Hummingbird Lake Part 22

To break the silence, Rose asked an obvious question. "So, you decided not to wait until eight-thirty?"

"These hot springs pools stink of sulfur. Seemed like an appropriate place to have this talk."

Rose smiled wryly. Her sister had a point.

"Okay, Rose. Let's hear it. Say what you came here to say."

Giving in to nerves, Rose tapped her toes at the bottom of the pool. She tried to recall and launch into the statement she'd prepared and practiced dozens of times, but the words that came out were something else entirely. "I miss you, Sage. I want you in my life again."

"Gee, in that case, I guess you shouldn't have tossed me out of your life, hmm?"

"It was a bad time for both of us."

"I know it was for me. You had me thrown out of my own father's funeral, Rose!"

"That was Brandon's doing. I didn't know about it until afterward, I swear. I felt terrible about it when he told me what happened."

"So terrible that you rushed right over the following day to apologize, right? Oh, wait. My bad. That didn't happen, did it?"

Rose clenched her teeth. She'd never dealt well with Sage's sarcasm. Why hadn't she kept to her script? She'd put so much thought into choosing the right words in order to avoid a situation like this and then when the time came to use them, she went blank. Stay calm. Keep your eye on the goal.

"As much as I'd like to go back and change the past, I can't do that. All I can do is attempt to move forward. I'd like to move forward with you. I know I've hurt you, and I'm sorry about that. In the past year or so I've spent some time evaluating and reevaluating what is important to me. I figured out that a lot of the things I thought were important actually aren't. I also learned that things I told myself weren't important are the most important things on earth. Family is important, Sage. You are important to me. I'd like us to find our way back to each other."

Sage sank down in the water up to her neck. Above the bubbling of the springs, Rose heard her sigh. After a long silence, she asked, "Why now? Have you and Brandon finally set a date? You want family at the wedding and I'm all there is?"

"Brandon and I aren't together anymore. He married someone else. In fact ..." She sucked in a breath against the pain, then forced out the words. "They're expecting a baby."

"You're kidding me." Sage's mouth gaped. "Didn't he always say he didn't want kids?"

"Yes." Rose was proud it didn't come out like a sob. "He changed his mind."

Sage muttered something Rose couldn't hear, then asked, "How long were you two together?"

Rose cleared her throat. "Seven years."

"Seven years." She blew out a breath. "Whose idea was it to split?"

"That would be Brandon."

"I'm sorry, Rose." She hesitated a beat, then said, "I never liked him."

Rose managed to keep most of the bitterness out of her voice. "Well, Brandon doesn't matter. That's behind me; it's over. I'm looking forward now."

Sage climbed to her feet. "Okay. Well, then. You just look forward. Personally, I'm up to my eyebrows with right now. The summer season is upon us, and I have a graduation party for a dear friend next week. Then I have a prominent guest coming to town to do a huge favor for me. I really don't have time to fret about forward."

She stepped out of the pool and reached for her towel. Rose said, "Sage. Wait, please. You're my family. We are the only family each other has. We should-"

"Stop it." Sage whirled on her, her voice fierce, her eyes glimmering with pain. "I'm sorry your boyfriend dumped you. I really am. Men so often suck. But you know what? I'm not all warm and fuzzy about being your backup date to the prom. It's insulting. You didn't sweep into Eternity Springs with an olive branch until Brandon left and you were alone. Maybe I would have been more receptive to the idea if I wasn't so obviously your last resort. Good-bye, Rose."

Ah, Rose, you really screwed this up. Sage had already taken three steps down the path away from her when Rose screwed up her courage and said, "Sage, I have cancer."

SIXTEEN.

Cancer.

The word knocked the breath from Sage's lungs and stopped her in her tracks. Cancer.

"My prognosis is excellent," Rose continued. "It's endometrial cancer and we caught it early. Actually, I should say I had cancer, not have, because I've finished treatment and everything looks good.

"I didn't come to Eternity Springs because Brandon dumped me or because I'm dying. However, facing that possibility made me confront the whole notion of death and decide what is and is not important in life. You are important, Sage. That's why I'm here."

A band of emotion squeezed Sage's chest, and she truly couldn't breathe. Death. Rose. Africa. Wedding veils. Bloodstained baby rattles. Rose. Death. The urge to flee grew so strong that she simply couldn't resist it. Turning a blind eye to the painful emotions etched on her sister's face, she blurted out, "I can't. I've gotta go."

