Page 50 of Her Christmas Wish
Gray looked up at her. “The thought never entered my mind.”
Nor, apparently, did the fact that he was blocking her entrance to her porch.
“You’re welcome to come in,” she said from further outside her home than he was.
“I’m fine here.” The refusal should in no way have hurt her feelings. And yet, it did.
“At least come up on the porch. I’ve got two chairs.” He’d been sitting on Scott’s porch. It was a thing he chose to do. If he refused...
Whether Gray was following her train of thought or not, didn’t want to give her the impression that he had a problem being there with her or not, she couldn’t tell. But felt better, anyway, when he stood and availed himself of one of the two chairs.
The one she always used.
But freeing up the steps so she had access to her home.
She just wished there was a way he could free up the space he’d captured in her heart.
Chapter Fifteen
He fixed the toy. The wiring attaching the battery compartment to the parts that needed energy had frayed and come loose. A tiny cut with his teeth, to remove some colored coating, a few twists, and Baby was once again barking and flipping and wagging her tail.
“Yay!” Grabbing up the dog off the porch floor, Leigh hugged it. “I knew you could do it!” With the dog under her arm, she grabbed hold of the porch rail, as if to head down the steps.
“Hold it!” Sage’s voice stopped all movement.
With one glance at her mother, Leigh said, “Oh yeah. Thank you, Mr. Buzzing Bee.”
He grinned. “You’re welcome,” he said, figuring he should have been more solemn. Manners were a serious business.
He should be getting down those steps, too. Heading back the way he’d come. To the place he’d been invited to stay.
“I guess it’s pretty obvious that my earlier stipulations...regarding our...interactions...aren’t realistic.” Sage’s tone of voice came easy. Her words hit him hard.
He started to stand. “It’s okay,” he told her, figuring she was, in her way, apologizing again. Was getting kind of pissed that she thought she had to do so. For whatever reason.
“You want a wine cooler?” she asked before he’d fully left his chair. Throwing him for another loop.
Dropping his butt back in place, he figured it would be churlish, bad neighborly get-along vibes to refuse, and accepted the offer.
With a silent caveat that if she started in on him as her text the day before had implied, wanting to rehash the past, he’d leave the wine cooler, and her porch, behind.
She wasn’t the only one, it turned out, who needed stipulations.
To move the conversation in a direction he figured she’d willingly follow—and keep her away from the areas he’d decided he would not go—he asked more about Leigh as soon as she handed him the bottle of lime-flavored beverage.
And as Leigh played in the sand with her newly fixed toy, chattering some scenario she’d concocted, Gray heard about the little girl’s day care, in the building where Leigh worked. About the girl’s penchant for correcting others when she thought they were wrong. Her cheerfulness. Her stubbornness. Her sweetness. Each characteristic coming out through stories Sage told.
And through questions he asked. Half an hour passed like minutes, and he began to wonder what she’d put in his drink, he was so relaxed.
Knowing full well that Sage Martin wouldn’t spike a drink for any purpose. Except maybe, if a gun were put to the head of someone she loved.
She’d loved him once.
Silence had fallen between them. He figured he should go. Wasn’t getting up yet. Still had a quarter of a bottle of wine cooler sitting with him.
“You think it’s possible for us, me and you, to grow into something new?” Sage’s words were like a slash in the early-evening glow. Back to the day before. He never should have given her that snippet of his childhood. Not when he hadn’t done so when he’d been engaged to marry her. She’d picked up on the discrepancy. Wanted things he didn’t choose to give...
He looked at her daughter yards away, playing happily in the sand. Leigh could jump up and join them at any time.
