At last, with a great surge of adrenaline, she staggered to her feet. Chloe was crying in earnest now.
“We’re okay. We’re okay. Only a little farther,” she managed, then she heard the most welcome sounds she had ever heard—a dearly familiar bark and Eben’s strong voice.
“Chloe! Sage!” he called. “Hang on. I’m coming.”
She sobbed out a breath of relief and made it only another few feet before he reached them and guided them all back to safety.
Chapter Fourteen
By the time he reached them, both Sage and Chloe were soaked and shivering violently. He grabbed Chloe in one arm while he drew Sage against his body with the other. Together, the three of them made their way to the shore. Only when they were above the high tide line did Eben pause to take a breath.
His heart still pounded with rapid force from that terrible moment when he saw them both go down in the water and struggle so hard against the waves to come up.
“Are you both okay?” he asked.
In his arms, Chloe nodded and sniffled. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run away. No wonder you want to send me away to boarding school.”
He closed his eyes, pained that they had come back to this. “We need to get you both warmed up. Come on. Let’s get you home.”
“There’s a trail back to the road from here. That’s probably the easiest way to get to the parking lot and my car.”
After the longest fifteen minutes of his life, they made it to Sage’s car.
“There’s a b-blanket in the b-back for Chloe,” she mumbled. “It’s probably covered in dog hair but it’s the b-best I can do.”
He found it quickly and also a fleece jacket of Sage’s, which he handed to her.
“I’ll drive,” he insisted. “You work on getting warm.”
After Chloe was settled in the back wrapped in the blanket and cuddled next to Conan’s heat, Eben climbed into the driver’s seat and turned her heater on high.
His emotions were thick, jumbled, and his heart still pounded with remembered fear as he drove toward Brambleberry House.
“I should call Anna, tell her to call off the police,” Sage said after a moment. Her trembling had mostly stopped, he saw with vast relief.
“The police were looking for me?” Chloe asked in a small voice from the back seat. “I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?”
“Everybody was worried about you,” Eben said.
Sage called Anna on her cell phone and for the next few moments their one-sided conversation was the only sound in the small vehicle.
“She’s fine. We’re all fine. Cold and wet but everybody’s okay. Yeah, I’ll be home in a minute. I’ll tell her. Thanks, Anna.”
She closed her phone and turned to the back seat. “Anna says to tell you she’s so glad you’re okay.”
“Me, too,” Chloe said sleepily. “I was so scared. The water wasn’t high when I went out to the rock but then it started coming in fast and I didn’t know what to do.”
“You did the right thing to stay where you were,” Sage said.
“I remembered what we talked about in camp. I tried to do just what you said.”
He couldn’t bear to think about what might have happened if Chloe hadn’t had a little survival training through Sage’s camp or if they hadn’t found her in time.
With the resilience of the young, Chloe was nearly asleep by the time they reached Brambleberry House, her arms wrapped around Conan and her cheek resting against the top of his furry head.
He feared it would be as tough to wean her from the dog as it would be to leave this place.
“Just drop me off,” Sage said. “I can pick up my car at your place tomorrow on my way to the center.”
In the driveway, he put the car in park and finally reached for her hand. “Sage, I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”
She shook her head. “Don’t. You know you don’t need to thank me. I’m just so grateful everything turned out okay.”
He was quiet for a moment, hot emotion choking his throat. He wanted to shunt it all away as he usually did, to lock it down deep inside him, but this wild tangle was too huge, to overwhelming.
He knew he couldn’t leave things between them like this, tainted by this stilted awkwardness, not after everything that had happened.
“I know it’s late but... I need to talk to you. After I get Chloe settled into bed, I would like to call Stanley and Jade, see if they could send someone over to stay with her for a little while.”
She drew in a breath that ended in a little shiver, though he wasn’t sure if it resulted from the cold or something else. “We don’t really have anything left to say, do we?”
He squeezed her fingers. “I think we do. Please, Sage.”
After an agonizingly long moment, she shrugged. “I’ll try to watch for you so you don’t have to ring the doorbell and wake Anna again.”
He nodded. He had no idea what he wanted to say to her, he only knew he couldn’t return home in the morning without seeing her again.
She opened the rear door for Conan and gave Chloe another hug, then hurried into her house.
Chloe said little as they drove back to their cottage. She was nearly asleep by the time he pulled into the driveway behind his rental, her head lolling back against the upholstery.
“Just a few more minutes, baby,” he said as he helped her inside. “A hot shower will help warm you up the rest of the way and wash away the saltwater.”
She sighed. “I’d rather just go to bed. I’m so tired.”
“I know, but you’ll feel better, I promise. You’re not going to fall asleep in there, are you?”
“No,” she said, her voice subdued. “I’ll be okay.”
