More Than Cookies (The Maple Leaf Series)

by Christine DePetrillo

  “Yeah, baby,” he managed around a cough. Jesus, his throat felt as if he’d swallowed hot charcoals.

  “Sit here.” Ian tugged him to the porch steps and made him sit. “What happened?” His father kneeled in front of him, and suddenly Orion felt like a boy. His father was his father again.

  Orion rested his hand on Ian’s shoulder as Myah crawled into his lap and looped her arms around his neck. He snuggled her closer and kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know what happened in there, Dad. I was working.” He swallowed painfully. “The chainsaw made a weird noise, so I put it down and backed up to get some chain and bar oil thinking that was the problem. Then BOOM… I was on my ass and things were on fire.”

  Orion looked over his father’s shoulder. The barn doors were wide open and the sounds of spraying extinguisher foam wafted out. The smoke had lessened, and he marveled over Sage once again. She’d plowed right in there and attacked that fire as if it didn’t have a chance of winning against her.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Adam stood beside the porch steps, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Orion hadn’t noticed that his friend had driven up the driveway, parked, and gotten out of his truck.

  “Sage is playing firefighter,” Ian answered. He turned to Orion. “You want a drink of water?”

  “That’d be great.” Orion coughed again, but the more time he spent on the step, the better he felt. “Adam, can you see if Sage needs a hand in there? The hose is near the garden.” He pointed to the roses lining the porch.

  As Ian went into the house, Adam made a move to grab the hose, but Sage sauntered out of the workshop, the extinguisher balanced on her shoulder.

  “Guess she doesn’t need a hand,” Adam said.

  “Guess not.” Orion couldn’t take his eyes off her. Tank top, skirt, flip-flops, a spattering of black on her legs and arms, her hair falling out of her ponytail, and a bright white smile from ear to ear.

  She. Was. Amazing.

  “Well, that wasn’t on my to-do list for today, but anyway…” She set the empty extinguisher down on the gravel driveway. “You’ll need another one of those babies.” She nodded at Adam. “How are you?”

  “How am I?” His voice rose in disbelief. “I’m fine and dandy. I didn’t have to save the day in there like you just did apparently.” He shook his head. “Somebody tell me what is going on?”

  Sage held up her hand. “First things first. Are you okay?” She sat next to Orion and let out a little cough as she pulled her hair out of its ponytail and redid it so every strand was back neatly in place.

  “I’m all right.” No way in hell he was going to complain about a scratchy throat and a little shortness of breath when she had waltzed into the inferno and showed that fire who was boss.

  She grabbed Adam’s hand and twisted his arm slightly so she could see his wristwatch. “Where the hell is the fire department? You should get checked out, Orion.” She let Adam’s hand go and coughed again.

  “Maybe you should get checked out too,” Adam said.

  “I’m fine.”

  Myah slid from Orion’s lap onto Sage’s. Orion watched as Sage’s face went from awkward surprise to something else entirely when Myah rested her head on Sage’s shoulder.

  “You saved my daddy,” Myah whispered.

  Orion put his arm around Sage and pulled them both closer. “She’s right. You totally did.”

  “Again.” Sage grinned. “How did you survive before you met me?”

  “Not sure.” Orion rubbed at a sooty spot on her knee then kissed her cheek.

  Sirens sounded in the close distance, and Ian came back outside with two glasses of water. He handed one to Orion and the other to Sage. “Fire’s out?”

  “Yeah,” Adam answered. “Wonder Woman over here handled it.”

  “The extinguisher did all the work,” Sage said. “But I’d sure like to know how that fire got started.”

  “Something… exploded,” Orion said. “I got tossed back.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Hit my melon pretty hard then there was fire.” He looked at Sage. “Then you were pulling me out.”

  “Just in time,” Ian said softly, wringing his hands.

  Orion gathered Ian’s hands in his. “Everybody’s okay, Dad. Hear the sirens. They’ll be here shortly.”

  “Three minutes and fourteen seconds.” Ian’s eyes were a little glossy as if he was slipping back to the child-like version of himself. Since Myah had been in the house, he’d been more like a fun-loving grandfather and stable father. Orion didn’t want to see that end.

