“What happened recently?” he asked with a teasing grin.

“I met this guy, you see, and he’s got me doing all sorts of things I’ve never done before, and now he’s running away with me and my daughter.”

“You’re sure it’s okay if I come with you?”

“Yes, Grayson,” she said with a soft laugh, “it’s very okay.”

“If it’s too much for Simone, I can stay elsewhere. That’s not a problem.”

“She’s glad you’re coming.”

“She is? How do you know?”

“She told me so when you were in the clinic.”

“Oh,” he said. “That’s good. That’s really good.”

“I can’t remember the last time I felt as happy as I do right now.”

“I can’t either.” Grayson grasped her hand a little tighter and looked over at her with a fierce expression on his face that had her counting the hours until bedtime.

Chapter 20

If you find someone you love in your life,

then hang on to that love.

—Princess Diana

After seeing off Emma and Simone, Lucy went to the office at the store to spend a few hours working with Cameron. With the store’s long-awaited website due to go live on January first, they were running final tests, making sure any potential bugs had been addressed and generally being their usual anal-retentive selves when it came to launching a new site.

“This is the best work we’ve ever done,” Lucy said when they took a break after two hours of intense concentration. If you’d told her in high school that anything would ever hold her attention for that long, she’d have said you were crazy. But she loved her work and found it easy to get lost in the details, despite battling attention deficit disorder. Cameron was the same way, and they’d bonded over their ADD as well as their love of technology.

“I don’t know how I’ll ever top this project,” Cameron said. “Everything else will seem boring in comparison.”

“This was a true labor of love for you, and that comes through in every page on this site. You’ll have plenty to keep you busy managing it and adding to it when the catalog comes to fruition. Not to mention the sex toys,” Lucy added with a dirty laugh.

Cameron rolled her eyes. “I can’t wait to build those pages.”

“What’s the timeline for that product line?”

“Linc is aiming for March to roll it out, which means the staff training will happen in February. That ought to be interesting. All those grandmothers who work on the floor are going to get quite an education.”

“Oh to be a fly on the wall.” Lucy checked the time. “I’d better get back to the mountain to deal with the rest of our clients.”