The Daddy Makeover

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Come on, Chloe. I need help getting back across the sand,” she said calmly.

  His daughter paused, still poised for flight but with a confused look on her features, as if she didn’t quite how to react. “I want to find more petrified wood.”

  “I’m sure you do. But I’m afraid if we don’t leave now, you and I will both be late for nature camp. Today I promised we were going to Ecola and Indian Beach, remember? I’m sure you’ll find all kinds of shells there. You wouldn’t want to miss it, would you?”

  After a moment’s reflection, Chloe shook her head and climbed onto the bicycle seat behind Sage.

  “We’ll have to use all our muscles to get across the sand. It’s hard work. Are you ready?”

  “Ready!” Chloe exclaimed, all signs of defiance miraculously gone.

  Frustration simmered through him as Eben watched them work to pedal back toward the trail to the parking lot.

  Even strangers were better at dealing with his daughter than he was. He was far too reactionary, far too quick to let her push his buttons. She knew just how to make him lose his temper and she didn’t hesitate to push her advantage.

  Perhaps sending her to boarding school to learn control would give him at least a semblance of the upper hand in their relationship.

  “Are you coming?” Sage asked at the parking lot. With a sigh of defeat, he nodded and jogged toward them.

  The trip back toward town wasn’t nearly as pleasant as the trip away from it. Conan seemed to be the only one enjoying himself, even with the leash he obviously despised firmly attached to his collar.

  Sage seemed pensive and Chloe sulked while pedaling along on the back half of the bike.

  Eben was almost glad they were all working harder to go back uphill. He didn’t have the breath left to make conversation, even if he’d been able to find the inclination.

  He wouldn’t have expected it earlier in the morning, but he was relieved when they finally reached Brambleberry House.

  “Why don’t you take the bike the rest of the way back to your beach house?” Sage asked. “You’ll get home faster on it. Perhaps you can find time to use it tonight or tomorrow to see some sights around town if you’re still here. You can just drop it back here on your way out of town.”

  He didn’t like thinking about saying good-bye, despite their earlier conflict and the inevitability of their parting. “Thank you,” he answered. “And thank you also for the inside tour of Hug Point. It was nice to have our own private naturalist.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  She mustered a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. In the widening sunlight, she looked lovely—fresh and untamed, her honey-gold hair slipping from its ponytail and curling riotously around her face, her cheeks flushed from the wind and the exercise.

  “Bye Sage,” Chloe chirped. “I’ll see you in a while.”

  Sage waved to them as they took off down the road. Eben, busy with figuring out a tandem bike for the first time, could spare only one quick look behind him. She was watching after them, one hand on her dog, the other in her pocket.

  Was that sadness he saw in her eyes? he wondered. He didn’t have time to look closer, since he had to turn his attention to the road in order to keep both him and Chloe upright.

  A curious ache caught in her throat as Sage watched them ride away on Abigail’s bike. She told herself it was just because the fragile loveliness of the morning was ending. She had found unexpected pleasure in sharing the morning with Eben and Chloe, even the rough patch at the end.

  She shouldn’t have been so critical of his parenting. It had been presumptuous and rude and she winced now, remembering it. No wonder he had reacted so strongly.

  Eben was not Tommy Benedetto, she reminded herself sharply. She was finding it far too easy to forget that, to project her own childhood and her father’s emotional abandonment onto the dynamics between Eben and Chloe.

  She had all but accused him of neglect. She supposed she needed to find a way to apologize to the man.

  Conan barked what sounded suspiciously like agreement and settled at her feet, for all appearances completely worn out from the morning run.

  She sighed. She was becoming entirely too wrapped up in the lives of two strangers she likely would never see after a few more days. Still, she couldn’t help wishing she could find a way to help Eben see how very much his daughter needed him.

  The strength of her desire took her by surprise. Gathering strays had been Abigail’s specialty, not Sage’s.

  She had many friends in town but she had no misconceptions about herself. Most of her friendships were casual, superficial. She didn’t allow people into her life easily. She wasn’t standoffish or rude—at least she didn’t think she was—but she was uncomfortable letting people see too deeply into her psyche.

  Those protective instincts had been learned early at the prestigious boarding school she’d been sent to when she was around Chloe’s age, around the time her father’s new wife decided she didn’t like competition for Thomas’s attention.

  At school, Sage had been immediately ostracized, marginalized. The stench of new money had clung to her—an insurmountable obstacle, especially since it was new money obtained only through her father marrying it.

  She didn’t want to think those years had shaped the rest of her life, but she couldn’t deny that she was as cautious as a hermit crab about letting people too close to her.

  What was different about Eben Spencer and his gamine little daughter? Already she cared about them and she couldn’t quite figure out how it had happened so quickly. They were transitory in her life, she knew that, yet in only a few days they had both become dear to her—so dear she wanted to do all she could to smooth their path.

  Maybe she had inherited that from Abigail, along with a rambling old house and a mongrel of a dog.

  “Everything okay out here?”

  She glanced up at the front porch to find Anna just leaving the house, dressed in a black pinstriped suit with a leather briefcase slung over her shoulder.

