Page 51 of Her Christmas Wish

Sage wasn’t pushing. Her question hung there, but she wasn’t forcing anything.

Nor would she get into it with him or start something that could potentially blow up on them with the child right there.

As his mind worked its way back to reality, he entertained her question again.

You think it’s possible for us, me and you, to grow into something new?

“I think the way life works, it’s impossible not to grow into something new. Things happen. We experience them. They change us. Every single day,” he told her.

“Yeah, but I mean us, Gray. I’m finding that, as we’ve let go of the past and put it behind us, I’d like to not miss you as I have over the years. These past two weeks have been nice.”

All senses on alert, Gray warned himself about allowing wants to create a no-win situation. And felt Sage calling out to him in a way he wasn’t sure he could deny.

They couldn’t be a couple. They both knew that.

“What are you envisioning?” he asked. Their past, the way he’d walked away, the way he’d missed her, the things he still felt, forced the question.

“Friends.” She gave the answer with no hesitation at all. Leading him to figure that while he was still grappling with her conversation, she’d already been through it in her head. Knowing Sage, probably multiple times.

He waited for her to continue. To give him what she’d come up with. While he tried to stay afloat. He’d had no such preparation time.

But being honest with himself, had to admit that he’d given Sage in his life again way more thought than he should have done.

She was there.

And she mattered.

Two facts he couldn’t deny.

He glanced over to see her watching Leigh. Not him. And turned his visual attention outward once again as well.

“Like Iris and Scott.” Her words came with confidence. “My brother and Iris and I have been friends since I moved in here,” she continued. “You know Scott...after his disastrous marriage...”

“For which he takes the appropriate amount of blame,” Gray interceded. When it came to her brother, he was a whole lot more in the know.

“I know. And you obviously know that since then his relationships with women are all casual. He’s married to his career and wants it that way.”

“I do know that, yes.” He was way more curious to see where she was going with the conversation than he was to be discussing his friend at that moment.

“But with Iris...he’s just like he is with you. Or more accurately probably, with me. They’re close friends. Period.”

Without sex. Gray heard the unwritten small print implied in her words.

She set her bottle down and touched Gray’s arm. Drawing his gaze to hers before he thought better of it. “Because they both know that any more than that would come between them and they don’t want to lose each other,” she said, as though issuing a final, rehearsed line.

But one that rang with a strong core of truth.

Except for one thing.

That touch on his arm. Her fingers holding any part of him.

And Gray wanted more thanjust friends.

Gray’s eyes, holding steady on hers, felt like coming home. Feeling like she was treading water without a life vest, could be saved or sink at any moment, Sage didn’t look away.

With one part of her, she heard her daughter’s voice, still in storytelling mode, talking to Baby as Leigh dug in the sand. Building some imaginary world. She knew Leigh was close and safe.

And the other part, or another part...something inside her that had once been so strong...couldn’t tear her gaze from the eyes boring into hers.