Brambleberry House

“It’s a great old house. I’m trying my best to do it justice.”

They walked in silence for a time and Julia couldn’t escape the grim realization that she was every bit as attracted to him now as she had been all those years ago.

Not true, she admitted ruefully. Technically, anyway. She was far more aware of him now, as a full-grown woman—with a woman’s knowledge and a woman’s needs—than she ever would have been as a naive, idealistic fifteen-year-old girl.

He was bigger than he had been then, several inches taller and much more muscled. His hair was cut slightly shorter than it had been when he was a teenager and he had a few laugh lines around his mouth and his eyes, though she had a feeling those had been etched some time ago.

She was particularly aware of his hands, square-tipped and strong, with the inevitable battle scars of a man who used them in creative and constructive ways.

She didn’t want to notice anything about him and she certainly wasn’t at all thrilled to find herself attracted to him again. She couldn’t afford it. Not when she and her children were just finding their way again.

Hadn’t she suffered enough from emotionally unavailable men?

“Look what I found, Mom!” Maddie uncurled her fingers to reveal a small gnarled object. “What is it?”

As she studied the object, Julia held her daughter’s hand, trying not to notice how thin her fingers seemed. It appeared to be an agate but was an odd color, greenish gray with red streaks in it.

“We forgot to bring our rocky coast field book, didn’t we? We’ll have to look it up when we get back to the house.”

“Do you know, Mr. Garrett?” Maddie presented the object for Will’s inspection.

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a naturalist,” he said, rather curtly. “Sage is your expert in that department. She can tell you in a second.”

“Oh. Okay.” Maddie’s shoulders slumped, more from fatigue than disappointment, Julia thought, but Will didn’t pick up on it. Guilt flickered in his expression.

“I can look at it,” he said after a moment. “Let’s see.”

Will reached for her hand and he examined the contents carefully. “Wow. This is quite a find. It’s a bloodstone agate.”

“I want to see,” Simon said.

“It’s pretty rare,” Will said. He talked to them about some of the other treasures they could find beachcombing on the coast until they reached his house.

“I guess this is your stop,” Julia said as they stood at the steps of his deck.

He glanced up the steps, as if eager to escape, then looked back at them. “I’ll walk you the rest of the way to Brambleberry House. It’s nearly dark. I wouldn’t want you walking on your own.”

It was only three houses, she almost said, but he looked so determined to stick it out that she couldn’t bring herself to argue.

“Thank you,” she said, then gave Maddie a careful look. Her daughter hadn’t said much for some time, since finding the bloodstone.

“Is it piggyback time?” Julia asked quietly.

Maddie shrugged, her features dispirited. “I guess so. I really wanted to make it the whole way on my own this time.”

“You made it farther this time than last time. And farther still than the time before. Come on, pumpkin. Your chariot awaits.” Julia crouched down and her daughter climbed aboard.

“I can carry her,” Will said, though he looked as if he would rather stick a nail gun to his hand and pull the switch.

“I’ve got her,” she answered, aching for him all over again. “But you can make sure Simon and Conan stay away from the surf.”

They crossed the last hundred yards to Brambleberry House in silence. When they reached the back gate, Will held it open for them and they walked inside where the smells of Abigail’s lush late-summer flowers surrounded them in warm welcome.

She eased Maddie off her back. “You two take Conan inside to get a drink from Anna while I talk to Mr. Garrett, okay?”

“Okay,” Simon said, and headed up the steps. Maddie followed more slowly but a moment later Julia and Will were alone with only the sound of the wind sighing in the tops of the pine trees.

“What’s wrong with Maddie?”

His quiet voice cut through the peace of the night and she instinctively bristled, wanting to protest that nothing was wrong with her child. Absolutely nothing. Maddie was perfect in every way.

The words tangled in her throat. “She’s recovering from a bone marrow transplant,” she answered in a low voice to match his. It wasn’t any grand secret and he certainly deserved to know, though she didn’t want to go through more explanations.

“It’s been four months but she hasn’t quite regained her strength. She’s been a fighter through everything life has thrown at her the last two and a half years, though—two rounds of chemo and a round of radiation—so I know it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be back to her old self.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

HE HEARD HER words as if she whispered them on the wind from a long distance away.

Bone marrow transplant. Chemotherapy. Radiation.

Cancer.

He had suspected Maddie was ill, but cancer. Damn it. The thought of that sweet-faced little girl enduring that kind of nightmare plowed into him like a semitruck and completely knocked him off his pins.

“I’m sorry, Julia.”

The words seemed horrifyingly inadequate but he didn’t have the first idea what else to say in this kind of situation. Besides, hadn’t he learned after the dark abyss of the last two years that sometimes the simplest of sentiments meant the most?

