LITMIR.BIZ

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now the idea of sliding into a hot bath with a good book sounded like a slice of heaven. In the gathering twilight, Sage pedaled home with a steady drizzle soaking her to the skin.

      So much for the weather forecasters’ prediction of sunshine for the next three days. Having lived in Oregon for five years now, she ought to know better. The weather was fickle and erratic. She had learned to live with it and even enjoyed it for the most part.

      She tried to always be prepared for any eventuality. Of course, this was the day she had forgotten to pack her rain slicker in her bike basket.

      She blamed her negligence on her distraction that morning with Eben and Chloe Spencer, though maybe that was only because she was approaching their beach house.

      She wiped rain out of her eyes as she passed it. A sleek silver Jaguar was sprawled arrogantly in the driveway.

      Of course. What else would she expect?

      Against her will, her eyes were drawn to the wide bay window in front. The blinds were open and she thought she saw a dark shadow move around inside before she quickly jerked her attention back to the road.

      Wouldn’t it be just like her to have a wipeout right in front of his house, with him watching out the window?

      She stubbornly worked to put them both out of her head as she rode the half mile to Brambleberry House. The house came into view as she rounded the last corner and some of her exhaustion faded away in the sweet, welcome comfort of coming home.

      She loved this old place with its turrets and gables and graceful old personality, though some of the usual joy she felt returning to it had been missing since Abigail’s death.

      As she pedaled into the driveway, Conan barked a halfhearted greeting from the front porch.

      Stubborn thing. He should be waiting inside where it was warm and dry. Instead, he insisted on waiting on the front porch—for her or for Anna or for Abigail, she didn’t know. She got the sense Conan kept expecting Abigail to drive her big Buick home any moment now.

      Conan loped out into the rain to greet her by the fence and she ached at the sadness in his big eyes. “Let me put my bike away, okay? Then you can tell me about your day while I change into dry clothes.”

      She opened the garage door and as she parked her bike, she heard Conan bark again and the sound of a vehicle outside. She glanced out the wide garage door to see Will Garrett’s pickup truck pulling into the driveway.

      Rats. She’d forgotten all about their conversation that morning. So much for her dreams of a long soak.

      He climbed out into the rain—though he was at least smart enough to wear a Gore-Tex jacket.

      “Hi Will. Anna’s not here yet.”

      “I’m sure she’ll be here soon. I’m a little early.”

      “I never told her you were coming. I’m sorry, Will. I knew there was something I forgot to do today. I honestly don’t have any idea when she’ll be home.”

      The man she had met five years ago when she first moved here would have grinned and teased her about her bubbleheaded moment. But the solemn stranger he had become since the death of his wife and baby girl only nodded. “I can come back later. Not a problem.”

      Guilt was a miserable companion on a rainy night. “No. Come in. You’re here, you might as well get started, at least in the empty apartment. Without Anna here, I don’t feel right about taking you into Abigail’s apartment to see what to do there, since it’s her territory now. But I have a key to the second floor. I just need to run up and get it.”

      “Better change into something dry while you’re up there. Wouldn’t do for you to catch pneumonia.”

      His solemn concern absurdly made her want to cry. She hadn’t had anybody to fuss over her since Abigail’s death.

      “I’ll hurry,” she assured him, and dripped her way up the stairs, leaving him behind with Conan.

      She returned five minutes later in dry jeans, a sweatshirt and toweled-dry hair. She hurried down the stairs to the second-floor landing, where Will must have climbed with Conan. The two of them sat on the top step and the dog had his chin on Will’s knee.

      “Sorry to leave you waiting.” She pulled out a key and fitted it in the keyhole.

      Will rose. “Not a problem. Conan’s been telling me about his day.”

      “He’s quite the uncanny conversationalist, isn’t he?”

      He managed half a smile and followed her into the apartment.

      The rooms here, their furnishings blanketed in dust covers, had a vaguely forlorn feeling to them. Unlike the rest of the house, the air was stale and close. Whenever she came in here, Sage thought the apartment seemed to be waiting for something, silly as that seemed.

      Abigail had rented the second floor only twice in the five years Sage had lived at Brambleberry House. Each time had been on a temporary basis, the apartment becoming a transitional home for Abigail’s strays for just a few months at a time.

      The place should be lived in. It was comfortable and roomy, with three bedrooms, a huge living room and a fairly good-sized kitchen.

      The plumbing was in terrible shape and the vinyl tiles in the kitchen and bathroom was peeling and outdated, in definite need of replacement. The appliances and cabinets in the kitchen were ancient, too, and the whole place could use new paint and some repairs to the crumbling lathe and plaster walls.

      Despite the battle scars, the apartment had big windows all around that let light throughout the rooms and the living room enjoyed a particularly breathtaking view of the sea. Not as nice as the one from her third-floor apartment, but lovely still.

      She wandered to the window now and realized she had a perfect view of Eben and Chloe Spencer’s place, the lights still beating back the darkness.

      “Hey Sage, can you come hold the end of the tape measure?”

      She jerked out of her reverie and followed his voice to the bathroom. For the next few minutes she assisted while Will studied, measured, measured again and finally jotted figures on his clipboard.

      They were in the kitchen when through the open doorway she saw Conan suddenly lift his head from his morose study of the peeling wallpaper. A moment later, she heard the squeak of the front door and reminded herself to add WD-40 to her shopping list.

      Conan scrambled up, nosed open the door and galloped for the stairs. A moment later he was back, with Anna not far behind him.

      “Hey, Will. I saw your van out front. I didn’t realize you were coming tonight.”

      Sage fought down her guilt. She wasn’t the one in the wrong here. Anna had no business arranging all this without talking to her.

      “I meant to call you but the day slipped away from me,” she said. “I bumped into Will this morning on the way to work and he told me he was coming out tonight to give us a bid on the work we apparently want him to do.”

      Anna didn’t miss her tight tone. Sage thought she saw color creep over her dusky cheekbones. “I figured there was no harm having him come out to take a look. Information is always a good thing. We need to know what our initial capital outlay might be to renovate the apartment so we can accurately determine whether it’s cost-effective to rent it out.”

      Sage really hated that prim, businessy tone. Did any personality at all lurk under Anna’s stiff facade? It had to. She knew it must. Abigail had cared about her, had respected her enough to sell her the gift shop and to leave her half of Brambleberry House.

      Sage had seen little sign of it, though. She figured Anna probably fell asleep at night dreaming of her portfolio allocation.

      She didn’t want to battle this out tonight. She was too darn tired after wrestling thirteen energetic kids all day.

      Instead,

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