by Tessa Bailey
The color drained right out of his face. “I’m sorry, Sage.” Slowly, he removed his hand, stealing back the blessed warmth along with it. “Go. You have to go.”
Now of course, she couldn’t manage so much as a blink, fear over being parted from Belmont stabbing her in the back. “Okay. I’m going.”
“Will you…” His voice had gone from robust to deadened. “Check in with Peggy, please. At least check in with Peggy. And bandage those cuts.”
“Yes,” Sage breathed, scrambling to get out of the car. She saw nothing, heard only the wind rushing in her ears as she staggered to the back door. Retrieving her luggage was the easy part. It was passing the front window again without glancing inside that presented the challenge. In the end, she couldn’t manage it.
So the final time she saw Belmont, a war was taking place behind his eyes. And both sides were losing.
“You’re doing the right thing.” Her breath hitched, suitcase wheels catching on a sidewalk crack. “You’re doing the right thing.”
Sometimes the right thing was the most painful. Sometimes it gutted you and ruined you forever, so a single second wouldn’t pass without a reminder.
Sage knew that lesson all too well.
Chapter Two
Belmont was being torn in half. Those halves were not equal, however, or he would already have gone after Sage. One side was the staunch belief that she was hiding something. He’d picked up on the subtle changes in her somewhere between Hurley and Iowa, although anything subtle with Sage hit him like a tidal wave. So he’d been aware. Conscious that a packed punch was coming…but he’d still been unprepared.
The larger half of his torn being represented horror. That horror kept him rooted to the driver’s seat, unable to move his paralyzed limbs, as he watched Sage’s form grow smaller and smaller as it moved down the sidewalk. Jesus Christ. He’d crushed her. Wrapped himself around her, molded their bodies together, spoken gibberish into her hair one too many times. Or maybe the first time had been bad enough and her kindness, her relationship to Peggy, had forced her to try and ease his anxiety.
Anxiety. That was one way to describe the slab of asphalt pushing down on his windpipe, the waves of dizziness, the premonition that something bad would happen to his loved ones. To Sage. But she hadn’t signed on to be his loved one, he’d simply…commandeered her in the name of survival. Her breath on his skin was the only thing that had ever made him feel normal.
That wasn’t fair to anyone. He’d known it wasn’t. But he’d gotten the sense Sage…benefited, too. Well, he’d been dead wrong. She was practically sprinting toward the train station to be free of his company, and God, he didn’t blame her. Of course he didn’t.
She was going home? Belmont didn’t even know the location. Never once had she spoken about her parents, schooling, old friends. In this one sense, he’d given her space. If anyone knew about keeping the past at bay, it was Belmont. Now his silence had bought him the ultimate slide into agony. Not knowing where his Sage was going. Or how she would be welcomed. If she’d be safe, warm, happy, fed properly. Made to laugh. Made to cry.
Belmont’s forehead rebounded off the steering wheel before he even registered his own movement. Lights danced in front of his eyes, accompanied by a symphony of car horns. But the action caused something else to shake loose. You don’t treat me like a woman.
His sandbagged eyelids lifted just in time to catch Sage disappearing into the train station. Vanishing right out of his reach and making his fists clench helplessly. Explosions were detonating on the minefield inside his head, but he struggled through the smoke to focus on that remark from Sage. I didn’t treat her like a woman.
If there had been anyone remaining in the Suburban, they would have been scared of the laugh that drifted from Belmont’s mouth. It was a pitch-black sound, dense and fearsome. Not a big brotherly laugh or that of an honest, hardworking salvage boat captain. If Sage had any idea the obscene visions he entertained, she would have caught an earlier train. On Belmont’s best day, he could only block the thoughts of Sage’s naked body out so long, before they returned and ruled him. Sick. He was sick to think of a gentle, loving soul like Sage in such a manner. To imagine her clutching at the sheets beneath him, sweating, screaming…coming.
