What other choice did she have? They were worlds apart in a hundred different ways. He was the CEO of a multinational corporation and she was a vegetarian nature-girl with a spooky, omniscient dog and a rambling old house full of ghosts and problems.
Yeah, the two of them seemed to generate this unlikely heat between them, but even if she were stupid enough to indulge herself by playing with it for awhile, dry tinder could only burn so long. Without the steady fuel of shared interests and emotional compatibility, the heat between them would probably flare and burn out quickly.
That thought depressed her more than it ought to.
She had a great life here in Cannon Beach, she reminded herself. Everything she could ever need. She knew that eventually this ache in her heart over losing Abigail would ease. She hurt a little less again than she had yesterday, a little less then than the day before that.
She would never stop missing her friend, but she knew eventually she would find her way back to homeostasis and begin to find happiness and joy in her life again.
Eben and Chloe Spencer would leave Cannon Beach in a few days and be just another memory. A pleasant one, yes, like all her many birdwatching hikes with Abigail and their hundreds of shared cups of tea, but a memory nonetheless.
“It’s a good thing you’re cute or I could definitely grow to loathe you for these morning tortures.”
The object of her ire simply sat waiting by the door with an impatient scowl for Sage to lace up her running shoes. Despite spending the night in Anna’s apartment, Conan must have squeezed out of his doggie door so he could come up the stairs and bark outside her door at the usual time to go running.
She yawned and tied her other shoe, dearly wishing she were back in her bed, that she had the nerve to send the mongrel down the beach to Eben’s rental unit to drag him out of bed.
Since that conjured up too many enticing images of wavy dark hair against a pillow, of whisker-roughened skin and sleepy smiles, she jerked her mind back to Conan, who was quivering with impatience. He barked again and she sighed.
“All right, all right. I’m ready. Let’s do this.”
Conan bounded down the stairs of Brambleberry House, dancing around in the foyer in his eagerness to be gone as she followed more slowly, yanking her hair back into a ponytail as she went.
The morning air was cool and the rain had stopped sometime in the night, leaving wisps of fog to wrap through the garden and around the coastal pines beyond.
She stood on the porch stretching her hamstrings and listening to the distant sound of the sea and the call of that screech owl she’d heard the night before.
Maybe she didn’t hate these runs with Conan after all, she decided. If not for them, she would miss all this morning splendor, simply for the sake of an extra hour of sleep.
The dog seemed wildly eager to go, whining impatiently and racing back and forth in the yard. Apparently he’d never heard of pulled muscles or torn ligaments, she thought sourly, then gave up stretching and followed him to the backyard, to the latched gate there that led directly to the beach.
The dog rushed out but Sage had to pause for a moment to prop the gate open so they could return that way instead of having to take a more circuitous route to the front of the house.
She straightened from the task and nearly collided with a solid wall of muscle.
“Oh,” she exclaimed. She would have fallen if strong arms hadn’t reached to keep her upright.
“Sorry,” Eben murmured, heat flaring in his green eyes. “I thought you saw me.”
“No. I wasn’t paying attention.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he released her arm and she managed to find her footing as she caught sight of Conan a few yards away, racing around a giggling Chloe.
“Chloe! You’re up early.”
“Don’t I know it.” Eben looked at his daughter with disgruntled affection. “She woke me an hour ago, begging me to take her jogging with Conan this morning. We couldn’t quite figure out the logistics, though. We didn’t want to bang on your door at 6:00 a.m. just to pick up your dog, but then we saw your lights go on and headed over, hoping to catch you.”
“Conan didn’t give me a lot of choice this morning. He seemed particularly insistent on running today. Sometimes I think he’s psychic. Maybe he knew you and Chloe were going to be here and wanted to make sure we didn’t miss you.”
“We came to take him running, so you can go back to bed,” Chloe said with her guileless smile.
