Page 71 of The Wayward Son

Sage left and returned a few minutes later with two cups of coffee.

Sawyer patted Jade. “Sit up. Drink some coffee. It’ll help.”

She groaned.

“Come on. You’ll be glad you did.”

She sat and took a coffee cup from Sage. “Thanks.”

Sawyer took the other cup and Sage returned to the chair. “Okay, tell me everything.”

Sawyer told her everything that had happened from the time Jake woke him up. She sat in silence and listened.

He finished with, “And that’s it. We damn near froze to death. But we didn’t.”

“Holy crap.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure it was Brendan?”

“I’m sure. Probably drunk as hell.”

“That’s no excuse. He could have killed you guys.”

“More likely he would’ve killed himself if he’d hit us.”

Jade laid her head on Sawyer’s shoulder. “We could’ve stayed in the truck, but we’d probably still be there.”

He patted her knee. “We’re home now. And we will get warm again. I promise.”

Sage stood. “You should get out of your wet clothes. Come upstairs and change, then take the bed for the rest of the night.”

“As nice as that sounds, I don’t want to get too far away from the fireplace.”

“At least change. I’ll go get you something to wear and you can change down here.” She looked at Sawyer. “You too.”

He nodded. “In a minute.”

Sage left them and went upstairs.

Jade looked at Sawyer. “I can’t believe we did that.”

“It’s a story for our future generations.”

“I wonder how Ember’s doing.”

Sawyer checked the time on the old grandfather clock. It was almost five. “I’ll call in a couple of hours if I don’t hear from Dad.”

Sage returned with pajamas and a t-shirt for Jade. She held out her hand. “Come on. You’ll feel so much better in dry clothes.”

Jade took Sage’s hand and got to her feet, then traded her coffee cup for the clothes and headed for the bathroom.

Sage looked at Sawyer. “You go, too.”

Sawyer sighed, then slowly got to his feet. “Throw another piece of wood on the fire.”

“Okay.”

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