-western club for dancing. She still didn’t understand why he wanted to spend so much time with her, but she was enjoying herself more than she would have thought possible.
Dragging herself away from thoughts of Sage, Colleen focused on what she’d come to tell her mother. “There’s more, Mom.”
“More?” Laura just blinked at her. “You have financial security. You’re about to make your dream job a reality. What’s left?”
“Your dreams.”
“What?” Her mother had the wary look in her eyes that she used to get when Colleen was a child and up to something.
“You know how you’re always talking about moving to Florida to live with Aunt Donna?”
The two sisters were both widows now, and they’d discussed for years how much fun it would be if they could live together. But neither of them had been able to afford the move, so it just hadn’t been possible. Until now.
“Yessss...”
“Well, you’re going to.”
“I’m—” Her mother’s mouth snapped shut. “Don’t be silly.”
“It’s not silly.” Colleen had it all worked out in her mind. In fact, since the reading of the will three days before, she’d spent a lot of time on the phone, talking to lawyers, bankers, real estate agents and travel agencies. She had wanted every detail clear in her mind before broaching the subject to her mother. It had all been worth it, too, because as she started laying out her plans, Laura was dumbstruck.
“I’ve found a perfect house for you and Aunt Donna. It’s gorgeous and it’s in this lovely retirement community outside Orlando.”
“You can’t do that, you don’t have the money yet and—”
Colleen cut her off quickly. “It’s amazing how willing banks are to give you a line of credit based on a lawyer’s sworn affidavit that a will’s bequest is coming.”
“You didn’t.”
“Oh, yes, I did.” Walter Drake wasn’t the easiest lawyer to talk to, but he had assured Colleen that she would be able to draw on her bequest almost immediately. And he’d gone out of his way to set up the line of credit with a local bank.
Laura pushed out of the chair and walked the few steps to the narrow, galley-style kitchen. Busily, she filled a teakettle with water and set it on the stove, all the while shaking her head and muttering.
“Mom—”
“You shouldn’t have done that, Colleen,” her mother said, not even looking at her. She turned the fire on under the kettle, then grabbed two mugs from a cupboard and dropped a tea bag into each of them. “I don’t want you spending money on me. I want you to have that money to keep you safe.”
Colleen’s heart turned over. Her mom was the most unselfish person she’d ever known in her life. She always gave and never once had she done anything purely for herself. Well, that was about to change, whether she liked it or not.
Joining her mother in the kitchen, Colleen gave her a hard hug, then said, “I couldn’t spend all of that money if I tried and you know it.”
“Just the same—”
“Mom.” Colleen tried another tack. “Getting a house for you and Donna, so you can live without the snow making your arthritis worse, that makes me feel great. And, I only put a down payment on it. I would never buy you a house you haven’t even seen.”
“I don’t like this...”
“You will,” Colleen said, hugging her again. “And anyway, if you don’t like the house, we’ll find something else. I just thought it would be a good idea because this community has people to take care of your yard and watch over your house while you’re traveling—”
“Traveling?”
This was so much fun, it was like Christmas morning. Colleen grinned. “Yes. You’re going to travel. Just like you always wanted to.”
“Honey, enough. You know I can’t let you do this. Any of it.” Laura finally found her voice and naturally she was using it to try to turn down her daughter’s generosity.
“Too late, it’s already done.” Colleen hurried back into the living room, grabbed her purse and carried it back to the kitchen. She set it onto the small round table, slid one hand inside and came back up with a batch of cruise brochures. Handing them over to her mother, she tapped her index finger on the top one.
“A world cruise?” Laura dropped into one of the kitchen chairs as if she’d suddenly gone boneless.
“Yes.” Colleen really did feel like Santa. A tall, busty Santa with big feet. “It doesn’t leave for another three months, though, so you and Aunt Donna have plenty of time to get your passports and shopping done, and I thought we could talk about your moving to Florida as soon as you get back. Of course, if you’d rather move right away, I understand, but I don’t know that I’m ready to have you leave just yet and...”
