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“Soup?” Grant finally asked. “She knows it’s already eighty degrees outside, and we haven’t even hit May yet, right?”
Sage continued to blink, because those were her thoughts too. Soup? Who made soup in the summertime?
“She was very nice,” Thelma said feebly. “Said she’s been divorced for six years, and she’s finally figured out how to be happy.”
Sage snapped back to attention, her gaze lasering in on Thelma’s. “You don’t have tofigure outhow to be happy, Thelma,” she said. “You’re doing great, and you canchooseto be happy.”
Her sister nodded, and Sage suddenly wanted everyone to leave so she could be there with Thelma alone. She could make sure the coffee cups got put in the right cupboard, and she would allow Thelma to be nervous and weepy about living here by herself.
Or maybe she’d do some of the weeping. She wasn’t looking forward to living by herself all that much, but she reminded herself that she had Gypsy.
And what about Ty?
The question simply entered her mind, unbidden but oh-so-loud. She didn’t know how to answer it, because she’d only been dating Ty for a couple of months. She wasn’t Bea, and she didn’t fall in love in only a few days.
She had time, and she caught Ty’s eye from across the dining room table. His eyebrows went up, but she shook her head. No, she wasn’t going to tell him she was thinking about where they might live if they got married. His house was great, and big enough.
The one she’d just put an offer on was too. Would he move there with her? Why was she even buying a house right now if she thought she might vacate it in the next year?
Whoa, a year?She shook her head at herself now. Surely she and Ty wouldn’t fall in love and get married so fast. Or would they?
Could be less than a year, she thought, and she lifted her gaze to Ty’s again. He grinned at Oliver and said something, but neither of them laughed. She’d wanted a friend, and he’d become one quickly. She’d wanted someone to treat her right, and it seemed all Ty thought of was her needs, her wishes, her wants and desires.
Sage had always been exceptionally good at crossing bridges only when necessary and only when she came to them. So she shelved her thoughts for now. She needed somewhere to live that wasn’t the stifling apartment. Sheneededthe waterfront way, and it didn’t matter how long she lived in the house on the coast.
She couldn’t wait to get there, and as for her and Ty…well, she’d cross that bridge when she had to.
19
Ty pounded his feet against the sand, so much turmoil brewing inside him. It felt like a hurricane forming over warm ocean, the streams twirling and swirling and accelerating intensely. All he could think about was him and Sage. Sage and him.
They’d been dating for almost three months now. He’d found her sister a house, and Thelma had moved out. Sage’s financing and closing had taken a little longer, but she should be able to move into her new, waterfront home the first week of May.
She’d wanted to then throw Bessie a bridal shower in her new place, and he knew she’d been planning that.
What he didn’t know was why she needed him. She had plenty of friends here on the island, and while she’d told him she wanted to start their relationship that way, Ty knew she wanted more.
She wanted the world—and he’d realized he did too.
Talk to her, he told himself. His pulse started to yell the same message.Talk to her, talk to her, talk-talk to her-her.
He reached the lifeguard station and turned his canines around. Several minutes later, they’d gone up the beach, and Ty had walked back and forth a couple of times on the very solid concrete to give himself a minute to cool down.
Then he knocked on Sage’s apartment door, expecting her to have it open for him. After all, it was Thursday morning, and he’d been stopping by for the past couple of weeks to catch a quick breakfast with her. Scheduled. Routine.
He tried the knob, and sure enough, it turned easily. He called, “It’s just me,” but she didn’t respond. Gypsy barked and leapt off the couch like he was an antelope and not an eighty-pound shaggy dog.
Ty chuckled and bent down to say hello to the other black dog in his life. Sherman and Brother greeted Gypsy too, and with three big dogs in the small apartment living room really filled the place up. He glanced down the hallway, still didn’t see Sage, and weighed his options.
He unclipped the dogs from his belt, stepped into the kitchen, and opened the cupboard above the microwave. He’d brought over a couple of T-shirts last week, and he pulled out a fresh one and tugged it over his head.
The weather kept getting warmer and warmer, but Ty hadn’t adjusted his running time. He liked his routines, and as he leaned against the peninsula in Sage’s kitchen and eyed the hallway, he wondered if his relationship with Sage was still as exciting as she wanted it to be. The truth was, his life was very boring. He knew terms no one else did, and he could really only have a meaningful conversation with other real estate agents.
Doubt assaulted him, and he crossed the living room to the mouth of the hallway. “Sage?”
She didn’t answer, and he took a few tentative steps down the hall. Her bedroom sat in the far corner, and when he reached the bathroom door, he realized it was closed and the shower was running.
He backtracked to the kitchen and started making coffee, his heartbeat pounding at him for some reason. About the time he had a cup of coffee with sugar in it, Sage said, “Oh, Brother. Hey, boy.” She appeared at the end of the hallway, wearing a sundress and her hair flowing over her shoulders. It was bone dry, which meant she hadn’t washed it, but Ty still found her fresh from the shower.
