Reid was saying. Sage wondered whether his dragon was objecting, too. She could see the tension all through him; his big hands were clenched into fists.
Then it was like he forced himself to relax; calm descended over him like a muffling blanket. Sage blinked; it was disconcerting.
“And then...just as I got older, when I went to med school, I started to realize that I did value the community I’d grown up in, I did miss my family and the friends I’d known back here, and maybe I didn’t want to go live among strangers. Even in the countryside.” He smiled. “And then the local family doctor retired, and there wasn’t a doctor living in Oak Ridge at all, so I decided to at least come back and give it a try. And I realized that it was where I belonged, after all.”
Well, that was a happy ending, she supposed, although it was hard to tell how happy he really was. She was starting to suspect that Reid was very good at masking his true emotions. “You aren’t bothered by all the—pressure, and so on, anymore?” she asked.
“Well. It’s less of an issue now that I’m an adult with a career of my own. Especially since I’m doing something people respect. I imagine that if I’d picked a different job—if I was a starving artist, or did odd jobs, or worked somewhere for minimum wage, even if I liked whatever it was, I’d probably find it a lot more stifling to live somewhere where both my parents had such prestigious positions.”
It’s less of an issue didn’t meant that it was not an issue, but Sage took his point about being a doctor with his own house, as opposed to being a teenager living with his parents.
“People do get on me to get married and have kids,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “but I don’t know how much of that is just normal nosiness, and how much of it is a shifter’s inclination to carry on a clan line.”
“Why haven’t you?” she asked, and instantly regretted it. He was going to think that she was interested for a reason—
But she was curious. He was strong, handsome, kind, and had a good, useful skill. And he washed the dishes. She would’ve thought that the women would be lining up outside his door.
“Just...haven’t met the right woman,” he said, sounding—what? Wistful? Sad? That seemed like a real emotion, at least. “And there are only so many eligible singles in a small town like Oak Ridge.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” she shot back without thinking. Frankly, the dating pool in Oak Ridge would be huge compared to what she was used to.
“Oh, I guess not,” he said. He still sounded sad, though. “I’m glad you were able to find your—Eric, even though it wasn’t for long enough.”
Oh. That was why he was sad. And Sage was still sad too, a little. Eric had tried so hard to be what she and Rhiannon needed, and he’d done the absolute best he could.
Just because she’d always secretly wished there’d been more people to choose from didn’t take away from that. Guiltily, she shoved the thought down—she’d felt bad about it when they were together, and much, much worse after he died, so she tried not to think about it at all. He’d done his best, and she’d gotten the best daughter in the world out of it, and that was all that mattered.
“Thanks,” she said finally. “He was a good man.”
The silence after that was thick and awkward with everything she wasn’t saying. Maybe Reid didn’t notice, though, since he didn’t know any of the things she wasn’t saying?
He probably did. Especially since he broke it with a hearty, “So, what about you? What’s it like to be the child of the clan leader here?”
Suddenly she understood why he'd started generalizing. The idea of explaining to someone what it was like to grow up with Jeremiah, clan leader, as your father—
Well, she barely even talked about it with Shiloh, these days. When Ronan had still been around...
But Ronan wasn't around. Ronan was in Oak Ridge, because literally this had been too awful for him to handle.
"It's not the same for me," she said, busying herself with putting the dishes away. They were still kind of damp, even after she'd used the towel on them, but she needed something to do with her hands so she wasn't just staring at Reid while she talked. "It's