Brambleberry House

Shocked at the impulse, he set down Conan’s bowl so hard some water slopped over the side.

“I’m so sorry,” Julia called up. Though he wanted to keep them off the steps like he was some kind of medieval knight defending his castle from assault, he stood mutely by as she and her twins walked up the stairs to the deck.

“We were taking him for a walk on the beach,” Julia went on, “but we apparently weren’t moving quickly enough for him.”

“It’s my fault,” the boy—Simon—said, his voice morose. “Mom said I had to hold his leash tight and I tried, I really did, but I guess I wasn’t strong enough.”

“I’m sure it’s not your fault,” Will said through a throat that suddenly felt tight. “Conan can be pretty determined when he sets his mind to something.”

Simon grinned at him with a new warmth. “I guess he had his mind set on running away.”

“We were going to get an ice cream,” the girl said in her whispery voice. He had no choice but to look at her, with her dark curls and blue eyes. A sense of frailty clung to her, as if the slightest breeze would pick her up and carry her out to sea.

He didn’t know how to talk to her—didn’t know if he could. But he had made a pledge not to hurt others simply because he was in pain. He supposed that included little dark-haired sea sprites.

“That sounds like fun. A great thing to do on a pretty summer night like tonight.”

“My favorite ice cream is strawberry cheesecake,” she announced. “I really hope they have some.”

“Not me,” Simon announced. “I like bubblegum. Especially when it’s blue bubblegum.”

To his dismay, Julia’s daughter crossed the deck until she was only a few feet away. She looked up at him out of serious eyes. “What about you, Mr. Garrett?” Maddie asked. “Do you like ice cream?”

Surface similarities aside, she was not at all like his roly-poly little Cara, he reminded himself. “Sure. Who doesn’t?”

“What kind is your favorite?”

“Hmmm. Good question. I hate to be boring but I really like plain old vanilla.”

Simon hooted. “That’s what my mom’s favorite flavor is, too. With all the good flavors out there—licorice or coconut or chocolate chunk—why would you ever want plain vanilla? That’s just weird.”

“Simon!” Julia’s cheeks flushed and he thought again how extraordinarily lovely she was—not much different from the girl he’d been so crazy about nearly two decades ago.

“Well, it is,” Simon insisted.

“You don’t tell someone they’re weird,” Julia said.

“I didn’t say he was weird. Just that eating only vanilla ice cream is weird.”

Will found himself fighting a smile, which startled him all over again. “Okay, I’ll admit I also like praline ice cream and sometimes even chocolate chip on occasion. Is that better?”

Simon snickered. “I guess so.”

He felt the slightest brush of air and realized it was Maddie touching his arm with her small, pale hand. Suddenly he couldn’t seem to catch his breath, aching inside.

“Would you like to come with us to get an ice-cream cone, Mr. Garrett?” she asked in her breathy voice. “I bet if you were holding Conan’s leash, he couldn’t get away.”

He glanced at her sweet little features then at Julia. The color had climbed even higher on her cheekbones and she gave him an apologetic look before turning back to her daughter.

“Honey, I’m sure Mr. Garrett is busy. It smells like he’s cooking a steak for his dinner.”

“Which I’d better check on. Hang on.”

He lifted the grill and found his porterhouse a little on the well-done side, but still edible. He shut off the flame, using the time to consider how to answer the girl.

He shouldn’t be so tempted to go with them. It was an impulse that shocked the hell out of him.

He had spent two years avoiding social situations except with his close friends. But suddenly the idea of sitting here alone eating his dinner and watching others enjoy life seemed unbearable.

How could he possibly go with them, though? He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to be decent for an hour or so, the time it would take to walk to the ice-cream place, enjoy their cones, then walk home.

What if something set him off and brought back that bleak darkness that always seemed to hover around the edges of his psyche? The last thing he wanted to do was hurt these innocent kids.

“Thanks for the invitation,” he said, “but I’d better stay here and finish my dinner.”

Conan whined and butted his head against Will’s leg, almost as if urging Will to reconsider.

“We can wait for you to eat,” Simon said promptly. “We don’t mind, do we, Mom?”

