Brambleberry Shores: The Daddy Makeover / His Second-Chance Family

“Your house, now.”

“In my mind, it will always belong to her. She loved every inch of this place.”

Before he could answer, they heard footsteps bounding up the stairs. A moment later, Chloe and Conan burst into the apartment, with Anna Galvez in tow.

“Daddy, Daddy, guess what?”

“What, sweetheart?”

“There’s a whole room of dolls downstairs. It’s huge. I’ve never seen so many dolls. Miss Galvez says if it’s okay with you, I can pick one out and keep it. May I, Daddy? Oh please, may I?”

“Chloe—” He shifted, obviously uncomfortable with the idea.

Sage sent a swift look to Anna, surprised she would make such an offer. She wouldn’t have expected such a generous gesture from Anna, especially after their conversation the day before about keeping the collection intact.

But somehow it seemed exactly the right thing to do, precisely what Abigail would have wanted, for them to give this sweet daughter of the man Abigail had known one of her beloved dolls.

“Several of the dolls have resin faces and aren’t breakable. They’re completely safe for her,” Anna said somewhat stiffly.

Eben looked at Sage with a question in his eyes. She nodded. “Abigail would have wanted her things to be loved,” she said. “She adored showing them off to children.”

She got the impression it wasn’t an easy thing for Eben to accept anything from anyone. He was a hard, self-contained man, though it appeared he had a soft spot for his daughter, something she wouldn’t have expected just a few days before.

“All right,” he finally said. “If you’re certain you don’t mind.”

Chloe squealed with excitement. “You have to help me choose one. Both of you.”

She grabbed Sage with one hand then Eben with the other and started tugging them both toward the stairs. Conan barked once and Sage could swear he was grinning again.

She didn’t know which she found more disturbing, her dog’s pleased expression or Anna’s speculative one.

For the next ten minutes, she, Anna and Eben helped Chloe peruse Abigail’s vast collection, doing their best to point her toward the sturdier, more age-appropriate dolls.

Sage had never been one to play with girlie things, but even she had to admit how much she enjoyed walklng into the doll room. She couldn’t help feeling close to Abigail here, amid the collection that had been such a part of her friend.

Abigail never married and had no children of her own. She had a great-nephew somewhere, but he hadn’t even bothered coming to his great-aunt’s funeral. In many ways, the dolls were Abigail’s family, the inanimate counterpoints to the living, breathing strays she collected.

Sage loved seeing them, remembering the joy Abigail had found every time she added a new doll to her collection.

She especially loved the dolls Abigail had made herself over the decades, with painted faces and elaborate hand-sewn clothes. Victorian dolls with flounced dresses and parasols, teenyboppers with ponytails and poodle skirts, dolls with bobbed hair and flapper dresses.

There was no real rhyme or reason to the collection—no common theme that Sage had ever been able to discern—but each was charming in its own way.

“I can’t decide. There are too many.”

A spasm of irritation crossed Eben’s features at Chloe’s whiny tone. Sage could tell the girl was tired after their big day on the shore then coming back to Brambleberry House afterward. She hoped Eben was perceptive enough to pick up on that as well.

To her relief, after only a moment his frustration slid away, replaced by patience. He pulled his daughter close and kissed her on the top of her dark curls and Sage could swear she felt her heart tumble in her chest.

“Pick out your favorite three and maybe we can help you make your final choice,” he suggested, a new gentleness in his voice.

That seemed a less daunting task to his daughter. With renewed enthusiasm she studied the shelves of dolls, pulling one out here and there, returning another, choosing with care until she had three lined up in the middle of the floor.

They were an oddly disparate trio: a little girl with pigtails holding a teddy bear, a curvy woman in a grass Hawaiian skirt and lei, then an elegant woman with blond hair and a white dress.

Chloe studied them for a moment, then reached for the one in white. “You don’t have to help me pick. This is the one I want. She looks just like an angel.”

The doll was simple but lovely. “Good choice,” Sage said, admiring the doll when Chloe held her out.

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