35. Sage
SAGE
By the time we roll up to the ranch house the next morning, sunlight is spilling across the valley. Even after the coffee Holden made me, I’m exhausted.
Too little sleep. Too much Holden.
The memory of last night flashes warm through me—my mouth on him in the dark cab of the truck, his body covering mine beneath the night sky, the way he filled me so completely.
Heat licks across my skin. God.
Holden kills the engine, one hand still loose on the steering wheel while he looks out toward the pastures. Neither of us moves right away.
“What are you up to today?” he asks finally.
I tuck my hair behind my ear. “I need to finish culling the branding photos and sketch layouts for the lodge wall.”
He nods, his attention drifting over me, and my stomach flips. Lips tilting up, he reaches over, brushes his fingers along my jaw, then leans in and kisses me once. Soft this time. Unhurried. Nothing like last night, but still enough to make my pulse stumble.
“We should probably stop doing this in the truck,” he murmurs against my mouth.
I smile despite myself. “Probably.”
Neither of us sounds especially committed to the idea.
Eventually, we climb out into the morning heat. Holden grabs his hat from the dashboard while I collect my laptop bag and camera case from the back seat.
For a moment, we stand side by side near the truck, as if neither of us wants to part yet. Then voices drift faintly from the direction of the horse barns—reality intruding.
Holden exhales quietly through his nose. “I should go. Chance asked me to help with the yearlings.”
I nod. “Right.”
With a hand on my lower back, he presses a kiss to my forehead.
I don’t protest. After what happened at the bar last night, there doesn’t seem much point in pretending anymore.
I turn and walk toward the main house, telling myself I won’t look back. I fail after about six steps, glancing over my shoulder and finding him standing right where he was, watching me with his hands shoved in his pockets.
The corner of his mouth tips up beneath the brim of his hat. And just like that, warmth spreads through me all over again.
God, this man is lethal.
I smile back, then force myself to turn around and keep going.
An hour later, I sit on the porch swing outside the main house with my laptop balanced across my knees and three layout drafts scattered beside me.
The morning sun is already warm against the side of the house, though a cool breeze still drifts down from the mountains.
The ranch is quieter at this time of day, with most everybody already out working.
The distant sound of machinery drifts from the south pasture, and horses move lazily around the corrals below the house.
It feels like home.
And the thought of leaving cuts deeper every time it surfaces.
I take a breath, then open my inbox again and pull up the residency email.
Milan Contemporary Arts Residency Program.
The words stare back at me from the screen.
It still doesn’t feel real. Twelve months in Europe.
The kind of opportunity I’ve wanted for years.
So why does it feel like someone else’s life?
Because instead of excitement, all I can think about is Holden half asleep this morning with his arm heavy around my waist and the dawn light spilling across his cabin walls.
I close the email again and force myself to get back to work.
A little later, the crunch of tires on gravel distracts me. I glance up absently, freezing as a shiny black sedan pulls up beside the porch. It’s a rental, and it doesn’t belong here at all.
My stomach drops before the driver’s door even opens, as if it somehow knows before my brain does.
No. No, no, no.
Graham climbs out of the driver’s seat, pushing his sunglasses back into his perfectly styled blond hair, and scans our surroundings.
For one disorienting second, it’s as if two versions of my life just collided head-on.
As soon as he spots me on the swing, he smiles and starts toward me, his gait easy, as if traveling to another state and showing up uninvited after barely speaking since our breakup is completely reasonable.
I slide my laptop onto the swing, then stand quickly and hurry down the stairs to intercept him before he gets too close to the house or to Holden’s family.
Or Holden.
“Sage.” His smile carries the smooth charm I fell for as a starstruck college student. “One of the workers at the construction site said I’d find you here.”
Feet planted at the bottom of the steps, I cross my arms. “What are you doing here?”
His expression flattens, as if he’s already irritated by my tone. Or maybe disappointed that I’m not welcoming him with open arms. “You haven’t been answering my calls.”
My fingers curl into my palms. “We’re not together. Why should I?” Still, I feel compelled to justify myself. “Besides, I’ve been working.”
He takes me in. The boots, the shorts, the tank top, my hair in a messy ponytail.
“As a farmhand?”
I clench my teeth, biting back a retort.
With a light laugh, he waves a dismissive hand. “I’m just kidding.”
Arms crossed, I give him a flat stare. “You can’t just show up here.”
“I think it’s perfectly reasonable to make sure you’re okay after you disappear to a ranch in the middle of nowhere and start ignoring my calls.”
“After what you did, you absolutely should expect to be ignored.”
Anger flickers in his eyes. Oh yeah. He doesn’t like that I’m no longer listening to him. He doesn’t like that he doesn’t know what I’m doing.
“I’ve been worried about you,” he says casually. “You could at least have answered and put my mind at ease.”
The thing about Graham is that he never sounds unreasonable. He always speaks calmly and with just enough condescension that I end up feeling irrational instead.
I’m sick of it.
Arms falling to my sides, I raise my chin. “I don’t owe you anything.”
Before he can answer, movement across the yard catches my eye.
Holden.