“Simon, Mr. Garrett is busy. We don’t want to badger him.” She met his gaze, her green eyes soft with an expression he couldn’t identify. “Though we would love to have you come along. All of us.”

“I don’t want you to have to wait for me to eat when you’ve got strawberry cheesecake and bubblegum ice-cream cones calling your name.”

Julia nodded rather sadly, as if she had expected his answer. “Come on, kids. We’d better be on our way.”

Conan whined again. Will gazed from the dog to Julia and her family, then he shook his head. “Then again, I guess there’s no reason I can’t warm my steak up again when we get back from the ice-cream parlor. I’m not that hungry right now anyway.”

His statement was met with a variety of reactions. Conan barked sharply, Julia’s eyes opened wide with surprise, Simon gave a happy shout and Maddie clapped her hands with delight.

It had been a long time since anyone had seemed so thrilled about his company, he thought as he carried his steak inside to cover it with foil and slide it in the refrigerator.

He didn’t know what impulse had prompted him to agree to go along with them. He only knew it had been a long while since he had allowed himself to enjoy the quiet peace of an August evening on the shore.

Maybe it was time.

CHAPTER SIX

THIS WAS A mistake of epic proportions.

Will walked alongside Julia while her twins moved ahead with Conan. Simon raced along with the dog, holding tightly to his leash as the two of them scared up a shorebird here and there and danced just out of reach of the waves. Maddie seemed content to walk sedately toward the ice-cream stand in town, stopping only now and again to pick something up from the sand, study it with a serious look, then plop it in her pocket.

Will was painfully conscious of the woman beside him. Her hair shimmered in the dying sunlight, her cheeks were pinkened from the wind, and the soft, alluring scent of cherry blossoms clung to her, feminine and sweet.

He couldn’t come up with a damn thing to say and he felt like he was an awkward sixteen-year-old again.

Accompanying her little family to town was just about the craziest idea he had come up with in a long, long time.

She didn’t seem to mind the silence but he finally decided good manners compelled him to at least make a stab at conversation.

“How are you settling in?” he asked.

She smiled softly. “It’s been lovely. Perfect. You know, I wasn’t sure I was making the right choice to move here but everything has turned out far better than I ever dreamed.”

“The apartment working out for you, then?”

“It’s wonderful. We love it at Brambleberry House. Anna and Sage have become good friends and the children love being so close to the ocean. It’s been a wonderful adventure for us all so far.”

He envied her that, he realized. The sense of adventure, the willingness to charge headlong into the unknown. He had always been content to stay in the house where he had been raised. He loved living on the coast—waking up to the sound of scoters and grebes, sleeping to the murmuring song of the sea—but lately he sometimes felt as if he were suffocating here. It was impossible to miss the way everyone in town guarded their words around him and worse, watched him out of sad, careful eyes.

Maybe it was time to move on. It wasn’t a new thought but as he walked beside Julia toward the lights of town, he thought perhaps he ought to do just as she had—start over somewhere new.

She was looking at him in expectation, as if she had said something and was waiting for him to respond. He couldn’t think what he might have missed and he hesitated to ask her to repeat herself. Instead, he decided to pick a relatively safe topic.

“School starts in a few weeks, right?” he asked.

“A week from Tuesday,” she said after a small pause. “I plan to go in and start setting up my classroom tomorrow.”

“Does it take you a whole week to set up?”

“Oh, at least a week!” Animation brightened her features even more. “I’m way behind. I’ve got bulletin boards to decorate, class curriculum to plan, students’ pictures and names to memorize. Everything.”

Her voice vibrated with excitement and despite his discomfort, he almost smiled. “You can’t wait, can you?”

She flashed him a quick look. “Is it that obvious?”

“I’m glad you’ve found something you enjoy. I’ll admit, back in the day, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a schoolteacher.”

She laughed. “I guess my plans to be a rich and famous diva someday kind of fell by the wayside. Teaching thirty active fifth-graders isn’t quite as exciting as going on tour and recording a platinum-selling record.”

“I bet you’re good at it, though.”