She rushed up the path, away from her sister, away from the pain. Away from her own self-respect. The lack of compa.s.sion she showed her sister shamed her, but survival instinct was in control at the moment. She actually broke into a run as she exited the hot springs pool park and headed for home. If only she'd driven to Angel's Rest tonight. She'd hop in her car and start driving and maybe not stop until she reached ... where? Where else could she go? Eternity Springs was her sanctuary. This was where she felt safe. Where else could she go?

Then she saw him. Colt Rafferty, waiting at the footbridge over Angel Creek. Waiting, she knew, for her.

Not where could she go. To whom. To him. To those broad, strong shoulders and gentle, cradling arms. Arms she knew she could count on to hold her and protect her and save her from her demons, if only for a little while.

"Colt." He turned to face her when she called his name, and just as she expected, his arms opened wide. When she reached him, they wrapped around her and hugged her tight, and Sage thought that maybe, just maybe, she'd be able to breathe again.

"What is it, sweetheart? What happened?"

"I don't ... I can't ... can we get out of here?"

"Sure."

He kept her tucked against him as he led her toward Cottonwood Street, but when he would have gone south, toward the gallery, she stopped. She didn't think Rose would follow her to continue their conversation, but just in case, she said, "No. You're at Creekside Cabins, right? Can we go there?"

"Whatever you want."

They turned north. The cabins were only half a block away, and in moments he was ushering her inside. When he tried to let her go, she refused to let him do it.

Sage reached up and pulled his head down to hers and captured his mouth in a hot, desperate kiss.

She dragged him over and onto the bed. She yanked at his clothes, tugged at her own, and took him. It was fast and furious and fierce, and when it was over, they rolled apart, lying next to each other, breathing hard.

Colt rose up on his elbow. "I feel so used."

Sage groaned aloud, then rolled over onto her stomach. She pulled the pillow over her head and wanted to disappear. I can't believe I did that. I all but attacked him. Her voice m.u.f.fled, she said, "I'm sorry."

"I'm not," he said, his voice filled with cheer. "That's the nicest thing to happen to me in weeks. Feel free to use me anytime. Often."

He reached out and stroked his hand gently down the indentation of her spine. "Why don't you tell me about it, Sage?"

"I can't." After a moment's silence, she rolled over. Staring up at the ceiling, she said, "Rose has cancer."

"Ah, baby, no. How bad is it?"

Finally, the tears came, flooding her eyes, but she blinked them back. "She said the prognosis is good. I didn't stay to hear any more. Colt, I am such a lousy human being."

"Why do you say that, Cinnamon?"

"It's so complicated. We have so much hurt between us." In fits and starts, she explained, "See, before he died, my dad and I ... well, we had a fight. Except, it wasn't exactly a fight. He got angry. Disappointed in me. It hurt." After a long pause, she added, "Really hurt."

"Ah, Sage."

"Then he had a stroke and I didn't handle it well and Rose, well, we sorta broke."

"This was after you returned from Africa?" he clarified. When she nodded, he continued, "I'm not the right kind of doctor to make a diagnosis, but it sounds as if you had a textbook case of depression when your father died. Rose didn't cut you any slack for that?"

"I didn't tell her. No one knows, except for you."

He remained quiet, his silence giving her statement extra import. "Don't you think that could be part of the problem?"

"I can't talk to Rose. When I say our situation is complicated, that's a mild term to use."

Colt blew out a breath, then linked his fingers with hers and brought her hand to his mouth for a kiss. "While I'm always-and I do mean always-glad to sacrifice my body for the cause, I really think you should consider talking to someone with some letters behind her name about what's going on in that beautiful head of yours."

"I tried therapy." She tried to pull her hand away. He wouldn't let her go. "It didn't work for me."

"Maybe you need a different therapist."

Anxiousness began to replace the inner calm left in the wake of their s.e.xual storm. "Maybe I do. Maybe sometime I'll go that route, but not now. Not yet."

"Why not?"

"I'm not ready." She sat up and pulled the white sheet up over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "You know, if I have enough time, I might whip this thing on my own. That's my intention, and I've been doing fine lately. But this thing with Rose-having her show up out of the blue, her news tonight-I wasn't prepared."

"That's the way life is, sweetheart. You can't always be prepared."

"Life isn't the problem. Death is the problem. I can't deal with it. I can't deal with death."

"Ah." He said it as if she'd just solved a particularly troublesome question. "That's why you gave up medicine."

"It's part of the reason why, yes."

