Hummingbird Lake Page 0,74
Rose was the only one on earth who shared her history. No one else knew what it was like to live in the Anderson family. No one else knew what it was like to have the Colonel as a father. No one else on the planet had known Sage since the day she’d been born.
All that meant that no one else had the power to hurt Sage as much as Rose. She’d certainly exercised that power, hadn’t she?
And now she was here.
And Sage still didn’t have a clue what she wanted to do about it.
Colt stewed the whole eight-minute drive back to town.
Whether she liked it or not, Sage Anderson was a big part of his decision to return to Eternity Springs, and he’d never been one to let a little bump in the path make him take a different road. So what if she wasn’t thrilled with his news? His timing had been bad. She’d been preoccupied with her sister’s sudden appearance.
A sister. Another mystery.
Colt made a quick stop at the Trading Post for more steaks. He rapped on the door at Sarah Reese’s house and offered up a sheepish grin when she opened the door. “Have you already had your dinner?”
“No, why?”
“I struck out with Sage. I have beef and need advice, and Shadow would love to play with Daisy and Duke.”
“Hmm …” She folded her arms. “I’m your second choice, huh? What a blow to my ego.”
“Hey, you blew your chance to be my number one when you refused to go parking with me when I was a sophomore in high school.”
“One of my life’s great regrets … not. You were in your dad’s minivan.” She stepped back and waved him inside. “C’mon in and feed me, then you can tell me all about it.”
Colt carried his grocery sack into Sarah’s kitchen, where he found Lori painting her grandmother’s nails. Ellen Reese was a lovely woman, an older version of Sarah, with middle-stage Alzheimer’s disease. She remembered his family from their summers in Eternity and asked Lori three times in five minutes the name of the color the teenager had put on her nails. While Sarah put away the hamburger she’d been preparing to cook, he shared his news about his move.
“Wow. Big changes,” Sarah said. Curiosity gleamed in her eyes, but he took the hint when she added, “I can’t wait to hear more about it after dinner.”
She put him in charge of her charcoal grill, and Lori accompanied him outdoors, asking him questions about living in Texas. “I can’t believe you’re old enough to be going off to college. When do you leave?”
“Mid-August. Right after the summer arts festival.”
“Are you excited?”
“Yes. And scared. I’m told it’s harder to get into vet school than medical school, and I want to be a vet so badly. What if I can’t do the work? What if I screw it up? You were a college professor, right? Do you have any tips for me?”
“I do.” With the fire ready, he spread the steaks upon the grill. As the juices hit the coals and sizzled, he said, “You do this one thing and I guarantee you’ll be fine.”
He paused, waited until she met his gaze, then told her, “Be true to yourself, Lori. If you’re true to yourself in everything you do, every decision you make, you’ll be fine and you’ll achieve your goals.”
“Wow. That’s profound.” Lori beamed a smile at him. “Thanks, Dr. Rafferty. I’ll bet you were a great professor.”
“I tried.”
Her eyes glinted impishly as she added, “I’ll bet the girls in your classes called you Dr. Hottie.”
He frowned professorially. “Brat. You are your mother’s daughter, aren’t you?”
She laughed, then picked up a tennis ball from a basket of dog toys and stepped down into the backyard to play with the dogs.
Colt enjoyed the meal and the company, but he was glad when dinner was over and the dishes done and Sarah said, “I need to do a couple things at the store. Want to walk over there with me? Shadow will be fine with my dogs.”
“Sure.”
At the Trading Post, Sarah removed a set of keys from her pocket and opened the door. In another couple of weeks the store would switch to summer hours, but for now the place was empty and quiet and offered the perfect spot for its owner to turn on him and say, “Spill it. What happened?”
“I’m hoping you can tell me.”
“You go first. You went out to see Sage?”
“Yeah.” He summarized the