Brambleberry House: His Second-Chance Family

“Good boy,” Julia murmured, and returned to the kitchen.

She finished her work quickly, slicing enough apples for a half-dozen pies.

She assembled the pies quickly—cheating a little and using store-bought pie shells. She had a good pie crust recipe but she didn’t have the time for it today since Eben and Chloe would be returning soon.

Only two pies could cook at a time in her oven and they took nearly forty minutes. After she slid the first pair in, she untied her apron and hung it back on the hook in the kitchen.

Without giving herself time to consider, she grabbed the egg timer off the stovetop, set it for the time the pies needed and stuck it in her pocket, then headed down the stairs to check on Simon.

It was nearly five-thirty but she couldn’t see any sign of Anna or Sage yet. Sage, she knew, would be meeting Eben and Chloe at the small airstrip in Seaside, north of Cannon Beach. As for Anna, she sometimes worked late at her store in town or the new one in Lincoln City she had opened earlier in the summer.

She followed the sound of male voices—Will’s lower-pitched voice a counterpoint to Simon’s mile-a-minute higher tones.

She stepped closer, still out of sight around the corner of the house, until she could hear their words.

“My mom says next year I can play Little League baseball,” Simon was saying.

“Hold the board still or we’ll have wobbly steps, which won’t do anyone any good.”

“Sorry.”

“Baseball, huh?” Will said a moment later.

“Yep. I couldn’t play this year because of Maddie’s bone transplant and because we were moving here. But next year, for sure. I can’t wait. I played last year, even though I had to miss a lot of games and stuff when Mad was in the hospital.”

She closed her eyes, grieving for her son who had suffered right along with his sister. Sometimes it was so easy to focus on Maddie’s more immediate needs that she forgot Simon walked each step of the journey right along with her.

“Yeah, I hit six home runs last year. I bet I could do a lot more this year. Did you ever play baseball?”

“Sure did,” Will answered. “All through high school and college. Until a few years ago, I was even on a team around here that played in the summertime.”

“Probably old guys, huh?”

Julia cringed but Will didn’t seem offended, judging by his quick snort of laughter—the most lighthearted sound she had heard from him since she’d been back.

“Yeah. We have a tough time running the bases for all the canes and walkers in the way.”

Julia couldn’t help herself, she laughed out loud, drawing the attention of both Will and Simon.

“Hi, Mom,” Simon chirped, looking pleased to see her. “Guess what? Mr. Garrett played baseball, too.”

“I remember,” she said. “Your Uncle Charlie dragged me to one of his summer league games the last time I was here and I got to watch him play. He hit a three-run homer.”

“Trying to impress you,” Will said in a laconic tone.

She laughed again. “It worked very well, as I recall.”

That baseball game had been when she first starting thinking of Will as more than just her brother’s summer-vacation friend. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him.

What, exactly, had changed since she came back? she wondered. She still couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him.

“My mom likes baseball, too,” Simon said. “She said maybe next month sometime we can go to a Mariners game, if they’re in the playoffs. It’s not very far to Seattle.”

His eyes lit up with sudden excitement. “Hey, Mr. Garrett, you could come with us! That would be cool.”

Will’s gaze met hers and for an instant she imagined sharing hot dogs and listening to the cheers and sitting beside him for three hours, his heat and strength just inches away from her.

“I do enjoy watching the Mariners,” Will said, an unreadable look in his eyes. “I’m pretty busy next month but if you let me know when you’re going, I can see how it fits my schedule.”

“We haven’t made any definite plans,” Julia said, hoping none of the longing showed in her expression.

She hadn’t realized until this moment that Simon wasn’t the only one in their family who hungered for a man in their lives.

And not just any man, either. Only a strong, quiet carpenter with callused hands and a rare, beautiful smile.

She decided to quickly change the subject. “The stairs look wonderful. Are you nearly finished?”

Before he could answer, they heard sudden excited barking from the front of the house.

Julia laughed. “I guess Conan needed to go out. It’s a good thing he has his own doggy door.”

“Hang on a minute,” Will said. “That’s his somebody’s home bark.”

A moment later they heard a vehicle pull into the driveway.

“Conan!” a high, excited voice shrieked and the dog woofed a greeting.

“That would be Chloe,” Will said.

By tacit agreement, the three of them walked together toward the front of the house. When they rounded the corner, Julia saw a dark-haired girl around the twins’ age with her arms around the dog’s neck.

Beside her, Sage—glowing with joy—stood beside a man with commanding features and brilliant green eyes.

“Hey, guys!” Sage beamed at them. “Julia, this is Chloe Spencer and her dad, Eben.”

Julia smiled, though she would have known their identities just from the glow on Sage’s features—the same one that flickered there whenever she talked about her fiancé and his daughter.

“Eben, this is Julia Blair.”

The man offered a smile and his hand to shake. “The new tenant with the twins. Hello. It’s a pleasure to meet you finally. Sage has told me a great deal about you and your children the last few weeks.”

Sage had told her plenty about Eben and Chloe as well. Meeting them in person, she could well understand how Sage could find the man compelling.