His head banged off the steering wheel a second time. Had she…wanted him to make an advance all this time? Had he been too mired in his own muck to notice? If she’d given him the slightest hint that she wanted to be touched by his hands in ways he’d only ever envisioned, stopping would have been impossible. She was so soft and taut. She fit against him like God had taken a mold of his body and created a woman who would correspond to every jut and angle of him. Belmont would have scoffed at the notion that God had nothing better to do than create him a woman. But if there was one truth in this world, it was that God had taken extra time on Sage Alexander. Her divinity was what kept Belmont’s hands cherishing, instead of predatory. The possibility that she’d been waiting for him to provide pleasure and he’d missed the signals…it was insufferable. It was unacceptable.
His fingers dug into his eye sockets and moved in ruthless circles. Confusion swam through the middle of a vision of Sage beckoning him from a mess of sheets and pillows. You’re suffocating me. Which was it? How could she want him to treat her like a woman, but also wish him away? Not just for a break, but for forever.
Oh Christ, he was going to be sick.
Belmont tilted back his head and breathed through his nose. In, out, in, out. Right now Sage was buying a train ticket to somewhere he might not find her. That was her choice. He had to let her make that decision, even if it hobbled his well-being. She deserved to be happy, and if that happiness lay as far away from him as possible? Well, he’d always suspected that would be the case one day. Hadn’t he?
You don’t treat me like a woman. His eyes opened, stillness settling over him, head to toe. She might want to divert their paths, but hell would freeze over before he let Sage walk away without knowing. Knowing all about the constant burn in his gut to taste her, to bring their mouths together and let reality fade as they kissed. She’d remember him. If she wanted to leave, she would walk away remembering that he’d spent every minute of their time together aching.
Belmont pushed open the driver’s side door and stepped out into traffic. A motorist tapped his horn, but held up both hands, palms out, when Belmont glanced over. The two-way flow of cars crammed together on the road to accommodate the Suburban occupying a full lane, but as Belmont walked toward the train station—determination no doubt etched in every inch of his body—drivers eased their vehicles to the side to give him room, parting traffic as he strode down the double yellow line.
When he reached the train station, alarm slithered up his spine. Eight tracks. There were eight tracks in a town this small? Would he have time to check them all? Urgency gripping him by the throat, Belmont surveyed the closest two tracks and found them empty, save a handful of passengers waiting with luggage at their feet. Spying an aboveground walkway, he made his way there and paused in the middle, scanning the tracks from above.
There. There was Sage. His knees almost gave out, fingers curling into the metal fence until his bones creaked. He only took enough time to catalog the way Sage stood, clutching her suitcase to her chest like a shield, before he was off. His legs felt like rubber as he descended the stairs, two at a time. Reaching the bottom, he was surprised to find a drizzle had started, pattering on the concrete walkway around him, making his footsteps sound padded. Distant. Warm rain on a cold morning created a sizzling combination where the heated moisture hit the cold tracks. The sudden humidity was cloying, but he gulped it down anyway, having no choice but to breathe if he wanted to make it to Sage.
He almost stopped when Sage’s head whipped around, her suitcase crashing down at her feet. Dear God, she looked as if she might run from him. If she did, his heart would stop beating. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Only a few yards away from Sage and he took i
n every detail about her in one sweep, just in case she’d changed since the last time he’d seen her. Beads of moisture hung in her hair, her freckles standing out in the paleness of her face. But it was her mouth Belmont focused on, out of pure necessity. If he tried to dissect her thoughts or what she’d said to him back in the Suburban, he would never make this one thing right. All he had left was correcting the error he’d made, before the world could continue spinning.
“You are a woman, Sage. You’re the only woman,” Belmont breathed in a rush as he reached Sage, hauling her off the ground with both arms and up against his body—
And then their lips touched for the first time.
Something parted in Belmont’s mind, like clouds after a storm, and so much light shined through, it would have blinded him. Would have, if his eyes had the ability to remain open against the onslaught of euphoria. Need, too. There was always the need, but with his mouth finally pressing against Sage’s, desire grew huge and demanding. Going against every rule he’d given himself, Belmont tilted his hips and let her feel it.
