“Why don’t you go see Charlotte and give her your flowers?” I asked her.

“Do you think she’ll like them?” Avery questioned.

I nodded. “She loves flowers. Especially purple and yellow.”

Avery grinned. “She’s gonna love mine, then.”

She skipped off through the rain and I watched her until she made it to the house and slipped inside the front door. Turning, I found Sage staring at the reins in her hand where she was picking at the leather.

“Here, let me take care of Red for you.” I gently took the reins from her, leading all three horses over to the cross ties. One by one, I hooked them in, then turned to Sage again. She was still standing in the aisle, staring down at her hands.

“Sage.”

She slowly brought her gaze to mine, my hat shifting on her head, its size too big.

Instead of asking her to come to me, I crossed the distance to her and pulled her into my arms. She leaned against me, my hat teetering on the edge of sliding off her head. 

“You can talk to me,” I reminded her. I thought back to the bar when she’d had a panic attack over that guy. He couldn’t have been her ex, but for her to react like that meant the asshole did some lasting damage on her, and that fucking wrecked me. In an instant, I wanted to find him and kill him. Murder had never been as appealing as it seemed right now.

She sniffled, shifting in my arms, then looked up at me. “I had surgery to put pins in my wrist because the bones were so badly broken,” she said quietly. 

I could feel my heart threatening to beat out of my chest.

“That’s where the scar is from?”

She nodded. “He mutilated it. It still hurts if I use it wrong, but I try to ignore it. I was already barely eating at the time because I was so depressed, so I was weak. I was so weak.” Her voice broke slightly on that last word, and my hands instantly moved to cup her cheeks.

“Hey, look at me. You are not weak.”

She sniffled again, and I could tell she was trying to hold back tears. “But I was.”

I shook my head. “But you’re not anymore. You’re strong, Sage. Raising Avery on your own, working at the cafe, balancing all of that on top of everything life has thrown at you. Not many people can do that, and look at you. I bet even fucking angels are jealous of you.”

She let out a sad laugh, and while her laugh was one of my new favorite sounds, hearing it like this destroyed me. 

I wiped an escaped tear off her cheek, moving my hands to her neck. “You can cry, baby, but cry because you’re free. Never because of him.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded. 

“Is there a possibility he may come around?” 

One of her hands came up to play with her necklace. “He was in prison.”

“Was?”

“He was sentenced for four years, but I think he got out early.”

Everything in me froze. “Why do you think he got out early?”

She inhaled a shaky breath, her hand tightening into a fist on my shirt. “I’ve been getting these texts and some phone calls, but I block the numbers. He just keeps getting new ones.”

“Why was he in prison, Sage?” I asked, enunciating each word carefully. 

“Domestic abuse,” she stated, her voice barely audible.

A muscle in my jaw pulsed. “Were the charges from you or another woman?”

“Me,” she admitted quietly.

Fuck.

“Does he know where you are?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t think he could have figured it out, but there’s a chance.”

“What do you mean?”

She let go of her necklace to run a finger under her eye. “The guy from the bar. He was in the cafe before and wanted to know my last name.”

I nodded, remembering her telling me that. “You think your ex had something to do with that?”

“It’s possible. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but he could be Jason’s friend or someone he hired to find me.”

One of the horses whinied behind us, but I barely heard it over the blood rushing through my ears. I was tempted to tell her I’d be glued to her side for the foreseeable future until we knew for sure what was going on with her ex, but I didn’t want to suffocate her, and I definitely didn’t want Avery to wonder what was going on. 

“Does Avery know?”

She shook her head. “No. And please don’t tell her. She doesn’t really know anything other than he’s not nice. She’s just… She’s too young, Cal.” Her voice broke again.

I pulled her against my chest, letting my hat slip off her head and fall to the ground. My fingers stroked through her hair, the pieces frizzy from the rain. “I know, baby. We’ll keep her safe.”

I fucking meant it. These two girls were quickly becoming everything to me, and I wouldn’t let anything happen to them, regardless of what it took.

28

Sage

The last seven days went by slow, each day dragging on. I hadn’t spoken to Callan more than a couple times since our conversation in the barn because we were both swamped with work.

I’d taken on a few extra morning shifts at Bell Buckle Brews, working until Avery got out of school. She had a science project that was due in a few days, so we spent every day after we got home working on the assignment. Callan was booked with lessons anyway, so even if we had time to go see him, he was busy, too.

It’d been a few hours since I opened the cafe, the customers few and far between this morning, so when the cowbell above the door dinged, I perked up immediately. Much to my surprise, Erica came strolling in wearing her black pencil skirt and vibrant purple blazer.

“Good morning,” I greeted, straightening my posture. The last thing I wanted to look in her eyes was bored. I didn’t forget that she was under the assumption that my efforts at work were lacking recently. 

She surveyed the tables before looking at the counter I’d scrubbed endlessly all morning. Without many customers coming in, all I could do to fill my time was clean, organize, and bake. 

“Morning. Not a lot of foot traffic today?” she asked.