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The dinner rush had ebbed, the way it always did around eight—gradually, then all at once. Booths emptied in laughing clusters until only a handful of regulars remained, nursing the last of their coffee in the unhurried luxury of a place that felt more like home than anywhere else Sage had known.
The air still hung warm and layered: savory roasted meat, flaky pie crust, and the faint, sugary sweetness of caramel Mary Sue had been simmering since four. Every time the door opened, a cold slash of Montana December slipped in, carrying the clean, sharp scent of pine and fresh snow that mingled with the woodsmoke clinging to coats.
Outside the windows, snow fell soft and steady, the kind that didn’t make a show of itself—just quietly blanketed the world until everything looked brand new.
The jukebox was playing “Blue Christmas,” by Elvis. Sage was rolling silverware at the end of the counter, a task she’d come to love. The steady rhythm of napkin-fork-knife-spoon let her hands stay busy while her mind wandered exactly where it wanted to go. She’d been living and working with Mary Sue and Isabelle for almost six days now, and she’d had the time of her life—helping in the diner, laughing through girl talk every night until she crawled into bed with Mary Sue, tired and happy, sinking into sleep that didn’t carry nightmares.
She loved every single minute of it.
Except for the small, tiny fact that she was desperate to go home.
Home.
Just over a month ago she’d been a shell of a woman—Felicity gone, no money, a dying Jeep, and nothing left to lose. Stumbling into this diner that night had been a miracle. A miracle named Cal Meridian. Cal. The man she’d fallen desperately, helplessly in love with. The man she missed with every breath. The one who’d made her feel welcome, cared for, prayed for, and whispered “please never leave.”
Sage was more than ready to go home. The only thing holding her back was Isabelle’s giddy insistence: “Soon, Sage! Ooo it’s going to be soooo awesome! Just a few more days, okay?”
She was barely hanging on. Every time she closed her eyes she saw him—cooking at the stove with that quiet focus, walking beside her on a snowy trail, sitting with her on the porch at night, or training in the morning looking so damn delicious it should be illegal. And then her body would remember the shower… that overwhelming feeling she’d never known before.
In fact, she may have tried, unsuccessfully, to replicate it with the shower head upstairs. Mary Sue really needed to invest in better water pressure.
It was frustrating. More so because every time Cal walked through that door, Sage melted into a complete fool—moon-eyed, breathless, and shamelessly in love. She didn’t want to stop. Not ever.
Sage shook her head, pulling herself back to the present.
The remaining tables were quiet. Bobby Callahan and his father were finishing their pie in the second booth. The Halverson sisters—long past closing their tab—nursed decaf and spoke in the low, comfortable tones of women who’d been best friends since before Sage was born. Annie had left at seven-thirty with a kiss on Sage’s cheek and a promise that the tip debate was not over.
In the kitchen, the familiar sounds of closing filled the air: clattering sheet pans, the sharp rush of the dish sprayer, and Mary Sue’s brisk voice directing the line cook like a general who had won this exact battle ten thousand times before.
In the corner booth—the back one against the window that everyone called “Bear’s booth”—Cal, Isabelle, and Michael sat over what looked like a casual dinner… but very obviously wasn’t.
Sage could tell because Cal had a legal pad.
Cal did not casually carry a legal pad.
She rolled another set of silverware and very pointedly did not look at the booth. She’d been not-looking at it with laser focus for the last forty-five minutes. It helped that the mirror on the far wall gave her a perfect view of it anyway.
Isabelle was talking in a low, efficient tone, ticking items off on her fingers. Michael had his laptop open—borrowed charger courtesy of Mary Sue’s magical kitchen drawer that seemed to hold every lost object in Blackthorn Ridges—and was typing with intense focus.
Cal sat completely still, listening in that intense way of his, occasionally jotting notes in his deliberate handwriting on the legal pad.
Every few minutes he looked up.
At her.
Not a glance. A look. The full weight of those steel-gray eyes finding her across the room. Each one landed like a spark of molten lava in the center of her chest, trickling slowly down to the warm ache between her thighs and making her want to do things that were probably illegal in most states—and definitely illegal in public.
Sage sighed. Loudly.
She rolled another set of silverware.
Napkin. Fork. Knife. Spoon. Napkin. Fork. Knife. Spoon… spoon… hmmm… I’d like Cal to spoon me from behind and take those big gentle hands and pinch my—
“Sage, honey, can you get table two their check?” Mary Sue called through the pass-through, startling her.
“Got it, Mama,” she squeaked. Mary Sue’s tolerant smile said she knew exactly where Sage’s mind had wandered.
Sage moved through the quiet diner with practiced ease, the rhythm of the place now bone-deep after six days of repetitive tasks. She loved it more than she expected—the simple warmth of feeding people, learning their names and usuals, existing inside a community that had been running long before her and would keep running long after.
