Brambleberry Shores: The Daddy Makeover / His Second-Chance Family

“I suppose I can’t really say I knew her. I met her only briefly but the encounter was…unforgettable.”

She smiled, a little tremulously. “Abigail often had that effect on people.”

“I should have figured it out. You know, I thought Conan looked familiar but I didn’t put the pieces together until right this moment. I can’t believe she’s gone.”

“You met her then? She didn’t say anything about it.”

“It probably wasn’t as significant a meeting for her as it was for me. I came to town scouting locations for a new property. I was jogging early one morning and I saw her and I guess it was Conan. I don’t know why I stopped to talk to her—maybe I stopped to tie my shoe or something—but we struck up a conversation. It was the oddest thing. After we talked for awhile, she insisted on taking me to breakfast at The Sea Urchin—and I went, which isn’t at all like me.”

What also hadn’t been like him was the way the woman’s warm, kind eyes had led him to telling her far more about himself than he did with most people.

By the time they’d finished their divine breakfast of old-fashioned French toast with mountains of fresh whipped cream and bacon so crisp it melted in his mouth, Abigail knew about Chloe, about Brooke’s death, even about those last years of their troubled marriage.

“Abigail was always doing things like that, grabbing a stranger to take out for a meal,” Sage said into his sudden silence. “She loved to meet new people. She used to say she knew everything there was to know about the locals and she got damn sick and tired of hearing the same boring old stories a hundred times.”

“She was wonderful. Sharp. Funny. Kind. After breakfast at The Sea Urchin, she suggested I talk to Stanley and Jade Wu about buying it. You know, the whole thing was her idea. She told me they were thinking about retiring, but I have to say, until I approached them with an offer, I don’t think it had even occurred to them to sell the place.”

“I told you Abigail knew everything about the locals, sometimes things they didn’t even know themselves.”

Abigail had certainly been able to see deep into Sage’s own mind. From the moment Sage arrived in Cannon Beach, Abigail had seemed to know instinctively how much Sage longed for a family and home of her own.

The remarkable thing had been her way of finding the best in everyone she met and helping them see it as well.

Why on earth would Abigail have picked Eben Spencer to be one of her pet projects? Sage couldn’t for the life of her figure it out. And she had steered him toward buying The Sea Urchin? It didn’t make sense. Abigail would never have suggested he buy the place if she didn’t trust him to take care of it.

Maybe Sage needed to reconsider her perceptions of the man. If Abigail had approved of him to that extent, perhaps she saw deeper into him than Sage could.

“That morning at breakfast with Abigail felt like an omen. I have to admit, from the moment we stepped into the place, I set my heart on purchasing The Sea Urchin and I’m afraid I haven’t been able to even entertain the idea of any other property for Spencer Hotels’ next project. I’m only sorry I didn’t have the chance to meet up with her again.”

What weird twist of fate had led her to Chloe on the beach that morning, to someone peripherally connected to Abigail? Or had it been a coincidence? She shivered a little, remembering how Conan had greeted Chloe like an old friend, as if he had been expecting her.

“Everything okay?” Eben asked.

He would probably mock any woo-woo speculation on her part. She had a feeling Eben was a prosaic man not given to superstition.

“Fine. Just thinking how odd it was that you’re here now, in Abigail’s house.”

“Your house, now.”

“In my mind, it will always belong to her. She loved every inch of this place.”

Before he could answer, they heard footsteps bounding up the stairs. A moment later, Chloe and Conan burst into the apartment, with Anna Galvez in tow.

“Daddy, Daddy, guess what?”

“What, sweetheart?”

“There’s a whole room of dolls downstairs. It’s huge. I’ve never seen so many dolls. Miss Galvez says if it’s okay with you, I can pick one out and keep it. May I, Daddy? Oh please, may I?”

“Chloe—” He shifted, obviously uncomfortable with the idea.

Sage sent a swift look to Anna, surprised she would make such an offer. She wouldn’t have expected such a generous gesture from Anna, especially after their conversation the day before about keeping the collection intact.

But somehow it seemed exactly the right thing to do, precisely what Abigail would have wanted, for them to give this sweet daughter of the man Abigail had known one of her beloved dolls.

“Several of the dolls have resin faces and aren’t breakable. They’re completely safe for her,” Anna said somewhat stiffly.

Eben looked at Sage with a question in his eyes. She nodded. “Abigail would have wanted her things to be loved,” she said. “She adored showing them off to children.”

She got the impression it wasn’t an easy thing for Eben to accept anything from anyone. He was a hard, self-contained man, though it appeared he had a soft spot for his daughter, something she wouldn’t have expected just a few days before.

“All right,” he finally said. “If you’re certain you don’t mind.”

Chloe squealed with excitement. “You have to help me choose one. Both of you.”

She grabbed Sage with one hand then Eben with the other and started tugging them both toward the stairs. Conan barked once and Sage could swear he was grinning again.

She didn’t know which she found more disturbing, her dog’s pleased expression or Anna’s speculative one.

For the next ten minutes, she, Anna and Eben helped Chloe peruse Abigail’s vast collection, doing their best to point her toward the sturdier, more age-appropriate dolls.

Sage had never been one to play with girlie things, but even she had to admit how much she enjoyed walklng into the doll room. She couldn’t help feeling close to Abigail here, amid the collection that had been such a part of her friend.

Abigail never married and had no children of her own. She had a great-nephew somewhere, but he hadn’t even bothered coming to his great-aunt’s funeral. In many ways, the dolls were Abigail’s family, the inanimate counterpoints to the living, breathing strays she collected.

Sage loved seeing them, remembering the joy Abigail had found every time she added a new doll to her collection.

She especially loved the dolls Abigail had made herself over the decades, with painted faces and elaborate hand-sewn clothes. Victorian dolls with flounced dresses and parasols, teenyboppers with ponytails and poodle skirts, dolls with bobbed hair and flapper dresses.

There was no real rhyme or reason to the collection—no common theme that Sage had ever been able to discern—but each was charming in its own way.

“I can’t decide. There are too many.”

A spasm of irritation crossed Eben’s features at Chloe’s whiny tone. Sage could tell the girl was tired after their big day on the shore then coming back to Brambleberry House afterward. She hoped Eben was perceptive enough to pick up on that as well.

To her relief, after only a moment his frustration slid away, replaced by patience. He pulled his daughter close and kissed her on the top of her dark curls and Sage could swear she felt her heart tumble in her chest.

“Pick out your favorite three and maybe we can help you make your final choice,” he suggested, a new gentleness in his voice.

That seemed a less daunting task to his daughter. With renewed enthusiasm she studied the shelves of dolls, pulling one out here and there, returning another, choosing with care until she had three lined up in the middle of the floor.

They were an oddly disparate trio: a little girl with pigtails holding a teddy bear, a curvy woman in a grass Hawaiian skirt and lei, then an elegant woman with blond hair and a white dress.

Chloe studied them for a moment, then reached for the one in white. “You don’t have to help me pick. This is the one I want. She looks just like an angel.”

The doll was simple but lovely. “Good choice,” Sage said, admiring the doll when Chloe held her out.