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“Angie, we can’t fight the will.”
“What?” Confused, she said, “Why not?”
He took both of her hands in his, glanced around the entry hall and felt the years of being a Lassiter settle down onto his shoulders. He was J.D.’s son and it was high time he started acting like it.
“Because if we do that and lose, a lot of people could be hurt. Marlene. Chance...” Colleen, he thought but didn’t say.
“But you said we’d do something about this. That we’d figure it all out. I thought you were on my side.”
His heart squeezed. “I am on your side, honey. You’re my sister and I love you. But you know, too—hell, we all know, that J.D. loved you to death.” He squeezed her hands. “So he had a reason for what he did no matter how crazy it seems to us. We’re going to sit back and trust that our father did the right thing.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” Angie yanked her hands from his and glared at him. “Dad didn’t turn on you.”
“Yeah, I know. Just like I know that J.D. had a reason for everything he ever did. We just have to find out the reason behind this.”
“And that’ll make it better?” The short laugh that shot from her throat told him how she felt about that.
“Didn’t say that.” Shaking his head, Sage looked at his sister and tried not to see the unshed tears glittering in her eyes. “We both know J.D. would never do anything to deliberately hurt you, so there’s a reason for what he did. We’re going to trust it’s a good one.”
“I can’t believe this.” There was hurt in her eyes, but mostly she was furious.
Well, he could deal with an angry sister. Anger he understood.
“Angie, I spent a lot of years mad at J.D. I wasted what I could have had.” Disgusted with himself and sad that missed chances could never be recaptured, he said, “I’m through wasting time. I’m through holding a grudge against our father. I love you, Angie, but I won’t support you if you try to fight the will.”
“Sage—”
“You, me, Dylan,” he said, cutting off whatever she might have said, “we’re family. And love is all that matters.”
She choked out a strained laugh. “You sound just like Dad.”
Sage grinned. “About time, don’t you think?”
* * *
Colleen hadn’t expected love.
At thirty-one, she’d long ago given up on the whole Prince Charming thing and had made up her mind to enjoy her career and her life, and if love found her, then great. If not, that would be okay, too.
Well, love had found her. When she’d least expected it, love had arrived. “And lucky me, now I know exactly what it’s like to try to live without it.”
The past two weeks had been awful. Just awful. She was tired of putting on a happy face for her mother—but it was necessary because she didn’t want her mom worrying. And it was a strain pretending everything would be great to Jenna—who wanted to drive up the mountain and kick Sage. The worst part of it all was trying to get by on fifteen minutes of sleep every night.
Sage was on her mind all the time. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat—at least she’d lost six pounds—and just the thought of never being with him again made Colleen want to crawl into a hole and die. How was it possible, she wondered, for your whole world to change completely in just a matter of weeks?
Looking back, she could see how it had all happened. She’d been half in love with Sage from the moment J.D. had told her the first story about his oldest son. She was lost from the moment she’d seen him at the rehearsal dinner. And now she was just lost.
Sitting at the table in her condo kitchen, she looked over the sales papers and signed her name at every highlighted X. The condo was sold and she was now officially homeless. She still had to finish qualifying as a nurse practitioner, but most of that could be done online. And when she had to come to Cheyenne for classes, she was willing to drive down off the mountain to do it. She was ready for change. Ready to start living the rest of her life.
All she needed now was to find a place to live.
“Poor little rich girl,” she murmured, flipping through the pages. Three million dollars and no home to call her own. She’d have to start over, looking for a place, because she couldn’t buy that cabin. Not now. Not ever. She wouldn’t be able to live there, remembering the passion, the incredible sense of rightness that she’d felt with Sage so briefly.