Tempting offer, Sage thought. That would certainly be the prudent course, to climb back into her bed, yank the covers over her head and pretend this was all a weird dream.
She couldn’t do it, though. The morning was too lovely and she discovered she wasn’t willing to relinquish the chance to be with them again, even though she knew it couldn’t possibly be healthy for her.
“I’ve got a better idea,” she said suddenly. “Come on inside to the garage for a moment.”
Eben looked puzzled but he followed her and Chloe and Conan did the same. Sage quickly programmed the code to open the garage door. Inside she found one of Abigail’s favorite toys propped against one wall and wheeled it out to where they waited for her.
Chloe’s eyes widened when she saw Sage pushing the tandem bike out of the garage.
“Cool!” she exclaimed. “Is that yours?”
“It belonged to a friend of mine. We used to love to take bike rides together.”
What a wealth of information that revealed about Abigail, she thought, that an independent woman in her eighties who lived with only an upstairs tenant for family would invest in a tandem bike. With her skill of gathering people around her, she never had a dearth of people to take rides with, from Will Garrett to Mr. Delarosa to the high school kids who delivered the newspaper.
“Can we ride it? You and me?” Chloe asked.
“I think that’s a great idea. Your dad and that beastly dog can run if they want and get all sweaty and gross. We girls will enjoy a leisurely morning ride.”
Chloe’s glee nearly matched Conan’s excitement. Sage glanced over at Eben and found him watching her with a murky look in his eyes that made her suddenly as breathless as if she’d just biked up the hill to Indian Beach.
It took Chloe a few moments to get the hang of the tandem bicycle, but by the time they made it a block, she was riding like a pro, giggling for the sheer joy of it.
Sage knew just how she felt. She wanted to laugh, as well. How could she ever have thought staying back in her apartment in bed would be preferable to this?
They stuck to pavement since she knew the soft sand of the beach would prove a challenge for Chloe. On impulse, she guided them south, away from town, with a specific destination in mind.
They encountered little traffic here this early in the morning. Conan and Eben ran ahead of them, Conan resigned to the leash. She had to admit, she enjoyed watching the play of Eben’s muscles as he ran. Not a bad way to start the day, she decided.
She lifted her face to the pale streaks of sunlight shining toward the ocean. A strange emotion fluttered through her and it took her a while to recognize it.
She was happy, she realized.
For the first time since Abigail’s death, she remembered what it was to savor life.
It was a gift, she decided, one she wasn’t about to waste.
Chapter Nine
On a purely intellectual level, Eben knew he shouldn’t be enjoying himself so much.
It was only a run, after all, just a brief interlude before he jumped right back into his normal routine of business calls and strategy sessions.
But the air was cool and sweet, his muscles had that pleasant burn of a good workout and the scenery was beyond spectacular, with the broad expanse of beach below them and the needles and sea stacks jutting into the sky offshore.
He wasn’t sure where he was going, but Sage obviously had a destination in mind. Every once in a while she called out a direction—turn her
e, over that hill. They continued to head south until they finally turned into a parking area with no cars in sight.
She parked the bike on the pavement, then led them down a short trail to a gorgeous, isolated beach, complete with an intriguing sea cave and gnarled, funky rocks.
He let Conan off the leash when they were away from the road and the dog and Chloe both jumped around in the sand with delight.
Sage watched them, the seabreeze playing in her hair.
“This is one of my favorite spots along the northern coast.”
“I can see why.”
“I like it not only for its beauty, but for its interesting history. It gives a rare glimpse into an earlier time.”
“How?”
She led him to a rocky outcropping that looked as if it had been blasted through at one point. “See that? That was once a road carved into the headland there.”
“A road?” Chloe asked. “For what?”
“Well, the highway we came here on wasn’t built until the 1930s. Before then, this was the only way carriages and early cars could move up and down the coast, right on the beach.”
