by Christa Wick
Pouring some water into a mug, she jerked as the front doorbell rang. Water splashed around the counter. She barked out a command for the person to wait then tossed a hand towel over the spill.
Reaching the door, she peered through the peephole, once again expecting some Federal cop come to arrest her, or maybe Gloria with some dire warning or threat.
She saw nothing.
Moving to the window, she inched back the curtain. The view above the hedge was empty.
Was she having auditory hallucinations now?
She shook her head. She knew what her doorbell sounded like and it was loud. Someone was being a jerk on their way to work.
Or Lowe had figured out her new address.
Nausea swirled around her gut. Nausea and a hot anger. The man had already caused her to lose more than one deposit and incur an early move out fee because of his stalking. If he was back to playing those games, it would be months before she could afford to move.
Finished wiping up the spilled water, she added a tea bag to the mug and popped it in the microwave. She punched the time in then plugged in the toaster.
The doorbell rang again.
Sage stomped across the room, her hand deftly snatching up a metal baseball bat as she passed it. She took one look through the peephole then ripped the chain off and yanked the door open, her hand quick to return to the bat and lift it in a striking position.
At eye level, there was nothing.
She dropped her gaze.
Waiting on bended knee, Adler Turk looked up at her, a cautious smile on his face.
And an open ring box in his hand.
Sage looked like she had rolled out of bed and grabbed a bat. Her hair was a tousle of pale gold. The batter’s stance parted the lapels of her robe, the champagne colored camisole and pajama shorts visible in the gap.
She didn’t see him at first, was looking too high. He couldn’t find his voice to tell her to look lower. After three weeks of actively avoiding having to see or hear her when she Skyped with Leah, his tongue was knotted up and his heart kept trying to race ahead of him.
Finally, she looked down to where he waited, one knee planted in a puddle, the foot on the other leg barely managing to keep him stable. A bad case of nerves rattled his arm as he kept the ring box held up.
He was sure he had run through words on the plane, rehearsed them in the lavatory and again walking through the airport to reach his connecting flight and still again on the cab ride from the airport. But seeing Sage struck him dumb all over again.
The woman made him crazy and mute.
She shook her head. Adler’s heart seized, the muscles trying to kick back the blood flowing in. Was she saying “no” to his proposal before the words even left his mouth?
“This guy a problem, Sage?” a husky, accented voice asked from just behind, and high above, Adler.
Tilting his head back, he saw a red-haired giant in hospital scrubs, one big fist rubbing against the palm of an equally mammoth hand.
“Sage?” the giant repeated.
Slowly, she shook her head again.
“He isn’t that Greg guy?”
“No,” she said, speaking at last.
“Wow, that’s a big ring,” the giant laughed. “If she won’t marry you, buddy, I will.”
Enough was enough. Adler got to his feet and turned around, tilting his head up ever so slightly so he could look directly into the man’s eyes.
“Move along,” Adler ordered. “She’s safe and we have…things…to discuss.”
The giant turned friendly, hands up and fingers splayed in mock surrender.
“You might want me to stay,” he suggested playfully. “She’s got an aluminum bat and I’m a trauma surgeon.”
“Move along,” Adler repeated, turning back to Sage.
She wasn’t there. The door was shut.
“Ouch,” the stranger laughed before posing a question. “You’re not the one that went on a walkabout, are you?”
Still staring at the door, Adler felt the rush of blood to his cheeks. He wasn’t angry, he was ashamed.
Forever etched in his mind was the image of having one of his hands around Greg Lowe’s neck and the other over the man’s nose and mouth. Losing his cool like that had been the biggest failure of his life because it meant he couldn’t protect Sage. A man who couldn’t control his temper was weak in a fight.
Weak in life.
Sage deserved better, something he had demonstrated a second time that day with his “walkabout.”
“She makes me crazy,” Adler confessed.
“The right kind of crazy?” the giant asked.
“Yeah,” he answered, the pretty words he’d rehearsed stringing together coming back to him now that Sage had shut the door on his face.
“Well, then…” Pausing, the man leaned forward, his arm extending past Adler’s shoulder. Curled in a fist, the big hand gently rapped against the door to Sage’s apartment then pulled back.
Starting down the sidewalk, he offered a piece of advice. “Try starting with that.”
Baseball bat put away and a pair of jeans and t-shirt covering her body, Sage twisted her hair into a ponytail and opened the door.
Thorne was gone. Adler remained.
“I love you, Sage.”
Hand wrapped around the door handle, she jiggled the knob as she shook her head.
“The last three days have been stressful for you and your family—”
“The last three weeks,” he corrected. “Those have been the worst days of my life, worse than losing my father and sister.”
Sage blinked, shock and tears blending together.
“I’m sorry I stayed away from the house for so long—you didn’t deserve that after Lowe’s visit…I needed to come to terms with what I was feeling. How crazy it was to feel so much so soon.”
Adler took a step closer. She rattled the knob again in warning. He froze, his expression so damn earnest she couldn’t bear to look at him.
“People don’t fall in love that quickly,” she admonished.