She blinked in surprise, then gave him a smile of such pure, genuine pleasure that he felt his chest tighten.

“Thank you, Will. That means a lot to me.”

Their gazes met and though it had been a long, long time, he knew he didn’t mistake the currents zinging between them.

A gargantuan mistake.

He was almost relieved when they caught up with Maddie, who had slowed her steps considerably.

“You doing okay, cupcake?” Julia asked.

“I’m fine, Mommy,” she assured her, though her features were pale and her mouth hung down a little at the edges.

He wondered again what the story was here—why Julia watched her so carefully, why Maddie seemed so frail—but now didn’t seem the appropriate time to ask.

“Do you need a piggyback ride the rest of the way to the ice-cream stand?” Julia asked.

Maddie shook her head with more firmness than before, as if that brief rest had been enough for her. “I can make it, I promise. We’re almost there, aren’t we?”

“Yep. See, there’s the sign with the ice-cream cone on it.”

Somehow Maddie slipped between them and folded her hand in her mother’s. She smiled up at Will and his chest ached all over again.

“I love this place,” Maddie announced when they drew closer to Murphy’s Ice Cream.

“I do, too,” Will told her. “I’ve been coming here for ice cream my whole life.”

She looked intrigued. “Really? My mom said she used to come here, too, when she was little.” She paused to take a breath before continuing. “Did you ever see her here?”

He glanced at Julia and saw her cheeks had turned pink and he wondered if she was remembering holding hands under one of the picnic tables that overlooked the beach and stealing kisses whenever her brother wasn’t looking.

“I did,” he said gruffly, wishing those particular memories had stayed buried.

Maddie looked as if she wanted to pursue the matter but by now they had reached Murphy’s.

He hadn’t thought this whole thing through, he realized as they approached the walk-up window. Rats. Inside, he could see Lacy Murphy Walker, who went to high school with him and whose family had owned and operated the ice-cream parlor forever.

She had been one of Robin’s best friends—and as much as he loved her, he was grimly aware that Lacy also happened to be one of the biggest gossips in town.

“Hi, Will.” She beamed with some surprise. “Haven’t seen you in here in an age.”

He had no idea how to answer that so he opted to stick with a polite smile.

“We’re sure loving the new cabinets in the back,” she went on. “You did a heck of a job on them. I was saying the other day how much more storage space we have now.”

“Thanks, Lace.”

Inside, he could see the usual assortment of tourists but more than a few local faces he recognized. The scene was much the same on the picnic tables outside.

His neck suddenly itched from the speculative glances he was getting from those within sight—and especially from Lacy.

She hadn’t stopped staring at him and at Julia and her twins since he walked up to the counter.

“You folks ready to order?”

He hadn’t been lumped into a folks in a long time and it took him a moment to adjust.

Sometimes he thought that was one of the things he had missed the most the last two years, being part of a unit, something bigger and better than himself.

“Hang on,” he said, turning back to Julia and her twins. “Have you decided?” he asked, in a voice more terse than he intended.

“Bubblegum!” Simon exclaimed. “In a sugar cone.”

Lacy wrote it down with a smile. “And for the young lady?”

Maddie gifted Lacy with a particularly sweet smile. “Strawberry cheesecake, please,” she whispered. “I would like a sugar cone, too.”

“Got it.” Again Lacy turned her speculative gaze at him and Julia, standing together at the counter. “And for the two of you?”

The two of you. He wanted to tell her there was no two of you. They absolutely were not a couple, just two completely separate individuals who happened to walk down the beach together for ice cream.

“Two scoops of vanilla in a sugar cone,” he said.

“Make that two of those.” Julia smiled at Lacy and he felt a little light-headed. It was only because he hadn’t eaten, he told himself. Surely his reaction had nothing to do with the cherry blossom scent of her that smelled sweeter than anything coming out of the ice cream shop.

Lacy gave them the total and Will pulled out his wallet.

“My treat,” he said, sliding a bill to Lacy.

She reached for it at the same time Julia did.

“It is not!” Julia exclaimed. “You weren’t even planning to come along until we hounded you into it. Forget it, I’m paying.”

