Brambleberry House: His Second-Chance Family

He would rather just take a dip in the cold waters of the Pacific right about now, if only to avoid the watching eyes of everyone in town. Instead, he forced a smile.

“No big rush. Let’s sit down.”

He made the mistake of glancing inside the ice-cream parlor one time as he was sliding into the picnic table across from her—just long enough to see several heads swivel quickly away from him.

With a sigh, he resigned himself to the rumors. Nothing he could do about them now anyway.

* * *

SHE WAS QUITE certain Conan was a canine but just now he was looking remarkably like the proverbial cat with its mouth stuffed full of canary feathers.

Julia frowned at the dog, who settled beside the picnic table with what looked suspiciously like a grin. Sage and Anna said he had an uncanny intelligence and some hidden agenda but she still wasn’t sure she completely bought it.

More likely, he was simply anticipating a furtive taste of one of the twins’ cones.

If Conan practically hummed with satisfaction, Will resembled the plucked canary. He ate his cone with a stoicism that made it obvious he wasn’t enjoying the treat—or the company—in the slightest.

She might have been hurt if she didn’t find it so terribly sad.

She grieved for him, for the boy she had known with the teasing smile and the big, generous heart. His loss was staggering, as huge as the Pacific, and she wanted so desperately to ease it for him.

What power did she have, though? Precious little, especially when he would only talk in surface generalities about mundane topics like the tide schedule and the weather.

She tried to probe about the project he was working on, an intriguing rehabilitation effort down the coast, but he seemed to turn every question back to her and she was tired of talking about herself.

She was also tired of the curious eyes inside. Good heavens, couldn’t the poor man go out for ice cream without inciting a tsunami of attention? If he wasn’t being so unapproachable, she would have loved to give their tongues something to wag about.

How would Will react if she just grabbed the cone out of his hand, tossed it over her shoulder into the sand, and planted a big smacking kiss on his mouth, just for the sheer wicked thrill of watching how aghast their audience might turn?

It was an impulse from her youth, when she had been full of silly dreams and impetuous behavior. She wouldn’t do it now, of course. Not only would a kiss horrify Will but her children were sitting at the table and they wouldn’t understand the subtleties of social tit-for-tat.

The idea was tempting, though. And not just to give the gossips something to talk about.

She sighed. It would be best all the way around if she just put those kind of thoughts right out of her head. She had been alone for two years and though she might have longed for a man’s touch, she wasn’t about to jump into anything with someone still deep in the grieving process.

“What project are you working on next at Brambleberry House?” she asked him.

“New ceiling and floor moldings in Abigail’s old apartment, where Anna lives now,” he answered. “On the project I’m working on in Manzanita, the developer ordered some custom patterns. I liked them and showed them to Anna and she thought they would be perfect for Brambleberry House so we ordered extra.”

“What was wrong with the old ones?”

“They were cracking and warped in places from water damage a long time ago. We tried to repair them but it was becoming an endless process. And then when she decided to take down a few walls, the moldings in the different rooms didn’t match so we decided to replace them all with something historically accurate.”

He started to add more, but Maddie slid over to him and held out her cone.

“Mr. Garrett, would you like to try some of my strawberry cheesecake ice cream? It’s really good.”

A slight edge of panic appeared around the edges of his gaze. “Uh, no thanks. Think I’ll stick with my vanilla.”

She accepted his answer with equanimity. “You might change your mind, though,” she said, with her innate generosity. “How about if I eat it super slow? That way if decide you want some after all, I’ll still have some left for you to try later, okay?”

He blinked and she saw the nerves give way to astonishment. “Uh, thanks,” he said, looking so touched at the small gesture that her heart broke for him all over again.

Maddie smiled her most endearing smile, the particularly charming one she had perfected on doctors over the years. “You’re welcome. Just let me know if you want a taste. I don’t mind sharing, I promise.”

He looked like a man who had just been stabbed in the heart and Julia suddenly couldn’t bear his pain. In desperation, she sought a way to distract him.

“What will you do on Brambleberry House after you finish the moldings?” she finally asked.

He looked grateful for the diversion. “Uh, your apartment is mostly done but the third-floor rooms still need some work. Little stuff, mostly, but inconvenient to try to live around. I figured I would wait to start until after Sage is married and living part-time in the Bay Area with Eben and Chloe.”

“I understand they’re coming back soon from an extended trip overseas. We’ve heard a great deal about them from Sage and Anna. The twins can’t wait to meet Chloe.”

“She’s a good kid. And Eben is good for Sage. That’s the important thing.”

He was a man who loved his friends, she realized. That, at least, hadn’t changed over the years.

He seemed embarrassed by his statement and quickly returned to talking about the repairs planned for Brambleberry House. She listened to his deep voice as she savored the last of her cone, thinking it was a perfect summer evening.

The children finished their treats—Maddie’s promise to Will notwithstanding—and were romping with Conan in the sand. Their laugher drifted on the breeze above the sound of the ocean.

For just an instant, she was transported back in time, sitting with Will atop a splintery picnic table, eating ice-cream cones and laughing at nothing and talking about their dreams.

By unspoken agreement, they stood, cones finished, and started walking back down the beach while Conan herded the twins along ahead of them.

“I’m boring you to tears,” Will said after some time. “I’m sorry. I, uh, don’t usually go on and on like that about my work.”

She shook her head. “You’re not boring me. On the contrary. I enjoy hearing about what you do. You love it, don’t you?”

“It’s just a job. Not something vitally important to the future of the world like educating young minds.”

She made a face. “My, you have a rosy view of educators, don’t you?”

“I always had good teachers when I was going to school.”

“Good teachers wouldn’t have anywhere to teach those young minds if not for great carpenters like you,” she pointed out. “The work you’ve done on Brambleberry House is lovely. The kitchen cupboards are as smooth as a satin dress. Anna told me you made them all by hand.”

“It’s a great old house. I’m trying my best to do it justice.”

They walked in silence for a time and Julia couldn’t escape the grim realization that she was every bit as attracted to him now as she had been all those years ago.

Not true, she admitted ruefully. Technically, anyway. She was far more aware of him now, as a full-grown woman—with a woman’s knowledge and a woman’s needs—than she ever would have been as a naive, idealistic fifteen-year-old girl.

He was bigger than he had been then, several inches taller and much more muscled. His hair was cut slightly shorter than it had been when he was a teenager and he had a few laugh lines around his mouth and his eyes, though she had a feeling those had been etched some time ago.

She was particularly aware of his hands, square-tipped and strong, with the inevitable battle scars of a man who used them in creative and constructive ways.

She didn’t want to notice anything about him and she certainly wasn’t at all thrilled to find herself attracted to him again. She couldn’t afford it. Not when she and her children were just finding their way again.