“But Daddy—”
“You promised me, Chloe. Do you remember that? I knew bringing you along on this trip would be a huge mistake but you promised you would behave yourself, for once. Do you call running off down the beach by yourself behaving?”
He didn’t raise his voice one single decibel but muscles inside Sage’s stomach clenched and she hated it, hated it. The terrible thing was, she couldn’t blame the man. Not really. She could imagine any parent would be upset to discover a child had wandered away in an unknown setting.
She knew it was a normal reaction, but still this particular situation had an entirely too-familiar ring to it.
“But I wasn’t alone for very long,” Chloe insisted. “I made two new friends, Daddy. This is Sage and her dog’s name is Conan. She lives here and she knows all kinds of things about birds and shells and fish. She’s a naturist.”
“Naturalist,” Sage corrected.
“Right. A naturalist. She teaches summer camp and tells kids about shells and birds and stuff like that.”
For the first time since she rang the doorbell, the man shifted his gaze to her.
“I’m Sage Benedetto,” she said, hoping her cool voice masked the nerves still jumping in her stomach. Though she wanted to yell and scream and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing trying to quash this sweet little girl’s spirit, the words tangled in her throat.
“I live down the coast about a half mile in the big Victorian,” she said instead.
He stared at her for a long second, an odd, arrested look in his eyes. She didn’t know how long he might have stared at her if Conan hadn’t barked. The man blinked a little then closed his fingers around hers.
She was quite certain she imagined the odd little sizzle when their fingers touched. She didn’t imagine the slightly disconcerted expression that crossed his features.
“Eben Spencer. Thank you for taking the time to bring my daughter home.”
“You’re welcome,” she said in that same cool voice. “You might want to keep a closer eye on her.”
“Easier said than done, Ms. Benedetto. But thank you for the advice.”
“No problem.”
She forced a tight smile for him, then a more genuine one for his daughter. “Bye, Chloe. You need to rinse those sand dollars in fresh water until the water runs clear, then soak them in bleach and water for five or ten minutes. That way they’ll be hard enough for you to take them home without breaking. Remember, Henry’s counting on you.”
The girl giggled as Sage called to Conan, who barked at her, nuzzled Chloe, then bounded off ahead as they headed back toward Brambleberry House.
* * *
He watched her jog down the beach, the strange woman with the wild mane of honey-colored hair and thinly veiled disdain in her haunting amber-flecked brown eyes.
She didn’t like him. That much was obvious. He hadn’t missed the coldness in her expression nor the way she clipped off the ends of her words when she spoke to him.
He wasn’t sure why that bothered him so much. Plenty of people disliked him. Constantly striving to win approval from others simply for the sake of their approval wasn’t in his nature and he had long ago learned some measure of unpopularity was one of the prices one paid for success.
He was damn good at what he did, had taken his family’s faltering hotel business and through careful management, a shrewd business plan and attention to detail turned it into a formidable force in the luxury hotel business.
Over the years, he had bumped up against plenty of affronted egos and prickly psyches. But seeing the disdain in Sage Benedetto’s unsettling eyes annoyed him. And the very fact that he was bothered by it only irked him more.
What did he care what some wind-tousled stranger with a massive, ungainly mutt for a dog thought of him?
She stopped at a huge, cheerful yellow Victorian with incongruent lavender trim some distance down the beach. He watched her go inside and couldn’t stop thinking about that odd jolt when their hands had touched.
It was completely crazy but he could swear some kind of strange, shimmery connection had arced between them and he had almost felt as if something inside him recognized her.
Foolish. Completely unlike him. He wasn’t the sort to let his imagination run wild—nor was he the kind of man to be attracted to a woman who so clearly did not share his interest.
“She’s nice. I like her. And I love her dog. Conan is so cute,” Chloe chirped from inside the room and Eben realized with considerable dismay that he still stood at the window looking after her in the early-morning light.
He jerked his attention away from thoughts of Sage Benedetto and focused on his daughter. Chloe had spread her treasures on the coffee table in their temporary living room, leaving who knew what kind of sand and grime on the polished mahogany.
He sighed, shut the door and advanced on her. “All right, young lady. Let’s hear it.”
He did his best to be firm, his tone the same one he would use with a recalcitrant employee.
These were the kind of moments that reminded him all too painfully that he didn’t have the first idea how to correctly discipline a child. God knows, he had no childhood experience to draw from. He and his sister had virtually raised each other, caught in a hellish no-man’s-land between two people who had had no business reproducing.
Between their mother’s tantrums and violent moods and their father’s shameless self-indulgence, it was a wonder either he or his sister could function as adults.
Cami had found happiness. As for him, he was doing the best he could not to repeat the mistakes of his parents.
“You know the rules about leaving the house by yourself. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Chloe shifted her gaze to the sand dollars in front of her and he hated himself when he saw the animation fade from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I promise I won’t do it again.”
Eben sighed. “You say that every time, but then you find some other way to cause trouble.”
“I don’t mean to.” Her voice was small, sad, and he found himself wishing fiercely that he were better at this.
