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“Fine,” she said, pulling the new duster a little tighter around herself. “But I’m wearing my new coat.”
The corner of his mouth moved—just barely.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said.
11
SAGE
They drove down Main Street toward the clinic.
Sage was not looking at him. She was looking at the street. The mountains. The Christmas lights twinkling against the pale sky. She was absolutely, categorically not staring at the way his sheepskin coat stretched across those ridiculous shoulders every time he turned the wheel. She was also definitely not noticing how the dark denim clung to his muscular thighs, or how his big hands rested so easy on the steering wheel, or how the whole damn truck smelled like leather, woodsmoke, and him.
Nope. She was ignoring all of it.
Badly.
About half a block later she threw her hands up with a disgusted noise that was mostly aimed at herself.
“What! What the hell did your mom feed you when you were little?” she demanded, gesturing vaguely (and maybe a little too close) toward his tree-trunk thighs. “Whole cows? Straight protein shakes? Did she just build you in a lab? I’m asking for science—in case I want to make an army of supermen to take over the world for women.”
She expected a low chuckle. A smirk. Maybe even a grunt.
Instead his jaw tightened. Just for a second—barely there—but she caught it. She’d spent too many years reading micro-expressions like they were survival instructions not to notice.
“Not really,” he said. Two quiet words. Even. Door firmly shut.
Sage looked back out at the mountains and let it drop.
But she filed it away anyway, right next to all the other things she wasn’t ready to examine yet. She knew better than anyone what shadows looked like when they slipped out. She knew how tightly some people had to lock their demons down so they only escaped in the dark, when vigilance got harder to hold.
“Okay…” she said, softer than she meant to. Almost gentle.
The truck rolled on. The heater breathed warm air across her new boots. Outside, snow sparkled on the rooftops and the river glinted between the buildings.
She didn’t push. For once, she just… let it be.
The clinic had a cheerful blue door and a hand-painted sign, with a paper snowflake mobile spinning lazily in the front window—clearly made by a child with more enthusiasm than precision.
As they pulled up, Sage read the sign—FAMILY MEDICINE & PEDIATRICS—then looked at Cal with exaggerated suspicion. She craned her neck to peer into the back seat.
“I don’t see a baby seat. Anything you wanna tell me, Tiny?”
Cal stepped out, then bent low to look at her through the open door, that ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth. “I like kids.”
He said it like it was the simplest, most obvious fact in the world. Then he was already moving around to her side. Sage sat there for half a second, the words rattling around her skull like loose change—I like kids, said by this impossible mountain of a man with zero explanation or defense—and then her door was opening.
"Oh no you don't—" Sage said as she moved to try to open her own door.
Too late. He stood there like a perfect, disgusting, irritating, not sexy not sexy not sexy, dumb gentleman.
She got out. Looked up at him, exasperated. He looked back at her, untroubled.
Sighed. Whatever…
"Seriously," she said, as they walked toward the entrance. "Why are we at a pediatrician's office?"
He opened the clinic door for her without answering.
