Her Christmas Wish (The Cottages on Ocean Breeze #1)

Chapter Seven

S age had seen them, of course. Even before Leigh had seen Harper’s Aggie and had darted up the beach toward the huge gentle dog.

Scott, who’d been on his way home from his nightly exercise with Morgan, had grabbed up Leigh, pretending to eat her neck, making her squeal, and had brought her back to the porch where Sage had been standing.

She’d gone out when Leigh had seen Scott and Morgan through the sliding glass door and had run out to give the corgi a hug.

The little girl had grown up on the beach, seeing her uncle and his dog most evenings. Sage couldn’t expect, overnight, to have the child suddenly confined to the cottage. Or even to try to do so.

But when Scott had asked if she had a problem with Grayson bunking in his spare room, she’d pictured him in the cottage.

Not out on the beach.

To his credit, he hadn’t stepped off Scott’s porch.

There was absolutely no reason why Grayson Bartholomew couldn’t relax with a beautiful woman.

And as a human being, Harper was one of the best.

Sage had it all worked out satisfactorily in her mind, except for the part where seeing Gray with Harper was ripping at her.

“Are those cookies I smell?” Scott asked, depositing Leigh on the porch and waiting to follow the little girl back into the cottage, Morgan beside him.

“Chocate chip!” Leigh said. “Mommy maked them. Even afore dinner!”

Bringing up the rear of the small procession, Sage smiled, with a twinge of guilt mixed in. She’d started the cookies to keep Leigh’s attention inside. The little girl loved to help. And lick the bowl.

Sage hadn’t accounted for the minutes after the bowl was licked and the cookies were cooling. Which was when Leigh had been staring longingly outside and had seen Scott.

She fed her daughter the “sketti” leftovers she wanted. And then, while Leigh sat in her booster chair, spooning as much spaghetti sauce on her lips and chin as she was getting into her mouth, Sage collected and started chopping the myriad vegetables she’d be combining into a salad for herself. Some nights just felt like she couldn’t stomach anything but pure health food.

She didn’t ask Scott if he wanted to stay. He had a houseguest. And she didn’t want to know about their dinner plans, or lack thereof.

Didn’t need to hear any of the details of Gray’s private life.

Her twin didn’t take the hint and leave.

Scott leaned back against the counter, his gaze mostly in the direction of Morgan, who was on duty around Leigh’s chair, scarfing up anything that dropped. “You have something you want to tell me?” he asked.

She couldn’t stand there looking him in the eye. She was using a very sharp knife. Had to keep her focus on the blade and the veggies between her fingers. “No.”

“Anything you probably should?”

Sometimes the whole twin thing got on her nerves. Scott thinking because they’d shared a womb, they each had the right to butt in when the other had stuff going on. Of course, when the shoe was on the other foot...

And far more crucial to the point, Grayson Bartholomew was staying with him...

“He didn’t tell you?”

“If you’re referring to Gray, he and I have only ever mentioned your name once since you two broke up. Yesterday, when I told him I had to talk to you before he moved in with me for a bit.”

She faltered. Or rather, stopped moving so that she didn’t cut herself. “You never mention me?”

“Nope. And, for the record, that’s not going to change. He’s my friend, but you’re my sister. My loyalty is to you. If he needs or wants to know anything about you, he’ll have to ask you.”

Emotions tangled up inside her. Running amok. And settled when she glanced at her daughter, who was feeding Morgan a long string of spaghetti. She should stop her.

“He knows about Leigh, though, right?”

Scott’s shrug, his look of emptiness, was not faked. “No clue. Definitely not from me.”

Okay, wow. She’d assumed...

Nodding, reminding herself of Gray’s habitual short bobs, she resumed chopping. Took a deep breath to steady herself, dipped into her professional persona as far as she could go, and said, “I’ve offered to help him get some of his assets unfrozen, and to get him reestablished with a new corporation.”

She glanced at her brother as she finished. Saw his jaw drop. And a deep frown slowly form that seemed to consume his entire face.

“You and Gray have been seeing each other?” He finally got the words out. She couldn’t tell if he sounded injured, or just plain incredulous. “And you didn’t tell me?”

She went with injured.

“No,” she said, putting down the knife and turning toward him. “I texted him this morning. Had him come to my office. We made a deal. I’m helping him, pro bono as I’m required to take on at least one pro-bono case per quarter, and—”

“Wait a minute,” he interrupted. She stopped talking at the quick shake of her brother’s head. “You’re already working with the company trying to get Safe Haven boxes outside of all city fire stations and medical clinics...”

“At least one...” she interrupted back, reclaiming the conversation. “Although Gray doesn’t know that, and I see no need for him to do so.”

Nodding, Scott’s gaze was piercing as he watched her, silently. Waiting, she knew. The man was way too good at getting people to tell him things with that look. It was what made him a hugely successful prosecutor known for getting criminals to confess, but at home... “You really need to soften that look a bit,” she told him.

Which gained her a raised eyebrow in addition to the rest.

She could have called him on that, too. She thought about it, feeling petulant. And maybe would have if she didn’t intend to reserve the right to come at him when she knew something was wrong.

With Leigh and Morgan, he was all the family she had.

“Knowing that he was going to be invading us here, I went online last night to investigate the details of the case. I’m sure you already know that he was clearly an innocent party and has lost everything when he’s done nothing but serve his community with a valuable business.”

Scott’s look softened. “I do.”

“And it occurred to me that I could make a win-win deal with him.”

