Page 119 of A Soldier's Return

He wanted The Sea Urchin desperately—he had made no secret of that—and she cared about him and about Chloe enough that some part of her wanted to help him reach his goal.

Four days ago she might have scoffed and told him to go back to his business meetings and his conference calls. But that was before she had come to know him.

The truth was, she had become convinced Spencer Hotels would be good for Cannon Beach and The Sea Urchin. Abigail must have thought so or she never would have suggested the idea. It seemed a betrayal of her friend to refuse to help Eben simply because some foolish part of her hoped he wanted more from her than etiquette lessons for his daughter.

“Please,” he repeated.

She was going to bleed from a thousand gashes in her heart when he and Chloe left. Helping him tonight would only accelerate that inevitable heartbreak. She knew it perfectly well, could already feel the ache, but from somewhere deep she still managed to dredge up a smile.

“What time?”

The pure delight on his face almost broke her heart right there. “Seven. Will that work for you?”

Her mind raced with the million things she would have to do between the time she finished work and seven o’clock. Foremost was the purely feminine lament that she had nothing to wear and no time to run to her favorite vintage boutique in Portland to find something.

“If Anna’s home to stay with Conan, it should be fine.”

He reached for her hands and she was certain if they weren’t standing on a public beach in broad daylight with a hundred other people, he would have kissed her right then.

“My debt to you seems to grow larger by the minute. Somehow I’ll find a way to pay you back, I swear it.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you at seven.”

“No, no,no!” Sage wailed, her breath coming in short gasps as she pedaled hard up the hill toward Brambleberry House. With one hand on the handlebars, she used the other to hold her umbrella over the dress that had just cost her an entire week’s paycheck.

It was wrapped in plastic but she bemoaned every single raindrop that made it around the umbrella to splatter against her precious cargo. The whole dress was going to be ruined, she just knew it. Worse, her hair was drenched and would take hours to dry.

She had exactly forty-five minutes to ride the half-mile home and to shower and primp for her dinner with Eben and Chloe and the damn pouring rain wasn’t making this any easier.

She could barely see and didn’t have a spare hand to wipe the rain out of her eyes and she lived in mortal dread her tires were going to slip in the mud at the shoulder of the road and dump herandthe dress.

A vehicle drove slowly past and she shifted the umbrella over the dress until it was almost vertical like a warrior’s shield, just in case the driver hit a puddle and splattered it everywhere.

Instead, the vehicle slowed even further, then she saw brakelights through the rain. She could barely make out that the truck belonged to Will Garrett until the driver’s door opened and he climbed out.

“Get in,” he called. “I’ll throw your bike in the back of the truck and drive you the rest of the way home.”

“I’m almost there.”

“Get in, Sage. It’s not safe for you to be riding your bike in these conditions. It’s slick and visibility is terrible, though I have to say, the bright pink umbrella does tend to draw the eye.”

She winced at the ridiculous picture she must make. “I bought a fancy new dress. I didn’t want it to get wet.”

Will’s eyes widened, but to her relief, he said nothing as he took the bicycle from her and effortlessly lifted it into the back while she rushed to open the passenger door. Inside the cab, she laid her dress carefully on the bench seat then climbed in behind it, closing her vivid umbrella.

Will’s heater blared full force and she relished the warmth seeping into her chilled muscles for the few moments before he joined her and pulled back onto the road toward Brambleberry House.

“Do I dare ask what’s up with the dress? It’s not your usual kind of thing, is it?”

She could feel her face flame. “I’m having dinner at the Sea Urchin tonight and it occurred to me I don’t have a lot of grown-up clothes to wear. I splurged a bit.”

She glanced at it, a sleek midnight blue dream of a dress shot through with the barest trace of iridescent rainbow thread.Splurgewas a bit of an understatement. She had spent more on this one dress than she usually spent on clothes all year long. Her Visa balance would probably never recover.

It had been purely an impulse buy, too. She hadn’t really intended a whole new dress. Since she couldn’t make it to her favorite shop in Portland, she thought she would only take a quick look at some of the local stores on the off chance she might find a blouse on clearance she could wear with her usual black dress skirt.

She had just about given up on finding anything when she wandered into a new shop and saw this dress hanging in a corner.

The moment she saw it, she had fallen in love, despite the hefty price tag.

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