It seemed an odd mix to her—the buttoned-down hotel executive who wore an elegant silk power tie and the free-thinking naturalist who believed her dog communicated with her dead friend. But Julia could tell in an instant they were both crazy about each other.

Eben Spencer turned to Will next and the two of them exchanged greetings. As they spoke, she couldn’t help contrasting the two men. Though Eben was probably more classically handsome in a GQ kind of way, with his loosened tie and his rolled up shirt sleeves, she had to admit that Will’s toolbelt and worn jeans affected her more.

Being near Eben Spencer didn’t make her insides flutter and her bones turn liquid.

“And who’s this?” Eben was asking, she realized when she jerked her attention back to the conversation.

Color soaked her cheeks and she hoped no one else noticed. “This is one of my kiddos. Simon, this is Mr. Spencer and his daughter, Chloe.”

“I’m eight,” Chloe announced. “How old are you?”

Simon immediately went into defensive mode. “Well,” he said slowly, “I won’t be eight until March. But I’m taller than you are.”

Chloe made a face. “Everyone is taller than me. I’m a shrimp. Sage says you have a twin sister. How cool! Where is she?”

He looked to Julia for an answer.

“Upstairs,” she answered. “I’ll go wake her, though. She’s been anxious to meet you.”

As if on cue, her timer beeped. “Got to run. That would be my pies ready to come out of the oven.”

“You’re making pie?” Chloe exclaimed. “That’s super cool. I just love pie.”

She smiled, charmed by Sage’s stepdaughter-to-be. “I do, too. But not burnt pie so I’d better hurry.”

She tried to be quiet as she slid the pies from the oven and carefully set them on a rack to dry, but she must have clattered something because Maddie began to stir in the other room.

She stood in the doorway and watched her daughter rise to a sitting position on the couch. “Hey, baby. How are you feeling?”

Maddie gave an ear-popping yawn and stretched her arms above her head. “Pretty good. I’m sorry, Mama. I said I would help you make pies and then I fell asleep.”

“You helped me with the hard part, which was picking the apples and washing them all.”

“I guess.”

She still looked dejected at her own limitations and Julia walked to her and pulled her into a hug. “You helped me a ton. I never would have been able to finish without you. And while you were sleeping soundly, guess who arrived?”

Her features immediately brightened. “Chloe?”

“Yep. She’s outside with Simon right now.”

“Can I go meet her?”

She smiled at her enthusiasm. One thing about Maddie, even in the midst of her worst fatigue, she could go from full sleep to complete alertness in a matter of seconds.

“Of course. Go ahead. I’ll be down in a minute—I just have to put in these other pies.”

A few moments later, she closed her apartment door and headed down the stairs. The elusive scent of freesia seemed to linger in the air and she wondered if that was Abigail’s way of greeting the newcomers. The whimsical thought had barely registered when Anna’s door—Abigail’s old apartment—slowly opened.

She instinctively gasped, then flushed crimson when Will walked out, a measuring tape in hand.

What had she expected? The ghostly specter of Abigail, complete with flashy costume jewelry and a wicked smile?

“Hi,” she managed.

He gave her an odd look. “Everything okay?”

“Yes. Just my imagination running away with me.”

“I was double-checking the measurements for the new moldings in Anna’s apartment. I’m hoping to get to them in a week or so.”

“All done with the stairs, then?”

“Not quite. I’m still going to have to stain them but the bulk of the hard work is done.”

“You do good work, Will. I’m very impressed.”

“My dad taught me well.”

The scent of freesia seemed stronger now and finally she had to say something. “Okay, tell me something. Can you smell that?”

Confusion flickered across his rugged features. “I smell sawdust and your apple pie baking. That’s it.”

“You don’t smell freesia?”

“I’m not sure I know what that is.”

“It’s a flower. Kind of light, delicate. Abigail used to wear freesia perfume, apparently. I don’t remember that about her but Anna and Sage say she did and I believe them.”

He still looked confused. “And you’re smelling it now?”

She sighed, knowing she must sound ridiculous. “Sage thinks Abigail is sticking around Brambleberry House.”

To her surprise, he laughed out loud and she stared, arrested by the sound. “I wouldn’t put it past her,” he said. “She loved this old place.”

“I can’t say I blame her for that. I’m coming to love it, too. There’s a kind of peace here—I can’t explain it. Maddie says the house is friendly and I have to tell you, I’m beginning to believe her.”

He shook his head, but he was smiling. “Watch out or you’ll turn as wacky as Sage. Next thing I know, you’ll be balancing your chakras every five minutes and eating only tofu and bean sprouts.”

She gazed at his smile for a long moment, arrested by his light-hearted expression. He looked young and much more relaxed than she had seen him in a long time, almost happy, and her heart rejoiced that she had been able to make him smile and, yes, even laugh.

His smile slid away after a moment and she realized she was staring at his mouth. She couldn’t seem to look away, suddenly wildly curious to know what it would be like to kiss him again.

Something hot kindled in the blue of his eyes and she caught her breath, wanting his touch, his kiss, more than she had wanted anything in a long time.

He wasn’t ready, she reminded herself, and eased back, sliding her gaze from his. No sooner had she made up her mind to step away and let the intense moment pass when she could swear she felt a determined hand between her shoulderblades, pushing her forward.

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