All About Sage (A City of Sails Romance Book 2)

by Hill, Joanne

  So maybe she just liked men in good shape, because there wasn’t a lot else about him a woman like Sage would like.

  She liked the Barrys of the world.

  He turned and left the room, before he did something stupid and proved Mrs Parker right.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The calm in the house was nothing short of miraculous. At eleven-thirty, Ethan took his six-pack of beer from the fridge, emptied a bag of corn chips into a bowl, and grabbed the dip he’d made from the sour cream. Balancing the lot, he headed through to the family room, switched on the TV, and settled back on the couch with the remote to his side.

  If he got tired or the game was delayed, he could stretch across the length of the long couch, and wait it out. Robyn had told Ethan that Jack had bought the couch so they could sit with the children and have family movie nights.

  Ethan knew better. Jack had bought it for moments like this.

  Game time was bliss for both of them, even if Ethan spent most of it on his own. He’d spent plenty of time doing just that, in his own place. Even before Jack had married Robyn, Jack had been in a relationship with his former girlfriend, Charlotte, and so he and Jack taking time out to chill and watch sports together had always been limited. Besides, Jack needed his sleep more than Ethan, because Ethan had learnt to survive on as little sleep as possible. It had been all about survival, although it hadn’t been his own survival.

  He pulled the tab on the beer, took a slug, and aimed the remote at the TV to increase the volume. The toss had been made and the Kiwis would be out soon to bat. In the meantime, the commentators were running through the team list.

  He took another slug of beer, and as he reached for the bowl of chips, he heard a sound. Hastily, he muted the TV. He waited, ears tuned, but there was nothing else.

  He un-muted the volume, and his mind slipped back to the worst of the foster homes he’d been placed in. Put there by people who had no clue what kind of evil they’d been placing kids into.

  It paid, Ethan told himself, to remember how much cruelty people were capable of inflicting on one another. It paid to never, ever forget.

  He’d learnt to protect his foster brothers from the predatory night-time visits of their foster ‘father’. He’d learnt to wake up smartly at the slightest creak of a door or the sound of footsteps stopping outside. He’d learnt to protect those kids because even then, he’d seen that no one else was going to protect them, and no one else was going to protect him, or care about him. He’d made it his mission to make sure those kids didn’t get as messed up as they would have, if he hadn’t been around.

  He’d never worried about himself.

  Even as a boy, not even into his teens, there had been something about him, some quality within him that had kept most people from picking on him. The exception had been his own family, his own flesh and blood. The first ten years of his life had been violent. The next ten were spent stopping something even sicker and more violent.

  He’d spent his teenage years topping and tailing with his foster brothers, able to wake fast if he heard the slightest sound and, hell, did that sick bastard try. He’d hated being away and leaving the boys, because it would happen. It always did when he wasn’t there. But he couldn’t watch over them all the time, and he’d had to learn to live with that.

  But when he was around, when he was there, he could be as silently threatening as if he was standing there pointing a gun to a head. And if he’d had a gun, he’d have done it and taken the rap and not felt a moment’s guilt.

  But he’d also known what he was, and that was the risk of it all. There had been no point going to the authorities, because he’d spent his childhood lying his teeth off to avoid a beating. And that reputation had stayed, and it had tarnished him. It had gone before him into his teen years, and throughout his teen years.

  Ethan McGraw? No one with half a brain could ever trust Ethan McGraw – except for the boys. They had trusted him, and they had trusted him with their lives.

  The defense force had been good for him. He was fit, he was smart, and he had smarts, and he had the need to get the hell out of where he’d come from. It had been the easiest and the best decision he’d ever made.

  He’d joined before his eighteenth birthday. Joined as soon as he’d known the boys were in a safer place.

  There had been the element of a death wish around choosing the army. It had struck him his first week in training, that if he’d been born a century earlier, he’d have been the first to sign up for the war and risk his life in a heartbeat.

  Even then, when he’d joined the force, he’d joined with abilities no kid should have had. When he’d done ten years, when he’d had enough and wanted a normal life, it had been hard to leave because there’d been a purpose in peace-keeping and disaster zones. Real purpose that had brought the hope back into his life, because he’d seen the good that could be done, and the good that he could do. And it had left him with the discipline to leave the old Ethan behind and forge a path for the man he’d become. Never for a minute had he seen himself as career army, even though there were plenty who told him he could rise to the top. But it turned out that buying and flipping over property wasn’t a bad way to make a living, and then some. He and Jack had cut some pretty lucrative deals together over the past few years.

  He took another slug of beer, his gaze on the TV as the Kiwis came out to bat.

  He’d kept in touch with some of the foster kids he’d known over the years. He’d been able to help a few. Some had just turned out to not have what it took to turn their lives around, and that wrenched his gut. Wrenched his soul.

  In a few weeks’ time, the trial was beginning for the supposed ‘father’ who was denying all the charges. Two of the boys were staying out at Ethan’s place up north now. Meeting daily with the prosecution. Steeling themselves for what they were going to have to do.