While he listened to the sounds of the shower, he changed out of wet khakis and shoes. He’d had it easy compared to Chloe and Sage and had only gotten wet up to mid-calf, but just that slight dousing left him cold.
He called The Sea Urchin front desk and, to his surprise, Jade answered. He left out a few details but explained he needed someone to come and sit with Chloe. Despite his best efforts to dissuade her, she insisted on coming herself and said she would be there in a few moments.
He was waiting in the living room when Chloe came out of the shower in her warmest flannel nightgown.
She hurried to him at once and wrapped her arms around his waist. She smelled sweet, like lavender soap and baby shampoo, and he held on tightly as more emotions caught in his throat.
“I really am super sorry I ran away, Daddy. I was just so mad at you but I wasn’t thinking right.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Trying to escape our problems doesn’t work and usually only creates more trouble. Either they come right along with us or they’re waiting where we left them when we get back.”
She nodded, her damp hair leaving a mark against his shirt.
“I love you, baby,” he said after a moment. “Please don’t forget that. No matter what, I love you.”
“I want to stay with you, Daddy. Please don’t send me away. I’ll try harder, I promise.”
Sage had been right. He couldn’t do it. Imperfect though he was—inadequate as he felt as a father—his daughter needed him.
“Same here, okay? I’ll try harder, too. We both have to figure out how to make this work. I’ll try to cut down my travel schedule so I’m home to spend more time with you.”
“Oh, would you?”
More guilt sliced him at the stunned disbelief in her voice. “Yes. But you have to promise me that you’ll settle down and work harder in school and that you’ll take it easy on the new nanny when we get one.”
Though she was about to fall over with exhaustion, she still managed to get a crafty look in her eyes. “Can I help pick her?”
“Well, I
can’t promise I’ll let you make the final decision but you can have input. Deal?”
“Deal.” She beamed at him. “I know just what I want. Somebody like Sage. She’s pretty and she smells good and she’s super nice.”
That just about summed it up, Eben thought. “We’ll have to see what we can do. I think Sage is one of a kind.”
“You like her, too, don’t you, Daddy?”
“Sure, baby.” He wasn’t quite ready to examine his emotions too closely—nor did he want to explain them to his eight-year-old daughter. Instead, he scooped her into his arms, earning a sleepy giggle.
“Come on, let’s get you into bed, okay? Jade Wu is coming over to stay with you so I can take Sage’s car back to Brambleberry House after you’re asleep.”
“Okay. Give Sage and Conan a big kiss for me, okay?”
He grimaced. He wasn’t sure either of those creatures in question were very happy with him right now. “I’ll see what I can do,” he murmured as he tucked her into her bed, then kissed her forehead and slipped from the room to wait for Jade.
* * *
What the hell was he doing here?
Twenty minutes later, Eben drove Sage’s car into the driveway of Brambleberry House, turned off the engine and sat for a moment in the dark silence.
He should just leave her car here, tuck the keys under the doormat and walk back down the beach. The smartest thing to do would be to leave things as they were and continue with his plans to leave in the morning.
But just the thought of it made him ache inside. He sighed, still not certain what he wanted to say to her.
He was still trying to puzzle it out when the porch light flipped on. A moment later, she opened the door and stood in the doorway, a slim, graceful silhouette, and his heart bumped in his chest.
Her hair was damp and she had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and one hand on the dog. He let out a long breath and slid from the car. The night air was cool and moist from the rains earlier, sweet with Abigail’s flowers and the salty undertone of the ocean.
Neither of them spoke until he reached the porch.
“I wasn’t sure you were coming.” Her voice was low and strummed down his spine as if she’d caressed his skin.
“I probably shouldn’t have.”
“Why are you here, then? You’re not a man who does things he shouldn’t.”
He gave a rough laugh. “Aren’t I?” Unable to resist, he stepped forward and framed her face in his hands. She was so achingly beautiful and the air eddying around them was sweetly magical and he had no choice but to kiss her.
She was perfect in his arms and as her mouth moved softly under his, he felt something tight and hard around his heart shudder and give way.
This was why he came. He knew it with sudden certainty. Because somehow when he was here, with this woman in his arms, all the tumult inside him seemed to go still.
He found a peace with Sage Benedetto he had never even realized had been missing in his life.
* * *
She wanted to cherish every second of this.
Sage twisted her arms around his neck, trying to burn each memory into her mind. She couldn’t quite believe she had the chance to touch him and to taste him again when only a few short hours ago she thought he would be leaving her world forever.
“You’re shivering,” he murmured.
She knew it was in reaction to the wild chaos of emotions storming through her, but she couldn’t tell him that. “I’m fine. My hair’s just a little damp. That’s all.”
“You shouldn’t be out here in the cool night air.”
She was silent for a moment, gazing at the masculine features that had become so dear to her. “You’re probably right,” she finally murmured. “Come inside.”
She knew exactly what she was offering—just as she knew she was signing herself up for even more heartache.
