Innkeeper's Daughter

by Marie Ferrarella

  Cris took a deep breath. “I don’t want to die before I find love again.”

  Alex blinked. “As in, with a guy?” she asked a little uncertainly.

  “Well, yes, of course as in with a guy. I already know you and the others love me, but it’s not the same thing.”

  Cris was gorgeous—all she had to do was to go out and socialize. There’d be guys all over her in a heartbeat. It wasn’t as if they lived at the end of the world, or on an island where men were scarce. The supply here was definitely not limited. And, unlike her, Cris was outgoing.

  Alex was the one who had a fear of putting herself out there and getting hurt. Which was why she chose not to risk it at all and just bury herself in work. She didn’t even have one serious relationship to look back on.

  Cris had been married and had a family. The idea that she was afraid of never finding love came as totally unexpected to Alex.

  “No,” Alex agreed. “At least we’ll stick by you.”

  Cris frowned. “If you’re referring to what happened between Tom and me—”

  “I am,” Alex confirmed without as much as a pause. After Mike had been killed, her sister had gone through a very difficult time. For a very short while, she’d dated someone she’d known in high school. Or rather, someone she’d thought she’d known in high school. It hadn’t exactly turned out well.

  Cris shrugged dismissively. “We just weren’t right for each other.”

  Alex nodded. “Mainly because he had such a short attention span, getting distracted by any female under thirty with a pulse.”

  “That was Tom, but they’re not all like that,” Cris protested. She turned her attention back to that night’s dinner.

  “Thank heaven for small favors,” Alex responded with feeling.

  “After all, I found Mike and he was terrific. There have to be other guys like that out there.”

  Cris was right, but this was one of those things that came under the heading of having to kiss a lot of frogs before finding a prince.

  “Remember what Mom used to say? If it’s meant to happen, it will. In the meantime, this reception is supposed to happen and we need to start nailing down a few key details. The service is at eleven, followed by the reception at twelve-thirty. What do you think?” she asked. “Will you be able to pull this together in time, with the help from Rosemary?”

  “You know, that seems like I’ve got more than enough time, now that my head is clear. Hmm. Maybe I won’t need the extra help, after all.”

  “You’ll need the help,” Alex said without blinking. “Also, about tomorrow, I’ve got Andy watching Ricky for you while you and Rosemary get all this together, and Stevi’s taking care of the music.”

  “Music?”

  Alex nodded. “Music soothes and all that. It was Uncle Dan who’d bought the keyboard for Stevi and encouraged her to learn how to play in the first place.”

  Cris nodded, remembering. “I’m really going to miss his visits,” she confided sadly.

  “Yeah, me, too. It was almost as if he officially ushered in summer with him. It’ll be hard separating the two.”

  “How’s Dad holding up?” Cris suddenly asked, taking out spices. “I haven’t seen him this morning.”

  “He’s holding his own.” At the very least, their father was putting up a good front. “I’m trying to keep him busy—and productive,” she emphasized. “The less time he has to think about Uncle Dan’s death right now, the better.”

  “He’s going to have to think about it sometime,” Cris pointed out.

  “Yes, I know. Time might not heal all wounds, but it’ll help him cope.”

  Cris paused to smile at her. “You surprise me sometimes, Alex,” she confessed. “You’re like a rock, you know?”

  “All hard and hilly?”

  The question hadn’t come from Alex. It came from Wyatt as he walked into the kitchen in time to catch the tail end of their conversation.

  “I’m sure she meant solid,” Alex informed him coolly. “What are you doing here?”

  “You’re having funeral services for my father tomorrow, remember?” She couldn’t tell if he was being serious or pulling her leg. His expression was completely unreadable. He would have probably made a decent C.I.A. agent, she judged.

  “I didn’t mean here,” Alex said impatiently, gesturing vaguely around the area and indicating the inn in general. “But here.” This time her gesture only took in the kitchen where they were standing and where he, as far as she was concerned, was invading. “Aren’t you supposed to be out there, directing traffic and handing out maps?”

  “My dad’s friends are all fairly intelligent people. They’re capable of ringing the bell on the desk if they need anything.”

  “Are you looking for me?” That was the only reason she could fathom for why he’d left the reception area.

  “Hard as it might be to believe, no. I just spent a good part of the morning standing next to you, so no, I’m not looking for you. I was hoping I could grab something to eat, if that’s okay with you?” He directed his question to Cris.

  Abandoning the huge mixing bowl, Cris quickly crossed to the refrigerator, wiping her hands on the apron she always wore in the kitchen.

  “Of course,” she told him cheerfully. “What can I get you?”

  “Anything,” Wyatt said. “Any of that stew you made last night still left?”

  “Absolutely,” Cris responded, reaching into the back of the fridge for the industrial pot with the leftovers in it. “Alex, you want some, too, while I’m at it?”

