“He hasn’t told her?” His question was directed towards Lorraine.
“There hasn’t been time.” They’re talking like Sage wasn’t there.
“I still don’t understand,” Sage says again.
His glare meets hers, and she’s sucked into a vortex of spinning confusion. One minute he’s cold, and the next, he wears sympathy like armor. “Nox and Loch asked me to stick around for a bit. Make sure you aren’t accosted.”
Still perplexed, she asked, “Why would I be accosted?”
“I’m gonna kick your son’s ass, Lorraine,” Braxton muttered, clearly annoyed by whatever it was she was missing.
“You will not,” she huffed out.
Frustration built in Sage as they continued a conversation she was being left out of. It was hurtful and puzzling. “Stop it! Just stop it. What is going on?” All she had wanted to do was feel connected to her faith again.
“Morgan said some things that worried Frank. Your man wants to make sure you’re safe when he can’t be around,” Braxton explained, and she wasn’t sure if that left her more or less bewildered anymore. “He asked for me to stick close by in case you wanted to go out. He knew you’d push him into going to work, and he didn’t want to stress you out.”
“I’m going to change,” Sage muttered before walking into the house. Anxiety rattled her body as she walked up the steps. Morgan had been around for many years, and up until the past twelve months, she hadn’t feared him. Now, every time his name got mentioned, her skin crawled.
Knowing he might still want her, even though Frank had assured her there was now a restraining order in place, horrified her. She wasn’t worth the trouble she was causing, so she didn’t understand his persistence.
She was just a simple, naïve girl. There was nothing special about her. She wasn’t anyone. All Sage had ever wanted was true love. With Lochlan, she felt like she was definitely going to get it. Except, would he find her worth it when all was said and done? Would she remain as appealing to him when he realized all she’d done was cause him problems?
“You’re really going to marry this girl?” Joey asked for the hundredth time. Mac and Asher were on their way to Arizona to deliver the ’56 Bentley Coupe soft top they’d repainted for an older couple, so it was just the two of them back at the shop.
“Yeah, Joe, I am.” He was growing frustrated with the other man.
“But why? It’s not like you know her that well.” The genuine confusion in the man’s voice was the only reason Loch wasn’t following in his brothers’ footsteps and ramming his fist down Joe’s throat.
“You ever been in love, Joey?” Loch pointedly asked.
An expression unlike anything he’d ever seen crossed his friend’s face. “No.”
“But you think you have.” Loch had never seen this side of the normally crude man. “You know what it’s like when she consumes your every thought. She smiles, and you want to keep her that way for as long you can? That’s Sage. What I feel for her is beyond love, it’s more intense. It’s harsh and overwhelming. She consumes everything I feel when I’m not with her, and my every cell when I am.”
“She feels the same way?”
“When she’s not being overwhelmed by her family and their thoughts, yeah, she does. She isn’t as open about it yet, but she will be.” He knew she would.
“And what happens if she decides she wants to go back?” His question brought on a thought Loch hadn’t considered.
“I’ll give her a reason to stay.” He shrugged.
“What if she thinks you’re too damaged for her?” Joey’s question confused Loch until he saw the hurt in the other man’s gaze.
He had the feeling they weren’t talking about himself and Sage any longer. “I guess I’d have to show her that through the damage, she was my shining star. She was every reason I’d ever need to make her world right.”
They worked quietly after that, and for the first time since meeting Joey, Loch looked at him a little differently. He had always been a loud-mouthed jerk, never afraid to express an opinion to get a rise out of someone, and now, Loch wondered if he wasn’t just as wounded inside as Nox and Levi had left him on the outside.
Loneliness emitted from the other man, and Loch realized how truly lucky he was to have found Sage. How lucky they were to have been given the chance to be with each other.
With Nox doing actual paperwork and Levi busy getting Hogan’s Cage—their newest business venture, and also Levi’s baby—ready for opening, Loch had no choice but to leave Sage home with his mom. He had a driving need to tie her to him as quickly as possible after all the information they’d been given about her father and Morgan from Frank and Braxton.
Loch worried that Morgan wasn’t going to give her up as effortlessly as he’d have liked. Brax had hesitated in babysitting as he liked to call it, at first. However, when Sophia got involved and pouted at him, he’d given in. After going through her own life-endangering experience from her own mother, she had the man wrapped around her finger.
Once he had been filled in on everything that was going on with Sage’s family, he’d been less resistant to help out. Currently, he was camped out a block away from Loch’s mother’s house surveilling the whole neighborhood. Not wanting anyone sneaking past.
Sage