Free More Than Cookies (The Maple Leaf Series) by Christine DePetrillo Page B

not like the rest of them. Maybe she is genuine. Maybe she really cares. Maybe she’s not like your mother or Adriana.”
    Every once in a while, the real Ian showed up. Those moments were fewer and fewer recently, but Orion treasured them. It was as if the universe gave him his father back for a couple minutes. Such a gift.
    “Sage seems extremely nice and she wants to help us, but I’m still going to be extra careful.” Sounded like a logical plan. He couldn’t afford to get swept away by her soft lips, long legs, amazing cookies, and possibly good heart.
    Too risky.
    “Be careful.” Ian echoed his words and nodded. “Good night, son.”
    “Good night, Dad. See you in the morning.”
    He watched Ian shuffle back to his own bedroom and close the door. After listening and assuming his father was back in bed, Orion turned and went back into his own bedroom. He eased into bed again and was more awake than ever.
    11:00 p.m.
    He picked up his new cell phone from the nightstand, but it was too late to call Myah, not that Adriana would just let him talk to her anyway. No, he’d have to go seven, maybe eight rounds with his ex first and that wasn’t even a guarantee the bitch would put Myah on the phone when she was finally done ranting and raving. He’d told his daughter she could call him whenever she wanted to, but Adriana wouldn’t let her.
    Tomorrow that could all change. Or at least they’d be on a path toward that changing… hopefully. When he’d talked to him on the phone earlier this evening, Attorney Jack Benson had sounded like a laid-back guy with knowledge and confidence. Sage had assured him that, though he was cordial to them, Lily had said she’d seen the guy bring people to tears in the courtroom.
    He didn’t want to take pleasure in the vision of Adriana in tears—he didn’t wish her harm—but if it meant Myah was with him forever, he was all for it. If he had Myah and Ranger back, maybe he could focus on moving on with his life. Their life.
    Maybe he could see if Ian was right about Sage. Was she the exception?
    She sure felt like one.  
    ****
    Sage maneuvered through the front door of her mother’s house with a box of miscellaneous junk from her bedroom. Old CDs she hadn’t yet ripped to her MP3 player, a stuffed moose she’d won at the Danton High School Homecoming Fair the year she’d made queen, three fashion magazines she’d been studying in the hopes of putting together a new Summer Sage look from the measly clothing options in Danton, and a lavender-peach candle she’d made with Hope last winter when her sister was suffering from a candle-making addiction. She set the box on the back seat of her car and calculated she had enough room left for the final two boxes before bugging Rick to move her larger furniture with his pickup truck.
    Back inside the house, the bouquet of red roses Scott had sent caught her attention and a little pang of guilt unfolded inside her.
    “Awfully nice for a fellow to send you such pretty flowers,” her mother said as she hauled a laundry basket past Sage and into the laundry room. Joy Stannard was a sucker for pretty flowers.
    “Scott was nice.” Sage followed her mother, turned on the washing machine, and added detergent while her mother loaded.
    “So what happened?”
    Sage chewed on her bottom lip. She hadn’t mentioned Orion to her mother yet. She wasn’t sure she had the right words to explain him or her fascination with him.
    “Come on, sugar. Out with it.” Joy closed the lid of the washing machine and put her hands on her hips. “You’ll feel better if you toss it out there.” She motioned to the air around them.
    “Well, at the house—”
    “The one you’re abandoning me for? That house?” Her mother had not been at all pleased by Sage’s moving plans. In fact, it had taken Rick promising to check on her weekly to get Joy to stop lecturing about how dangerous it was for a single, attractive girl to live on her own. Sage