Page 23 of Her Christmas Wish

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...