Her gasp was lost in the sizzle of moisture and steam, rain beginning to pelt the sidewalk now, but Belmont swallowed the sound, imprisoning it in his belly. Surrounding it with lust. With the cradle of Sage’s thighs hugging him tight, so tight, Belmont slipped his tongue into her mouth, licked, and drew it out. Licked and drew it out. Every taste made his thoughts go fuzzy, his equilibrium wane. Breakfast tea and grape jelly. Just the faintest hint of both from Sage’s mouth and he knew he would need those things to sustain him, every day, until he died.
Keeping one arm banded around her lower back, Belmont allowed his opposite hand to slide into Sage’s hair, holding her steady and reveling in one final feel of her soft strands. But this time—oh, this time—he made a fist and tugged. Just enough. Could she sense now that he’d thought of mashing those strands against his stomach so many times, he’d lost count? Could she question now that he’d never seen her as anything but a woman?
“Belmont,” she whispered, pulling away to suck in air.
“Sage,” he answered, diving back in with a hard kiss. “Sage.”
The train slid up alongside of where they stood on the platform, the electric hum so out of place, so wrong, so detested. But he ignored the dread, tilting her head at an angle and wrecking himself for all eternity. Because the texture of her mouth, the give, the take of it, had been the stuff of male dreams since time began. She was endless and generous, letting his tongue travel deep, greeting it with her own and whimpering, whimpering, when they parted.
His hands grew frantic in her hair. How could he stop his limbs from moving on their own, when all his concentration went into memorizing her taste? The perfect pressure of her seated on his pulsing flesh, moving on it restlessly. Could he really have been touching Sage, kissing her, before now? A groan rife with misery lanced through his chest and mingled into their kiss. No. No. He’d crowded her, made her feel used, like a freak. A freak like him. Maybe this was one final act of mercy on her part, saint that she was. And he was grateful for it. He would be grateful he’d ever been given the experience at all.
A tinny voice made an announcement to his left and reality punched him in the face. He stumbled back, still cradling Sage against his body, remaining upright just so she wouldn’t fall. After she got on the train, it wouldn’t matter. Nothing would.
Carefully—and under the pain of a thousand knives—he eased her down, so she could stand on her own two feet. His pulse still clamoring in his veins, Belmont stepped back. She stared at him in a way he couldn’t interpret. Like maybe he was even more confusing than she’d imagined. Or because Sage was always thinking of others, she could have been wondering if he would be all right, once she got on the train. He didn’t know. He couldn’t think or reason around the impact of the kiss and losing her, all at the same time.
The last few weeks, he’d turned her life into a circus. His sisters had flown her to New Mexico when the cracks in his façade started to show, hoping her presence would help. Help? There were no words to describe how she’d calmed him, day in and day out, against the anxiety of constant change, the loss of his routine, the terrifying prospect of finally finding his real father. He’d taken advantage of how Sage made him feel…and now he needed to return the countless kindnesses she’d paid him, by making this moment easy. For her.
Belmont noticed a strand of sandy brown hair had gotten loose from Sage’s ponytail, so he reached out and tucked it behind her ear. “Wherever you’re going, Sage,” he rasped, “every time you walk into a strange room, remember that you might be the smallest person in it, but you’re the strongest and most beautiful. Right down to the deepest parts of your heart.” Sage still hadn’t moved a muscle, so he picked up her fallen suitcase and set it inside the door of the train. “But if you ever get scared or lost or lonely, know that I’m one phone call away. Whether it’s tomorrow or fifty years from where we’re standing, I’ll come. I’ll come before you know it.”
A window slid open on the train. “Closing the doors, folks,” a man’s voice called.
“I wasn’t expecting this,” Sage whispered. “I wasn’t prepared for this.”
Belmont was already being swallowed in the whirlpool of denial and solitude, so he couldn’t even begin to try and figure out what Sage hadn’t been prepared for. The kiss, probably. He hadn’t been prepared, either, but it had been the single greatest moment of his life.