But she loved him. The truth of it had hit her the moment she saw him coming walking up the path. She was in love with Eben Spencer, billionaire hotelier and the last man on the planet a wild, flyaway nature girl from Oregon would ever have a forever-chance with.
This was all she would have with him and she couldn’t make herself turn away now.
She walked up to her apartment without looking back. Over the pounding of her heart, she heard his footsteps behind her but he didn’t say anything as they climbed the two flights of stairs.
Once inside, she frowned. She could swear she had left several lights on when she walked downstairs to let him in, but now only a single lamp was burning.
She had been reading while she waited and watched for him, listening to a Nanci Griffith CD but she must have bumped her stereo on her way out the door because now soft jazz played.
The whole room looked as if she had set the scene for romance, which she absolutely had not. Despite her conviction that she wanted this, wanted him, she felt her face flame and hit the overhead light switch.
Nothing happened. The bulb must have burned out, she thought, mortified all over again.
Eben came into the room alone and she looked behind him. “Where’s Conan?”
“I think he went through his door into Anna’s apartment.”
“Ah.”
They stood looking at each other for a long moment and Sage could swear she could hear the churn of her blood pulsing through her body. She didn’t think she had ever wanted anything in her life as much as she wanted him right now.
She opened her mouth to ask if he would like a drink or something—not that she had much, just some wine left over from the other night—but before any words could escape, he stepped forward and kissed her again.
Who needed alcohol when Eben Spencer was around? It was the last thought she had for a long time as she lost herself in the wonder of his strength, his touch.
After several long, glorious moments, he lifted his mouth away and pressed his forehead to hers. “I don’t want to lose you, Sage.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You can’t lose what you don’t have. An astute businessman like you should already know that.”
He laughed, a low, amused sound that rippled over her nerve endings. “You’re very good at putting me in my place, aren’t you?”
She smiled, liking the place he was in very, very much.
“I mean it,” he said. “I have to leave in the morning but I don’t want this to be the end for us.”
She didn’t want to think about his leaving or about the emptiness he would leave behind. “Eben—”
He stepped away from her, raw emotion on his face. He was usually a master at concealing his thoughts. To see him in such an unveiled moment shocked her.
He gripped her hands in his and brought them to his chest, where she could feel the wild pulse of his heartbeat. Had she done that to him? She wondered with surprise.
“I was terrified tonight,” he said, his voice low. “I’ve never known anything like that.”
“You were worried for your daughter,” she said. “That was completely normal.”
“My fear wasn’t only for Chloe.” His gaze locked with hers and she couldn’t look away from the stunning tenderness in the glittery green depths of his eyes. “My world stopped when I saw that wave hit. All I could think was that I couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to either of you.”
Sharp joy exploded inside her and she couldn’t breathe around it.
“I care about you, Sage. You’ve become desperately important to me and to my daughter this week.”
Close on the heels of the joy was an even bigger terror. This couldn’t be real. Hadn’t she just spent a week convincing herself of all the reasons there could never be anything between them?
“You’ll go back to California and forget all about me.”
“I don’t think so.” He brought their clasped
hands to his mouth, his gaze still locked with hers. “I’m in love with you, Sage.”
She swallowed, feeling lightheaded with shock. “You’re not,” she exclaimed.
“I’ve been fighting it with everything I have. Falling in love is not what I planned in my life right now—or ever.”
He let go of her hands and stepped away from her. “My marriage was a mess, Sage. It taught me that love is complicated and confusing and...messy. I didn’t want that again. I’ve done everything I can to talk myself out of it this week, but I can’t deny it anymore. I’m in love with you, Sage. I don’t want to be, but there it is. I think I have been since you showed up on my doorstep with Chloe that first morning.”
I don’t want to be in love with you.
She heard his words as if from a long distance, but they still managed to pierce the haze of disbelief around her.
He didn’t want to love her. He had done all he could to talk himself out of it, had been fighting it with everything he had. He didn’t want to be in love, didn’t want the complications or the mess.
Panic fluttered through her and she was suddenly desperate for space to breathe, to think.
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t. She had spent her childhood trying desperately to gain the attention of a man who didn’t want to love her, who had shut his emotions off abruptly when he married her stepmother, leaving Sage with nothing.
She couldn’t put herself through this again.
It was a simple matter of self-preservation. She loved him. The surety of it washed over her like the most powerful of sneaker waves.
She loved him and she knew all about how messy and painful love could be. She was terrified that she would give everything to Eben and he would destroy her.
She drew in a shaky breath and pressed a hand to her stomach, to the fear that roiled and churned there. He was watching her out of those vivid green eyes and she knew she had to say something.
Something cold and hard.
Final.
She was weak, desperate, and very much feared she had no willpower at all when it came to Eben Spencer.
A Soldier's Return ; The Daddy Makeover Page 34