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“What are you talking about?”
“I was in college. My sophomore year. Twenty years old and I figured I had all the answers.” He pushed one hand through his hair and tipped his head back to look up through the skylight at the cloud-scudded sky. Even with his age-old fury pushing his words, they caught in his throat and had to be forced out. But if he was going to say it, he was going to look into those oh-so-innocent eyes that saw only the good in people. That way he could be a witness when she finally had to admit that J.D. was nothing like she’d thought he was.
“What happened?” The concern in her voice was as real as the touch of her hand on his arm. The electrical whip of heat that sliced through him did battle with the anger and lost.
He snorted. “What happened? J.D. happened. I went home one night and told him that I was leaving school.”
“Why?”
His gaze speared into hers. “I was in love. Or at least I thought I was. I told J.D. we were going to get married and start up my ranch.”
Her voice was soft and uncertain as she asked, “What did he say?”
“Oh,” Sage said on a sharp bark of laughter, “J.D. said all the right things. Told me he’d help me get into the inheritance my parents left me. Wasn’t much,” he added, “but it would’ve given me a start.”
“That’s good though, isn’t it?” Her eyes were shimmering with hurt and he didn’t know if it was for him or herself. “J.D. said he’d help you.”
“Yeah, and then the next day, when I got to my girlfriend’s place, her roommate told me she was gone and wouldn’t be back.” Amazing, Sage thought, that it could still hurt after all these years. That the betrayal was as sharp. The fury as thick.
“Why would she leave?”
He looked at her and quirked one eyebrow, inviting her to fill in the blanks. When she didn’t, he did it for her. “She left me a note. Told me that it had been fun, but she was moving to Paris to paint. And she wasn’t supposed to let me in on it, but apparently she didn’t mind turning on J.D., either, because she told me in the note that he’d paid her two hundred thousand bucks to leave.”
* * *
Colleen looked up at him, and for the first time in her life, didn’t have the slightest clue what to say. This J.D. was not the man she had known. How could he have hurt his son so badly? And while her heart hurt for Sage, there was pain for herself, as well.
Sage had been in love. He’d wanted to get married. And though it was years ago, a part of her ached hearing the words.
He scrubbed both hands across his face. “I called him on it right away and he was furious that Megan had told me what he’d done.” He shook his head and choked out another laugh. “He didn’t see anything wrong with what he’d done, of course, but he was pissed as hell that I’d found out about it. Told me he’d done it for my sake. That Megan wasn’t the kind of woman to stand by a man—”
She opened her mouth and he spoke quickly to cut her off.
“—before you can say it, yeah, he was right about Megan. If she had loved me, she never would have taken the money. But he should have let me find out the truth about her myself. Instead, he charged in, just like always, and rearranged the world to suit himself.”
Megan was a fool. An idiot. She’d had this proud, strong, yes, arrogant man’s love and she’d sold it. Colleen would never have betrayed him. She would have been proud to have his love, to work with him to build a ranch, a legacy for the family they would build and—
Colleen’s throat closed up. All of a sudden she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t stop the sting of tears in her eyes. What on earth was wrong with...
Oh, God. She was in love.
For the first time in her life, she was madly, completely, passionately in love with a man who probably would never return the feeling. The realization staggered her and if she hadn’t had the workbench behind her as a brace, she might have just slumped to the floor. How was she going to get past this feeling? How could she possibly be in love with a man who wanted nothing to do with love and family? Who believed that love meant betrayal?
Sage was still talking and she forced herself to listen. He didn’t need to know what she was feeling, that her heart was breaking. What he needed was to get past the old pain still gnawing on him. “Sage...”
“Forget it. You can’t say anything, Colleen. J.D. was a bastard. End of story.”
Her own feelings didn’t matter right now, she told herself. What did matter was the pain Sage was still in. She couldn’t bear seeing him cling to old injuries that were only hurting him, keeping him from moving on, and understanding that though his father had treated him badly, it wasn’t because he hadn’t loved him.