Another warning call from the train’s operator spurred Belmont into action. He couldn’t make her miss her train on top of everything else, much as he wanted to. Much as he wanted to punch a hole in the side of it and render it inoperable. He grasped Sage’s waist, took two steps, and set her gently inside the train, trying with all his might not to worry about the sudden fear shining in her eyes, the color streaking her cheeks.
“Good-bye, my heartbeat.”
The doors closed.
Chapter Three
The train moved and Sage stumbled, falling against the plastic partition, just inside the door. Her hip smarted, funny bone tingling, but she barely registered any of it. No. No, that hadn’t just happened. She was still asleep in the passenger side seat of the Suburban, her feet propped up on the dusty dashboard. Right? Right?
She winced at the screeching in her head, pinching two fingers around the bridge of her nose to deaden the pressure. The pain proved one thing. This moment was real. Her lips were still wet from Belmont’s kiss and he was walking away, his tall, dark form moving down the platform, steam rising off the concrete to swirl around his ankles. She refused to blink because something told her he would vanish into that mist if she did.
“Belmont,” she croaked, rapping the heels of her hands against the window, slapping her palms there until the glass rattled. “Wait. Waitwaitwait.”
Please. Why wouldn’t he turn around? He always knew when something was wrong with her. When she was sick, hungry, tired. She never even had to say a word. He wouldn’t just keep walking when she was drowning on the inside. Belmont.
Mistake. She’d made a mistake. They weren’t supposed to be apart. The train was picking up speed and already she could feel her fabric ripping at the seams. Her right hand flew to her throat, clutching at the skin, scratching it, and begging entrance for oxygen. She was losing sight of him now. He’d reached the end of the platform and was turning the corner, scaling the stairs for the aboveground walkway. If he simply turned his head, he would be able to see her beating the glass, but he didn’t. He didn’t even look.
She’d built up just enough of a reserve of courage to break away from the one person that helped drown the guilt she’d been living with. He saw her as sweet, faultless Sage and the temptation to pretend that was true, pretend the past wasn’t real, was so inviting. Even though it was an illusion. Her habit’s name was Belmont and it never stopped buzzing inside her like a colony of bees. That kiss had just kicked the hive.
“No,” Sage heaved, turning and runnin
g for the back of the train. “No, stop the train.” She whirled in a circle mid-aisle, faces and colors and cell phone screens blending together. “Can they stop it? Please, I need to get off. I have to go to him.”
Silence. They were all looking at her like she was insane. She must be insane, right? A man more incredible and powerful than the sun had just kissed her as if his very existence depended on it…and she’d let herself get swept away by this cursed metal machine. She’d been so desperate for proof that she wasn’t merely a crutch for Belmont, that he saw her as a desirable woman, but in a way, she’d also been dreading it. Fearing that confirmation. Because it would draw her back, make it excruciating to leave him. And it was. Time was passing. Precious seconds. Minutes? How long had she been standing in the aisle, remembering Belmont’s hands, his mouth, the words he’d said in parting?
My heartbeat. He’d never called her that before. Had he always wanted to?
Turning on a heel, she sprinted farther into the back of the train, finally reaching the back window, pressing every inch of her body against it, eyes searching frantically for Belmont back at the train station. But it was too far away now. A dot. And even if she could find the train operator and convince him to go back, Belmont would be gone by the time she got there. In his Suburban and back on the road, all alone.
Sage’s knees hit the cold train floor. With the shock of pain came a reminder of where she was going. Why she’d been forced to leave Belmont in the first place. This morning, she’d only had one option, but now…now she wondered if she’d made a grave mistake in underestimating Belmont’s ability to cope with the situation she would face down in Louisiana. She’d given him her insecurities about not being treated like a woman and he’d barreled right through them, hadn’t he? That man who’d stormed toward her on the platform and blown her every perception of love, life, and need out of the water? That man could take on anything.