Brambleberry House: His Second-Chance Family

“I remember,” she said. “Your Uncle Charlie dragged me to one of his summer league games the last time I was here and I got to watch him play. He hit a three-run homer.”

“Trying to impress you,” Will said in a laconic tone.

She laughed again. “It worked very well, as I recall.”

That baseball game had been when she first starting thinking of Will as more than just her brother’s summer-vacation friend. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him.

What, exactly, had changed since she came back? she wondered. She still couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him.

“My mom likes baseball, too,” Simon said. “She said maybe next month sometime we can go to a Mariners game, if they’re in the playoffs. It’s not very far to Seattle.”

His eyes lit up with sudden excitement. “Hey, Mr. Garrett, you could come with us! That would be cool.”

Will’s gaze met hers and for an instant she imagined sharing hot dogs and listening to the cheers and sitting beside him for three hours, his heat and strength just inches away from her.

“I do enjoy watching the Mariners,” Will said, an unreadable look in his eyes. “I’m pretty busy next month but if you let me know when you’re going, I can see how it fits my schedule.”

“We haven’t made any definite plans,” Julia said, hoping none of the longing showed in her expression.

She hadn’t realized until this moment that Simon wasn’t the only one in their family who hungered for a man in their lives.

And not just any man, either. Only a strong, quiet carpenter with callused hands and a rare, beautiful smile.

She decided to quickly change the subject. “The stairs look wonderful. Are you nearly finished?”

Before he could answer, they heard sudden excited barking from the front of the house.

Julia laughed. “I guess Conan needed to go out. It’s a good thing he has his own doggy door.”

“Hang on a minute,” Will said. “That’s his somebody’s home bark.”

A moment later they heard a vehicle pull into the driveway.

“Conan!” a high, excited voice shrieked and the dog woofed a greeting.

“That would be Chloe,” Will said.

By tacit agreement, the three of them walked together toward the front of the house. When they rounded the corner, Julia saw a dark-haired girl around the twins’ age with her arms around the dog’s neck.

Beside her, Sage—glowing with joy—stood beside a man with commanding features and brilliant green eyes.

“Hey, guys!” Sage beamed at them. “Julia, this is Chloe Spencer and her dad, Eben.”

Julia smiled, though she would have known their identities just from the glow on Sage’s features—the same one that flickered there whenever she talked about her fiancé and his daughter.

“Eben, this is Julia Blair.”

The man offered a smile and his hand to shake. “The new tenant with the twins. Hello. It’s a pleasure to meet you finally. Sage has told me a great deal about you and your children the last few weeks.”

Sage had told her plenty about Eben and Chloe as well. Meeting them in person, she could well understand how Sage could find the man compelling.

It seemed an odd mix to her—the buttoned-down hotel executive who wore an elegant silk power tie and the free-thinking naturalist who believed her dog communicated with her dead friend. But Julia could tell in an instant they were both crazy about each other.

Eben Spencer turned to Will next and the two of them exchanged greetings. As they spoke, she couldn’t help contrasting the two men. Though Eben was probably more classically handsome in a GQ kind of way, with his loosened tie and his rolled up shirt sleeves, she had to admit that Will’s toolbelt and worn jeans affected her more.

Being near Eben Spencer didn’t make her insides flutter and her bones turn liquid.

“And who’s this?” Eben was asking, she realized when she jerked her attention back to the conversation.

Color soaked her cheeks and she hoped no one else noticed. “This is one of my kiddos. Simon, this is Mr. Spencer and his daughter, Chloe.”

“I’m eight,” Chloe announced. “How old are you?”

Simon immediately went into defensive mode. “Well,” he said slowly, “I won’t be eight until March. But I’m taller than you are.”

Chloe made a face. “Everyone is taller than me. I’m a shrimp. Sage says you have a twin sister. How cool! Where is she?”

He looked to Julia for an answer.

“Upstairs,” she answered. “I’ll go wake her, though. She’s been anxious to meet you.”

As if on cue, her timer beeped. “Got to run. That would be my pies ready to come out of the oven.”

“You’re making pie?” Chloe exclaimed. “That’s super cool. I just love pie.”

She smiled, charmed by Sage’s stepdaughter-to-be. “I do, too. But not burnt pie so I’d better hurry.”

She tried to be quiet as she slid the pies from the oven and carefully set them on a rack to dry, but she must have clattered something because Maddie began to stir in the other room.

She stood in the doorway and watched her daughter rise to a sitting position on the couch. “Hey, baby. How are you feeling?”

Maddie gave an ear-popping yawn and stretched her arms above her head. “Pretty good. I’m sorry, Mama. I said I would help you make pies and then I fell asleep.”

“You helped me with the hard part, which was picking the apples and washing them all.”

“I guess.”

She still looked dejected at her own limitations and Julia walked to her and pulled her into a hug. “You helped me a ton. I never would have been able to finish without you. And while you were sleeping soundly, guess who arrived?”

Her features immediately brightened. “Chloe?”

“Yep. She’s outside with Simon right now.”

“Can I go meet her?”

She smiled at her enthusiasm. One thing about Maddie, even in the midst of her worst fatigue, she could go from full sleep to complete alertness in a matter of seconds.

“Of course. Go ahead. I’ll be down in a minute—I just have to put in these other pies.”