His head dipped, his gaze dropping away from his attempt to hold hers. “Meaning you don’t love me back. I understand.”
“It’s not that simple.”
The words slipped out, their meaning different from what Adler heard. Sage did love him. She had fallen hard twice in Willow Gap, first for Leah and then, almost as quickly, for Adler. But life didn’t hand out easy solutions where Adler could love her back just like that.
Especially after all the problems she had carried with her to Montana.
“Explain it, then,” he whispered.
The words so softly spoken tried to tug her across the threshold. She took a step back instead. Then another step and another, until she was clear of the doorway, her hand sweeping in an invitation for him to come inside.
He stepped in, looked around for a place to sit. A blush warmed Sage’s cheeks because she hadn’t had time to fold the couch up.
“I had just gotten up when you knocked.”
“I sort of noticed,” he answered with a touch of humor.
“You’re more than a little rumply, too,” she countered. “I don’t have coffee. I could make you some tea or there’s juice or water.”
“Water, please. I would have changed but…” Trailing off, he laughed. “You won’t believe it.”
She paused to puzzle out what fact she should be able to guess but wouldn’t believe.
“They lost your luggage?”
“Yeah.”
He drifted closer to where she stood in the kitchen. Taking down a glass from the cupboard, Sage froze.
Adler closed the distance between them. Carefully, he took the glass and put it on the counter then turned her body to face him. Folding her hands in his, he brought them close to his mouth and kissed the fingers.
She could hear him breathing. The sound reminded her to draw in enough oxygen that she wouldn’t fall to the floor and crack her head open.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”
Adler brought her hands around his neck. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her close. His fingers lacing together, he braced them just below the curve of her bottom and lifted.
With slow, careful steps, he carried her like that over to the fold out couch. Sitting her down on the furniture, he stayed on the ground, one knee pressed against the linoleum.
Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved the ring box. He flipped the lid open, pinched the ring between his fingers and drew it out.
“I love you, Sage. I didn’t know being in love would make me crazy—but you’re worth being crazy for…I mean…”
Through the fast-falling tears, Sage laughed. Reaching up, she stroked the unshaven cheek then pressed her forehead against his.
“Do you think you could love me?” he rasped.
She nodded, her hands cupping the sides of his face, her thumbs stroking the ridge of his strong cheekbones.
“I already do,” she confessed.
Capturing her left hand, Adler slid the ring on her finger as he stared into her eyes.
“Then say you’ll marry me.”
“Yes,” she answered, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her face to the warm flesh. “I’ll marry you!”
22
A tiny head peeked from the vestibule into the church nave. Catching her uncle’s gaze, Leah waved at Adler. He waved back as Siobhan swooped in and carried the toddler away.
Adler glanced at his watch. They had the church as long as they needed it and they technically were only running ten minutes behind schedule. But he was eager to slip the other half of the wedding set on Sage’s finger and begin the rest of their lives together.
A whoosh of green cartwheeled once through the vestibule, Leah demonstrating to someone how she’d learned to do a cartwheel earlier in the week. Once again, Siobhan materialized to rein in her charge.
“What do you mean it’s not a field office?” Sutton asked, leaning on a cane as he talked with Emerson.
Adler turned to the conversation in time to catch Emerson rolling his eyes. As the “babies” of the clan, the twins had a way of poking at one another. This time it was Sutton’s turn, the fact that he was recovering from a leg broken in so many places he could no longer serve in the military giving him a temporary free pass to be a persistent thorn in Emerson’s side.
“I thought you were supposed to be in charge of a field office by now,” Sutton pressed, his cane lifting long enough to tap at his twin’s dress shoe.
“Am I thirty yet?” Emerson shot back.
“That would be a neat trick if you were, baby brother. So what are you?”
“Supervisory agent in charge,” Emerson growled.
“But you’re back home, more or less?”
“Until I’m thirty,” Emerson agreed. “Then I’ll be at a field office as the special agent in charge.”
“That your date?” Sutton asked, tilting the top of his cane toward a curvy redhead in a light beige skirt suit.
Adler laughed. With as many times as Sutton had looked over his shoulder at the icy beauty, he figured she was the entire point behind him riling Emerson up.
“Please, she’s my subordinate. Just transferred in from Boston.”
“She sitting with you?”
“Don’t we have better things to talk about? I only brought her to triage any calls that come in during the ceremony. Why do you even care?”
“Because he’s both a groomsman and an usher,” Adler pointed out. Seeing all the interest dancing in Sutton’s gaze, Adler nodded at him. “Pop her in next to Boone and Claire.”
Adjusting his grip on the cane, Sutton elbowed his twin.
“What’s her name?”
“Madigan Armstrong,” Emerson answered.
Sutton’s smile got a little brighter, his gaze a little lighter.
“You call her Maddy?” he asked.
A growl vibrated through Emerson’s reply. “No. I call her Agent Armstrong.”
Chuckling, Sutton started what was, for him, a slow, arduous walk to the back of the church.
“He should be off his feet,” Emerson muttered.