  He also hadn’t wanted to be smoked out of his own workshop today either, but things didn’t always go as planned. No one knew that better than him.

  “Was your workshop locked?” Sage asked.

  “Yes. Since meeting with Jack, I’ve been careful about securing the tools in there. They’re dangerous.” He shot a glance down to Myah still cuddled against Sage.

  Sage chewed on her bottom lip as she stared at the barn.

  “What are you thinking?” Adam asked.

  “Not sure yet,” she said and Orion thought she had more to say, but a fire truck, an ambulance, and a Saint Jamesbury police car pulled into the driveway, one right after the other.

  Several firefighters hopped out of the truck and approached the barn, while two EMTs came over to the porch.

  “Anyone need attention?” one of them asked.

  “They do,” Adam pointed at Sage and Orion. “Ian and Myah, let’s go inside and… do something.” He ushered them toward the back door.

  “Thanks.” Orion looked at Myah who was hesitant to follow Adam. “Go on, honey. We’ll be right in.”

  “Okay.” She went inside, but kept looking back at him.

  The other EMT, a tall, good-looking guy, attempted to check out Sage, but she slapped his hand away and said, “I’m fine. He’s the one who was in there when something exploded.”

  “I’m okay too,” Orion said.

  “Check him,” Sage ordered the EMTs. “He bumped his head.”

  Both EMTs descended upon him, but Orion managed to keep an eye on Sage as she walked toward the barn, Ranger sniffing the ground as he followed her. She went inside, conversed with the firefighters, then talked to the police officers—not Landis and Sencotte to Orion’s great pleasure.

  By the time she wandered back toward him, the EMTs had given him some oxygen, deemed his head unharmed, gave him a list of symptoms to look for just in case, and had taken off. The firefighters had followed shortly after and only the police officers remained as they poked through the charred sections of his workshop for clues to the fire’s point of origin.

  Sage slid her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek into his shoulder. “I don’t like worrying about you.”

  “Told you I was more trouble than I was worth.” He wrapped his arms around her back and hoped she didn’t agree with him.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “You walked into the fire?” Hope nearly screeched the words and Sage had to hold her cell phone away from her ear.

  “What was I supposed to do, Hope? Let it take the whole barn? It’s his workshop.” She paced up and down the hallway of her house. She’d stopped back home to shower and change her clothes, but Myah made her promise to come back to Orion’s. That wasn’t a hard promise to keep. She’d barely wanted to go to her house in the first place, but her tank top and skirt were sooty and smelled like smoke. She needed freshening.

  Maybe she needed a few moments to come unglued without an audience too. In the literal heat of the moment, she’d galloped into the barn ready to slay that fire, but now that it was over, she couldn’t deny the shake of her hands, the rapid beating of her heart, the prickly sweat that kept blooming under her armpits. Running into the fire had been reckless, but she hadn’t thought about that while she was in there.

  The only thing she thought of was how Orion could have met his end if she hadn’t found him. When she’d reached the bar
n, his body was a crumpled mass leaning up against one of the beams. It had taken her several tries to get him up and hauling a guy who was over six feet tall had been no easy task.

  But I did it.

  She’d gotten him out. She’d put out the fire too. Not before it had taken all three bears Orion had been working on though. She thought back to the night they’d shared in the barn and how Orion hadn’t wanted to light candles due to all the wood in there. He’d been right. That workshop had enough wood in it to fuel an enormous blaze, one visible from space no doubt.

  She couldn’t wait to find out the point of origin. The police officers had taken the chainsaw that had made the odd grinding sound so their guys could check it out. Getting to the bottom of the fire, however, wouldn’t bring Orion’s bears back or fix his workshop. He’d have to deal with that.

  But…

  “Hey, Hope. I’ve got to call Rick.”

  “He’s right here. Hang on.”

  Shuffling sounded as the phone changed hands.

  “Yes, Sage,” Rick said.

  “Can I ask for a favor?”

  “Can I say no?” he asked.

  “No. There was a fire over at Orion’s barn.”

  “My barn! The one I built. Shit.” Rick was possessive of his barns. He considered them all “his.”

