Page 15 of Her Christmas Wish

Through his own turmoil.

But in her presence, too.

Vetting. Veterinarians. As plebeian as it was, it had made them both smile.

For the first time since she’d heard her twin mention Grayson Bartholomew’s name on her porch, she had hope that she was going to get through the unexpected, and wholly unwelcome, reunion just fine.

Chapter Five

He’d thought he was stripped bare.

Grayson buttoned a second button on his suit jacket as he bolstered himself to expose intimate details he’d given to no one. Something Sage Martin would figure out on her first time through his financials.

“My project for today is choosing a Realtor to sell my house.” He started in easy. Sitting back, one hand resting lightly on the chair, the other up under his chin, as though he had nothing more pressing on him than the pondering of a happy, contented man.

Something he’d been right up until the world he’d created—the life he’d left Sage to build—had imploded.

The irony wasn’t lost on him.

He’d left her to have a different life. Made it happen. Was thriving. And when it exploded around him, she was there to pick up the pieces?

He still hadn’t wrapped his mind around the fact that she was actually sitting there offering to help. Rather than slapping him with a stay-away order.

Gray felt like he was in some kind of twilight zone as he played along until he got his mind back into gear and seriously considered how he was going to handle the situation.

Sage’s open-mouthed stare wasn’t helping the effort any. “Did you say you were selling your house?”

He nodded. Didn’t see the need for any further embellishment on that one.

“But... I thought you were just staying with Scott because you needed a place to go where people weren’t always at your door and windows, leaving things on your car...trying to get an interview...or go viral on social media...”

“I am.”

“But...” Her frown, the small shake of her head, reminded him of the time he’d told her that he’d sold his favorite surfboard to buy her a pair of earrings. She’d loved the earrings. Hadn’t known. But had missed his surfboard. Asked him where it was.

“Things are things, Sage.” He repeated a rendition of what he’d told her then. “I crave nice ones. The best. But I don’t grow emotional attachments to individual items. I’ll find another house.”

He wanted to believe that. Would get there.

The house on the cliff above the ocean. For the first time in his life, he’d...grown attached. To an inanimate object.

Her face flattened. Disapprovingly? With a flashback to how she’d never understood his lack of attachment in the past?

He’d bet the Realtor’s fee that it wasn’t because she was remembering the earrings. He’d never seen them again after he’d told her where his surfboard went.

“I own the house free and clear. I’m out of money. I have to sell.”

The alarm on her face couldn’t be faked. And didn’t make him feel one whit better. “Out of money?” she asked, as though she couldn’t imagine the horror.

He could, of course. But the lack of funds wasn’t big on his scale of woes. Bills were pretty scarce now that he had nothing to pay for but utilities, phone, food and gas. Insurances were paid until the end of the year. Thankfully, he had no living beings dependent upon him.

He’d intended to let silence stretch as long as she needed, to give her time to assess, to reevaluate her desire to help him. But couldn’t sit there much longer, watching her watch him.

It was like being under a damned microscope. She didn’t know him at all anymore, of course, but how much of what she’d known still existed? Giving her information he wasn’t freely offering?

“You have no money at all?”

He shrugged.