5. Anchored
FIVE
Anchored
CARTER
I woke as Sage slowed down a street lined with darkened storefronts. A banner we passed under announced: “Forest Grove Community Thanksgiving” coming soon at the church. Everything appeared quaint enough.
She parked in an alley behind one of the stores and cut the engine.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“My place,” she said, reaching for the door handle.
Oh shit. Did she expect us to…? I mean, yes, I would totally take her to bed; she’s beautiful. But the circumstances…
“Sage, I don’t know—is there a local hotel where you can drop me off?”
“If there were, would you want to walk in looking like that? Not sure they’d rent you a room. Let’s get you some clothes.”
She had a point, and I followed her inside a back door. To the left were a tiny elevator and a stairwell. Straight ahead was a door with a sign on it for Wylde West Outfitters. She unlocked it.
My mind raced—stay or go? Sleep with her and then leave her? Have her drop me off at the ranch? Or somewhere else so I can escape Montana for good?
None of it sat right. Besides, my gut told me Sage wasn’t the sleeping-around kind of woman. And there was still the pesky problem that somehow, someway, I needed to earn my inheritance.
She flipped on the lights, illuminating racks of denim, flannel, and leather chaps. Boots lined the shelves in neat rows. “Clothes for the working man and woman,” one sign read.
This wasn’t a designer place built for show on Fifth Avenue in the city. Rather, a shop filled with clothes people actually used to labor in every day. But I was mildly impressed by how nicely the floor plan was laid out, and how well the product was displayed.
“Our mother started this shop years ago. And then after she and Dad passed away… well, Ivy runs it now.”
Shit. That’s heavy. “Sorry to hear about your parents. My father passed away some time ago, too.”
Our eyes locked, and suddenly we weren’t two people from different backgrounds, but a man and a woman who knew the pain of loss.
She blinked away first. “I help, working part-time here and part-time next door at the coffee shop, plus any other odd jobs I can get. Come on. Let’s see what size you are. Here—give me the coat,” she instructed.
I shrugged it off my shoulders and handed it back.
She gasped. Her eyes widened, gaze traveling deliberately from my shoulders down to my abs, then lower. Heat followed everywhere her eyes landed. Another few seconds of that look and I’d have a very obvious problem in these boxers.
“Wow. That’s not normal,” she observed, setting the coat aside on the nearest counter.
“Huh?” I blinked and glanced down at myself, expecting something weird going on down there. “Uh. I’m going to need more context.”
She gestured vaguely, her expression caught somewhere between curiosity and amusement.
“Your tan. It’s so even. Everywhere.” She cleared her throat.
“I mean, I’m used to men around here having farmer’s tans.
Their arms and neck get darker from working outside, but the rest of their bodies—pale as snow.
But you look like you were dipped in gold. All. Over.”
I opened my mouth, but stopped myself. The truth was that just last week I’d been lying on a private beach in Dubai, completely naked, somewhere too expensive to admit out loud. It wasn’t exactly the sort of detail that fit this altered reality of mine.
“Uh, yeah, I work outside shirtless whenever I can,” I feebly managed.
She paused and tilted her head, clearly processing that. Then her lips curved slowly, dangerously close to sultry.
“Shirtless,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
Her gaze dropped lower again in a way that made my skin feel a little too aware of itself.
“Well, that works for me,” she breathed, and turned away, but not before I caught the faint pink rising in her cheeks. “Enjoy it while you can, though. We’re heading into winter. You’ll lose some of that glow, unless you like to freeze shirtless.”
“After tonight? No thanks. I think I’ll fly off to a tropical island tomorrow to warm up.”
She laughed, but I was being pretty serious.
“Want to join me on that little getaway, Sage?” Hell, one phone call and I’d have the jet waiting for us on the nearest tarmac. I could sweep Sage away on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to spend the rest of my trust fund with reckless abandon.
“You’re funny.” She snorted and headed back toward me with an armful of clothes.
“Why? Don’t you ever take a vacation?” I eyed the items ranging from jeans to flannel shirts to woolen socks.
“Nope. I think I’ve been working nonstop since I was sixteen. But I have been saving for my dream trip.” She got a faraway look on her face. “I want to see the lavender fields in France. I have about $250 socked away now. Someday I’ll get there.”
What the fuck? Here I was with a chance of inheriting millions, while she’d been working multiple jobs just to save away $250? Our different worlds smacked me in the face.
“I’m thinking an extra-large in shirts. About a 36 waist? Try these on.” She pointed to the fitting rooms to the left of us.
A few minutes later, I emerged. Everything fit. “Don’t know how you did it, but good guesses on the sizing.”
“I’ve worked here long enough to judge most men pretty well.” Why didn’t I like the idea of her sizing up any other man but me? I didn’t have any claim on her.
I stepped in front of the mirror—and hardly recognized the cowboy standing there.
She moved behind me and around me, adjusting the tuck of my shirt and humming. “There’s only one thing missing.” She grabbed a brown hat off the nearest peg and placed it ever so carefully on my head. “There. A rather fine cowboy, Carter.”
The transformation scared me. Fortunately, my eyes had something else to admire—her peach of an ass in her tight jeans as she stepped away. An ass I didn’t need to be chasing right now in my predicament.
I cleared my throat. “There’s one problem. I don’t… I have no money. The bikers took my wallet.”
“I’ll put it on a tab. You can pay it on payday.”
I hesitated. Payday? “Yeah. Right. I’ll pay you back.”
“You better or Ivy will come after you. She’s a pretty shrewd businesswoman.”
