His Second-Chance Family

She took a step closer to him. “Hold still.”

Wariness leapt into the depths of his brown eyes, but he froze.

He smelled of leather and wood shavings, and hot, sun-warmed male. She brushed her fingers against the blade of his cheekbone, feeling warm, smooth skin.

At her touch their gazes clashed and the wariness in his eyes shifted instantly to something else, and for a moment she forgot what she was doing, her fingers frozen on his skin.

“You, um, had a little bit of sawdust on your cheek. I didn’t want it to find its way into your eye.”

“Thanks.” She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or not but his voice sounded decidedly hoarse.

She forced a smile and stepped back, though what she really wanted to do was wrap her arms fiercely around his warm, strong neck and hold on for dear life.

“You’re welcome,” she managed.

RAEANNE THAYNE

finds inspiration in the beautiful northern Utah mountains, where she lives with her husband and three children. Her books have won numerous honours, including a RITA® Award nomination from Romance Writers of America and a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine. RaeAnne loves to hear from readers and can be reached through her website at www. raeannethayne.com or at PO Box 6682, North Logan, UT 84341, USA.

His Second-Chance Family

RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For the staff and donors of The Sunshine Foundation, for five days of unimaginable joy. Sometimes wishes do come true!

Chapter One

As signs from heaven went, this one seemed fairly prosaic.

No choir of angels, no booming voice from above or anything like that. It was simply a hand-lettered placard shoved into the seagrass in front of the massive, ornate Victorian that had drifted through her memory for most of her life.

Apartment For Rent.

Julia stared at the sign with growing excitement. It seemed impossible, a miracle. That this house, of all places, would be available for rent just as she was looking for a temporary home seemed just the encouragement her doubting heart needed to reaffirm her decision to pack up her twins and take a new teaching job in Cannon Beach.

Not even to herself had she truly admitted how worried she was that she’d made a terrible mistake moving here, leaving everything familiar and heading into the unknown.

Seeing that sign in front of Brambleberry House seemed an answer to prayer, a confirmation that this was where she and her little family were supposed to be.

“Cool house!” Maddie exclaimed softly, gazing up in awe at the three stories of Queen Anne Victorian, with its elaborate trim, cupolas and weathered shake roof. “It looks like a gingerbread house!”

Julia squeezed her daughter’s hand, certain Maddie looked a little healthier today in the bracing sea air of the Oregon Coast.

“Cool dog!” Her twin, Simon, yelled. The words were barely out of his mouth when a giant red blur leaped over the low wrought-iron fence surrounding the house and wriggled around them with glee, as if he’d been waiting years just for them to walk down the beach.

The dog licked Simon’s face and headbutted his stomach like an old friend. Julia braced herself to push him away if he got too rough with Maddie, but she needn’t have worried. As if guided by some sixth sense, the dog stopped his wild gyrations and waited docilely for Maddie to reach out a tentative hand and pet him. Maddie giggled, a sound that was priceless as all the sea glass in the world to Julia.

“I think he likes me,” she whispered.

“I think so, too, sweetheart.” Julia smiled and tucked a strand of Maddie’s fine short hair behind her ear.

“Do you really know the lady who lives here?” Maddie asked, while Simon was busy wrestling the dog in the sand.

“I used to, a long, long time ago,” Julia answered. “She was my very best friend.”

Her heart warmed as she remembered Abigail Dandridge and her unfailing kindness to a lonely little girl. Her mind filled with memories of admiring her vast doll collection, of pruning the rose hedge along the fence with her, of shared confidences and tea parties and sand dollar hunts along the beach.

“Like Jenna back home is my best friend?” Maddie asked.

“That’s right.”

Every summer of her childhood, Brambleberry House became a haven of serenity and peace for her. Her family rented the same cottage just down the beach each July. It should have been a time of rest and enjoyment, but her parents couldn’t stop fighting even on vacation.

Whenever she managed to escape to Abigail and Brambleberry House, though, Julia didn’t have to listen to their arguments, didn’t have to see her mother’s tears or her father’s obvious impatience at the enforced holiday, his wandering eye.

Her fifteenth summer was the last time she’d been here. Her parents finally divorced, much to her and her older brother Charlie’s relief, and they never returned to Cannon Beach. But over the years, she had used the image of this house, with its soaring gables and turrets, and the peace she had known here to help center her during difficult times.

Through her parents’ bitter divorce, through her own separation from Kevin and worse. Much worse.

“Is she still your best friend?” Maddie asked.

“I haven’t seen Miss Abigail for many, many years,” she said. “But you know, I don’t think I realized until just this moment how very much I’ve missed her.”

She should never have let so much time pass before coming back to Cannon Beach. She had let their friendship slip away, too busy being a confused and rebellious teenager caught in the middle of the endless drama between her parents. And then had come college and marriage and family.