The sun had finally slipped beyond the horizon and in the dusky twilight, she looked young and lovely and as fragile as her daughter.

“It’s been a long, tough journey,” she answered. “But I have great hope that we’re finally starting to climb through to the other side.”

He envied her that hope, he realized. That’s what had been missing in his world for two years—for too long there had seemed no escape to the unrelenting pain. He missed Robin, he missed Cara, he missed the man he used to be.

But this wasn’t about him, he reminded himself. One other lesson he had learned since the accident that stole his family was that very few people made it through life unscathed, without suffering or pain, and Julia had obviously seen more than her share.

“A year and a half, you said. So you must have had to cope with losing your husband in the midst of dealing with Maddie’s cancer?”

In the twilight, he saw her mouth open then close, as if she wanted to say something but changed her mind.

“Yes,” she finally answered, though he had a feeling that wasn’t what she intended to tell him. “I guess you can see why I felt like we needed a fresh start.”

“She’s okay now, you said?”

“She’s been in remission for a year. The bone marrow transplant was more a precaution because the second round of chemo destroyed her immune system. We were blessed that Simon could be the donor. But as you can imagine, we’re all pretty sick of hospitals and doctors by now.”

He released a breath, his mind tangled in the vicious thorns of remembering those last terrible two weeks when Cara had clung to life, when he had cried and prayed and begged for another chance for his broken and battered little girl.

For nothing.

His prayers hadn’t done a damn bit of good.

“It’s kind of surreal, isn’t it?” Julia said after a moment. “Who would have thought all those summers ago when we were young that one day we’d be standing here in Abigail’s garden together talking about my daughter’s cancer treatment?”

He had a sudden, savage need to pummel something—to yank the autumn roses up by the roots, to shatter the porch swing into a million pieces, to hack the limbs off Abigail’s dogwood bushes.

“Life is the cruelest bitch around,” he said, and the bitter words seemed to scrape his throat bloody and raw. “Makes you wonder what the hell the point is.”

She lifted shocked eyes to his. “Oh, Will. I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and before he realized her intentions, she reached out and touched his arm in sympathy.

For just a moment the hair on his arm lifted and he forgot his bitterness, held captive by the gentle brush of skin against skin. He ached for the tenderness of a woman’s touch—no, of Julia’s touch—at the same time it terrified him.

He forced himself to take a step back. Cool night air swirled between them and he wondered how it was possible for the temperature to dip twenty degrees in a millisecond.

“I’d better go.” His voice still sounded hoarse. “Your kids probably need you inside.”

Her color seemed higher than it had been earlier and he thought she looked slightly disconcerted. “I’m sure you’re right. Good night, then. And...thank you for the ice cream and the company. I enjoyed both.”

She paused for the barest of moments, as if waiting for him to respond. When the silence dragged on, an instant’s disappointment flickered in her eyes and she began to climb the porch steps.

“You’re welcome,” he said when she reached the top step. She turned with surprise.

“And for the record,” he went on, “I haven’t enjoyed much of anything for a long time but tonight was...nice.”

Her brilliant smile followed him as he let himself out the front gate and headed down the dark street toward his home, a journey he had made a thousand times.

He didn’t need to think about where he was going, which left his mind free to wander through dark alleys.

Cancer. That cute little girl. Hell.

Poor thing. Julia said it was in remission, that things were better except lingering fatigue. Still, he knew this was just one more reason he needed to maintain his careful distance.

His heart was a solid block of ice but if it ever started to melt, he knew he couldn’t let himself care about Julia Blair and her children. He couldn’t afford it.

He had been through enough pain and loss for a hundred lifetimes. He would have to be crazy to sign up for a situation with the potential to promise plenty more.

When he was ready to let people into his life again—if he was ever ready—it couldn’t be a medically fragile little girl, a boy with curious eyes and energy to burn, and a lovely auburn-haired widow who made him long to taste life again.

* * *

SHE DIDN’T SEE Will again for several days. With the lead-up to the start of school and then the actual chaos of adjusting to a new classroom and coming to know thirty new students, she barely had time to give him more than a passing thought.

But twice in the early hours of the morning as she graded math refresher assignments and the obligatory essays about how her students had spent the summer, she had glimpsed the telltale glimmer of lights in his workshop through the pines.

Only the walls of Abigail’s old house knew that both times she had stopped what she was doing to stand at the window for a few moments watching that light and wondering what he was working on, what he was thinking about, if he’d had a good day.

It wasn’t obsession, she told herself firmly. Only curiosity about an old friend.

Other than those few silent moments, she hadn’t allowed herself to think about him much. What would be the point?

She had seen his reaction to the news of Maddie’s cancer, a completely normal response under the circumstances. He had been shocked and saddened and she certainly couldn’t blame him for the quick way he distanced himself from her.