He’s walking up from the barns, carrying a coil of rope over one shoulder, his hat low over his eyes. The second he sees Graham and me, he slows. I give him a little shake of my head. I don’t want him getting caught up in this. Whatever it is.
Unfortunately, Graham notices, his gaze flicking from Holden back to me. His features tighten. “So that’s what this is really about,” he says, almost softly.
I stare at him blankly. “What are you talking about?”
“This.” He gestures at me, then at Holden. “You’ve got this whole fantasy thing going on out here, don’t you?”
A disbelieving laugh rushes out of me. “This is a job.”
“Come on.”
His tone is sharp. Sharp enough to carry. Holden starts toward us, his long strides eating up the ground.
A rush of nerves tumbles down my spine. Absolutely no world exists in which a meeting between these two men ends well.
Holden doesn’t stop until he’s close enough that I can almost feel the tension vibrating off him.
“Everything all right?” he asks me, his voice low.
I have no idea how to answer that question, but I nod anyway.
He focuses on my ex. “You lost?”
His voice is calm, but there’s something beneath it. Something that dries my throat.
Graham studies him for a second and extends a hand. “Graham Porter.”
Holden ignores the proffered handshake but doesn’t look away from him. “Holden McBride.”
Every heartbeat of silence that follows ratchets up my pulse.
Eventually, Graham lets out a hard breath and uses the hand he extended to pull his sunglasses off his head.
Then, voice lowered as if he’s trying to sound reasonable, he says, “Well, Holden. I was just telling Sage that she seems to have forgotten she has family and friends back home, and we’ve been worried about her. ”
Holden’s expression doesn’t change. “Is that right?”
Graham fixes his gaze on me again. “And apparently, she’s been too distracted out here to respond to the residency offer she received from Milan.”
My stomach bottoms out, while beside me, Holden goes completely still.
As my thoughts race, Graham goes on. “Twelve months in Europe. Very prestigious. The kind of opportunity you’ve always wanted, right, Sage?” He raises his eyebrows pointedly. “At least it was before you decided to play cowgirl.”
Heat flashes white-hot through my body. “How do you know about the residency?”
He shifts and clears his throat, looking vaguely uncomfortable for the first time since he arrived. “You used your professional email to apply.”
Anger floods my veins. “You went through my emails?”
He waves his hand dismissively. “You gave me access when we set up your gallery account. Your email’s still linked to it.”
For one stunned second, I can’t speak. Then my brain starts working again. “I let you have access when we were together. When we had a professional relationship. That doesn’t give you the right to read my private emails.”
“Maybe if you’d answered your phone, I wouldn’t have had to go through them to make sure you were alive.”
“You spoke to my parents. Don’t pretend you didn’t know I was okay.”
He ignores that, his voice sharpening again. “You got into Milan, Sage. You should be proud. I know I am. So why haven’t you accepted the offer yet?”
“You’re proud? You were the one who talked me out of applying before.”
He pulls his shoulders back. “Because you weren’t ready. Now you are. I assumed once you’d had some time to clear your head, you’d come back, and we’d pick up where we left off professionally.”
Funny how I hadn’t been ready when a residency might have helped me build a career beyond him. Now that he’s spent four years attaching his name to mine, Milan is suddenly the right move.
Arms crossed again, I glare at him. “What I do or don’t do is none of your business.”
“The hell it isn’t.” His composure slips again. “I put my reputation behind you when nobody knew who you were. Do you know how prestigious this opportunity is? How many photographers would kill for it?”
“I know how much of an opportunity it is.” I barely manage to keep my voice even.
“Then why haven’t you accepted? You know chances like this don’t come twice.” His frustration seems genuine now. “You spent years building a career most photographers would kill for. I don’t understand why you’d walk away now.”
I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out.
Holden’s watching me with an expression I can’t read. Whatever he sees when he looks at me has him stepping closer. Not touching, just there, protective enough that my pulse stumbles despite everything.
He levels a hard look at my ex. “You need to leave.”
Graham looks between us, his jaw working. “Is this it? I spent years helping build your career, and you’re going to throw it all away so you can photograph cowboys on a horse farm in Colorado?”
The nerve of him nearly knocks me over. “You threw it all away when you decided you knew what was best for me. When you cheated on me. So where I end up now has nothing to do with you.”
Holden steps forward, towering over him. “Leave. Now.”
Graham instinctively jolts back, then stares at me as if he doesn’t recognize me. He probably doesn’t. I’m not sure I recognize myself.
He shakes his head as if he’s disappointed in me. “Don’t do anything stupid. You don’t want to spend the rest of your career regretting your choices.”
My throat is so tight I can’t speak.
Holden does it for me. “Get your ass off my ranch. Now. Don’t make me tell you again.”
“Fine. Remember what I said, Sage.” He gestures around him, but his gaze is on Holden. “This isn’t you.”
With that, he spins on his heel and retreats to his car.
I turn to Holden, but he’s focused on Graham. Thick tension rolls off him.
Shit.
I caught his reaction when Graham mentioned Milan. The surprise. The way he stiffened. Dammit, I should have told him.
Because now I can’t shake the dread that what we have is about to change.
And I don’t know how to stop it.