Perhaps now that she was back, they could find that friendship once more. She couldn’t wait to find out.

She opened the wrought-iron gate and headed up the walkway feeling as if she were on the verge of something oddly portentous.

She rang the doorbell and heard it echo through the house. Anticipation zinged through her as she waited, wondering what she would possibly say to Abigail after all these years. Would her lovely, wrinkled features match Julia’s memory?

No one answered after several moments, even after she rang the doorbell a second time. She stood on the porch, wondering if she ought to leave a note with their hotel and her cell phone number, but it seemed impersonal, somehow, after all these years.

They would just have to check back, she decided. She headed back down the stairs and started for the gate again just as she heard the whine of a power tool from behind the house.

The dog, who looked like a mix between an Irish setter and a golden retriever, barked and headed toward the sound, pausing at the corner of the house, head cocked, as if waiting for them to come along with him.

After a wary moment, she followed, Maddie and Simon close on her heels.

The dog led them to the backyard, where Julia found a couple of sawhorses set up and a man with brown hair and broad shoulders running a circular saw through a board.

She watched for a moment, waiting for their presence to attract his attention, but he didn’t look up from his work.

“Hello,” she called out. When he still didn’t respond, she moved closer so she would be in his field of vision and waved.

“Excuse me!”

Finally, he shut off the saw and pulled his safety goggles off, setting them atop his head.

“Yeah?” he said.

She squinted and looked closer at him. He looked familiar. A hint of a memory danced across her subconscious and she was so busy trying to place him that it took her a moment to respond.

“I’m sorry to disturb you. I rang the doorbell but I guess you couldn’t hear me back here with the power tools.”

“Guess not.”

He spoke tersely, as if impatient to return to work, and Julia could feel herself growing flustered. She had braced herself to see Abigail, not some solemn-eyed construction worker in a sexy tool belt.

“I…right. Um, I’m looking for Abigail Dandridge.”

There was an awkward pause and she thought she saw something flicker in his blue eyes.

“Are you a friend of hers?” he asked, his voice not quite as abrupt as it had been before.

“I used to be, a long time ago. Can you tell me when she’ll be back? I don’t mind waiting.”

The dog barked, only with none of the exuberance he had shown a few moments ago, almost more of a whine than a bark. He plopped onto the grass and dipped his chin to his front paws, his eyes suddenly morose.

The man gazed at the dog’s curious behavior for a moment. A muscle tightened in his jaw then he looked back at Julia. “Abigail died in April. Heart attack in her sleep. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.”

Julia couldn’t help her instinctive cry of distress. Even through her sudden surge of grief, she sensed when Maddie stepped closer and slipped a small, frail hand in hers.

Julia drew a breath, then another. “I…see,” she mumbled.

Just one more loss in a long, unrelenting string, she thought. But this one seemed to pierce her heart like jagged driftwood.

It was silly, really, when she thought about it. Abigail hadn’t been a presence in her life for sixteen years, but suddenly the loss of her seemed overwhelming.

She swallowed hard, struggling for composure. Her friend was gone, but her house was still here, solid and reassuring, weathering this storm as it had others for generations.

Somehow it seemed more important than ever that she bring her children here.

“I see,” she repeated, more briskly now, though she thought she saw a surprising understanding in the deep blue of the man’s eyes, so disconcertingly familiar. She knew him. She knew she did.

“I suppose I should talk to you, then. The sign out front says there’s an apartment for rent. How many bedrooms does it have?”

He gave her a long look before turning away to pick up another board and carry it to the saw. “Three bedrooms, two of them on the small side. Kitchen’s been redone in the last few months and the electricity’s been upgraded but the bathroom plumbing’s still in pretty rough shape.”

“I don’t care about that, as long as everything works okay. Three bedrooms is exactly the size my children and I need. Is it still available?’

“Can’t say.”

She pursed her lips. “Why not?”

He shrugged. “I don’t own the place. I live a few houses down the beach. I’m just doing some repairs for the owners.”

Something about what he said jarred loose a flood of memories and she stared at him more closely. Suddenly everything clicked in and she gasped, stunned she hadn’t realized his identity the instant she had clapped eyes on him.

“Will? Will Garrett?”

He peered at her. “Do I know you?”

She managed a smile. “Probably not. It’s been years.”

She held out a hand, her pulse suddenly wild and erratic, as it had always been around him.

“Julia Blair. You knew me when I was Julia Hudson. My parents rented a cottage between your house and Brambleberry House every summer of my childhood until I was fifteen. I used to follow you and my older brother Charlie around everywhere.”

Will Garrett. She’d forgotten so much about those summers, but never him. She had wondered whether she would see him, had wondered about his life and where he might end up. She never expected to find him standing in front of her on her first full day in town.

“It’s been years!” she repeated. “I can’t believe you’re still here.”