She understood, but it still saddened her.

Now, the Friday after school started, she pulled into the Brambleberry House driveway to find his pickup truck parked just ahead of her SUV. Before she could contain the instinctive reaction, her stomach skittered with anticipation.

“Hey, I think that’s Mr. Garrett’s truck,” Simon exclaimed. “See, it says Garrett Construction on the side.”

“I think you must be right.” She was quite proud of herself for the calm reply.

“I wonder what’s he doing here.” Simon’s voice quivered with excitement and she sighed. Her son was so desperately eager for a man in his life. She couldn’t really blame him—except for Conan, who didn’t really count, Simon was surrounded by women in every direction.

“Do you think he’s working on something for Sage and Anna? Can I help him, do you think? I could hand him tools or something. I’m really good at that. Do you think he’ll let me?”

“I don’t know the answer to any of your questions, kiddo. You’ll have to ask him. Why don’t we go check it out?”

Both children jumped out of the vehicle the moment she put it in Park. She called to them to wait for her but either they didn’t hear her or they chose to ignore her as they rushed to the backyard, where the sound of some kind of power tool hummed through the afternoon.

She caught up with them before they made it all the way.

“I don’t want you bothering Will—Mr. Garrett—if he’s too busy to answer all your many questions. He has a job to do here and we need to let him.”

The rest of what she might have said died in her throat when they turned the corner and she spotted him.

Oh mercy. He wore a pair of disreputable-looking jeans, a forest green T-shirt that bulged with muscle in all the right places, and a leather carpenter’s belt slung low like a gunfighter’s holster. The afternoon sun picked up golden streaks in his brown hair and he had just a hint of afternoon stubble that made him look dangerous and delectable at the same time.

Oh mercy.

Conan was curled under the shade nearby and his bark of greeting alerted Will’s to their presence.

The dog lunged for Simon and Maddie as if he hadn’t seen them in months instead of only a few hours and Will even gifted them with a rare smile, there only for an instant before it flickered away.

He drew off his leather gloves and shoved them in the back pocket of his jeans. “School over already? Is it that late?”

“We have early dismissal on Fridays. It’s only three o’clock,” Julia answered.

“We’ve been out for a few hours already,” Maddie informed him. “Usually we get to stay at the after-school club until Mama finishes her work in her classroom.”

“Is that right?”

“It’s really fun,” Simon answered. “Sometimes we have to stay in Mom’s room with her and do our homework if we have a lot, but most of the time we go to extracurriculars. Today we played tetherball and made up a skit and played on the playground for a long time.”

“Sounds tiring.”

“Not for me,” Simon boasted. “Maybe for Maddie.”

“I’m not tired,” Maddie protested.

His gaze met Julia’s in shared acknowledgment that Maddie’s claim was obviously a lie.

“What’s the project today?” she asked.

“Last time I was here I noticed the back steps were splintering in a few places. I had a couple of hours this afternoon so I decided to get started on replacing them before somebody gets hurt.”

Simon looked enthralled. “Can we help you fix them? I could hand you tools and stuff.”

That subtle panic sparked in his eyes, the same uneasiness she saw the day they went for ice cream, whenever she or the children had pushed him for more than he was willing to offer.

She could see him trying to figure a way out of the situation without hurting Simon and she quickly stepped in.

“We promised Sage we would pick a bushel of apples and make our famous caramel apple pie, remember? You finally get to meet Chloe in a few hours when she and her father arrive.”

Simon scowled. “But you said in the car that if Mr. Garrett said it was okay, we could help him.”

She sent a quick look of apology to Will before turning back to her son. “I know, but I could really use your help with the pies.”

“Making pies is for girls. I’d rather work with tools and stuff,” Simon muttered.

Will raised an eyebrow at this blatantly chauvinistic attitude. “Not true, kid. I know lots of girls who are great at using tools and one of my good friends is a pastry chef at a restaurant down the coast. He makes the best brambleberry pie you’ll ever eat in your life.”

“Brambleberry, like our house?” Maddie asked.

“Just like.”

“Cool!” Simon said. “I want some.”

“No brambleberries today,” Julia answered. “We’re making apple, remember? Let’s go change our clothes and get started.”

Simon’s features drooped with disappointment. “So I don’t get to help Mr. Garrett?”

“Simon—”

“I don’t mind if he stays and helps,” Will said.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded, though she could still see a shadow of reluctance in his eyes. “Positive. I’ll enjoy the company. Conan’s a good listener but not much of a conversationalist.”

She smiled at the unexpected whimsy. “Conversing is one thing Simon does exceptionally well, don’t you, kiddo?”

Simon giggled. “Yep. My dad used to say I could talk for a day and a half without needing anybody to answer back.”

