I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would.
I didn’t exactly love it, either.
What I for sure loved were the mild summers.
It got hot here, sure.
But it didn’t get overwhelmingly hot.
Plus, it always managed to drop low at night, so even if it was hot during the day, it wasn’t at night.
By the time I’d run three of the six miles that I’d intended for that day, I started to get thirsty.
I could hear Neo’s panting behind me and knew he had to be dying, too.
I made a detour down to the brook that bisected my three hundred acres and stopped next to the bubbling stream in hopes that Neo would go for a drink.
He didn’t disappoint, walking directly into the water and lying down like this was the perfect spot for him.
I took a seat on a boulder and stared up at the sky.
Where my property was located, it wasn’t directly next to the mountain. But it was close enough that I had a pretty damn good view of it.
As Neo panted lazily next to me, I wondered what Sage thought of this place.
I also wondered if she’d gotten rid of the psychopath.
Then a smile lit my face because there was no doubt in my mind that Sage hadn’t gotten rid of her.
Sage was a force of nature.
She was quiet and unassuming…until she wasn’t.
I’d witnessed that in the courtroom once when she’d had to get on the stand to testify.
“We call Sage Rice to the stand.”
“Sage Kelly,” Sage corrected the man when she took her seat.
“Sage Kelly,” the prosecutor said. “I’m sorry.”
His smile was smarmy, and I wanted to punch it right off his face.
“Ms. Kelly, can you state your name?”
“My name is Mrs. Sage Kelly.” She emphasized the Mrs. and the “Kelly.”
The prosecutor looked taken aback by the vehemence in her voice.
That was the thing about her.
She looked all unassuming until you pissed her off.
I’d done that by telling her she didn’t need to come to the trial.
It’s not like she really needed to be there to see me go to jail for defending her.
But she felt a sense of necessity and obligation, so I hadn’t thrown too big of a fit.