Page 40 of Her Christmas Wish

Or, more accurately, plaster to the two-by-fours. Wall construction complete. And he hadn’t had to lift a finger.

He took another sip of beer. Painting the wall, he told himself. He wasn’t changed. Still had his two beers.

“She told me you weren’t mad at her,” Sage said from next to him, facing the same crowd he was. Probably seeing it all very differently. She was part of a family there on Ocean Breeze.

He was a stranger in a very nice land.

She’d saidshe. Not Leigh. As though they both knew that the existence of that child was proof that he’d made the right decision to walk out on their wedding.

“I’m Mr. Buzzing Bee,” he offered, with a motion of his beer bottle in her direction. Like throwing up a hand.

Or...throwing in the towel. Topping the wall with it.

“I’m sorry about that...”

“No,” he interrupted. “I don’t mind. Seriously.” The wall was high enough. “Truth be told, I kind of like it.” He didn’t grin, but in another world, he might have. “You’ve done a great job with her,” he continued. “She’s bright, and aware. Self-confident...”

He stopped himself before he went too far. Said too much.

Sage nodded. Didn’t even look his way. But said, “It does my heart good to hear you say that. Thank you.”

Her heart.

He couldn’t go there.

Had somehow started to climb that wall between them. He needed to get himself back down to the ground. Lock himself in place there. Permanently.

Sage had an ex someplace. Or, at the very least a co-parent.

Perhaps even still in her life.

He hadn’t been around enough to know if Leigh saw her father on a regular basis. Perhaps the man had had her for the night one night that week even. Or would get her for the entire next weekend. It wasn’t like Scott would ever say so.

It wasn’t any of Gray’s business, of course. But that was the absolute best material for wall building.

“I have to ask...just because...it’s like the old elephant in the room... Where’s her father in all of this?”

He expected Sage to stiffen, at the very least, and maybe issue a very professional pronouncement that he was crossing the newly established line between them.

A line that seemed to keep moving, somehow.

Not because he wanted it to. And he was damned sure that she didn’t.

“I have no idea.” Her words were...shocking. Horrible.

His heart stopped as he considered that she’d been forced. By a stranger. “Wait...you weren’t... Oh, my God...”

“I don’t know because her birth mother didn’t say...” Sage’s words kept falling next to him. As hard as he was trying, he couldn’t quite catch up with them.

Not quickly enough. He was too busy fighting off the need to go find and strangle any man who would have forced himself on Sage.

“She’s adopted.”

Adopted.

Adopted.

But...that couldn’t be.