  Ethan was prepared to go on the stand, to put it out there, to have his whole life examined and ripped apart. He had nothing to lose, and over the years, after a lot of discussions with people trained to deal with the hell he’d lived, he’d gotten rid of some of the guilt that had plagued him. He’d come to accept that he couldn’t do everything and be everything to everybody.

  He reached for the bowl of chips. Although there were times it ached. Two a.m. in the morning, waking on his own, hot, sweaty, tormented. Could he have done better? He’d only been a kid himself, but there were times he wondered if he could have done better, times he questioned everything, and just what the purpose of life even was.

  But in the normal hours of a day, he could try and convince himself he’d done okay and even that in some cosmic way, he had been in the right place at the right time to do that good. As the years went by, he could look back at his own childhood – his own low-life wreckage of a family – and see that it had held him in good stead for those teen years. The violence he’d endured as a kid had given him the ability to deal with predators. And now… Now, justice was on the verge of being served.

  He set his bottle down, and put his feet up on the coffee table.

  Jack was one of the few who knew, because Jack’s life had been rough. Different rough, but rough nonetheless, and guys like Jack Fletcher gave Ethan hope for the other kids out there. That a life could be turned around, new ways of living learnt. That the past could be overcome, guilt erased, hope fed and nurtured. Even his own life gave him hope, because if Ethan McGraw could figure it all out, then so could anyone.

  His mind slipped to Sage. He hadn’t figured her out at all, and he sure hadn’t figured out why he felt this frustrating, inconvenient, utterly absurd attraction to her.

  He grabbed another handful of chips.

  And it was best not to even think about her. Thinking about Sage Lockwood wasn’t going to help either of them, and wasn’t going to make the next twenty-four hours any easier than the past twenty-four had been.

  He reached for the remote and increased the volume. The batter was on the
crease, the bowler ready to go. The umpire stood at one end.

  Bliss. He sighed as he relaxed, feeling the serenity seep through him. He silently cheered as the first ball was bowled.

  An hour later, one beer down, Ethan heard a noise again.

  He quickly muted the remote, remembered he had activated the security alarm, and listened carefully.

  His spine prickled. Somebody was coming down the stairs.

  Was it one of the twins? He closed his eyes on a groan. What if they were awake? What if it was Ruby, because there was no way “that man” was changing channel for Dora the Explorer.

  Although…she could watch it in the other room. Problem solved.

  He turned as the floorboards creaked, and his gaze zeroed in on Sage.

  She stood still a moment, then rubbed her eyes, looked at him, and blinked several times.

  She still wore the clothes she’d been dressed in earlier, but her sweatshirt was around the wrong way and, he noticed, staring at the tag at her neck, inside out. Hair tangled around her face and there were creases on her cheeks.

  She looked at him, then at the beer, and understanding flashed across her face.

  “Of course,” she said. There was a delicious, throaty sleepiness to her voice and he wondered how awake she was. She appeared very calm. He felt like shit when he woke up, and if he’d walked in on someone – someone clearly engrossed in something – he’d have walked right out and not wanted to talk to them. “Is that the cricket?” she asked.

  “Yeah. New Zealand is three for forty. It’s not going great. Do you want to watch it?”

  “Nope. Sports doesn’t do it for me.”

  He waited for her to bid him goodnight, turn around and leave him to it. Instead, she walked in, hesitated, and then came across to the smaller couch. She sat down, leant against the back, sighed heavily, and rubbed her hands down her face, then brought her legs up to sit cross-legged.

  What was she doing? He looked back at the TV but kept a watch on her out the corner of his eye. After a while, she sighed again, and reached for the pile of Robyn’s fashion magazines on the table beside the couch. She began to flick through one, stopped at a page, then flicked through some more. The sound of the pages turning was absurdly loud.

  After a while, she glanced at the TV, then at him. Her forehead creased. “What?” she said.

  “What?” He looked straight at her. “What? You, that’s what. What are you doing up at this hour?”

  “I’m awake,” she said.

  “I can see that. But what are you doing here?”

  She turned the page, then closed the magazine. “I’ve been asleep for—” She checked her watch. “Six hours. I’m awake now.”

  He managed a smile. “That’s great, Sage, but I booked this room and this television for this cricket. Why don’t you take that magazine to the other lounge?”

  Her eyes flashed. “You are incredibly rude. I’m just sitting here. I’m not doing anything.”

  Something rose within him and he didn’t bother to tamp down on it. “You are breathing. Your presence is distracting me.” Wrong way to put it. She might get ideas. Think that her being a distraction meant he fantasized about her. Which he did, but right now, he needed space. He especially needed space from her and all her loveliness.

  “Maybe you could explain the rules to me as it goes along,” she suggested. “Like, what’s that guy doing?”

  “That guy’s fielding, and no. Would you seriously like it if you were watching some documentary on physics or saving some bird from extinction, and I asked you questions all the way through?”

  She pounced. “I would love it. I like to talk and educate people about critical matters. Barry and I talk about it all the time.”

  Barry.

  Ethan closed his eyes for a second, then heard movement. He opened one eye. She had stood up. He mentally crossed his fingers. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting out of your hair.” She stalked out of the room.

