Page 110 of A Soldier's Return

“Are you coming?” Sage asked at the parking lot. With a sigh of defeat, he nodded and jogged toward them.

The trip back toward town wasn’t nearly as pleasant as the trip away from it. Conan seemed to be the only one enjoying himself, even with the leash he obviously despised firmly attached to his collar.

Sage seemed pensive and Chloe sulked while pedaling along on the back half of the bike.

Eben was almost glad they were all working harder to go back uphill. He didn’t have the breath left to make conversation, even if he’d been able to find the inclination.

He wouldn’t have expected it earlier in the morning, but he was relieved when they finally reached Brambleberry House.

“Why don’t you take the bike the rest of the way back to your beach house?” Sage asked. “You’ll get home faster on it. Perhaps you can find time to use it tonight or tomorrow to see some sights around town if you’re still here. You can just drop it back here on your way out of town.”

He didn’t like thinking about saying goodbye, despite their earlier conflict and the inevitability of their parting. “Thank you,” he answered. “And thank you also for the inside tour of Hug Point. It was nice to have our own private naturalist.”

“You’re very welcome.”

She mustered a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. In the widening sunlight, she looked lovely—fresh and untamed, her honey-gold hair slipping from its ponytail and curling riotously around her face, her cheeks flushed from the wind and the exercise.

“Bye Sage,” Chloe chirped. “I’ll see you in a while.”

Sage waved to them as they took off down the road. Eben, busy with figuring out a tandem bike for the first time, could spare only one quick look behind him. She was watching after them, one hand on her dog, the other in her pocket.

Was that sadness he saw in her eyes? he wondered. He didn’t have time to look closer, since he had to turn his attention to the road in order to keep both him and Chloe upright.

A curious ache caught in her throat as Sage watched them ride away on Abigail’s bike. She told herself it was just because the fragile loveliness of the morning was ending. She had found unexpected pleasure in sharing the morning with Eben and Chloe, even the rough patch at the end.

She shouldn’t have been so critical of his parenting. It had been presumptuous and rude and she winced now, remembering it. No wonder he had reacted so strongly.

Eben was not Tommy Benedetto, she reminded herself sharply. She was finding it far too easy to forget that, to project her own childhood and her father’s emotional abandonment onto the dynamics between Eben and Chloe.

She had all but accused him of neglect. She supposed she needed to find a way to apologize to the man.

Conan barked what sounded suspiciously like agreement and settled at her feet, for all appearances completely worn out from the morning run.

She sighed. She was becoming entirely too wrapped up in the lives of two strangers she likely would never see after a few more days. Still, she couldn’t help wishing she could find a way to help Eben see how very much his daughter needed him.

The strength of her desire took her by surprise. Gathering strays had been Abigail’s specialty, not Sage’s.

She had many friends in town but she had no misconceptions about herself. Most of her friendships were casual, superficial. She didn’t allow people into her life easily. She wasn’t standoffish or rude—at least she didn’t think she was—but she was uncomfortable letting people see too deeply into her psyche.

Those protective instincts had been learned early at the prestigious boarding school she’d been sent to when she was around Chloe’s age, around the time her father’s new wife decided she didn’t like competition for Thomas’s attention.

At school, Sage had been immediately ostracized, marginalized. The stench of new money had clung to her—an insurmountable obstacle, especially since it was new money obtained only through her father marrying it.

She didn’t want to think those years had shaped the rest of her life, but she couldn’t deny that she was as cautious as a hermit crab about letting people too close to her.

What was different about Eben Spencer and his gamine little daughter? Already she cared about them and she couldn’t quite figure out how it had happened so quickly. They were transitory in her life, she knew that, yet in only a few days they had both become dear to her—so dear she wanted to do all she could to smooth their path.

Maybe she had inherited that from Abigail, along with a rambling old house and a mongrel of a dog.

“Everything okay out here?”

She glanced up at the front porch to find Anna just leaving the house, dressed in a black pinstriped suit with a leather briefcase slung over her shoulder.

Neat and orderly, with her dark hair pulled back into a sleek chignon, she made Sage feel frumpy and sweaty. Big surprise there. Shewasfrumpy and sweaty.

Anna also looked worlds different from the soft, approachable woman who had shared tea with her the night before.

“It’s fine,” she finally answered. “Just woolgathering for a moment but I suppose I’d better get moving if I want to have any chance of making it to work on time.”

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