For the next fifteen minutes, she gave them a guided tour of the place she called Hug Point. She pointed out many features Eben knew he wouldn’t have paid any attention to had he been on his own and many more he wouldn’t have understood even if he’d noticed them.
He was particularly fascinated by the stoplight still embedded high on the rocky headland, more evidence of the beach highway.
“You have to be careful here, though,” Sage said with a serious look. “The tide comes in faster than you expect. I have a friend who was trapped in the cavern for several hours by the tide and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard.”
“I love it here.” Chloe twirled her arms around, whirling across the sand with Conan barking alongside her.
Sage smiled at her with a soft affection that did weird things to Eben’s insides. “I do, too. I think it’s my favorite place on earth.”
“Can we come back here tomorrow, Daddy?”
Eben wasn’t quite sure how to answer. On the one hand, he hoped he could conclude his business with Stanley and Jade today and be back on his way to San Francisco by morning.
On the other hand, he hated the thought of leaving behind this smart, fascinating woman who made him feel things he never thought he would again.
“We’ll have to see,” he said, giving the classic parental cop-out. Chloe didn’t seem to mind, especially when Sage picked up a piece of driftwood and tossed it far down the beach. An exuberant Conan bounded through the sand after it, then delivered it back, not to Sage but to Chloe. His daughter giggled and threw it again—not quite as far as Sage had, but far enough to make Conan work for it.
He and Sage stood some ways off and he was astonished again at the peace he felt with her.
He wasn’t used to these moments of quiet. Usually his life was busy with troubleshooting and meetings and conference calls. Taking a few moments to pause the craziness, to focus only on breathing in sea air and savoring the morning, seemed healing in a way he wouldn’t have expected.
He caught a glimmer of something in the sand and reached to pick it up—a baby-pink agate.
“Wow! That’s really rare. Finding one is supposed to be lucky. Go ahead, make a wish.”
He glanced at Chloe, too far down the beach with Conan to overhear them, then spoke with heartfelt—though no doubt unwise—honesty. “Okay. I wish I could kiss you again right now.”
She froze and sent him a quick, startled look. Heat flashed there for a moment but she quickly veiled it. “Probably not a good idea.”
“On several levels,” he agreed. “I’ll give it to Chloe and let her make the wish.”
They were quiet for several moments as they watched the delighted dog and equally delighted child romp across the sand.
“Did you say you expect to be done with The Sea Urchin purchase in a few days?”
It was an obvious play to change the subject but he didn’t argue. They were both probably better off pretending to ignore this heat they seemed to generate.
“I have to be,” he answered. “I’m due in Tokyo by Tuesday of next week.”
She gave him a piercing look as she pushed a strand of wind-tossed hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Are you planning to take Chloe along?”
He couldn’t contain a little shudder at the idea of letting Chloe loose in a foreign country. The havoc she could wreak boggled his mind.
“While we’re here enjoying the beaches of Oregon, my assistant has been busy interviewing new nanny applicants. She e-mailed me with the names of a couple of possibilities. I’ll try to choose one when we return home this weekend.”
He wasn’t completely surprised to see storm clouds scud across her dark-eyed gaze. She stopped stock-still on the sand and stared at him.
“Let me get this straight. You’re going to dump your daughter on a stranger picked by your assistant while you go out of the country?”
Despite her deceptive calm, she certainly knew just how to raise his hackles and put him on the defensive.
“I said I was choosing the nanny. My assistant is merely offering me a list of possibilities.”
“Are you planning on actually meeting any of these worthy applicants before you fly out of the country and leave your daughter with them?”
“Yes. I’m not completely irresponsible, contrary to what you apparently think.”
“But you won’t stick around to see how she gets along with Chloe?”
“My plans can’t be changed at this late date.”
“So why don’t you just take her and the new nanny with you?”
“Haul Chloe halfway across the world to Tokyo so she can sit in a hotel room with a stranger for a week?”
“Why not? At least then she wouldn’t feel completely abandoned. You’re the one stable thing in her life right now. You’re all she has, Eben. Can’t you see that?