  “Yes. Think you could swing by his house and take a look at what it will take to fix it?”

  “Sure. Is Orion okay?”

  “He is, but he was in the middle of an important project that also got destroyed. I’d like to help rebuild the barn so he can get right back to work.”

  “Boy, this guy’s important to you, isn’t he?” The usual teasing in Rick’s voice was absent this time.

  “Yeah. I’m not sure how he got so important so fast, but there it is.” She huffed out a breath.

  “Well, I approve of him.”

  “What?”

  “I checked him out though you said I didn’t need to. No criminal record. Not even a ticket for speeding. He’s clean.”

  “Rick…” She was about to launch into her I’m-not-a-kid-and-you-don’t-need-to-protect-me speech, but she changed her mind. “Thanks.”

  “Did Sage Stannard just thank me? Mark the date!” he yelled. “Sage thanked me.”

  “Shut up, goofball. Put Hope back on the phone.”

  “Okay. Love you too, Sage.” The shuffling sounded again as he gave the phone back to Hope.

  “You thanked him? What’s wrong with you?” Hope asked. “You in love or something?”

  “Yeah. I think I am.”

  A heartbeat of silence stretched between the sisters. “Wow. Not the answer I was expecting, but great, Sage. It’s about damn time.”

  “I know.” Sage finger-combed her wet hair as she walked into the living room and looked out the oversized windows at the sprawling mountain view. “I’m a little scared though.”

  “I think you’re supposed to be.” Hope laughed, then a moment later started crying.

  “Hope, what’s wrong?” Sage couldn’t remember the last time her normally upbeat sister cried.

  “Sam… and… I…” Another wail filled Sage’s ear. “There was… a… text message.” The word message got swallowed by Hope’s sobbing.

  “Did that prick break up with you in a text message?” Sage saw red. Nobody treated sweet Hope like that. Nobody.

  “Yeah. You told me it wouldn’t work. Long distances and all that. You said.” Hope sniffled, and Sage felt like a first class jerk for being right on this one.

  “I have a solution,” she announced. “Get dressed. Look your hottest, and meet me at my house in thirty minutes.”

  “Oh, Sage, I don’t…”

  “I’m your older sister, Hope. You listen to me. Cram that fine ass of yours into your sexy shorts and get over here. I have someone you should meet.” Sage hung up, knowing that tone of voice would get Hope to do as she’d said.

  “Now to cram my own ass into sexy shorts.” She padded down to her bedroom on bare feet and selected a pair of denim shorts with white stars on them and a red tank top. Deeming herself not overly flag-like, she dried her hair and flat-ironed it. The end result was some soft, straight blonde hair that hung past her breasts. She hoped Orion would find it—and her breasts—extremely… touchable.

  She had two objectives in mind for returning to Orion’s house. One was to take his mind off the lost bears and workshop destruction. There’d be time to worry about that later and Rick would help. Her second objective was to take Hope’s mind off Sam by introducing her to Adam. She liked having goals. She liked meeting them even more.

  While she applied some peach-flavored lip gloss in the bathroom, she heard Hope let herself in.

  “I’m in here,” Sage called.

  Hope appeared in the doorway to the bathroom. She wore a pair of black and white flowered shorts and a black T-shirt with lace at the V-neck and bottom hem.

  “Nice,” Sage said. “You followed my instructions well.”

  “I’m still not in the mood, Sage. I need some time before meeting someone new.” A hint of whining laced Hope’s words.

  “Time? You’ve had months away from Sam, Hope. Be honest. It’s been over for a while.” Sage rested her hands on her sister’s shoulders and stared into her deep brown eyes, the only thing that set the two of them apart.

  Hope hung her head, causing her curtain of blonde hair to fall forward. “You’re right. I hate when you’re right, by the way.”

  “Trust me, I wish I were wrong. I do. I don’t like to see you hurt, but I also don’t want to see you hide away at Mom’s. Jumping right back into the game is the only way to go.” She gave Hope a little shake before turning back to the bathroom mirror. “Besides, Adam is a sweetheart.”

  “So was Sam.” Hope leaned against the threshold and studied her silver toenails.