  Neat and orderly, with her dark hair pulled back into a sleek chignon, she made Sage feel frumpy and sweaty. Big surprise there. She was frumpy and sweaty.

  Anna also looked worlds different from the soft, approachable woman who had shared tea with her the night before.

  “It’s fine,” she finally answered. “Just woolgathering for a moment but I suppose I’d better get moving if I want to have any chance of making it to work on time.”

  “Since Conan was gone when I woke up, I figured he was with you. Looks like you’ve been out early this morning.”

  “He doesn’t give me a whole lot of choice some days. It’s hard to roll over and go back to sleep with him barking outside my apartment. I’m not sure which is worse, his insistent call outside the door or his big wet nose nudging me out of bed.”

  Anna grimaced. “I’m sorry. I’ve been letting you carry most of the burden for taking care of him and it’s not fair to you. I’ll take my turn tomorrow on the morning run.”

  “I complain about it but I don’t really mind,” she said quickly, and realized it was true. Somehow over the last month she had come to enjoy their solitary mornings.

  “Well, I’ll take a turn sometime, I promise. And don’t worry about him this afternoon, either. I’ve got meetings this morning for my new store in Lincoln City and I should be home early.”

  She stared. “You never told me you were opening a store in Lincoln City. I had no idea.”

  Beneath her trim exterior, Anna brimmed with suppressed excitement. “The grand opening is in two weeks. We were trying to have it ready before the summer tourists started showing up, but we didn’t quite make it.”

  “If it’s opening by mid-June, you’ll hit most of the high season, anyway.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Anna was quiet for a moment then she sighed. “I’m scared to death,” she admitted.

  Sage had a feeling that kind of r
aw truth was something the brisk, in-control Anna didn’t share with many people and it warmed her to know Anna trusted her with it.

  “Are you crazy? By-The-Wind rocks here in Cannon Beach. You’re always busy. The new store will be great.”

  “I know, but we’re entering a whole new demographic in Lincoln City. I’ve done the market studies and it looks like it will be feasible, but you never know what’s going to click with people. Entering a new market is always a risk.”

  “If anyone can handle it, you can.”

  Anna look surprised, then pleased. “Thanks. That means a lot.” She paused. “Everything has been so overwhelming the past month, with Abigail’s death and the house and everything. If I could postpone the opening of the new store for a few weeks until I find my feet again, I would, but this has been planned for months. I don’t have any choice.”

  No wonder Anna seemed so stressed and stiff all the time. Sage regretted again her rudeness, the deliberate distance she had imposed between them.

  Eben and Chloe weren’t the only ones she was letting deeper into her life, she realized. She was coming to consider Anna a friend as well.

  Somehow she suspected that was exactly what Abigail had intended.

  Chapter Ten

  “Did everybody have fun at Ecola?” Sage asked the thirteen tired, sweaty children gathered around her at the end of the day.

  “Yeeeessss!” came the resounding cheer from the campers.

  “I did, too. Remember, if the weather cooperates, tomorrow is our beach day. We’re going to spend the whole day on Cannon Beach, so make sure you have your hats and your sunscreen and a warm jacket. We’ll be tide-pooling near Haystack Rock, flying kites and having a sand-castle competition.”

  She smiled as the campers cheered with excitement. “Now your parents will be here in a few moments. It’s time to gather up your backpacks and the projects we did today so you’re all ready to hit the road.”

  The campers jumped up and dispersed to the classroom where they stowed their gear. As she helped find missing jackets and refereed arguments over whose watercolor of aggregating anemone was better, she was aware of the anticipation curling through her.

  Your parents will be here in a few moments, she had told the children, but it was the thought of only one parent’s arrival that churned her pulse and sent wild-edged nerves zinging through her.

  Ridiculous, she reminded herself.

  Eben Spencer was just another parent and that’s exactly the way she had to treat him. She certainly should not have spent what seemed like the entire day remembering their morning together—his powerful muscles as he ran beside her toward Hug Point, his slow smile as he enjoyed the sunshine, his low words when he said he wished he could kiss her again.

  Even though they had argued, she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him.

  She needed a good dousing in the Pacific.

  Perhaps if she had seen him when he dropped off Chloe in the morning she wouldn’t feel this glittery anticipation, but she had been busy on the phone arranging a field trip for the next session of camp. By the time she emerged from her office, Chloe had been working with Lindsey and several of the other children in a gathering activity to identify different sea creatures and their typical habitat and Eben had been nowhere in sight.

  “Sage! There you are! I’ve been trying to catch you all week.”

  She groaned at the perky voice ringing through the center. Damn Eben Spencer anyway! If she hadn’t been so distracted by thoughts of him, she might have been able to employ her usual tactics to avoid Tracy Harder. Now she had nowhere safe to go.

  “Hi, Tracy. How are you?”

  The other woman beamed at her. “Just great. I got the listings for two new properties today, right next to each other in Manzanita. They’re half a block from the ocean and ought to move fast. So how were my two little terrors?”

  She forced a smile. Tracy had been bringing her twins to camp for three years, ever since they turned old enough to attend, and right around the time their parents divorced.

