Page 78 of Her Christmas Wish

Gray had said he needed to speak with Sage when class was over. With lead in her stomach, she waited, preparing for the worst.

Knowing that she’d handle it, whatever it was. She’d lost Gray once and survived. Had thrived.

If he planned to sue her for trapping him into an insurmountable situation, she’d offer to settle out of court.

And if she was pregnant...

The thought scared her to death. A single mom of one, that she could do. But two? Tending to Leigh and a newborn? Up all night? Working all day?

Scott would help where he could. And Iris. And Harper and others, too.

She’d be fine...but...would she always be doing it alone? Going to bed alone? Waking alone? Raising children alone? And later, after they were grown, living alone?

Was that the penance she paid for falling in love with the wrong man?

And if she wasn’t pregnant?

She wouldn’t be growing a child inside her, giving birth or tending to a second newborn. Life would continue just as it had done before Gray’s advent on the scene. She’d been happy. The happiest she could ever imagine being.

Before she’d fallen in love with the man all over again.

Sitting up straight, Sage stared only at Leigh. Refusing to allow her gaze to stray, for even a second, to the far too handsome vet on his haunches, spreading his gentleness all over as he taught lifesaving measures.

She had not fallen in love with Gray all over again.

She wouldn’t be that brainless. Wouldn’t make such a self-destructive choice.

Hell, she’d just really met the man the day before. When he’d shown his true self to her.

And...had fallen in love with him more deeply. More intensely, for understanding the man more deeply.

She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t trap him in a situation that would ruin his life. He’d fought too hard to get out of circumstances that had controlled him.

Scott approached the group five minutes before the class was due to end. Or rather, approached Leigh, took her hand and led her down closer to the group. Let her play with the dogs as they came up off the wet sand—a place she was forbidden to go unless one of her adults was holding her hand—and then, as the small crowd dissipated, he took Leigh’s hand again, as Leigh’s head turned up toward his.

Sage saw her daughter nod. Saw her brother look up her way and wave.

Leaving her only non-churlish option to wave back. Which she did.

She stood up, seeing the man she’d purposely been not looking at heading her way.

She’d expected to have Leigh close by, inside watching the movie she already had cued up and ready, while she and Gray had a glass of sweet tea on the porch.

He’d say what he had to say.

He’d leave.

And she and Leigh would head into town for some shopping.

She’d had it all planned. Was off her mark, even thinking about being alone at her house with Grayson Bartholomew.

The possible father of her possible child?

When he hadn’t known, she’d been able to keep herself contained. But with someone else clued in...

How could something that wasn’t even real yet, might never be real, suddenly seem more real?

She was standing in the sand, as though guarding the entrance to her porch, when he approached. “You arranged to have Scott take Leigh?” she asked.