  “Okay, fine. Come with me to Orion’s then to check him out more for me. You saw him here, but it’s time to study him in his own habitat. I have to be sure I’m not missing anything. Rick said he doesn’t have a criminal record, but he can’t be as perfect as I think. He can’t. I need you to put a critical eye on him.”

  At this, Hope straightened. “Okay, I can do that. Switching my radar on now.” She pretended to flick a switch on the side of her head then wiggled into the bathroom to give herself a look in the mirror. “Gosh, we’re pretty.”

  Sage threw her arms around Hope. “And let us use this pretty for good. Follow me.”

  She led Hope out to her car and drove the short distance to Orion’s. Adam’s truck was still in the driveway and Myah and Ranger were running around in the side yard. As soon as Myah saw Sage, she dropped the tennis ball she’d been throwing to the dog and ran toward the car.

  “Hi, Sage!” The girl gave her a huge hug that warmed Sage way deep inside.

  “Hey, you remember my sister, right?” Sage pointed to Hope.

  “Sure.” Myah beamed a smile at Hope, but didn’t let go of Sage.

  “The kid makes an excellent belt.” Hope tugged gently on Myah’s hair and the girl let out a giggle.

  “Do you like hugs, Hope?” Myah asked.

  “As a matter fact, I do. Very much.”

  After one more squeeze, Myah released Sage and threw her arms around Hope instead. “Daddy and Gramps say I give the best hugs on the planet.”

  “Hmm.” Hope put her arms around Myah and gave Sage a smile. “I think they may be right, sweetie.”

  Myah looked up at Hope. “Not everyone likes hugs.”

  “No?” Hope’s eyebrows rose. “I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like hugs.”

  “My mommy doesn’t like them. At least not from me.” Myah let go of Hope and shrugged.

  “Some people don’t understand hugs,” Sage said, pulling Myah in next to her side as she walked toward the porch steps. “Those people are missing out.”

  She opened the door and Myah skipped inside. Hope followed and the three of them stood in the
empty kitchen.

  “Where is everyone?” Sage asked.

  “In the basement. Daddy was trying to find the pictures of the barn. The… what do you call them? The blackprints?” Myah looked up at Sage.

  “Blueprints, silly.”

  “Yeah. Blueprints.” Myah went to the open basement door. “DADDY!”

  “Wow,” Hope said, rubbing her ears. “Did not see that volume coming out of such a tiny girl.”

  Male voices rose from the stairway until Ian, Orion, and finally Adam came into the kitchen. When Orion saw Sage, he grinned and walked immediately to her.

  “You were gone too long,” he whispered in her ear before kissing her cheek.

  “It was less than an hour.”

  “Yeah. Too long.”

  She shoved him lightly, and he squinted then closed his eyes.

  “Hey, does your head hurt?” She cupped his face so he couldn’t look away.

  “Just a little headache. I’m fine.” He leaned forward and kissed her lips this time, thereby silencing her concern for him. If the man could kiss, he had to be fine, right?

  He stepped back and looked at Hope. “You brought your sister with you, right? If not, maybe I’m not fine. Maybe I’m seeing double.”

  “Daddy, don’t be silly,” Myah said. “There aren’t two Sages.” She shook her head and danced over to Adam. “Come see Hope, Adam.”

  “As if I’m a science fair project or something,” Hope mumbled.

  “Hey, I like science,” Adam said, pulling off his baseball cap and extending his hand to her. “Adam Rouse. Nice to meet you.”

  “Hope Stannard. Likewise.” Her eyebrows rose as she took in his buzz cut just as Sage knew they would. It didn’t hurt any that Adam was wearing a fitted gray T-shirt that highlighted firm, tree-cutting biceps and a pair of jeans that showcased a rather fine, military-grade ass.

  Sage enjoyed the pinkish tinge on their cheeks as they gave each other the once-over. Perhaps she could make some money on the side matchmaking.

  “Wendie is waiting for you,” Ian said, breaking the spell.

  Adam blinked slowly then looked down at his hand still holding Hope’s. “Right. She is.” He let her hand go and slapped his cap on his head. “Wendie is my sister.”