share with Sarah, and she’d forgotten to send it.
For the next twenty minutes, Sage managed to keep her mind off Colt and on business. She had just wrapped up a phone call with her own agent when the door chime sounded. She looked up and her welcoming smile died.
Rose stood just inside the gallery looking stiff and uncomfortable. Before Sage could get out a word about this being business hours and, as such, an inappropriate time for dealing with personal issues, Rose said, “You told me to make an appointment. That’s what I am here to do.”
Inwardly Sage sighed. As much as she’d like to avoid this, she knew it was stupid to put it off any longer. “Okay. I have something going on this evening, but I could meet you afterward. Say, eight-thirty. Here. Is that okay?”
“I’ll be here.”
Sage brooded about the appointment all morning. So unsettled was she about it that when Colt showed up at lunchtime and offered to buy her a salad at the Bristlecone Café, she let him. “Don’t get any ideas, though,” she warned as they walked up Fourth Street toward Cottonwood. “I need a distraction, and you are all I’ve got.”
“Careful, Cinnamon. I’ll get a big head from all your praise.”
She rolled her eyes, then slipped her arm through his. “Tell you what. Let’s call a truce during lunch, shall we? Now that I’m over the surprise of your being here, I’d like to hear more about your plans. Where are you living?”
“For now, I’m at the Creekside Cabins. They have a fenced yard behind the office where they’re letting Shadow chill when he’s not with me, although I just learned about the doggie day care place that Celeste has added to Angel’s Rest. Speaking of dogs, where’s Snowdrop?”
“Today is her mani-pedi day.”
He stopped abruptly. “You’re kidding.”
She grinned. “Yes, I’m kidding. The Landry kids asked if she could hang out with them today.”
They arrived at the Bristlecone just as chaos erupted. Glenda Hawkins let out a scream and fell to the floor in a dead faint. Half a dozen people rushed forward; Sage hung back. Colt gave her an enigmatic look before addressing the couple at a nearby table. “What happened?”
“Her husband called,” Marlene Lange responded. “She was taking our order and she asked Jimmy Turnage to answer the phone when it rang. He said it was Ralph.”
Marcus Burnes added, “She didn’t say much more than hello before she squealed.”
By now, Glenda had come to and sat up. The knot in Sage’s belly relaxed when she heard her say she was fine. Jimmy Turnage helped Glenda to her feet. Then Glenda shocked the entire restaurant by laughing out loud and calling, “Free lunches for all! Ralph won over eight hundred thousand dollars in Vegas, baby!”
The place erupted in cheers, and the celebration began. As word spread, the crowd grew. Laughter was the rule of the day as the people of Eternity Springs tossed out suggestions for how Glenda and Ralph could spend their newfound wealth. Sage ended up pitching in to help in the kitchen and her lunch hour turned into two and a half, but she didn’t care. Not only did she enjoy herself, but the impromptu party gave her an extra hour and a half of distraction for the upcoming evening with Rose.
Colt had hung around, too, and as he walked back toward the gallery with her, he said, “You know, this is the sort of thing that made me want to move here.”
“Lax lunch hours?”
“The sense of community. The town where I grew up had it, but I haven’t found it anywhere else I’ve lived. Having that in your life enriches you.”
Sage couldn’t argue with him. Eternity Springs had offered her family when she’d had none of her own. Family. She sighed. “I’m going to talk to Rose tonight.”
“That’s good.”
“I don’t know if it is or not.”
“Are you ready to tell me about what happened with you two yet?”
No, she wasn’t. In fact, why had she mentioned Rose to him at all today? Doing so introduced an intimacy into their relationship that made the whole arm’s length thing more difficult to maintain. “I think you and I both should get back to work. Oh, dear. Look, someone is waiting out in front of Vistas. I don’t have so many customers this time of year that I can ignore them. I hope he hasn’t been waiting too long.”
As it turned out, the customer wasn’t a customer of hers but an Eternity