“Of course I see that!” He was astonished how quickly his own much-vaunted calm seemed to be slipping away with the tide. “I live with the responsibility of it every moment of my life. I love my daughter, Sage, despite what you might think.”
“I know you do. I can see it. But I’m just not sure Chloe is quite as convinced.”
“What do you mean? I’ve never given her any reason to doubt it.” At least he didn’t think so.
“Children are resilient and bend with the wind like that seagrass over there, but they’re not unbreakable, Eben.”
“I have to go to Tokyo next week. Taking her along sounds perfectly reasonable in theory. But have you ever tried to keep an eight-year-old happy on a ten-hour flight?”
“I’m sure it’s not easy. But isn’t your daughter’s sense of emotional security worth a little inconvenience?”
“It’s more than inconvenience! It’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible for a man like you. You have the money and the power and the resources at your disposal to make anything happen. You just have to want to make it work.”
He started to lash back at her—what the hell did this do-gooder know about his life?—then he took a good look at her. She was angry with him, unquestionably, but there was something else in her eyes, something deeper. An old hurt he couldn’t begin to guess at.
He opened his mouth to ask why this seemed so important to her. Before he could formulate the words, Conan raced to them, with the driftwood in his mouth, and dropped it at their feet.
He was followed immediately by Chloe, wind-whipped color on her cheeks and her hand outstretched.
“Look at this cool thing I found. What is it?”
He was fascinated to watch Sage inhale and exhale a long breath and then pick up the item in Chloe’s hand. “Cool!” she exclaimed, with no trace of hurt or anger in her voice. “That’s a little piece of petrified wood. You and your dad are great at beachcombing. He found a baby-pink agate. Maybe he’ll let you make
a wish on it.”
“Oh, may I, Daddy?”
Grateful he hadn’t tossed it back in the sand, he dug it from the pocket of his Windbreaker and handed it to her. She screwed her eyes shut for a moment, her mouth moving with words he couldn’t understand, then she opened her mouth and handed it back to him.
“What did you wish?”
“Not telling. Then it won’t come true.”
“Fair enough. We should probably be heading back.”
Chloe shook her head. “I want to keep looking for cool stuff on the beach.”
“It’s getting late,” he insisted after a quick look at his watch. “Nearly a quarter to seven.”
“No!” she said hotly. “I’m going to find more shells!”
He should have picked up on the signs. Chloe had been up for several hours already and was overstimulated by the excitement of the bike ride and playing hard with Conan. But she’d been on such good behavior in Sage’s presence that her recalcitrance took him completely by surprise.
“Maybe we can make time later to look for shells, but we already have to hurry so you and Sage aren’t late at the center.”
“Not later! Now!”
“Chloe, get back here, young lady!”
Instead of obeying, she ran farther down the shore, coming dangerously close to the cold Pacific waters.
He headed after her, but the closer he got to her, the faster she ran, sending backward glances over her shoulder.
He saw truculence and defiance in her gaze, all the things he had become accustomed to seeing there the last two years. Though he tried to hang on to his temper, it was fraying already from his argument with Sage and he could feel it slipping through his fingers.
“Chloe Elizabeth Spencer, get your behind back here right now,” he ordered. “You’re in serious trouble.”
“I don’t care! I want to find more petrified wood.”
And Sage thought he should subject the good citizens of Tokyo to Chloe?
He wouldn’t put it past her to cause some kind of international incident and get them both thrown out of Japan.
He was within a few yards of grabbing her and tossing her, shrieking like a banshee, over his shoulder when Sage suddenly rode up on the tandem bike. He had no idea how she’d retrieved it from the parking lot so quickly or how she maneuvered it with such ease across the soft sand. He only knew he’d never been so grateful to see anyone in his life as he was to see Sage placidly pedaling toward them.
The Daddy Makeover Page 10
