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“Three. One on each floor, but the middle floor is empty right now.”
“Your neighbor on the first floor let me in.”
“Right. Anna.”
Conan barked a little from under the table when she said Anna’s name and Sage covered her annoyance by taking a sip of the wine she had set out for her and Eben.
Eben and Anna Galvez would be perfect for each other. The hotel tycoon and the sharp, focused businesswoman. They were both type A personalities, both probably had lifetime subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal, both probably knew exactly the difference between the Dow Jones and the NASDAQ—and how much of their respective portfolios were tied up in each, down to the penny.
Sage could barely manage to balance her checkbook most months and still carried a balance on her credit card from paying a down-on-his-luck friend’s rent a few months earlier.
Yeah, Eben and Anna would make a good pair. So why did the idea of the two of them together leave her feeling vaguely unsettled?
“You said the second floor is empty?”
“Yes. We’re still trying to figure out what we want to do, whether we want to fix it up and rent it out or leave things as is. Too many decisions to make all at once.”
“I didn’t understand that you owned the place. I thought you were renting.”
She made a face. “I own it as of a month ago. Well, sort of.”
“How do you sort of own something?”
“Anna and I co-inherited the place and everything in it, including Conan.”
He looked intrigued and she didn’t like feeling her life was one interesting puzzle for him to solve. “So the dog came with the house?” he asked.
“Something like that.”
“So are you and Anna related in some way?”
“Nope.” She sipped at her wine. “It’s a long story.”
She didn’t want to talk about Abigail so she deliberately changed the subject.
“I understand from Chloe you’re in town to buy The Sea Urchin from Stanley and Jade Wu.”
Frustration flickered in his green eyes. “That’s the plan, anyway.”
“When do you expect to close the sale?”
“Good question. There have been a few…complications.”
“Oh?”
“Everything was supposed to be done by now but I’m afraid the Wus are having second thoughts. I’m still working hard to convince them.”
“My daddy has a lot of other hotels,” Chloe piped up, “but he really, really wants The Sea Urchin.”
Of course. No doubt it was all about the game to him, the acquisition of more and more. Just like her own father, who had virtually abandoned his child to the care of others, simply to please his narcissistic, self-absorbed socialite of a second wife.
“And I imagine whatever you want, you get, isn’t that right?”
She meant to keep her voice cool and uninterested, but she was fairly sure some of her bitterness dripped into her words.
He studied her for a long moment, long enough that she felt herself flush at her rudeness. He didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of an old, tired hurt that had nothing to do with him.
“Not always,” he murmured.
“Can I have another breadstick?” Chloe asked into the sudden awkward silence.
Her father turned his attention to her. “How many have you had? Four, isn’t it?”
“They’re so good, though!”
Sage had enough experience with both eight-year-olds and dogs to know exactly where the extra breadsticks were going—under the table, where Conan lurked, waiting patiently for anything tossed his way.
She handed Chloe another breadstick with a conspiratorial smile. “This is the last one, so you’d better make it last.”
“I’m going to have to roll you down the stairs, I’m afraid.”
Chloe snickered at her father. “Conan could help you carry me down. He’s way strong.”
“Stronger than me, probably, especially with all those breadsticks in his system.”
Chloe jerked her hand above the table surface with a guilty look, but her father didn’t reprimand her, he only smiled.
Sage gazed at his light expression with frustration. Drat the man. Just when she thought she had him pegged, he had to act in a way that didn’t match her perception.
It was becoming terribly difficult to hang on to her dislike of him. Though her first impression of him had been of a self-absorbed businessman with little time for his child, she was finding it more difficult to reconcile that with a man who could tease his daughter into the giggles.
She had always made a practice of looking for the good in people. Even during the worst of her childhood she had tried to find her stepmother’s redeeming qualities. So why was she so determined to only see negatives when she looked at Eben Spencer?
Maybe she was afraid to notice his good points. If she could still be so attracted to him when she was only focusing on the things she disliked, how much more vulnerable would she be if she allowed herself to see the good in him?
The thought didn’t sit well at all.
* * *
What was her story? Eben wondered as Sage dished out a simple but delicious dessert of vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries. She was warm and approachable one moment, stiff and cool the next. She kissed like a dream then turned distant and polite.
Her house was like her—eclectic, colorful, with a bit of an eccentric bent. One whole display case in the corner was filled with gnarled pieces of driftwood interspersed with various shells and canning jars filled with polished glass. Nothing in the house looked extravagant or costly, but it all seemed to work together to make a charming, cozy nest.
He was intensely curious about how she came to own the house after five years of renting it, but she obviously hadn’t want to talk about it so he had let her turn the conversation in other directions. He wondered if that had something to do with the pain that sometimes flickered in her gaze.
“I love strawberries,” Chloe announced. “They’re my very favorite thing to have on ice cream.”
“You need to try some of the Oregon berries sometime,” Sage said with a smile.
She maintained none of her stiff reserve with Chloe. She was genuinely warm all the time and he found it entrancing.
“And before you leave, remind me to give you some of the wild raspberry jam I made last summer,” she went on.
“You made jam all by yourself?”
“It’s not hard. The toughest thing is not eating the berries the minute you pick them so you’ve got enough left to use for the jam.”
Before Chloe could ask the million questions Eben could see forming in her eyes, Sage’s dog slithered out from under the table and began to bark insistently.
