Page 35 of Her Christmas Wish
Tapping quickly to open the text, he read:
Congratulations. Let me know if you need any help getting it closed.
Remembering, only then, that he’d texted her the night before to let her know about the house sale—a necessary action considering she was completely up on his financial situation at the moment.
Dropping his phone in his shirt pocket without a response, Gray grabbed his keys, nodded at Scott, who was having coffee in the kitchen, exited the cottage as quickly as possible.
And Ocean Breeze, too.
Chapter Eleven
Sage dressed with care on Saturday. Herself and her daughter.
Calling on her one day a week to be allowed to choose Leigh’s clothes on her own, she laid out a unicorn-covered smock, with a small ruffle around the bottom edge, and purple shorts to match. It was her current favorite of Leigh’s clothes. A gift from Iris’s collie, Angel, the previous Christmas.
“But, Mommy, this is my bestest,” the little girl said as she wiggled into the shorts. And then pulled the top on, sliding her hands into sleeves with the tornado force she was, and ran off to the coloring she’d been doing—unaware, uncaring or both, that the shirt was on backward.
Sage let it go while she pulled on a white denim skort, midthigh length, with the necessary Lycra attached undershort in case she had to climb or crawl to rescue or play with her daughter.
Topping the skort with a formfitting, short-sleeved black blouse, she slid into her favorite pair of two-inch wedged black flip-flops with the silver-and-pearl-studded bling, and went out to convince Leigh to turn her shirt around.
And then, with a determined demeanor and a spirit filled with purpose, she suggested that the two of them walk up to Uncle Scott’s house to meet his friend. She was done playing childish games. Enacting scenarios where she and Leigh could just casually run into Gray, get the introductions done and the awkwardness over.
Leigh was the key.
The closure.
She had no reason to carry the loss from the past any longer. She had the future she’d most wanted. The future she’d chosen.
Was truly happy.
The problem was bridging her current world to her past pain, in order to make herself one again.
That was the closure. Welcoming Grayson Bartholomew into her new life, rather than shunning him. A person shunned pain. Loss.
She’d forgiven Gray. The fact that she’d opted to help him—truly wanted to help him—get his life back was proof of that to her.
She just hadn’t completely let go of the pain he’d caused her.
“What’s Uncle Scott’s friend’s name again?” Leigh asked as she skipped beside Sage on the beach, sending grains of white sand atop both of their feet and ankles.
“His name is Grayson Bartholomew, but you can call him Mr. B.”
“How come the mister? That’s only at school and when you work.”
On the beach, Leigh called most peopleauntorunclebefore their first names. But only because their neighborhood was such a unique place on earth.
“What about Lindy’s mother?” Sage asked, in her flow with the little girl. As long as she paid attention, she was usually able to keep up, and a lot of times stay a step or two ahead. “Lindy’s your best friend and you call her mother Mrs. Miller.”
Leigh stopped to pick up a shell. Carefully put it in her pocket, and then started hopping toward Scott’s cottage.
“Is Mr. Buzzing Bee Uncle Scott’s best friend?” the little girl asked a few yards later.
“It’s just B, Leigh. Like the alphabet letter. Bartholomew is a long word and it starts with B so that’s why I told you to call him Mr. B.”
The child looked up at her, those blue eyes filled with incredible, joy-sustaining life. “I like Buzzing Bee, anyway,” she said.
And didn’t return to the best friend question.
