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In their shared dreams they walked among the stars together, hand in hand, the Montana snow far below, nothing but endless light and the quiet promise of forever stretching out in every direction.
34
Sage
Sage woke up slowly and alone.
The first flicker was small and automatic — that old body-memory flinching before her mind caught up. Where is he? Then her hand drifted across the sheets and found the spot where he’d been.
Still warm.
The comforter on his side was pulled back exactly the way he always seemed to do it when he rose before her — neat, considerate, trapping the heat on her side like a quiet little promise that he’d be back.
She breathed out, slow and relieved. Her thoughts drifted to Felicity. In what seemed so long ago, her stepmother’s voice in her head when she was at her last reserves as she sat outside the diner ready to die.
Come on, sweetheart. You're so close. Just a little more.
Somehow she had. Somehow she had listened to what were probably the delirious echoes of her feverish brain as her dead stepmother told her to go into that diner because someone would help. And it changed everything.
“Thank you, Mama. Thank you.” Sage whispered as she felt her soul sing.
The pillow next to her smelled like home. Cedar and clean soap and that deep, warm scent that was purely him. She pressed her face into it, eyes closed, breathing him in for a long, greedy second.
Last night happened.
She felt the truth of it in her body before her mind could line up the memories. Her thighs ached sweetly. Her hip bones were tender where his big hands had gripped her. Her lips felt swollen, her throat a little raw from crying out. She was still soft and sensitive between her legs, a low, delicious throb reminding her exactly how thoroughly she’d been loved.
A helpless smile curved against the pillow.
Last night happened.
That was when she heard it.
Faint, drifting up through the thick floorboards of the big house — low country music, that twangy, steady rhythm — and underneath it, almost swallowed by the song, a man’s voice. Not singing. Humming.
Sage froze.
What the fuck?
Cal Meridian did not hum.
Cal Meridian was a man of thoughtful silences and low, gravelly rumbles. Of grunts that carried entire conversations for the people who knew how to listen. Of careful, considered words chosen three sentences after he’d already decided what he thought. Cal Meridian was steady, contained, quietly formidable.
But somewhere downstairs in their kitchen, somebody was humming along to some western song like it was the most natural thing in the world. And it was unmistakably her man.
She sat up slowly and just listened. He sounded so…happy. She grinned as she got out of bed and padded to the bathroom.
I’m coming baby.
As she stood in front of the mirror Sage realized she had a problem. Sort of.
Maybe if I wear a hoodie?
She tried to look like it was just another morning. Like everything was completely the same as it was the day before. Like she hadn’t had the most body soul altering experience last night with her soulmate and lover.
She snorted, giving up.
Yeah, fat fucking chance.