At her words, it took Will all of about two seconds to remember her. When he did, he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t seen it before. He had yearned for Julia Hudson that summer as only a relatively innocent sixteen-yea-rold boy can ache. He had dreamed of her green eyes and her dimples and her soft, burgeoning curves.

She had been his first real love and had haunted his dreams.

She had promised to keep in touch but she hadn’t called or answered any of his letters and he remembered how his teenage heart had been shattered. But by the time school started a month later, he’d been so busy with football practice and school and working for his dad’s carpentry business on Saturdays that he hadn’t really had much time to wallow in his heartbreak.

Julia looked the same—the same smile, the same auburn hair, the same appealing dimples—while he felt as if he had aged a hundred years.

He could barely remember those innocent, carefree days when he had been certain the world was his for the taking, that he could achieve anything if only he worked hard enough for it.

She was waiting for a response, he realized, still holding her hand outstretched in pleased welcome. He held up his hands in their leather work gloves as an excuse not to touch her. After an awkward moment, she dropped her arms to her side, though the smile remained fixed on her lovely features.

“I can’t believe you’re still here in Cannon Beach,” she repeated. “How wonderful that you’ve stayed all these years! I remember how you loved it here.”

He wouldn’t call it wonderful. There were days he felt like some kind of prehistoric iceman, frozen forever in place. He had wondered for some time if he ought to pick up and leave, go anywhere, just as long as it wasn’t here.

Someone with his carpentry skills and experience could find work just about any place. He had thought about it long and hard, especially at night when the memories overwhelmed him and the emptiness seemed to ring through his house but he couldn’t seem to work past the inertia to make himself leave.

“So how have you been?” Julia asked. “What about family? Are you married? Any kids?”

Okay, he wasn’t a prehistoric iceman. He was pretty certain they couldn’t bleed and bleed and bleed.

He set his jaw and picked up the oak board he was shaping for a new window frame in one of the third-floor bedrooms of Brambleberry House.

“You’ll have to talk to Sage Benedetto or Anna Galvez about the apartment,” he said tersely. “They’re the new owners. They should be back this evening.”

He didn’t quite go so far as to fire up the circular saw but it was a clear dismissal, rude as hell. He had to hope she got the message that he wasn’t interested in any merry little trips down memory lane.

She gave him a long, measuring look while the girl beside her edged closer.

After a moment, she offered a smile that was cool and polite but still managed to scorch his conscience. “I’ll do that. Thank you. It’s good to see you again, Will.”

He nodded tersely. This time, he did turn on the circular saw, though he was aware of every move she and her children made in the next few moments. He knew just when they walked around the house with Abigail’s clever Irish Setter mix Conan following on their heels.

He gave up any pretense of working when he saw them head across the lane out front, then head down the beach. She still walked with grace and poise, her chin up as if ready to take on the world, just as she had when she was fifteen years old.

And her kids. That curious boy and the fragile- looking girl with the huge, luminescent blue eyes. Remembering those eyes, he had to set down the board and press a hand to the dull ache in his chest, though he knew from two years’ experience nothing would ease it.

Booze could dull it for a moment but not nearly long enough. When the alcohol wore off, everything rushed back, worse than before.

He was still watching their slow, playful progress down the beach when Conan returned to the backyard. The dog barked once and gave him a look Will could only describe as peeved. He planted his haunches in front of the worktable and glared at him.

Abigail would have given him exactly the same look for treating an old friend with such rudeness.

“Yeah, I was a jerk,” he muttered. “She caught me off guard, that’s all. I wasn’t exactly prepared for a ghost from the past to show up out of the blue this afternoon.”

The dog barked again and Will wondered, not for the first time, what went on inside his furry head. Conan had a weird way of looking at everybody as if he knew exactly what they might be thinking and he managed to communicate whole diatribes with only a bark and a certain expression in his doleful eyes.

Abigail had loved the dog. For that reason alone, Will would have tolerated him since his neighbor had been one of his favorite people on earth. But Conan had also showed an uncanny knack over the last two years for knowing just when Will was at low ebb.

More than once, there had been times when he had been out on the beach wondering if it would be easier just to walk out into the icy embrace of the tide than to survive another second of this unrelenting grief.

No matter the time of day or night, Conan would somehow always show up, lean against Will’s legs until the despair eased, and then would follow him home before returning to Brambleberry House and Abigail.

He sighed now as the dog continued to wordlessly reprimand him. “What do you want me to do? Go after her?”

Conan barked and Will shook his head. “No way. Forget it.”

He should go after her, at least to apologize. He had been unforgivably rude. The hell of it was, he didn’t really know why. He wasn’t cold by nature. Through the last two years, he had tried to hold to the hard-fought philosophy that just because his insides had been ripped apart and because sometimes the grief and pain seemed to crush the life out of him, he hadn’t automatically been handed a free pass to hurt others.

