Page 41
"I know." He held up a hand. The gesture that rearranged rooms. "And they were excellent. They served with distinction. But they've earned their rest."
“I need clothes,” she said. “I cannot go to town in a robe.”
“No,” he agreed, thoughtful. “That would cause accidents.”
She stopped and looked at him.
He was already turning back toward the hallway, moving with that slow unhurried deliberateness, and she stared at the broad expanse of his back and thought, did he just compliment…?
She decided not to finish the thought.
The suite down the hall from hers was also larger than her old apartment. She bet the bathroom was ridiculous too.
Not that she was measuring. She was just… observing.
Cal had opened the door without hesitation—no explanation, no pressure—just stepped aside and left the choice entirely hers. She’d followed, because the alternative was standing in the hallway drowning in a borrowed robe, and she still had some pride left.
“Mary Sue keeps a room here,” he said, voice low and easy. “She’s roughly—” He glanced at Sage, then at the closet, making a quick mental calculation. “Close enough.”
“I’m wearing your mom’s clothes?” Sage asked, deadpan.
“She’s not exactly my— it’s complicated.” He crossed to the closet and opened it with that same calm efficiency he brought to everything. “She won’t mind.”
The closet was organized with military precision—sections, hangers perfectly spaced, a small shelf of shoes lined up by type at the bottom. Sage suspected Cal’s influence more than Mary Sue’s.
She rifled through the options. Jeans that looked a little tight in the waist for her wide hips and soft belly. A deep burgundy flannel shirt that would probably swallow her whole but could be rolled and knotted into something workable. A soft thermal undershirt. She pulled out a pair of thick wool socks and held them up like evidence in a crime scene.
“These are the most depressing socks I’ve ever seen,” she announced.
“They’re warm.”
“They’re beige.”
“They’re warm,” he repeated, completely at peace with his life choices.
She took the socks. Took the jeans, the flannel, the thermal. Turned toward the attached bathroom and paused in the doorway.
“For the record,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder, “I cannot believe I’m about to wear your not-exactly-mom’s clothes.”
“Noted,” he answered, the tiniest hint of amusement in his voice as he gently closed the door behind her.
He was ready before she was.
Sage found him waiting by the front door, already in his boots — good, well-worn leather, probably resoled more than once. She had the sudden, ridiculous urge to giggle and scowled instead to cover it.
He’d changed into a fresh, dark-green flannel that stretched across his massive shoulders, and over it the long black trench coat she remembered from the truck—the one that had covered her while she slept, heavy with the scent of worn leather and sheepskin, woodsmoke, and that warm, unnameable him smell that was starting to live in her lungs.
And the hat.
A black Stetson settled on his head like he’d worn it for years. He looked like a rancher, a soldier, and something out of a story she might’ve read back when she still let herself read for pleasure.
What the hell did his mom feed him, whole cows? This guy is fucking huge.
She’d known it since the diner. She’d known it at breakfast. But seeing him fully assembled—boots, coat, hat, filling the entryway with that quiet, complete authority—made the fact of him hit differently.
He looked at her. Something brief and warm flickered in those steel-gray eyes.
“Ready?” he asked, voice low and even.
