Page 95 of Her Christmas Wish
“We could bring her down here. Tell her I bought the place, and tell her about the baby here, too. You know, outside the space that just belonged to the two of you. Let her be a part of things. I’m assuming...” His eyes lightened as his gave her a sheepish grin. “Who am I kidding, I’m only just now coming up with this, but I’ll need to have kid things here, too, right? So that means her things as well as the baby’s. For when you’re working late and I’m on duty. That kind of thing.”
He stopped talking. Seemed a bit like he was lost. But he wasn’t overtly sweating. Or pacing. Or suggesting the meeting was over. He stood there. Nodding that nod of his.
“I think that’s important, yes,” she said, as her mind opened up wider. They were going to make it work. This new, more mature Gray, and the less selfish, more aware, more mature her.
“And maybe the new child can call me Mr. Buzzing Bee,” he continued. “I really like that name. In case you couldn’t tell.”
Because he’d named his new clinics after it.
And there was her reminder. It was all working out. Just not as she used to dream she’d be raising a family. He wasn’t ready to be Daddy yet. Might not ever be ready.
But if Mr. Buzzing Bee was who he needed to be, that was exactly who Sage would welcome into their family.
And be forever thankful that he was there.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As Gray had locked up his new cottage and walked back down the beach with Sage—keeping a body’s worth of distance between them—Sage gave Gray another reprieve. She’d figured they should wait to tell anyone, including her twin, about the baby for another couple of weeks, at least. After Thanksgiving.
She was only a couple of weeks along. Anything could happen. She hadn’t even seen her doctor yet. And they’d wait even longer before telling Leigh. At least until the baby started to show. Nine months would be far too long for a four-year-old to be patient. And...the first trimester was most at risk for miscarriage.
Miscarriage.The word offered the possibility of not having to be a father.
And didn’t seem like a win to Gray.
Because he knew what it would do to Sage?
He wanted to think so. But as Sunday rolled into Monday and then further into the following week, as he and Sage texted random thoughts and questions to each other, Gray was finding himself—not suffocating.
Of course, he was spending a good bit of his time with contractors, and an architect, working on buildouts for his clinics, and for the cottage as well. He wanted everything in place for work on his new home to begin as soon as the sale went through title, which could be by the end of the week.
Some of the texts pertained to cottage questions. Where Sage had three good-size bedrooms, he only had two. She’d have hers, and a room for each of the kids—though she’d be giving up her home office. She also had a large, windowed alcove off the kitchen, outside the laundry room, that would work just fine for her desk and files. She’d put in a pocket door, for privacy.
But him, with only two rooms...he decided to have another added, and two closets put in. One for each child’s things for those random occasions they had to spend the night. And there’d be beds, for when they had to take naps.
But not a crib. Sage had assured him that the baby could sleep in something called a Pack ’n Play at Gray’s house.
And they’d texted about Christmas lights for the beach. The decorations would be going up before they shared their news with everyone. She’d offered to help him pick out what he needed. Had sent him a list from an online store. He’d clicked and purchased all of it.
She’d scheduled her first doctor’s appointment. He’d be attending, though not in the room for the initial examination. His choice. She’d seemed relieved with it.
He’d be there for the birth, though.
One night his text had asked if she was scared. She was a little. So many unknowns. So much could go wrong.
He’d told her not to borrow trouble. Something his grandmother used to say to him.
He’d found that he handled the situation much better if he just thought in terms of Sage. She was pregnant. She’d be going through a lot of changes, physically as well as emotionally, over the next months. His job was just to support.
The after-the-baby-came part...a thought would trickle in occasionally. He’d stopped pushing them away. But didn’t search for answers, either.
Sage didn’t pressure him to. At all. To the point that on Thursday, one week before Thanksgiving, when they were out on the beach, with Leigh playing with Morgan—who was in Gray’s care as Scott had a business-related evening out—Gray said, “Either you’ve changed a lot, or you’re holding back on me.”
He didn’t like the idea that, with all they were going through, sharing, she wasn’t being fully open. “It’s not going to work if either of us aren’t honest,” he told her. Something he’d already learned the hard way.
“I’m not holding back, Gray,” she told him. “And I don’t feel like I’ve changed, either, other than, well, my whole life is changing, from the inside out, if you know what I mean.”
He did. And grinned. But couldn’t let it go. “In the past, you used to have all these scenarios of us as parents, as a family. You built such pretty pictures when you talked about them. You don’t do that anymore.”