"What happened? I'm guessing you lost a patient? In a particularly troubling way?"

The memory flashed. The missionary school. A child being born.

"Don't, Colt. Please." She closed her eyes as the past threatened to rise up and swallow her. She left his bed, reaching for the tote bag containing her clothes and saying, "I should go. Snowdrop is surely wondering where I am."

"She can wait a little while longer." He rose behind her and smoothly repossessed her tote. "You don't want to get dressed without taking a shower first. Not to be rude, honey, but you smell like rotten eggs."

"Ee-yew. Really?" She pulled away from him, embarra.s.sed. She hadn't rinsed off in the showers at the changing hut; she'd grabbed her bag and ran. "Of course. Why didn't you say something? How could you stand me?"

"It was a sacrifice on my part, but I took one for the team. Now, though, let's get that shower. Since I now have your smell all over me, I need a shower, too. I'm living in the mountains now, so I'm all about conservation. I figure we'll just shower together."

For the first time in hours, Sage smiled. "To conserve water?"

He pulled her toward the bathroom saying, "Wait until you see what I can do with a washcloth."

Rose couldn't stop crying. She felt heartsick, defeated, and alone. So completely and totally alone. Even more alone than she'd felt last year during her treatment and Brandon's betrayal. As she showered in the changing hut, she lifted her face toward the spray and tried to wash away the tears and the trials. She decided she'd give herself the length of this shower to indulge in her pity party. Then she would march up to the house, pack her bag, and leave this little town. Tonight.

She'd drive to the next decent-sized town-what was it? Gunnison?-and spend the night there. Then tomorrow, she'd get up and go ... where?

"Anywhere," she murmured as she grabbed a towel to dry off, then pulled her coverup over her swimsuit. It didn't matter where she went. She didn't have a job, but she could get one anywhere. She had enough savings to live on for a little while. She could take her time. She didn't have to make any big decisions right away.

What she did have to do was stop crying. Tears got her nowhere. Hadn't she learned that lesson? Using the corner of her damp towel, she wiped the wetness from her cheeks and used an old trick to sh.o.r.e up her defenses by summoning up an image of her father. Soldier on, Rosemary.

"Okay, then. I will. I'm going to look forward, move beyond, and make a new life for myself and fill it with people I like. People who like me. Sage simply won't be part of it, and that is her loss. Soldier on, Rosemary."

Yeah, right. Who was she kidding? It'd be a minor miracle if, once she got to her room, she didn't throw herself across her bed and sob into her pillow.

The room she'd been a.s.signed at check-in was in one of the new dormitory-style buildings constructed on the estate within the past year. The shortest path from the hot springs to her room took her past a garden gazebo with a wooden swing suspended from its ceiling. As she approached, Celeste Blessing's voice floated out from the evening shadows. "There you are, Rose. I've been waiting for you."

Rose stifled a sigh. She should have expected this. She'd blabbed the entire sad story to Celeste earlier. Something about the woman invited the sharing of confidences. However, Rose didn't want to spill her guts again tonight. She'd make an excuse and keep on walking.

Even as Rose opened her mouth to beg off, Celeste said, "Please, join me."

Despite other intentions, Rose found herself veering toward the gazebo. When Celeste patted the swing beside her, she took the direction and sat beside the older woman.

Celeste smiled kindly. "It didn't go well, did it?"

"It's fair to say that's an understatement." Rose gave a brief synopsis of the events.

"I'm sorry, dear."

Rose's mouth twisted in a sad smile. "Me too. She surprised me, Celeste. I knew how mad she was at me over the whole mess when our dad had his stroke, but I didn't think she'd ignore the fact that I've been a cancer patient."

"I am certain she didn't ignore it. I suspect she's running away from it. That's what you need to understand, Rose. Your sister is in retreat."

"Retreat from what?"

"Pain. Despair. A winter of the soul so immense and so desperate that even someone as bright as your sister couldn't stand against it. So she retreated. She's managed to slow down the pace of it here in Eternity Springs, but she hasn't been able to plant her feet and fight."

"I don't understand. What has she told you?"

Her sneaker-clad foot against the ground, Celeste gave the swing a push. "While I never, ever betray a confidence, I can tell you that Sage is unusually quiet about her life prior to her arrival in Eternity Springs. What I know is from my own observation of your sister and her activities."

Rose remained silent for a long moment before saying, "I don't know. I don't guess it really matters. I gave it the good old college try, but I got nowhere and I'm done. I've had enough. I'm checking out, Celeste. Tonight."