Brambleberry House: His Second-Chance Family

“We promised Sage we would pick a bushel of apples and make our famous caramel apple pie, remember? You finally get to meet Chloe in a few hours when she and her father arrive.”

Simon scowled. “But you said in the car that if Mr. Garrett said it was okay, we could help him.”

She sent a quick look of apology to Will before turning back to her son. “I know, but I could really use your help with the pies.”

“Making pies is for girls. I’d rather work with tools and stuff,” Simon muttered.

Will raised an eyebrow at this blatantly chauvinistic attitude. “Not true, kid. I know lots of girls who are great at using tools and one of my good friends is a pastry chef at a restaurant down the coast. He makes the best brambleberry pie you’ll ever eat in your life.”

“Brambleberry, like our house?” Maddie asked.

“Just like.”

“Cool!” Simon said. “I want some.”

“No brambleberries today,” Julia answered. “We’re making apple, remember? Let’s go change our clothes and get started.”

Simon’s features drooped with disappointment. “So I don’t get to help Mr. Garrett?”

“Simon—”

“I don’t mind if he stays and helps,” Will said.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded, though she could still see a shadow of reluctance in his eyes. “Positive. I’ll enjoy the company. Conan’s a good listener but not much of a conversationalist.”

She smiled at the unexpected whimsy. “Conversing is one thing Simon does exceptionally well, don’t you, kiddo?”

Simon giggled. “Yep. My dad used to say I could talk for a day and a half without needing anybody to answer back.”

“I guess that means you probably talk in your sleep, right?”

Simon giggled. “I don’t, but Maddie does sometimes. It’s really funny. One time she sang the whole alphabet song in her sleep.”

“I was only five,” Maddie exclaimed to defend herself.

“And you’re going to be fifteen before we finish this pie if we don’t hurry. We all need to change out of school clothes and into apple-picking and porch-fixing clothes.”

Simon looked resigned, then his features brightened. “Race you!” he called to Maddie and took off for the house. She followed several paces behind with Conan barking at their heels, leaving Julia alone with Will.

“I hope he doesn’t get in your way or talk your ear off.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

“Feel free to send him out to play if you need to.”

They lapsed into silence. She should go upstairs, she knew, but she had suddenly discovered she had missed him this last week, silly as that seemed after years when she hadn’t given the man a thought.

She couldn’t seem to force herself to leave. Finally she sighed, giving into the inevitable.

She took a step closer to him. “Hold still,” she murmured.

Wariness leapt into the depths of his blue eyes but he froze as if she had just cast his boots in concrete.

He smelled of leather and wood shavings, and hot, sun-warmed male, a delicious combination, and she wanted to stand there for three or four years and just enjoy it. She brushed her fingers against the blade of his cheekbone, feeling warm male skin.

At her touch, their gazes clashed and the wariness in his eyes shifted instantly to something else, something raw and wild. An answering tremble stirred inside her and for a moment she forgot what she was doing, her fingers frozen on his skin.

His quick intake of breath dragged her back to reality and she quickly dropped her hand, feeling her own face flame.

“You, um, had a little bit of sawdust on your cheek. I didn’t want it to find its way into your eye.”

“Thanks.” She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or not but his voice sounded decidedly hoarse.

She forced a smile and stepped back, though what she really wanted to do was wrap her arms fiercely around his warm, strong neck and hold on for dear life.

“You’re welcome,” she managed.

With nothing left to be said, she turned and hurried into the house.

* * *

SHE TRIED HARD to put Will out of her mind as she and Maddie plucked Granny Smith apples off Abigail’s tree. She might have found it a bit easier to forget about him if the ladder didn’t offer a perfect view of the porch steps he was fixing.

Now she paused, her arm outstretched but the apple she was reaching to grab forgotten as she watched him smile at something Simon said. She couldn’t hear them from here but so far it looked as if Simon wasn’t making too big a pest of himself.

“Is this enough, Mama?” Maddie asked from below, where she stood waiting by the bushel basket.

Julia jerked her attention back to her daughter and the task at hand. “Just a moment.” She plucked three more and added them to the glistening green pile in the basket.

“That ought to do it.”

“Do we really need that many apples?”

“Not for one pie but I thought we could make a couple of extras. What do you think?”

She thought for a moment. “Can we give one to Mr. Garrett?”

Maddie looked over at the steps where Simon was trying his hand with Will’s big hammer and Julia saw both longing and a sad kind of resignation in her daughter’s blue eyes.

Maddie could be remarkably perceptive about others. Julia thought perhaps her long months of treatment—enough to make any child grow up far too early—had sensitized her to the subtle behaviors of others toward her. The way adults tried not to stare after she lost her hair, the stilted efforts of nurses and doctors to befriend her, even Julia’s attempts to pretend their world was normal. Maddie seemed to see through them all.

Could Maddie sense the careful distance Will seemed determined to maintain between them?

Julia hoped not. Her daughter had endured enough. She didn’t need more rejection in her life right now when she was just beginning to find her way again.

“That’s a good idea,” she finally answered Maddie, hoping her smile looked more genuine than it felt. “And perhaps we can think of someone else who might need a pie.”