Page 78 of Under the Ink

“You got a lot of texts?”

“Yeah,” she said, distracted…because she kept staring at the one from her mother.

We haven’t heard from you in a while, Naomi. When you have time, please let me know you’re okay.

She felt like a real jerk, because the last thing she wanted to do was message her mother—but she knew it was the right thing to do. Just a quick, short message would let her know everything was okay.

And no one said she had to tell her mother she was close by.

Everything’s okay, mom. Thanks for checking.Then she pressed the arrow to send it off into cyberspace.

But she realized how rude it was to not ask about them.How are you and dad doing?

Her phone had both messages marked assending. And she just wanted to be done.

Not realizing she’d made a frustrated sound, she nearly jumped when Sage said, “Almost there. Uh…and you’ll be happy to know my folks actually liveinChipeta Springs, so your cell woes will be over soon.

As the valley opened up and more homes appeared, Naomi looked down at her phone again, relieved to see that her two quick messages to her mother were now marked assent.

Still, the churning of her gut didn’t stop.

CHIPETA SPRINGS, COLORADO

JULY 18, LATER THAT DAY

As much as Naomi wanted to simply hang out in the beautiful bedroom they’d assigned to her, she couldn’t feign fatigue forever. After all, dinner would be ready in a while, and she’d promised Sage she’d join them.

But being around all these strangers, especially after baring her soul to Sage less than twenty-four hours ago, had her body as tight as Sage’s drums. So she performed the breathing technique Ginny had taught her a few years ago…because sometimes it felt like it helped.

By the time she heard the knock at the door, she was calm. “Yeah?”

Sage’s voice was loud and clear. “Ready for dinner?”

“Be right there.” She was already dressed and ready to go. Even mentally, she felt as prepared as she possibly could be. But the whole time she wondered why she’d agreed to come with Sage in the first place.

Especially since he’d asked before she’d fallen for him.

And why had she donethatanyway? Why had she allowed herself to succumb to that nonsense? The only point of relationships was to have a family…and no thank you. She’d long ago determined she didn’t want to do to children what had been done to her. Thanks to her own childhood, she would never be fit to be a parent.

So there was no sense hooking up with somebody. Well…hooking up in a friends-with-benefits type of way was fine, but the way her heart was doing those stupid flipflops was not.

But even trying to talk herself down, when she opened the door and saw Sage standing there, her heart did that stupid thing just the same. The man was gorgeous with his chin-length blond hair and ocean-blue eyes—but her heart wasn’t fluttering because of his looks.

It was out of control because of who he was inside.

Still…she had to stop this. When she wound up moving to a new city, they would lose touch anyway. It was dumb to entertain the idea, even if she didn’t think anything would come of it…because she had to guard her heart.

Wasthatthe feeling that Ginny had tried to describe to her more than once during those times she went on and on about how great Walker was?

“Hey.”

“Hey. So what do you think so far? Or have you been snoozing while you’ve been in your room?”

“I love it. I, uh, I’m just a little nervous.”

“Nervous?Don’t be. My parents are pretty laid back overall. You’ll like them.”

“I do so far,” she said, walking beside Sage as they started heading down the stairs. “They seem pretty nice.”

---