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“No,” she said, sliding one hand across the high-gloss paper, “I really can’t.”
“I’m going to want lots of pictures cluttering up my in-box.”
“I’ll email every day.” She frowned. “They do have computers on board, right?”
“Absolutely. Complete with Skype. We can talk face-to-face whenever you have time.” As she thought about it, she said, “Maybe we’ll get you a computer tablet, too, so you can video chat with me from Stonehenge!”
“Donna’s not going to believe this,” her mother whispered, unable to tear her gaze away from the pictures of a dream of a lifetime coming true.
Six
A few hours later, Colleen sat across from Sage in a local coffee shop. “You should have seen my mother’s face,” she said, grinning at the memory.
“She must have been shocked.” He could imagine. Hearing her talk about what she’d done for her mother had stunned Sage into silence himself.
Far from the grasping, manipulative woman he’d assumed her to be, she’d arranged for her mother and aunt to have the trip they’d always dreamed instead of spending her money on herself. Admiration flowed through him, along with the desire that had become as familiar to him as breathing over the past few days.
Since that first dinner hadn’t brought him any information, Sage had made it his business to spend as much time with Colleen as possible. Though they hadn’t been able to speak at the movies, watching her reaction to the drama playing out on the screen had fascinated him. Tears, laughter, a jolt of surprise at the happy ending—she was so easy to read and at the same time, so damn complicated he didn’t know what to make of her.
Long ago, he had decided that women weren’t to be trusted. That they turned their emotions on and off at whim, the better to acquire whatever they happened to be after at the time. Tears were a woman’s best weapon, as he’d discovered early on. But on the surface, at least, Colleen seemed...different.
And that both intrigued and worried him.
“Oh, she really was.” Shaking her head, she picked up her burger and took a bite, still smiling. “Mom and Aunt Donna have been planning fantasy trips for years. They go back and forth, deciding what hotels they’ll stay in, what countries they’ll see. They go online and look up cruise packages, just to torture themselves.” She took a breath and sighed happily. “Knowing that they’re going to actually get to go and experience everything they’ve always talked about is just...amazing.”
“You’re amazing,” he murmured, thinking his voice was so soft it would be lost in the clatter and noise from the rest of the patrons surrounding them.
He should have known she’d hear him.
“Why?”
Sage shrugged, sat back in the booth and draped one arm along the back. “Most people, receiving a windfall like you did? They’d go out and buy themselves fast cars, a house that’s too big and too expensive, all kinds of things. But you didn’t. You bought your mother’s dreams.”
She smiled. “What a nice way to put it.”
Her eyes were shining and that smile lit her face up like a damn beacon. Something inside him turned over and he was pretty sure it was his heart. That was unsettling. Sage had spent most of his life carefully building a wall around his heart, keeping out anything that might touch him too deeply. His family was one thing. His brother and sister were a part of him, and he accepted the risk of loving them because there was no way he could live without them.
But to love a woman? To trust love? No. He’d nearly made that mistake years ago, and he’d steered clear of it ever since. He’d had a narrow escape and hadn’t come away unscathed even at that. So the women he allowed into his life now were nothing like Colleen. They were temporary distractions...just blips on a radar that was finely tuned for self-protection. Colleen was something different. If she was who he now believed her to be, then he had no business being around her. But for the life of him, he couldn’t stay away.
Frowning now, he said, “What about your plans? Your dreams?”
She picked up her iced tea and took a long drink. “Well, I already told you my main goal. I’m going to get my nurse practitioner’s license.”
“Because?”
“Because what I’d really like to do is have a rural practice,” she said, leaning toward him over the table.