  The boys were terrors but she liked to chalk it up to high energy, not maliciousness.

  “We had a great day today. I tried to keep them too busy to get into trouble.”

  “You are amazing with them, Sage. Thanks for putting up with them every year. I just wish you had camp year-round. I’d pull them out of school in a heartbeat and sign them up to every session.”

  Sage managed to contain a slight shudder. Fortunately, Tracy didn’t require an answer before she went on. “So, let’s talk,” she said abruptly. “Brambleberry House.”

  Though she mentally groaned, she managed to keep a polite expression. “We’ve had this discussion already, Tracy. Several times. And nothing has changed at all since the last time we discussed it. I’m sorry, but Anna and I aren’t selling.”

  “You two are crazy! Do you realize how much I can ask for a fifteen-room mansion on the beach? The place is a gold mine! With a little creative investment, you and Anna could be set for life.”

  “We can’t do that, Tracy. I’m sorry, but Abigail would have hated to see us sell it.”

  “Abigail is not the one who will have to deal with all the repairs and the property taxes and the gigantic utility bills. Do you want to be tied to that house for the rest of your life?”

  She had a brief, stark image of living forever in her turret apartment, growing old like Abigail, alone except for a big furry red dog who had been rescued from the pound.

  A week ago, she would have found that image comforting. She wanted nothing more than to emulate Abigail, to be as feisty and independent as her friend for the rest of her days.

  She wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore. Her old childhood dreams of having a family of her own, born out of empty loneliness, had somehow re-emerged.

  “You need to think long and hard about this,” Tracy pressed. “I know you’re still grieving for Abigail—we all are—but you’re a young, beautiful woman. Trust me, someday you’re going to want options.”

  She opened her mouth to answer but Tracy cut her off. “I’ve got a couple of Portland clients looking for a property for a bed and breakfast in town. Brambleberry House would be perfect. They have money to spare and I’m sure we could push the asking price well into seven figures. Talk to Anna about it. You have to!”

  Sage shook her head. “No, Tracy. We’re not selling.”

  The other woman’s attention suddenly caught at something in the doorway, at the same time a tiny shiver skittered down Sage’s spine.

  Tracy’s eyes widened and she let out a long breath. “Oh. My. Word. Who’s the yummy guy? No, don’t turn around.”

  She didn’t need to turn around to know who it must be. Since this session of camp contained mostly local children, Tracy had to know all their parents—except one.

  “How can I know who it is if you won’t let me turn around to look?” she asked.

  Tracy’s eyes widened. “He’s coming this way! Unless my eyes deceive me—and I don’t think they do, trust me, I’ve got radar for these things—I can’t see a ring. How’s my hair?”

  Sage studied her polished friend. Her makeup was perfect and not a strand of her highlighted blonde hair dared escape its trendy style.

  In contrast, Sage didn’t need a mirror to tell her what she must look like. Her dratted hair was probably falling out of the ponytail again, her skin felt tight and itchy, probably from a slight sunburn, and she didn’t doubt she smelled as if she’d been chasing thirteen active elementary school students all day.

  She sighed. “You look beautiful, as always.”

  “Liar!” Tracy purred, then her white teeth widened and she thrust out a hand, complete with the French manicure Sage knew she drove to Astoria to get and no trace of a callus or wrinkle.

  “Hi there. I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Tracy Harder with Harder Realty. Welcome to Cannon Beach! Are you a summer visitor or are you moving in? Before you answer, let me just say how m
uch I sincerely hope it’s the latter. We just love new faces around here, don’t we, Sage?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Eben blinked a few times at her gushing warmth, but finally held out his hand. “Hello. Eben Spencer. I’m afraid my daughter and I are only here until the weekend.”

  Tracy’s face fell and she didn’t look like she wanted to let go of his hand, as if she could change his mind just with her force of will. Eben finally managed to slip it away.

  “Too bad for us. But if you ever think about moving back permanently, give me a call. Let me give you my card. Now you hang on to that, promise? I have listings up and down the northern/central coast, from Astoria to Newport. From luxury beachside houses to small two-room cottages, I can hook you up with anything you want. Anything.”

  Sage certainly didn’t mistake the intent in that single, flirtatious word and Eben obviously didn’t either.

  “Uh, thank you.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome. For instance, I just picked up two new listings today in Manzanita. The master suite in one of them is huge with one full wall of windows overlooking the ocean. Truly stunning and it’s listed at several thousand dollars below appraisal. At that price, it’s not going to last long. And the other one has four bedrooms, including one that would be perfect for an in-law suite.”

  Before Tracy could get revved up into a full-scale sales pitch, Sage took pity on Eben’s glazed expression and stepped in. “Mr. Spencer, I imagine you’re probably looking for the hiking trail guides we talked about this morning, aren’t you?”

  He looked baffled for only half a second, then seized on the excuse. “Yes. Exactly. I’m very anxious to see the area.”

  “I’m sorry, I meant to have them ready for you when you arrived to pick up Chloe, but it’s been a rather busy day. It won’t take me a second to dig them out of my files, though. They’re back in my office, if you want to come with me. Tracy, will you excuse us?”