Page 145 of Dancing in the Rain

She lifted her eyebrows at him.

He smiled slowly. “Okay,weget to decide these things.”

She smiled, too, getting that he was pushing her buttons. “We need to seriously talk about this. What’s happening here. What this is going to be like.”

“Yeah. We do.” He kissed her cheek. “We will.”

“Christmas is next week. It would cost a fortune to go away.”

“Eh. Whatever.”

“Do I have to remind you that we’re both unemployed?”

“I guess money’s another thing we need to discuss.”

She gave him a crooked smile. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Among other things. So we both don’t believe in spanking.”

Her smile widened. “Are you talking about Chloe or me?”

“Oh ho. Ireallylike how you think, naughty girl.”

She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Seriously. Let’s stay here for Christmas. But maybe we could do it at your place again?”

“You got it.”

“You could invite your parents again, if they don’t mind coming all that way.”

“I think they’d love it. And my mom will be so proud of her baby boy.”

“What?” She turned amused eyes on him.

“She knew there was something happening between us, and I’m pretty sure she was pissed as hell at me for messing things up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She has this weird women’s intuition or something. She senses things.” He rolled his eyes and Peyton grinned. “I told her I’d talked to a lawyer about getting custody of Chloe and she…well, she didn’t ream my ass out, but she basically told me if I fought that battle, we’d all lose. And she was right.”

“I like your mom.”

“She likes you.” He brushed his lips over her hair. “So, yeah. We’ll have Christmas at my place. You two can stay overnight and we’ll open presents in the morning and make our own traditions.”

Her heart squeezed so hard she couldn’t breathe. “I like that.”

Chapter 33

Chloe’s scream made them all wince. “A phone! My own phone!” She clasped it to her chest. “Seriously?”

Peyton nodded, smiling. “Yes.”

They were gathered in Drew’s living room Christmas morning in front of the quickly purchased and decorated tree. The selection at the place where he’d picked it up hadn’t been great, so it wasn’t the prettiest tree…a little lopsided, with a couple of bare branches. No matter.

Chloe and Peyton had gone through Christmas ornaments at their place and brought over some of their favorites, some that had been Peyton and Sara’s parents’. One ornament was a red ball with a picture of the scales of justice and “Lawyers never lose their appeal.”

“I gave that to Sara the Christmas after she passed the bar,” Peyton had said with a sad smile as she hung it on the tree.

Drew would make sure they hung it every year and remembered Sara.

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