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“I know” she whispered back, melting into him. “I love you too.”
It was a perfect Wednesday afternoon, one o’clock in Mary Sue’s diner. Snow fell slow and patient outside on Main Street, the jukebox played low, and the man Sage was going to love for the rest of her life kept kissing her hair like she was something precious.
She sighed happily as Cal resumed rubbing her thigh.
Thank you, Lord.
SAGE
A moment later, Cal’s thumb stopped moving.
Sage felt it before her mind caught up. Her body had been tuned to Cal Meridian for weeks now—every subtle shift of his weight, every breath, every tiny change in the heat of him. The sudden absence of those slow, lazy circles on her thigh hit her like silence after rain.
She kept her face tucked against his shoulder, listening.
His whole body had gone still. Not tense. Still. Like that stillness she’d seen at the bakery the day before—shoulders squared, head up, that apex predator sliding forward behind his eyes for ten long seconds before he realized it was only old Ms. Sullivan watching him from across the street.
That same stillness…She tilted her head back.
He was looking past her, out the front window, across Main Street. Those warm summer-gray eyes she lived inside had turned to flat steel. Cold. Cataloguing. Reading-the-room eyes.
His jaw was locked tight.
“Cal?” she whispered.
No answer.
The table hadn’t noticed yet. Annie was still chatting, Hallie still laughing, Rowan watching with that faint smile. Mary Sue had finally sat down by the register, sipping her coffee for the first time in hours.
Cal’s thumb gave two quick, deliberate taps against Sage’s thigh—stay—then lifted away. He was sliding out of the booth in one smooth motion.
His voice came out low, level, an almost calm operational tone as if he’d already decided something and was simply informing her of facts about the future.
“Princess. Stay here.”
She blinked. “Cal—what—”
He was already on his feet. The heavy leather trench coat swung with him. He hadn’t raised his voice. Hadn’t rushed. But the table had noticed now. Annie’s story cut off mid-sentence. Hallie’s laugh died. Rowan set her sandwich down with both hands, alert.
Cal looked across the diner to Mary Sue as he moved toward the door. “Mama. Call the sheriff. Now.”
Mary Sue had her phone in her hand before he finished speaking, already dialing. She knew that voice.
Cal kept walking but picking up speed. That was the part that turned Sage’s blood to ice—he was never in a hurry when it was serious. Never.
She was out of the booth before she’d consciously decided to move. “Cal—”
He didn’t turn. His hand closed on the brass door pull. “Stay here, princess. Stay with Mama.”
The bell above the door gave its bright, cheerful jingle. A gust of cold air rushed in—sharp, pine-scented, carrying tiny flakes of snow that melted instantly on the warm floor. Cal stepped out. The bell rang again as the door swung shut behind him, cutting off the cold like a blade.
For half a second, the entire diner was silent except for the low crackle of the jukebox and the soft hiss of the grill.
Then Mary Sue spoke into the phone, voice clipped and steady: “Sheriff Tate. It’s Mary Sue. We’ve got a situation in front of the bank. Across from the diner. Now.”
She hung up.
In four quick strides she was at the front window. Sage followed, heart hammering against her ribs, the buttery warmth of the diner suddenly too thick, too cloying against the dread crawling up her spine.