Lashing out at others around him did nothing to ease his own pain so he made it a point to be polite to just about everybody.

Sure, there were random moments when his bleakness slipped through. At times, Sage and Anna and other friends had been upset at him when he pushed away their efforts to comfort him. More than a few times, truth be told. But he figured it was better to be by himself during those dark moments than to do as he’d just done, lash out simply because he didn’t know how else to cope.

He had no excuse for treating her poorly. He had just seen her there looking so lovely and bright with her energetic son and her pretty little daughter and every muscle inside him had cramped in pain.

The children set it off. He could see that now. The girl had even looked a little like Cara—same coloring, anyway, though Cara had been chubby and round where Julia’s daughter looked as if she might blow away in anything more than a two-knot wind.

It hadn’t only been the children, though. He had seen Julia standing there in a shaft of sunlight and for a moment, long-dormant feelings had stirred inside him that he wanted to stay dead and buried like the rest of his life.

No matter how screwed up he was, he had no business being rude to her and her children. Like it or not, he would have to apologize to her, especially if Anna and Sage rented her the apartment.

He lived three houses away and spent a considerable amount of time at Brambleberry House, both because he was busy with various remodeling projects and because he considered the new owners—Abigail’s heirs—his friends.

He didn’t want Julia Hudson Blair or her children here at Brambleberry House. If he were honest with himself, he could admit that he would have preferred if she had stayed a long-buried memory.

But she hadn’t. She was back in Cannon Beach with her children, looking to rent an apartment at Brambleberry House, so apparently she planned to stay at least awhile.

Chances were good he would bump into her again, so he was going to have to figure out a way to apologize.

He watched their shapes grow smaller and smaller as they walked down the beach toward town and he rubbed the ache in his chest, wondering what it would take to convince Sage and Anna to find a different tenant.

Chapter Two

“Will we get to see inside the pretty house this time, Mommy?”

Julia lifted her gaze from the road for only an instant to glance in the rearview mirror of her little Toyota SUV. Even from here, she could see the excitement in Maddie’s eyes and she couldn’t help but smile in return at her daughter.

“That’s the plan,” she answered, turning her attention back to the road as she drove past a spectacular hotel set away from the road. Someday when she was independently wealthy with unlimited leisure time, she wanted to stay at The Sea Urchin, one of the most exclusive boutique hotels on the coast.

“I talked to one of the owners of the house an hour ago,” Julia continued, “and she invited us to walk through and see if the apartment will work for us,”

“I hope it does,” Simon said. “I really liked that cool dog.”

“I’m not sure the dog lives there,” she answered. “He might belong to the man we talked to this morning. Will Garrett. He doesn’t live there, he was just doing some work on the house.”

“I’m glad he doesn’t live there,” Maddie said in her whisper-soft voice. “He was kind of cranky.”

Julia agreed, though she didn’t say as much to her children. Will had been terse, bordering on rude, and for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why. What had she done? She hadn’t seen him in sixteen years. It seemed ridiculous to assume he might be angry, after all these years, simply because she hadn’t written to him as she had promised.

They had been friends of a sort—and more than friends for a few glorious weeks one summer. She remembered moonlight bonfires and holding hands in the movies and stealing kisses on the beach.

She would have assumed their shared past warranted at least a little politeness but apparently he didn’t agree. The Will Garrett she remembered had been far different from the surly stranger they met that afternoon. She couldn’t help wondering if he treated everyone that way or if she received special treatment.

“He was simply busy,” she said now to her children. “We interrupted his work and I think he was eager to get back to it. We grown-ups can sometimes be impatient.”

“I remember,” Simon said. “Dad was like that sometimes.”

The mention of Kevin took her by surprise. Neither twin referred to their father very often anymore. He had died more than two years ago and had been a distant presence for some time before that, and they had all walked what felt like a million miles since then.

Brambleberry House suddenly came into view, rising above the fringy pines and spruce trees. She slowed, savoring the sight of the spectacular Victorian mansion silhouetted against the salmon-colored sky, with the murky blue sea below.

That familiar sense of homecoming washed over her again as she pulled into the pebbled driveway. She wanted to live here with her children. To wake up in the morning with that view of the sea out her window and the smell of roses drifting up from the gardens and the solid comfort of those walls around her.

As she pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine, she gave a silent prayer that she and the twins would click with the new owners. The one she’d spoken with earlier—Sage Benedetto—had seemed cordial when she invited Julia and her children to take a look at the apartment, but Julia was almost afraid to hope.

“Mom, look!” Simon exclaimed. “There’s the dog! Does that mean he lives here?”

As she opened her door to climb out, she saw the big shaggy red dog waiting by the wrought-iron gates, almost as if he somehow knew they were on their way.