Adler cocked his head at the youngest of his brothers. “You annoyed because your subordinate is going to be wrapping her hand around Sutton’s arm in a minute?”
A thoroughly disgusted look washed over Emerson’s face.
“Please, I’ll leave the marrying to the rest of you. It will be years before I’m one place long enough to pick out a wife.”
“Pick her out? Like on the internet or in a Walmart or something?”
Not waiting for Emerson to turn a deeper shade of red, Adler stepped into the aisle and intersected his mother.
“Mama, why are you barefoot and, more importantly, where’s my bride?”
“Five minutes,” she said, then repeated it again, more loudly, her fingers held up and her gaze on the church pianist. “Five minutes.”
“Where are your shoes? Don’t tell me Leah hid them.”
“No, no.” She patted at his chest, her cheeks flushed and shiny. “Maureen broke a heel. We were trying to glue it, but it wouldn’t hold. I had her put my shoes on. It would be bad luck for her to trip at your wedding.”
Emerson snickered. “Not that I don’t adore my cousin, but she trips all the time. If that’s some kind of rule, Sage better find another bridesmaid fast.”
Leaning in close to her youngest son, Lindy planted a hand on her hip and whispered. “She does not trip all the time.”
“So how’d she break a heel?” Adler teased.
Lindy huffed, her cheeks growing redder, the color expanding all the way down to her collar.
“She tripped,” Lindy muttered.
Grabbing Emerson by the forearm, she gave him a hard tug. “Walk me to my seat and stop smirking. Your cousin is a wonderful person and a perfectly competent walker.”
“You!” she said, jabbing a finger in Adler’s direction, “Get in position.”
With one last glance at his watch, Adler drew a deep breath and headed over to the right side of the altar where Walker waited as his best man.
Looking down the aisle, he saw Maureen perfectly poised as she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sutton. Behind her, serving as maid of honor, Siobhan threaded her arm through Barrett’s.
Bringing up the rear, Leah waited with a surprising patience, her hands wrapped around a basket filled with white and pale pink rose petals.
Sage remained out of sight.
Adler’s eyes ached to see his bride.
Every molecule of him ached to see her.
As if the pianist sensed his urgency, music began to play.
Adler’s eyes misted with pride as Sutton escorted Maureen down the aisle. Less than a month had passed since his last surgery. He was likely facing another surgery in six months after his leg healed up some more. The doctors didn’t think he would be able to walk on crutches, let alone a cane, so soon. But Adler knew his baby brother was tough.
All of his brothers were tough.
Barrett and Siobhan remained in the doorway until Sutton and Maureen cleared the first pew, then they began their own march down the aisle.
That left Leah. Starting forward with a bashful grin, the toddler scooped up a fistful of petals and strewed them on the ground in front of her. And then the woman Adler’s entire being yearned toward swept into view, her arm threaded through her brother’s.
In some remote corner of his mind, he felt Walker squeeze his shoulder in congratulations, heard the excited clap of Leah as she saw her father and aunt begin their procession up to the altar.
Each time Sage’s foot landed another step forward, Adler’s heart squeezed out another beat. If she stopped, or turned around, he would die. But she didn’t. She walked resolutely toward him, a smile half obscured by her veil.
With a wink, Jake passed Sage to Adler.
A
s they said their vows, they inched closer to one another. The skirt of her gown pushed at him, its hem brushing the top of his shoes. Her arms, shaking as hard as her voice, glanced softly against his.
“I do,” he said, following the pastor’s prompt.
“I do,” Sage repeated after Adler.
He could hear her crying behind her veil, little sniffles escaping the material’s confines. He lifted the lace, exposing her green gaze awash with tears, her lips trembling but spread in a wide smile.
He cupped her face.
She curled her hands around his wrist.
She tilted her head up.
He tilted his down.
Their lips met and the church went quiet.
Slowly, they untangled, a cheer rising up from the crowd.
Walker gave him a brotherly slap on the back before leaning close and whispering in his ear.
“Time to cut the cake and dance a time or two so you can start the honeymoon!”
23
With the sun sliding down the other side of the mountain, Adler’s truck came to a stop in front of an isolated ranch house. Across the small clearing, shadows gathered around a two-story barn. No animal sounds filtered through Sage’s open window, just the smell of wildflowers carried by a light breeze.
“This is Sarah’s house?” Sage murmured, her gaze dancing back from the barn to the home where Corryn Turk had brought his mail-order suffragette bride. “No one told me it was still standing!”
Reaching across the center console, Adler stroked a finger against the bare curve of her neck. At his request, she had kept the blond hair in the updo she wore at the wedding. He had caressed that spot of exposed skin so many times during the reception, she felt permanently marked—in a good way.
Branded by my cowboy, she thought, a grin erupting. My cowboy husband!
Adler slid his hand down to unhook her seatbelt.
“Except for the bunkhouse, everything they built is still standing.”
Hearing the thick emotion in his voice, Sage turned to him. The drive from the reception hall had lasted fifty minutes, most of it on dirt road, the console between them hindering anything more than holding hands.
