Chapter 1
Cash
“It was a nice ceremony, wasn’t it?”
I spared Sage a glance before turning on the road that would lead to the small motel just a few miles from our hosts’ home. I didn’t respond, since I knew Sage wasn’t actually looking for a response. And because I knew he hadn’t gotten to the subject he was itching to discuss.
Daisy.
Sweet, young and oh-so-innocent Daisy.
She hadn’t been at all what I’d been expecting. Of course, I hadn’t really been expecting anything since Sage was the one who had a borderline obsession with the young woman. It was probably something that should have bothered me more than it did, but there was one thing I knew about Sage better than anyone else.
Of all the qualities Sage Brighton possessed – his humor, his never-ending need to flirt, his boldness – he was, above all else, loyal to his core. It was one of the many things that had drawn me to him when we’d worked our first case together. That and his stunning good looks. The man hadn’t been anything like the guys I typically went for, but then again, there was nothing typical about Sage. His red-orange hair and hazel eyes shouldn’t have been a combination that worked, but it most certainly did. His hearty laugh, incessant drive, and unflappable focus, along with his need to protect those who were weaker than himself, had drawn me in almost immediately after we’d first explored our off-the-charts chemistry. But it was his ability to smile despite everything that had happened in his young life that had made me realize that my connection to Sage went well beyond attraction and sexual compatibility.
Above all else, though, it had been his acceptance of what I’d needed from our relationship that had made me realize I was so deeply in love with the man that I no longer knew how to look at us as two separate entities anymore. And I had no doubt that my feelings were returned, though I was going on instinct rather than concrete proof.
Which was how I knew that, despite his obsession with Ronan’s young IT girl, Sage was mine and always would be.
It was another five minutes before Sage finally got around to saying, “So Daisy wasn’t what I expected.”
I smiled to myself but kept my expression neutral.
“How so?” I asked, though I knew very well what he meant. We’d both made assumptions about the young woman after we’d talked to her on the phone and after Sage had managed to coax some tidbits of information out of her, giving us some insight into her life.
For starters, she was young… very young. At nearly forty myself, I knew I was almost twenty years her senior. I’d felt like an old man after pursuing Sage who was twelve years younger than me, but with Daisy I’d positively be a lecher.
With Daisy?
What the hell was I even thinking?
Despite her youth, the young woman seemed to be very much alone in this world, though technically as an employee of Ronan Grisham, she would never really be alone. Sage himself was pretty talented when it came to computers and he’d managed to dig up some information on the girl who, up until today, we’d only ever heard through the muffled speaker of a cell phone. The product of a single mother, Daisy had been left alone in the world three years earlier after her mother had been raped and murdered by two men who’d frequented the restaurant the woman had worked at. Daisy had barely been eighteen at the time and instead of trying to figure out how to move forward without the guidance of the one constant in her life, she’d gone seeking vengeance.
And she’d nearly paid for it with her life.
It was information Sage had found when he and Maverick “Mav” James had been helping Ronan sort through some of the files left by the previous IT resource, Benny. There’d been a file on Daisy, and Sage had studied it incessantly until he’d pieced together the facts. Daisy Washburne had once been a client of Ronan’s underground vigilante group, but somehow, she’d managed to join it. It didn’t take a genius to determine that her skills with a computer had gotten her the gig.
I guessed that it was the combination of Daisy’s vulnerability, talent, and drive that had caught Sage’s interest. The fact that she’d rebuffed his shameless attempts to flirt with her had likely been the reason he’d grown increasingly obsessed with the woman.
And I had to admit, I was finding myself more and more intrigued by the young hacker. And the fact that she looked nothing like the skinny goth girl I’d imagined did nothing but stir my interest.
With her long chestnut hair, curvy figure, and heart-shaped face, I’d been hard-pressed not to let Sage have a go at her.