Page 125 of The Wayward Son

Jake finished feeding the horses, then got a bottle of water from the refrigerator in the store room and went to stand in the doorway of the small gym where Sawyer was trying his best to destroy the heavy bag.

When Sawyer noticed him, he stopped and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the tail of his shirt. Jake held out the bottle of water.

Sawyer took it, then nodded. “Thanks.” He opened the bottle and took a long drink, draining half of the contents.

Jake watched him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Sawyer shook his head. “Nope.”

“Well, full disclosure. I just spent about twenty minutes with Jade.”

“She wasn’t too happy with the fact I talked to you and J.T.” He sat on the weight bench. “What’d she have to say?”

Jake leaned on the door frame. “She’s as confused as you are.”

“I doubt that.” Sawyer drank the rest of the water and tossed the can into a waste basket.

“Do you want to hear my take? And this is just a father’s intuition.”

“Of course. Your intuition is usually right on target.”

“Jade doesn’t think she’s good enough for you. She’s afraid ultimately you’ll realize that and leave her. So, keeping your relationship quiet makes that, in her mind, inevitable outcome, easier to deal with. The fewer people who know, the fewer people she has to answer to.”

“Wow. How do I convince her I’m not going anywhere?”

“That I can’t help you with. But you can’t hide it anymore. I think she knows that.”

Sawyer was quiet for a moment. “So what do I do?”

“Just keep loving her.”

“She makes it hard sometimes.”

“We’re all hard to love sometimes.”

Sawyer looked at Jake. “Not you.”

Jake laughed. “I have my moments. Good and bad.” He nodded toward the bag. “Are you going to give that a break now?”

“Yeah. I think I’ll go for a run.”

“Do you want company?”

“I don’t think you can keep up with me, old man.”

Jake laughed. “Just let me change out of my boots.”

Chapter thirty-five

"You have been officially anointed."

Sage was gone when Jade got back to the house. So she took a long shower, put on some fresh clothes, then went to the kitchen for some breakfast. But she wasn’t hungry, so she made a pot of coffee and opened Sage’s laptop to check her email.

Sage came in the door with three bags of groceries. She set them down on the counter with a sigh. “If you and I eat this much, I can’t imagine how many groceries poor Xander has to buy every week.”

“A ton, I’m sure. Now that I’m working, I can pay you back for all the times you fed me.”

“That’s not necessary. But you can buy groceries some of the time from here on out.”

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