Their father had been big on the whole win-win philosophy. They’d grown up with him making such deals with them. He’d get his way on things, but they’d get something they wanted out of the deal, too.

Scott’s silence was more of a comfort at that point. He’d quit pushing.

“His problems are right up my alley. It’ll be a no-brainer, helping him. And in exchange, all our associations must take place at the office.”

“He keeps his distance from you at home.”

“And I keep mine from him as well. There will be nothing personal exchanged between the two of us.”

When Scott sucked in his lips, for a second there, she’d thought he was going to tell her she was ridiculous for thinking such a thing could work.

Instead, he shrugged and said, “Sounds like a plan,” stole a stack of the cucumbers she’d just sliced and, popping one of them into his mouth, clicked his fingers. Morgan’s call to attention.

The corgi glanced up at once, looked back at Leigh, then up at Scott a second time and moved to his heel.

Giving Leigh a kiss on the head—avoiding, Sage noticed, the tomato sauce–smeared face—he let himself and Morgan out.

“Somebody’s not got a brain, Mommy?” Leigh asked as soon as it was obvious the adult conversation was done.

“What?”

“You said ‘no-brainer’ to Uncle Scott.”

Shocked, smiling and proud of her little attentive human being, Sage came back with, “Do you even know what a brain is?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Leigh was playing with her food more than eating it, a sign that she was full, but hadn’t turned around, or asked if she could be excused, so Sage let her sit there. “Means the thing in your head that makes you talk.”

Putting down the knife again, Sage wiped her hands on a cloth and went over to the table. Lifting the girl up against her, uncaring that Leigh’s hands wrapped in her hair, she kissed that messy face. “Yes, ma’am, it does,” she said, “and now it’s time for your bath.”

She’d get back to chopping. And to dealing with the vagaries of life.

At the moment, her daughter was there, needing her attention.

And that was all that mattered.

Gray wasn’t surprised to have a text from Sage the next morning. She’d said that she’d have a portfolio of goals with an overview of how they’d be met ready for him. Along with paperwork for him to sign to make their working relationship official.

More like covering the firm’s liabilities, he was sure.

And was on board with that.

Sage was also going to get every dime she’d earned once she did her job and got him back on his feet. He didn’t want her charity. Even if, by some quirk of his fate, she failed, he’d still find a way to pay her.

Out of his house sale, if nothing else.

He had to request a later appointment than the nine in the morning she’d requested. He had a seven o’clock tooth extraction to perform on a rescue dog from a shelter he used to service with his own pro-bono program.

But made it to her by ten.

“You had a tooth extraction?” Sage asked as he appeared in her open office door and she waved him in. He’d come over straight from the clinic, was still in blue scrubs—having exchanged the top for a clean one when he’d come out of surgery—and felt decidedly underdressed for her black suit with the red blouse.

All power.

He got the message.

“A two-year-old with a couple of broken teeth that had become infected,” he told her, taking the same chair he’d used—twice—the day before.

Feeling way more at home there than he should have done.

And way too aware of Sage’s small form, the perfect shape, as she came to join him, closing her office door on the way. Her curves weren’t overly bountiful. If anything, they were on the smaller side, but they fit her perfectly.

And he knew from experience that they were perfect in every way.

Having a baby didn’t seem to have changed her shape at all.

Thoughts he had no business entertaining.

Harper had left her phone number. As soon as he got out of there, he was going to use it.

She had no interest in anything serious, she’d said, as she finally stepped off Scott’s porch. But if he was interested in something casual...

Definitely what the doctor was going to order himself to pursue.

Sage was frowning as she laid a different set of folders on the table and took her seat. “I thought you weren’t working,” she said.

“I’ve been volunteering at a couple of animal shelters. Doing well checks, that kind of thing. And have a buddy that I’ve known for years who lets me rent space at his clinic when I need equipment.”

“What about technicians, to aid in the surgery?”

“He volunteers for that. Don’t worry. It’s all done legally. Just quietly. No one at the shelter knows where I take the dogs, and no one at his clinic knows I’m there. We work strictly after-hours. I get signatures on everything, and sign all prescriptions, etcetera, myself. My license to practice wasn’t suspended,” he reminded her, in case that hadn’t been clear the day before.

She nodded. “I know it wasn’t,” she told him, glancing down at the folders on the table.

Right, she’d have looked up his state licensing in the process of investigating his situation.

She wasn’t picking up the folders. Or looking his way, either.

She ran a couple of fingers through strands of hair at her shoulders instead. Slowly. Repeatedly. Not a nervous habit he remembered from the past.

Interesting.

“If you need to change your mind about things, I’m perfectly fine with that,” he told her. He wasn’t fine at all.

But he would be.

She owed him nothing.

His statement brought her gaze up to his. But left him even more unsure of what was going on.

She seemed...uncomfortable.

He wasn’t getting it. He hadn’t asked for, or instigated, any contact between them at all. His being there was all her.

So...

“I’m sorry to have to do this...” As she started to speak, his gut dropped. Preparing himself to sit politely through her reneging on her offer—mostly by stiffening every muscle in his body and envisioning his quick escape to and through her door—Gray didn’t even blink.

“We might need to change our agreement some,” she said. “Due to unforeseen circumstances...”

He sat forward, ready to push off. “That’s fine, Sage,” he said, clapping his hands together. “It was nice of you to offer, but I completely understand...” He was standing by the time he was done, heading toward the door.

“Grayson Bartholomew, you are not walking out on me. Not again.”