Page 127 of A Soldier's Return

He pressed his forehead to hers. “But I could try to rearrange my schedule to come back in a few weeks. A month on the outside.”

She allowed herself a brief moment to imagine how it might be. Despite the heat they generated and these fragile emotions taking root in her heart, she knew she would merely be a convenience for him, never anything more than that.

She drew in a shuddering breath and slid out of his arms, desperate for space to regain her equilibrium. “I should, uh, get the cheesecake out of the freezer.”

He raised an eyebrow at her deliberate evasion but said nothing, only followed her into the kitchen. She opened the small freezer and quickly found Abigail’s foil-wrapped package.

Her hands shook a little as she pulled it out—from the embrace with Eben, but also from emotion. This was one more tie to Abigail that would be severed after tonight.

She looked at Abigail’s handwriting on the foil with the date a few weeks before her death and one simple word: Celebrate.

Eben looked at the cheesecake from over her shoulder. He seemed to instinctively know how difficult it was for her to lose one more connection to Abigail. “Are you certain you don’t want to save this a little longer, for some other occasion?”

She shook her head with determination. “I have the oddest feeling Abigail would approve. She was the one who introduced you to the Wus, after all. She never would have done that if she didn’t want you to buy The Sea Urchin. I think she would be happy her cheesecake is being put to good use. In fact, if I know Abigail, she’s probably somewhere lifting a glass of champagne to you right now.”

He tilted his head and studied her for a long moment, then smiled softly. “I have you to thank as much as Abigail.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Not true. You know it’s not. I honestly think Stanley and Jade were ready to pull out until dinner tonight, until you and Chloe both charmed them.”

He grabbed her fingers. “You reach Chloe in ways I don’t think anyone has since her mother died.”

She shifted and slid her hand away, uncomfortable with his praise. How could she tell him she understood Chloe’s pain so intimately and connected with her only because her life had so closely mirrored the little girl’s?

“What can I do to reach her that way?” Eben asked. By all appearances, he looked completely sincere. “You need to give me lessons.”

“Just trust your instincts. That’s the only lesson I can give.”

“Following my instincts hasn’t turned out well so far. Maybe if I had better success at this father business, I wouldn’t have to send her to boarding school in the fall.”

At first, she thought—hoped—she misheard him. He couldn’t possibly be serious.

“Boarding school? You’re sending her toboarding school?”

He shrugged, looking as if he wished he hadn’t said anything. “Thinking about it. I haven’t made a final decision.”

“You have. Admit it.”

She was suddenly trembling with fury. She was again eight years old, lost and alone, with no friends and a father who wanted little to do with her. “You’ve probably already signed her up and paid the first year’s tuition, haven’t you?”

Guilt flitted across his features. “A deposit, only to hold her spot. It’s a very good school outside Newport, Rhode Island. My sister went there.”

“Half a world away from you!”

“What do you want me to do, Sage? I’ve been at my wit’s end. You’ve seen a different child this week than the one I’ve lived with for two years. Here, Chloe has been sweet and easygoing. Things are different at home. She’s moody and angry and deceitful and nothing I do gets through to her. I told you she’s been through half a dozen nannies and four different schools since her mother died. Every one of them says she has severe behavior problems and needs more structure and order. How am I supposed to give her that with my travel schedule?”

“You’re the brilliant businessman. You don’t need me to help you figure it out. Stop traveling so much or, if you have to go, take her with you. That’s your answer, not dumping her off at some boarding school and then forgetting about her. She’s a child, Eben. She needs her father.”

“Don’t you get it? I’m not the solution, I’m the damn problem.”

As quickly as it swelled inside her, her anger trickled away at the despair in his voice. She longed, more than anything, to touch him again.

“Oh, Eben. You’re not. She’s a little girl who’s lost her mother and she’s desperate for her father’s attention. Of course she’s going to misbehave if that’s the only time she can get a reaction from you. But she doesn’t need a boarding school, she needs you.”

“How do you know it won’t help her?”

“Because I lived it! You want to know how I’m able to reach Chloe so well? Because I’m her with a few more years under my belt. I was exactly like Chloe, shunted away by my father to boarding school when I was eight simply because I no longer fit his lifestyle.”

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