I reached for the pair of boots I’d come in wearing—Chris’s Luccheses, still sitting beside the fitting room curtain where I’d left them.
Her expression shifted. “Those are very nice. Where’d you get them?”
“They were my dad’s.” I didn’t even hesitate. The lies kept adding up, coming out way too easily now. “One of the few things I kept after he passed away .”
She softened. “The coat I threw over you… was my dad’s too. Loss makes you hold on to the funniest of things.”
“Yeah. It does.” In reality, I’d kept nothing of my father’s but his last name.
Standing here with Sage, who carried her father’s coat like a piece of armor, made me feel the absence sharper than ever.
She was opening my eyes to things I hadn’t realized I was missing—and she had no clue she was doing it.
I struggled the pair of boots on, and the weight of them held me down like an anchor. Montana was already making a point. I should stay and see this through.
A few minutes later, she’d written out the bill. Oddly, it totaled just shy of $250 dollars.
“I know it’s a lot of money. Just pay what you can each payday. I’ll smooth things over with Ivy.” She yawned. “I’m tired, and I’ll bet you are, too.”
I followed her out; she locked up the store and then led us up the stairs to an apartment above. At this point, speechless, I rolled with it.
Her apartment was small, hardly any bigger than my penthouse walk-in closet. In one glance, I counted seven different plants crowding the windowsills, their leaves a vibrant, healthy green that practically glowed under the soft lamplight.
These plants were thriving. Lush, well-tended, clearly cared for every single day.
Does she talk to them too? A quiet jolt of recognition hit me for the first time since arriving in Montana. I wasn’t the only fool who found comfort in green things.
A knitted blanket lay splayed over the back of the couch.
Books sat stacked on a side table, not placed there for effect, but actually read judging by the creased spines.
Small kitchen and dining area, hallway splitting the middle.
It was all cozy and lived-in, nicely kept in bright yellow colors and with floral accents everywhere.
It smelled of lavender, too, like her. A tiny vase held a sprig on the kitchen counter.
“You can take the couch. Bathroom’s down the hall.” She set her purse and keys down.
I couldn’t help the sigh of relief escaping me.
“Oh. You didn’t think that we’d… tonight…” she gestured between us.
“What? No, of course not. I mean, we just met.” I scratched the back of my neck. “Even though you’ve seen me mostly naked.”
“And I have a pretty healthy imagination for the rest,” she muttered under her breath, taking her boots off. But I caught it and cocked an eyebrow. Her cheeks pinked again—a sight I liked way too much.
She yawned again. “I’m getting up early in the morning to head back to the hospital. I’ll drop you at the ranch beforehand.”
“The ranch, right. But back up. Hospital?”
Leaning against the kitchen counter for support, as if for the first time tonight she couldn’t stand on her own two feet, she started, “My sister Daisy, the one you met at the dance… It turned out, she had a stalker all these years.” Her voice wobbled.
“Trevor Brewster. He trapped her tonight at the dance. Knox went after them and found them and saved her. But Trevor shot him.”
“Shot?” I gaped at her. What the hell? The entire time I played poker, two people were literally fighting for their lives?
She nodded. “Clean through the shoulder. They operated on him tonight. The doctor told us to come back in the morning to see him. But Daisy refused to leave. I was on my way home from there when I picked you up.”
Christ. I’d been in my own head, worried about my own life, when she was dealing with all of this?
Her eyes went glassy before she could catch herself. But I saw the way her throat moved, the way she blinked too quickly, trying to hold it together by sheer will.
“Hey, come here.” Without thinking, I crossed to her and pulled her in.
Big mistake.
The moment my arms went around her, she melted against me like she’d been holding herself together by sheer force of will.
Her forehead dropped to my chest, shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.
I held her tighter, breathing in lavender and the faint scent of hay from the dance, and tried to ignore how perfectly she fit under my chin.
How right it felt.
This wasn’t nothing. Whatever was stirring in my chest—standing here in borrowed clothes in her apartment, holding a woman I had no business getting close to—was very much something I hadn’t let myself experience often.
I was Carter Magnus. Well-known playboy. I didn’t do long-term relationships, and barely managed short-term ones now and then.
But to Sage, I was Carter James. I pressed my lips together and stared at the ceiling. Who the hell was he?
Either way, she was too good for me. She deserved someone steady and honest. Someone who actually belonged here in this town where real life happened and people saved months, maybe years, for $250.
Not someone pretending to be a cowboy.
“Sorry. Long night.” When she pulled back, she quickly wiped her eyes as if erasing the evidence.
“Don’t apologize.” I should be the one begging forgiveness for crashing into her normal life.
Her sweet smile did nothing to help my situation when she stepped away toward her bedroom. At the door she paused, and we held each other’s gaze across the quiet apartment.
Fuck me. Another minute and I’d be holding her in her bed all night.
“Goodnight, Sage.” It took all of my willpower to say that.
“Goodnight, Carter.” The door closed quietly behind her.
I stood there, staring at it, the weight of everything pressing in from all sides all at once. Then I dragged my hands through my hair, tugging at the roots, and exhaled slowly. I dropped onto the couch, exhausted, too tired to run.
Carter Magnus would have sprinted far away from this situation, from all this reality, and off to an island somewhere to party. Where he didn’t have to take life so seriously.
But I wasn’t Carter Magnus anymore. Not if I wanted any chance of pulling this off and earning my inheritance.
Out here, I was Carter James. A guy who needed a job and had to survive on nothing for thirty days. A guy who definitely could not, under any circumstances, afford to fall for anyone while doing it.
Especially not for Sage—the one woman who could make me want to stay.