“I try to be good but it’s so hard.”
He had to agree with her. Nothing was as hard as trying to do the right thing all the time. Even right now, some wild part of him wanted to call up Stanley and Jade Wu and tell them to go to hell, that he didn’t want their stupid hotel if they were going to make him work this hard for it.
That same wild corner of his psyche wanted to toss Chloe onto his shoulders and run out into the surf with her in his bare feet, to feel the sand squishing between his toes and the cold water sluicing over his skin and her squeals of laughter ringing in his ears.
He tamped it down, containing it deep inside. “Try a little harder, okay?” he said sternly. “This deal is important to me, Chloe. I’ve told you that. You’ve got to be on your best behavior. I can’t afford any distractions. It’s only for a few more days, then I promise when we get back to San Francisco, we’ll find a new nanny.”
She nodded, her little mouth set in a tight line that told him clearly she was just as annoyed with him as Sage Benedetto had been.
“I’m supposed to have meetings with Mr. and Mrs. Wu most of the day so I’ve made arrangements for a caregiver through an agency here. All I’m asking is for you to behave. Can you try for a few hours?”
She looked up at him through her lashes. “When you’re done with your meeting, can we buy a kite and fly it on the beach? Sage said Cannon Beach is the perfect place to fly kites because it’s always windy and because there’s lots of room so you don’t run into people.”
“If you promise to be on your best behavior, we can talk about it after my meetings.”
She ran to him and threw her arms around his waist. “I’ll be so good, Daddy, I promise, I promise, I promise.”
He returned her embrace, his heart a heavy weight in his chest. He hated thinking of her going to boarding school at the end of the summer. But in the two years since Brooke died, Chloe had run through six nannies with her headstrong behavior. Some sort of record, he was certain. He couldn’t do this by himself and he was running out of options.
“Maybe Sage and Conan can help us fly the kite,” Chloe exclaimed. “Can they, Daddy?”
The very last thing he wanted to do was spend more time with Sage Benedetto of the judgmental eyes and the luscious mouth.
“We’ll have to see,” he said. He could only hope a day of trying to be on her best behavior would exhaust Chloe sufficiently that she would forget all about their temporary neighbor and her gargantuan canine.
Chapter Two
“Sorry, Conan. You’ve got to stay here.”
Sage muscled her bike around Anna’s minivan and wheeled it out of the small garage, trying to ignore the soulful eyes gazing back at her through the flowers on the other side of the low wrought-iron fence circling the house. “You’ll be all right. I’ll come back at lunchtime to throw a ball with you for awhile, okay?”
Conan didn’t look convinced. He added a morose whine, his head cocked to one side and his chin tucked into his chest. She blew out a frustrated breath. They had been through this routine just about every day for the past month and the dog didn’t seem to be adjusting.
She couldn’t really blame the poor thing for not wanting to be alone. He was used to having Abigail’s company all day.
The two of them had been inseparable from the moment Abigail had brought him home from the pound. Conan would ride along with Abigail to the shops, his head hanging out the back seat window of her big Buick, tongue lolling. He would patiently wait for her on the porch of her friends’ houses when she would make her regular round of visits, would sniff through the yard while Abigail tended her flowers, would curl up every evening beside her favorite chair in front of the huge bay windows overlooking the ocean.
Conan was lonely and Sage could certainly empathize with that. “I’m sorry, bud,” she said again. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
The dog suddenly barked, his ears perking up like twin mountain peaks. He barreled to the front porch just as the door opened. From her place on the other side of the fence, Sage watched Anna Galvez—trim and proper in a navy blazer and gray slacks—set down her briefcase to greet the dog with a smile and a scratch under his chin.
Anna murmured something to the dog but Sage was too far away to hear. She wasn’t too far to see Anna’s warm smile for Conan trickle away when she straightened and saw Sage on the other side of the wrought-iron.
She brushed hair off her slacks and picked up her briefcase, then walked to the gate.
“Good morning. I thought I heard you come down the stairs some time ago. I figured you had already left.”
Sage straddled her bike, not at all in the mood for conversation. Her fault for sticking around when she heard the door open. If she’d left then, she could have been halfway to town by now. But that would have been rude and she couldn’t seem to shake the feeling Abigail wanted her to at least pretend politeness with Anna.
“I couldn’t walk out in the middle of his guiltfest.”
“He’s good at that, isn’t he?” Anna frowned at the dog. “I expected him to be past this phase by now. It’s been a month. Don’t you think he should already be accustomed to the changes in his life?”
Sage shrugged. “I guess some of us need a little more time than others to grieve.”
Anna’s mouth tightened and Sage immediately regretted the low comment. So much for politeness. She wanted to apologize but couldn’t seem to form the words.
“I wish I could take him with me to work,” Anna said after an awkward moment.
Sage gave the other woman a disbelieving look. Anna couldn’t possibly want a big, gangly dog wreaking havoc with the tchotchkes and whatnot in her book and gift shop in town. Conan would bankrupt her in less than an hour.