Even more speculative glances were shooting their way. He could see a couple of his mother’s friends inside and was afraid they would be on the phone to her at her retirement village in San Diego before Lacy even scooped their cones.

Above all, he wanted to avoid attention and just win this battle so they could find a place to sit, preferably one out of view of everyone inside.

“Nobody hounded anybody. I wanted to come.” For one brief second of insanity, he thought, but didn’t add. “I’m paying this time. You can pick it up next time.”

The minute the words escaped his mouth, he saw Lacy’s eyes widen. Next time, he had said. Rats. He could just picture the conversation that would be buzzing around town within minutes.

You hear about Will Garrett? He’s finally dating again, the new teacher living in Abigail’s house. The pretty widow with those twins. Remember, her family used to rent the old Turner place every summer.

He grimaced to himself, knowing there wasn’t a darn thing he could do about it. When a person lived in the same town his whole life, everybody seemed to think they had a stake in his business.

“Are you sure?” Julia still looked obstinate.

He nodded. “Take it, Lace,” he said.

To his vast relief, she ended the matter by stuffing the bill into the cash register and handing him his change.

“It should just be a minute,” she said in a chirpy kind of voice. She disappeared from the counter, probably to go looking for her cell phone so she could start spreading the word.

“Thank you,” Julia said, though she still looked uncomfortable about letting him treat.

“No problem.”

“It really doesn’t seem fair. You didn’t even want to come with us.”

“I’m here, aren’t I? It’s fine.”

She looked as if she had something more to say but after a moment she closed her mouth and let the matter rest when Lacy returned with the twins’ cones.

“Here you go. The other two are coming right up.”

“Great service as always, Lacy,” he said when she handed him and Julia their cones. “Thanks.”

“Oh, no problem, Will.” She smiled brightly. “And let me just say for the record that it’s so great to see you out enjoying...ice cream again.”

Heat soaked his face and he could only hope he wasn’t blushing. He hadn’t blushed in about two decades and he sure as hell didn’t want to start now.

“Right,” he mumbled, and was relieved when Simon spoke up.

“Hey, Mom, our favorite table is empty. Can we sit out there and watch for whales?”

Julia smiled and shook her head ruefully. “We’ve been here twice and sat at the same picnic table both times. I guess that makes it our favorite.”

She studied Will. “Are you in a hurry to get back or do you mind eating our cones here?”

He would rather just take a dip in the cold waters of the Pacific right about now, if only to avoid the watching eyes of everyone in town. Instead, he forced a smile.

“No big rush. Let’s sit down.”

He made the mistake of glancing inside the ice-cream parlor one time as he was sliding into the picnic table across from her—just long enough to see several heads swivel quickly away from him.

With a sigh, he resigned himself to the rumors. Nothing he could do about them now anyway.

* * *

SHE WAS QUITE certain Conan was a canine but just now he was looking remarkably like the proverbial cat with its mouth stuffed full of canary feathers.

Julia frowned at the dog, who settled beside the picnic table with what looked suspiciously like a grin. Sage and Anna said he had an uncanny intelligence and some hidden agenda but she still wasn’t sure she completely bought it.

More likely, he was simply anticipating a furtive taste of one of the twins’ cones.

If Conan practically hummed with satisfaction, Will resembled the plucked canary. He ate his cone with a stoicism that made it obvious he wasn’t enjoying the treat—or the company—in the slightest.

She might have been hurt if she didn’t find it so terribly sad.

She grieved for him, for the boy she had known with the teasing smile and the big, generous heart. His loss was staggering, as huge as the Pacific, and she wanted so desperately to ease it for him.

What power did she have, though? Precious little, especially when he would only talk in surface generalities about mundane topics like the tide schedule and the weather.

She tried to probe about the project he was working on, an intriguing rehabilitation effort down the coast, but he seemed to turn every question back to her and she was tired of talking about herself.

She was also tired of the curious eyes inside. Good heavens, couldn’t the poor man go out for ice cream without inciting a tsunami of attention? If he wasn’t being so unapproachable, she would have loved to give their tongues something to wag about.

