However, Sage wouldn’t be surprised at all if Grace confessed that her affair with the Italian guy had ended because she’d wanted to come home to Camden. Sage really hoped that wasn’t the case, because she didn’t think Camden was capable of a real relationship. Heck, all of the Whitman brothers seemed biologically defective when it came to staying with a woman longer than it took for the bedsheets to cool down.
Not that she knew from personal experience, of course; but the Sterling rumor mill never tired of the Whitmans. She tried to deny that she kept one ear out for the slightest news on Spence, insisting to herself that she was just curious—nothing more.
Sure, you’re over Spence. Sheesh, her mind was mocking her again.
“I am,” Sage muttered aloud, causing Bethel to glance at her with concern. “I’m gonna get a drink, Grandma. You’re in good hands.” She dashed off, intent on hiding in the corner for a while until Grace was free.
If she could just avoid spotting Spence, her night would be perfect. It was a very large barn, and if she stuck to the shadows, she had a chance of getting her wish.
“Sage Banks is looking good tonight, wouldn’t you say, Spence?”
Spence turned to see his patient from earlier moving off into a corner, a drink in her hand. The name had been bugging him all week, but he couldn’t place it. Now, as his friend Hawk Winchester made the comment, his memory came rushing back—the pretty redheaded sophomore who’d told him one summer how much she loved him.
Hell, she couldn’t have been more than sixteen and he’d just finished his second year of med school. He’d given her a kiss on the cheek, thanked her, and then forgotten all about her. What a strange incident to remember.
Sage Banks was no longer a sixteen-year-old child—that was for damn sure. She’d filled out in all the right places, and though he was a doctor and had pretty much seen it all, he wouldn’t mind seeing a hell of a lot more of Sage. Could she be mad that he hadn’t remembered her? It had been a long time ago. But women didn’t like to be forgotten . . .
“Oh . . .”
“Spill now. That’s a guilty oh.” Spence’s best friend, Austin, had spoken up as the three men looked at the woman in question, who was clearly trying to blend in with the decorations.
“I blame it on a lack of sleep,” Spence muttered, not knowing why he felt guilty. He had nothing to feel guilty about.
“Seriously, are you going to talk in riddles all night?” Austin asked as he took a pull of his beer.
“Sage was in a car accident earlier in the week and I was first on the scene. It’s been so long since I’d seen her last—heck, I think about ten years—that I didn’t recognize her. That hardly makes me the devil. But from the looks she was shooting at me—they would have killed a regular man—you’d think I’d done something a lot more horrible than forgetting who she was.”
Hawk and Austin laughed. “A regular man?” Austin finally said when he was finished choking on the swallow of beer he’d just inhaled.
“You know what I mean,” Spence said, grinning.
“Yeah, that you’re an all-powerful immortal who makes women swoon.” Austin gave his friend’s back a slap that would have knocked down a mere mortal.
“Have your fun,” Spence said. “Still, I don’t see what all the attitude was about.”
Hawk looked at Spence as if the guy were a dense little boy. “Probably because she’s been in love with you forever and you didn’t even know who in the hell she was.”
“What?”
“Come on, man. Don’t act so surprised. It’s pretty damn obvious that she’s always carried a megawatt torch for you. We may be older than she is, but the love-struck looks she always sent your way were pretty damn obvious.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Yes, she’d told him that she loved him, but that had just been a crazy moment. They’d been too far apart in years for her to ever have had serious feelings for him. “She didn’t go to school with me. She was too young to have a serious crush.”
“Yeah, she is a lot younger,” Austin said, as he tried remembering the old days. “I recall when I came home from college with you for a visit. She must have just been entering high school, because from what I remember, her idea of flirting was bad—really, really bad.”
Spence tuned his friends out as his eyes raked over Sage’s delectable form. Whatever she’d been like in high school, Sage Banks was very much grown up now. Even though she was swathed in a thick sweater, he could see she’d developed into an attractive woman. Hmm. Possibilities were popping into his head. That he’d held that body in his arms—albeit to move her from her wrecked car—wasn’t helping tame his imagination any, either. Now that he knew he was allowed to think of her sexually, his fantasies were coming to life in rapid succession.
“I don’t think she has a crush on me anymore,” he finally said, not realizing how much time had passed as he’d gazed at her with a brand-new hunger. Then he turned back to Austin and Hawk and smiled. “But I do think I could reignite some old flames.”
“I would so love to see you knocked down—just once. If this girl was shooting daggers at you because you had no clue who she was, there’s no way she’s going to just roll over, forgive, and forget. I bet you twenty that she turns you down flat.”
“I want in on that,” Hawk said, reaching for his wallet.