“Uh-oh. That’s his ignore-me-at-your-peril bark,” Sage said quickly, setting her unfinished dessert down on the table. “I had better let him out.”
“I’ll do it!” Chloe exclaimed. Her features—so much like her mother’s—were animated and excited.
She had been remarkably well-behaved through dinner—no tantrums, no power struggles. It was a refreshing change, he thought. Sage Benedetto had a remarkably positive effect on her. He wasn’t sure what she did differently, but Chloe responded to her in a way his daughter hadn’t to anyone else in a long time.
“Thanks, Chloe,” Sage said. “Just make sure the gate is closed around the yard so he can’t take off. He’s usually pretty good about staying on his own territory, but all bets are off if he catches sight of a cat.”
Chloe paused at the door. “Can I ask Miss Galvez if I can look at the dolls while I’m downstairs?”
Sage shifted her gaze to meet Eben’s. “You’ll have to ask your father that.”
“Someone will have to clue me in. What dolls?”
“The woman who left the house to me and to Anna Galvez had a huge doll collection. It takes up an entire room in Anna’s apartment now. I promised Chloe we could take a look at them before dinner, but time slipped away from us and then you arrived.”
“Can I see it, Daddy?”
“If Miss Galvez doesn’t mind showing you, I can’t see any reason why not.”
“Yay!” Chloe raced out the door, though Conan shot ahead of her and Eben could hear his paws click furiously down the stairs.
The moment they left, Eben realized he was alone with Sage—not a comfortable situation given the tension still simmering between them. She was obviously suddenly cognizant of that fact as well. She jerked to her feet and started clearing away their dinner dishes.
He finished the last of his dessert and rose to help her. “Thank you again for dinner. I can’t remember a meal I’ve enjoyed more.”
It was true, he realized with surprise. Chloe was usually in bed when he returned home from work, but on the rare occasions he dined with her, he typically found himself bracing for her frequent emotional outbursts.
It had been wonderful to enjoy his daughter’s company under Sage’s moderating influence.
Sage didn’t look convinced by his words. “It was only vegetarian lasagna. Probably nothing at all like you’re used to. You don’t have to patronize me.”
Her words surprised a laugh from him. “I don’t think I could patronize you, even if I tried. I doubt anyone can. I mean it. I enjoyed the meal—and the company—immensely.”
She studied him for a moment then nodded. “So did I.”
“You sound surprised. It’s not very flattering, I must admit.”
“I am surprised, I suppose. I don’t entertain a great deal. When I do, it’s usually friends in my own circle.”
“I appreciate you making an exception in our case.”
He was intensely aware of her, of the way her dangly earrings caught the lamplight, the smell of her, feminine and enticing, her mobile expressions. He wanted to kiss her again, with a fierce ache, though he knew it was impossible, not to mention extremely unwise.
He didn’t want to destroy this fragile peace—especially when his intentions could never be anything other than a quick fling, something he guessed wasn’t typical for her, either.
In an effort to cool his growing awareness, he searched his mind for a change of topic as he followed her into the small kitchen with his hands full of dishes.
“Tell me the truth, now that Chloe is gone for a moment. How was she today?”
Surprise widened her eyes at the question. “Fine. She’s a little energetic, but no worse than any of the other eight-year-olds at the camp. Better than some. She’s very sweet.”
She studied him and he was certain some of his relief must have shown on his features.
“You look like you expected a different answer.”
He sighed and put the dishes down on the counter-top next to the sink. “I love my daughter, but I have to admit that sweet is not an adjective many people use to describe her these days.”
“That surprises me. She seems to me a typical kid, just like the others in the class.”
“I think you have an extraordinary rapport with her.”’
“I’m not sure why that would be.”
“I’m not, either. Chloe is…challenging. She’s bright and creative and funny most of the time, but she has these mood swings. Her mother’s death two years ago affected her strongly. She and Brooke were very close. Her mother doted on her—maybe too much.”
“I don’t think you can ever love a child too much.”
There was that stiffness in her voice again. “I don’t, either. Please don’t misunderstand. I only meant that losing her mother was a fierce and painful blow to Chloe. As a parent, I’m afraid I’m a poor substitute for my wife.”
Her gaze flashed to his and he regretted exposing so much truth about himself.
“I tried to give her some leeway for her grief for several months but I’m afraid I let her get away with too many things and now that’s her expectation all the time. In the last year and a half she’s been through four schools and a half-dozen nannies. She’s moody and unpredictable. Defiant one moment, deceptively docile the next.”
Without really thinking about it, he started to load the dishes in the dishwasher. “The other morning was a perfect example,” he continued. “She could have been seriously hurt sneaking out so early. I wouldn’t do as she demanded the night before and stay out late hunting up seashells with her, so she countermanded me by sneaking out on her own.”
She opened her mouth slightly then closed it again.
“What were you going to say?” he pressed.
“Nothing. Never mind.” She turned away to run water in the sink for the soiled dishes.
Eben leaned against the counter next to her, enjoying her graceful movements.
“You probably would have been right out there with her in the middle of the night with a flashlight and a bucket looking for sand dollars, wouldn’t you?”
She gave him a sidelong look, then smiled. “Probably.”
“I let her get away with too much right after Brooke died and I need to set some boundaries now. Children needs rules and structure.”