How would Will react if she just grabbed the cone out of his hand, tossed it over her shoulder into the sand, and planted a big smacking kiss on his mouth, just for the sheer wicked thrill of watching how aghast their audience might turn?

It was an impulse from her youth, when she had been full of silly dreams and impetuous behavior. She wouldn’t do it now, of course. Not only would a kiss horrify Will but her children were sitting at the table and they wouldn’t understand the subtleties of social tit-for-tat.

The idea was tempting, though. And not just to give the gossips something to talk about.

She sighed. It would be best all the way around if she just put those kind of thoughts right out of her head. She had been alone for two years and though she might have longed for a man’s touch, she wasn’t about to jump into anything with someone still deep in the grieving process.

“What project are you working on next at Brambleberry House?” she asked him.

“New ceiling and floor moldings in Abigail’s old apartment, where Anna lives now,” he answered. “On the project I’m working on in Manzanita, the developer ordered some custom patterns. I liked them and showed them to Anna and she thought they would be perfect for Brambleberry House so we ordered extra.”

“What was wrong with the old ones?”

“They were cracking and warped in places from water damage a long time ago. We tried to repair them but it was becoming an endless process. And then when she decided to take down a few walls, the moldings in the different rooms didn’t match so we decided to replace them all with something historically accurate.”

He started to add more, but Maddie slid over to him and held out her cone.

“Mr. Garrett, would you like to try some of my strawberry cheesecake ice cream? It’s really good.”

A slight edge of panic appeared around the edges of his gaze. “Uh, no thanks. Think I’ll stick with my vanilla.”

She accepted his answer with equanimity. “You might change your mind, though,” she said, with her innate generosity. “How about if I eat it super slow? That way if decide you want some after all, I’ll still have some left for you to try later, okay?”

He blinked and she saw the nerves give way to astonishment. “Uh, thanks,” he said, looking so touched at the small gesture that her heart broke for him all over again.

Maddie smiled her most endearing smile, the particularly charming one she had perfected on doctors over the years. “You’re welcome. Just let me know if you want a taste. I don’t mind sharing, I promise.”

He looked like a man who had just been stabbed in the heart and Julia suddenly couldn’t bear his pain. In desperation, she sought a way to distract him.

“What will you do on Brambleberry House after you finish the moldings?” she finally asked.

He looked grateful for the diversion. “Uh, your apartment is mostly done but the third-floor rooms still need some work. Little stuff, mostly, but inconvenient to try to live around. I figured I would wait to start until after Sage is married and living part-time in the Bay Area with Eben and Chloe.”

“I understand they’re coming back soon from an extended trip overseas. We’ve heard a great deal about them from Sage and Anna. The twins can’t wait to meet Chloe.”

“She’s a good kid. And Eben is good for Sage. That’s the important thing.”

He was a man who loved his friends, she realized. That, at least, hadn’t changed over the years.

He seemed embarrassed by his statement and quickly returned to talking about the repairs planned for Brambleberry House. She listened to his deep voice as she savored the last of her cone, thinking it was a perfect summer evening.

The children finished their treats—Maddie’s promise to Will notwithstanding—and were romping with Conan in the sand. Their laugher drifted on the breeze above the sound of the ocean.

For just an instant, she was transported back in time, sitting with Will atop a splintery picnic table, eating ice-cream cones and laughing at nothing and talking about their dreams.

By unspoken agreement, they stood, cones finished, and started walking back down the beach while Conan herded the twins along ahead of them.

“I’m boring you to tears,” Will said after some time. “I’m sorry. I, uh, don’t usually go on and on like that about my work.”

She shook her head. “You’re not boring me. On the contrary. I enjoy hearing about what you do. You love it, don’t you?”

“It’s just a job. Not something vitally important to the future of the world like educating young minds.”

She made a face. “My, you have a rosy view of educators, don’t you?”

“I always had good teachers when I was going to school.”

“Good teachers wouldn’t have anywhere to teach those young minds if not for great carpenters like you,” she pointed out. “The work you’ve done on Brambleberry House is lovely. The kitchen cupboards are as smooth as a satin dress. Anna told me you made them all by hand.”