She didn’t even remember her father, who had been killed in some kind of black ops mission when she was two years old, but there had always been a gaping hole in her heart that wanted a dad. Her mother had moved home to the canyon so that Grand could help with the toddler, and then she’d missed a curve coming home from work one night when Sage was four. The hole got bigger. And now Grand had forsaken her too. She damn sure didn’t need a dog or a cat or even a hamster to remind her of just how big that black hole in her soul could get.
Creed piled three pancakes up on a plate and put them on the kitchen table. “Ladies first. I’ll fix a couple for the new pet and then make mine.”
Sage pushed herself up from the rocking chair and stretched, bending from side to side and ending with a roll of the neck that produced a loud cracking noise. “Thank you, but that miserable excuse for a dog is not my pet.”
“Did that hurt?”
“What? Popping my neck?”
Creed grinned and his eyes twinkled. “No, ma’am. That probably felt good. I was talking about it hurting to say thank you.”
The worst blizzard the canyon had seen in her lifetime looked like it would go on for three days past eternity. She was stuck in a house with no electricity and a cowboy she didn’t know and didn’t even want to like. And he was sexy as the devil when he grinned.
“Yes, it did. I speak my mind too, Creed,” she said.
Grand had been talking about selling the ranch for years, but it had all been a ploy to make her find a husband and settle down, raise a canyon full of kids, and be happy. The old girl could never get it through her thick Indian skull that Sage didn’t need a man to provide happiness. Her paint palette and easel did that job just fine.
Her cell phone rang as she smeared butter on her pancake. She recognized the ringtone as the one she’d assigned to her grandmother and jumped up so fast that her chair flipped over backwards. She didn’t even take the time to set it upright but dived for her purse, which was still on the credenza.
They called it a credenza but it was really the bottom half of an old washstand that had belonged to Grand’s grandmother. The bow that held the towel had long since broken off and probably burned in the fireplace, but the rest of the burled oak washstand was still as sturdy as the day it was made. She fished the phone from her purse and hiked a hip on the edge of the credenza as she answered it.
“Hello, Grand,” she said breathlessly.
“Well, you did make it home,” her grandmother said through a buzz of steady static. “Looks like the blizzard is messing with the lines. Just wanted to be sure you were safe.”
“Grand, what have you done?”
Grand giggled. “I told you I’d sell when I felt like the time and the buyer were right. Well, Creed Riley walked up on the porch and I knew it was time. I could feel it in my bones, and it was even an omen that his name starts with a C. He agreed to keep the Rockin’ C brand, so that was another good sign. I gave him a good deal and he took it. Live with it or move out here with me.”
Sage shouted into the phone, “To Pennsylvania in the mountains! No thank you!”
“I love it. Wasn’t sure I would, but it’s beautiful. And me and Essie are doing just fine in this big old barn of a house she’s got. I’m going to take care of the two old milk cows and we’ve got this little fruit stand out in front of the house where we’ll sell stuff in the summertime. And the neighbors stop in every day to buy what milk we want to sell.”
“All that will wear off before long,” Sage told her.
“I don’t think so. I knew when I looked into Creed’s eyes that he was the one. My sense never fails me. And Essie needs me. She’s getting feeble, Sage. You are cutting in and out so bad that I’m hanging up now…”
The phone went dead in her hands before she could say good-bye.
Sage redialed but got the no service message again. She picked up the landline and got nothing. It was going to be a long day.
Chapter 2
Sage painted when she was sad. She painted when she was happy. She painted when she was nervous, and she painted when she was antsy, like she was that morning.
Her supplies had been stored in the bunkhouse when she finished the last canvas and headed to Denver and Cheyenne to the two showings. There weren’t many days in a year when she couldn’t paint outside. Sometimes spring rains kept her inside, but that wasn’t every single day. And bitter cold didn’t last long in the wintertime, but the way the snow kept falling, it looked like it might go on until eternity.
She finished the pancakes, drank two more cups of coffee, and started toward her bedroom to haul her heavy coveralls out of the closet. She could stoke up a fire in the bunkhouse and do her painting there. She weighed the consequences. If she escaped to the bunkhouse, Creed would think he had run her off. This was her house, not his. Or she could ignore him and show him exactly who the boss of the Rockin’ C was.
She might have to share space with him, but that did not mean she had to talk to him. Knowing his name was enough, and she’d have been quite happy not even to know that much. She could have referred to him as “hey, you” or simply “cowboy” for three weeks.
“What are you doing the rest of the day?”
