Page 58 of Her Christmas Wish
“So tomorrow’s the big night,” Scott said, leaning on the porch rail by the stairs.
Gray shrugged, tapped his beer bottle on his sweatpants. “Could be.”
“With Sage and Marissa putting on the show, you can pretty much count on it,” Scott chuckled. Gray would have liked to feel even half as confident.
The way his life was skyrocketing, so much potentially great stuff in such little time, had him a bit uneasy.
He’d learned the hard way that what went up, could come back down again.
And investors? That was a whole new thing to him.
“You driving, or is Sage?” Scott asked, one thigh up on the porch rail at that point. Looking as though he’d be content to hang out and dissect Gray’s life for some time, while Morgan sat contentedly waiting to go for another walk. The longer one she’d get with Scott.
“I’d figured us both for driving,” Gray told him. It wasn’t like they were attending together.
“Why waste the gas?”
By Gray’s calculations, they could probably both afford the gas. He knew he could, and Sage was in a better position than he was at the moment.
Besides, unless things had changed, Sage drove like the road law patrol. One mile under the speed limit so she didn’t risk going above, and always turning exactly when GPS told her to—even back when that help had been a device plugged into the cigarette lighter and attached to the dash. Brows risen, he glanced up at his friend. “What’s going on?”
Scott shrugged. Had the grace to look away, and then, bringing his gaze back to Gray said, “I worry about her, being out late without anyone with her, driving in the city alone on a Saturday night...”
Gray nodded. Should have had the thought himself. “I’ll drive,” he said with a grin. “No way I’m riding with your sister.”
“I got you there, bud.” Scott’s parting chuckle could still be heard as he walked with Morgan down the sand.
Chapter Eighteen
There was no way Sage would have agreed to ride with Gray to the function on Saturday night if Scott hadn’t been the one to tell her that Gray had said something about driving her. Her brother had been vague, but when Gray’s text had come in, with Scott right there, she’d look churlish, or worse, cause more of an issue than she wanted to deal with, if she refused.
They’d been alone together plenty of times in the weeks Gray had been back in her life. Mostly in her office with its soundproofed walls and the door closed. Just the two of them in a car, with Gray having to focus on his driving, could hardly pose a threat.
Even to a libido out of equilibrium.
Still, as she put on the sleek, slim-fitting long black sheath, leaving her hair wavy and long around shoulders covered only by spaghetti straps, and stepped into three-inch glitzy black heels, she was aware that Gray would be the first one to see her that night. And took a second long glance in the mirror, turning to get side and back views as well. Assessing her sexiness.
And then, not.
Maybe it was natural to want Gray to eat his heart out. To see what he could have had, even ten years later, if he’d been...
What?
Someone he wasn’t?
How fair was that?
And more to the point, how could she possibly say she’d loved the man if her love had only been good for as long as he’d been what she needed him to be, not who he was?
And she had loved him.
More than a decade later, she still had no doubt on that one. Head and heart in complete agreement.
Leigh had left earlier in the day, and Sage had been quite pleased with all she’d been able to accomplish with the unusual freedom. From housecleaning to casework, she’d managed to complete more tasks on her list in half a day than she normally got done in an entire weekend.
Including be ready a good ten minutes early, with nothing to do but pace. And think about the last time Gray had come to the door to pick her up for anything.
That night just forty-eight hours before the big day she’d spent an entire year anticipating. Or a whole life, if she considered her girlish and teenaged dreams of her wedding day.