  He watched her go, through to the living area and the kitchen. Guilt began to gnaw away at him but he forced it aside. This was self-preservation. Self-preservation at being thrust into the role of caregiver, and self-preservation living with a woman who drove him crazy on so many levels.

  He settled back and faced the TV. She could make herself a hot cocoa and go back to sleep. One of them had to be awake tomorrow. Just as he could train himself to wake up at the slightest noise, he could train himself to sleep in, and he was sleeping in.

  He increased the volume at the same time as the latest batter got bowled for a duck.

  This was unbelievable.

  “Get your act together, Kiwis,” he muttered. He had no plans to spend the next few hours watching a whitewash. He dug his hand into the chips, and wondered what Sage was doing. There was some noise. Making that hot chocolate, he supposed. He shut his eyes against the painful replay of the duck over and over and over again.

  He opened them to see the new batter walking to the crease at the same time as Sage walked in. She had a cup in her hand, and a plate in the other, and from the cup came the aroma of – coffee? At this hour. Not chocolate, but coffee? His nose twitched. Even though it was instant, it smelt good.

  She took her seat as she balanced a plate with cheese and crackers.

  “I’m not going to speak,” she informed him.

  He was about to say ‘good’ but that might encourage her to say ‘good’ back, and maybe she needed the last word. Like Ruby and James battling it out in an argument.

  She crossed her legs, took a sip of her coffee, sighed with satisfaction, and bit into the cracker.

  She looked up at him and frowned.

  “What now?” she said after a while.

  The scent of the coffee wafted over to him. He could do with a coffee. He could do with going over to that couch to sit alongside Sage and have that coffee. Then they could set the coffee down and—

  “Nothing.” He looked back to the screen where the batter was poised for the ball.

  She took a sip. He heard the crunch of her biting into the cracker followed by the sound of munching.

  He waited, and heard her swallow, then take another bite, followed by even louder crunching.

  Thoughts of cozying up next to her plummeted. “I’m just throwing this out there, but you’re making noise.”

  “I’m not making any noise. Don’t be absurd.” She took another bite and munched again.

  “I can hear you. You’re making a racket with all that crunching.” Shut up, McGraw. Just shut up.

  “If I am, it’s only because it’s night-time and the sound is magnified.”

  “I know it is night-time and hence the sound is magnified, but I’d rather it wasn’t magnified six feet away from me when I am trying—” He emphasized again, “Trying to watch the cricket.”

  “You’re being ridiculous.” She took a long sip and got started on the second cracker.

  A howl erupted from the TV, and his heart took a dive as the umpire raised his arm. The batter had gone for one run.

  She gestured to the TV. “I hope you don’t intend to blame me for that.”

  He waited a moment. How had he thought for even one moment that she was gorgeous? Oh, yeah. Right. She’d been asleep.

  “It is very tempting,” he said.

  “And with no logic whatsoever. Who is that guy? He looks familiar. Is he married to—”

  He aimed the remote at the TV and switched it off before his head exploded.

  She was silent a moment. “Well, you didn’t have to do that.”

  He turned slowly back to her. “Didn’t I?”

  “No. Of course not. For goodness sake, turn it back on. You’re giving me the creeps.”

  “I’m giving you the creeps. You, who waltz in here as if you own the place, sit there drinking coffee and making a racket with all that eating while I am sitting here, at god knows what hour of the morning, watching a cricket test, having peace and quiet fo
r the first time in a long time and after the day from frigging hell, and you have the nerve to tell me that you are giving me the creeps?”

  She ate the last bit of cheese and drained her coffee. Then she set down her cup, unraveled herself from her cross-legged position, walked across, took the remote and aimed it at the TV. “Just watch the stupid cricket.” The screen blared into life.

  He was on his feet in a second. He grabbed the remote from her, pressed the off button, and the TV stopped.

  She turned, just feet from him. No, it wasn’t feet; it was inches.

  She stared up at him. “Just watch the damn cricket, will you? I can’t be bothered with these pathetic accusations and these immature games.”

  His nerves were fraying, but in a completely different way to a few minutes ago. “This,” he said in a low voice, “is no game. Nothing I have said or done tonight is a game.”

  Her eyes blazed. “You’re worse than the twins. You’re being childish.”

  “Childish,” he repeated. She was so close. So close, it reminded him of the second – or was it the third? – time they’d met. He had kissed her. She had kissed him right back. They had been pressed up against each other, and it had been witnessed by Robyn and Jack. Ever since then, Jack had figured that they were somehow going to get together.

  He could not have been more wrong.

  “Yes,” she said. “Childish.”

  Even worse, he knew it had been just by the doorway to this room. His breathing started to constrict.

  “Childish,” he said again. He knew he was staring. He could feel the tension emanating off his own body, could feel it surround him, and she had to be feeling it, too.

  Tense silence sat between them for the longest moment.

  “Anyway.” She swallowed. “I’m just, um…” She didn’t take her gaze off him as she gestured behind her. “I’ve got…you know, I’ve got the…” She let out a heavy breath “You know. That thing.”