“I guess that means you probably talk in your sleep, right?”

Simon giggled. “I don’t, but Maddie does sometimes. It’s really funny. One time she sang the whole alphabet song in her sleep.”

“I was only five,” Maddie exclaimed to defend herself.

“And you’re going to be fifteen before we finish this pie if we don’t hurry. We all need to change out of school clothes and into apple-picking and porch-fixing clothes.”

Simon looked resigned, then his features brightened. “Race you!” he called to Maddie and took off for the house. She followed several paces behind with Conan barking at their heels, leaving Julia alone with Will.

“I hope he doesn’t get in your way or talk your ear off.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

“Feel free to send him out to play if you need to.”

They lapsed into silence. She should go upstairs, she knew, but she had suddenly discovered she had missed him this last week, silly as that seemed after years when she hadn’t given the man a thought.

She couldn’t seem to force herself to leave. Finally she sighed, giving into the inevitable.

She took a step closer to him. “Hold still,” she murmured.

Wariness leapt into the depths of his blue eyes but he froze as if she had just cast his boots in concrete.

He smelled of leather and wood shavings, and hot, sun-warmed male, a delicious combination, and she wanted to stand there for three or four years and just enjoy it. She brushed her fingers against the blade of his cheekbone, feeling warm male skin.

At her touch, their gazes clashed and the wariness in his eyes shifted instantly to something else, something raw and wild. An answering tremble stirred inside her and for a moment she forgot what she was doing, her fingers frozen on his skin.

His quick intake of breath dragged her back to reality and she quickly dropped her hand, feeling her own face flame.

“You, um, had a little bit of sawdust on your cheek. I didn’t want it to find its way into your eye.”

“Thanks.” She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or not but his voice sounded decidedly hoarse.

She forced a smile and stepped back, though what she really wanted to do was wrap her arms fiercely around his warm, strong neck and hold on for dear life.

“You’re welcome,” she managed.

With nothing left to be said, she turned and hurried into the house.

* * *

SHE TRIED HARD to put Will out of her mind as she and Maddie plucked Granny Smith apples off Abigail’s tree. She might have found it a bit easier to forget about him if the ladder didn’t offer a perfect view of the porch steps he was fixing.

Now she paused, her arm outstretched but the apple she was reaching to grab forgotten as she watched him smile at something Simon said. She couldn’t hear them from here but so far it looked as if Simon wasn’t making too big a pest of himself.

“Is this enough, Mama?” Maddie asked from below, where she stood waiting by the bushel basket.

Julia jerked her attention back to her daughter and the task at hand. “Just a moment.” She plucked three more and added them to the glistening green pile in the basket.

“That ought to do it.”

“Do we really need that many apples?”

“Not for one pie but I thought we could make a couple of extras. What do you think?”

She thought for a moment. “Can we give one to Mr. Garrett?”

Maddie looked over at the steps where Simon was trying his hand with Will’s big hammer and Julia saw both longing and a sad kind of resignation in her daughter’s blue eyes.

Maddie could be remarkably perceptive about others. Julia thought perhaps her long months of treatment—enough to make any child grow up far too early—had sensitized her to the subtle behaviors of others toward her. The way adults tried not to stare after she lost her hair, the stilted efforts of nurses and doctors to befriend her, even Julia’s attempts to pretend their world was normal. Maddie seemed to see through them all.

Could Maddie sense the careful distance Will seemed determined to maintain between them?

Julia hoped not. Her daughter had endured enough. She didn’t need more rejection in her life right now when she was just beginning to find her way again.

“That’s a good idea,” she finally answered Maddie, hoping her smile looked more genuine than it felt. “And perhaps we can think of someone else who might need a pie.”

She lifted the bushel and started to carry it around the front of the house. She hadn’t made it far before Will stepped forward and took the bushel out of her hands.

“Here, I’ll carry that up the stairs for you.”

She almost protested that it wasn’t necessary but she could tell by the implacable set of his jaw that he wouldn’t accept any arguments from her on the matter.

“Thank you,” she said instead.

She and Maddie followed him up the stairs.

“Where do you want this?” he asked.

“The kitchen counter by the sink.”

“We have to wash every single apple and see if it has a worm,” Maddie informed him. “I hope we don’t find one. That would be gross.”

“That’s a lot of work,” he said stiffly.

“It is. But my mama’s pies are the best. Even better than brambleberry. Just wait until you try one.”

Will’s gaze flashed to Julia’s then away so quickly she wondered if she’d imagined the quick flare of heat there.

“Good luck with your pies.”

“Good luck with your stairs,” she responded. “Send Simon up if you need to.”

He nodded and headed out the door, probably completely oblivious that he was leaving two females to watch wistfully after him.

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