“I’ve been coming home for lunch to keep him company for awhile. Throw a ball, give him a treat. That kind of thing. For now, that’s the best I can do.”
For an instant, guilt flickered in Anna’s brown eyes but she blinked it away. “I’m sorry. I should have realized you were doing so much. I’m a little preoccupied with some things at the store right now but it’s only right that I do my share. Abigail left him to both of us, which means he’s my responsibility as well. I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m afraid I can’t come back to the house today,” she said with a frown. “But I’ll try to arrange my schedule so I can take a few hours to be here with him tomorrow.”
“I’m sure he would enjoy that,” Sage said. As always, she regretted the awkwardness between her and Anna. She knew Abigail had wanted them to be friends but Sage doubted it was possible. They were simply too different.
Anna was brisk and efficient, her world centered on By-The-Wind, the shop she had purchased from Abigail two years earlier after having managed it for a year before that. Sage didn’t believe Anna had even the tiniest morsel of a sense of humor—or if she did, it was buried so deeply beneath spreadsheets and deposit slips that Sage had never seen sign of it.
After two weeks of sharing the same house, though in different apartments, Anna was still a stranger to Sage. Tightly wound and tense, Anna never seemed to relax.
Sage figured they were as different as it was possible for two women to be, one quirky and independent-minded, the other staid and responsible. Yet Abigail had loved them both.
When she was being brutally honest with herself, she could admit that was at least part of the reason for her natural reserve with Anna Galvez—small-minded, petty jealousy.
A weird kind of sibling rivalry, even.
Abigail had loved Anna—enough to leave her half of Brambleberry House and all its contents. Sage knew she was being selfish but she couldn’t help resenting it. Not the house—she couldn’t care less about that—but Abigail’s affection.
“I’d better get going,” Sage said.
“Uh, would you like a ride since we’re both going the same way?”
She shook her head. “I’m good. Thanks anyway. If you give me a ride, I won’t be able to come home at lunch.”
“Oh. Right. I’ll see you later then.”
Sage stuffed her bag in the wicker basket of her one-speed bike and headed off to town. A moment later, Anna pulled past in her white minivan, moving at a cautious speed on the curving road.
Sage knew the roomy van was a practical choice since Anna probably had to transport things for the store, but she couldn’t help thinking how the vehicle seemed to perfectly mirror Anna’s personality: bland and businesslike and boring.
Somebody had certainly climbed out of bed on the bitchy side, she chided herself, resolving that she would think only pleasant thoughts about Anna Galvez today, if she thought of her at all.
The same went for little sea sprites she had met on the beach and their entirely too-gorgeous fathers. She had too much to do today with all the chaos and confusion of her first day of camp to spend time thinking about Chloe and Eben Spencer.
The road roughly followed the shore here. Through the heavy pines, she could catch a glimpse of the sea stacks and hear the low murmur of the waves. Three houses down, she waved at a neighbor pulling out of his driveway in a large pickup truck with Garrett Carpentry on the side.
He was heading the other direction toward Manzanita but Will Garrett pulled up alongside her and rolled down his passenger-side window. “Morning, Sage.”
She straddled her bike. “Hey, Will.”
“Sorry I haven’t made it over to look at the work you want done on the house. Been a busy week.”
She stared. “Work? What wor
k?”
“Anna called me last week. Said she wanted me to give her a bid for a possible remodel of the kitchen and bathroom on the second-floor apartment. She also wanted me to check the feasibility of knocking out a couple walls in Abigail’s apartment to open up the floor plan a little.”
“Oh, did she?”
Anger swept over her, hot and bright. Any warmth she might have been trying to force herself into feeling toward Anna seeped out into the dirt.
How dare she?
They had agreed to discuss any matters pertaining to the house and come to a consensus on them, but Anna hadn’t said a single word about any of this.
Abigail had left the house to both of them, which meant they both should make minor little decisions like knocking out walls and remodeling kitchens. Yet Anna hadn’t bothered to bring this up, even when they were talking a few moments ago.
Was her opinion so insignificant?
She knew her anger was overblown—irrational, even—but she couldn’t help it. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready to go knocking down walls and remodeling kitchens, erasing any sign of the crumbling old house Abigail had loved so dearly.
“She didn’t talk to you about it?”
“Not yet,” she said grimly.
Something in her tone of voice—or maybe the smoke curling out of her ears—had tipped him off that she wasn’t pleased. His expression turned wary. “Well, uh, if you talk to her, let her know I’m going to try to come by this evening to check things out, if that’s still okay. Seven or so. One of you can give me a buzz if that’s a problem.”
He looked eager to escape. She sighed—she shouldn’t vent her frustration on Will. It certainly wasn’t his fault Anna Galvez was a bossy, managing, stiff-necked pencil-pusher who seemed to believe she knew what was best for the whole bloody world.
She forced a smile. “I’m sure it will be fine. See you tonight.”
Though he didn’t smile in return—Will rarely smiled anymore—he nodded and put his truck in gear, then headed down the road.
A Soldier's Return ; The Daddy Makeover Page 19