  Alex started to demur, but then her stomach picked that moment to rumble a protest rather loudly. Alex realized that she hadn’t had breakfast yet and here it was, past lunch. She might be less cranky if she had something besides coffee in her stomach.

  “Just a couple of bites,” she told Cris.

  Cris quickly heated the pot of stew while they watched awkwardly, without speaking, then filled two bowls and placed them on the countertop.

  “There you go. Why don’t you eat that in the dining room?” she suggested, nodding toward the swinging door and the room beyond it.

  Wyatt met her suggestion with a grin. “Are you trying to get rid of us?”

  “It’s just a nicer atmosphere in the dining room,” Cris responded.

  “I don’t need atmosphere,” Alex protested.

  Cris pretended she didn’t hear her. “Besides, you’re underfoot. The kitchen is only so large.”

  “I think we’re politely being thrown out,” Wyatt observed, picking up not only his bowl, but Alex’s, as well. He backed through the swinging door into the dining room. Holding it open with his shoulder, he glanced at Alex. “Coming?”

  “Well, as long as you’re holding my lunch hostage, I guess I have to,” she responded wryly.

  There was only one other table occupied at the moment. Although breakfast was included in the price of an overnight stay at the inn, lunch and dinner were not. Though Cris made a menu available for lunch and dinner, most guests preferred going out to enjoy the various diversions that San Diego had to offer.

  Wyatt sat after Alex took her seat. He began eating with relish. Neither one of them spoke for several minutes.

  But the silence began to wear on his nerves and Wyatt finally broke it by saying, “Looks like everything’s going smoothly.”

  Alex raised her eyes. “Were you expecting that it wouldn’t?”

  “That wasn’t a challenge, Alex,” he told her. “That was an attempt at a conversation.”

  “Oh. Okay,” she returned. “Glad you cleared that up for me. Yes, everything’s going smoothly so far.”

  He would have said, strictly based on their present exchange, that he and Alex were destined to never get along. Except that he knew better. There were times when they actually got along very well. So well that it started him thinking...until one or the other of them set off the competitive fireworks again.

  “I appreciate all the trouble you’re
going to.”

  “I’m not doing it for you, I’m doing it for my dad. I want to make this as easy for him as possible. And I also want to give Uncle Dan the send-off he deserves.” She paused. “Were you really serious about sticking around after the funeral?”

  He thought she’d understood. “I promised my father I would finish the book about the inn for him,” he repeated.

  “I get that,” she stressed. “But do you physically actually have to stay here at the inn while you write it?”

  “Why?” he asked, guessing at what was going through her mind. “Not looking forward to having me around for two months?”

  “Two months?” Alex echoed as if she’d just been told her prison sentence had doubled.

  Again, his expression was unreadable. She could only hope he was kidding. “Maybe longer. It takes time to write a book.”

  Two months—or more—of tripping over Wyatt. Of seeing him every day. Of trying not to react to him half a dozen times a day.... This was going to be worse than putting up with him one month in the summer. “But wouldn’t it be easier doing it in familiar surroundings?”

  “Ladera is like a second home to me, so it is a familiar surrounding,” he pointed out. “I know my way around here a lot better than I know my way around my place. I just bought the house six months ago.”

  “More like nine,” she absently corrected him.

  He stopped eating and looked at her in surprise. “How would you know that?”

  Alex bit her lower lip. She’d realized the mistake she’d made just as he had picked up on it. She tried to act nonchalant as she shrugged. “I saw a blurb about it in one of the Sunday real estate sections a while back. Seems that they were temporarily experiencing a shortage of real celebrities buying or selling their homes to write about so they had to lower their standards and use anyone they could come up with. That was the edition that had your house in it.”

  “All you had to say was that my dad told you about my new house when he was here a few weeks ago,” he said, laughing. “So you’ve been reading about me?”

  Alex bristled at his amusement, realizing that she wasn’t fooling him at all. “It’s not like I went looking for information about you, it was just there, staring me in the face. So I read it.”

  His grin was wide.

  “I see.”

  No, he didn’t, Alex thought, struggling to bank her annoyance. Wyatt was being smug—and it was her own fault. She’d walked right into it. When was she ever going to learn to think before she spoke?

  It was a shortcoming she was going to have to work on. Starting now.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AS SHE LEFT the dining room and began to head back to the reception area, Alex could hear someone ringing the bell on the front desk.

  Repeatedly.

  Had she not just left him behind at the dining room table, her first reaction would have been to think that Wyatt was trying to get her to hustle back. But, unless he’d learned how to move faster than the speed of light, it couldn’t have been Wyatt.

  Alex quickened her pace. Just what was so terribly important that it had prompted such a display of impatience?

  She was going to be glad when this funeral was finally behind her.

  For more reasons than one.

  Alex really didn’t like funerals, didn’t like the pain and the grief associated with them. The services, no matter how beautiful or heartfelt, were always hard on everyone.

  Approaching the reception desk, Alex slowed her pace. “Stacy?” she asked uncertainly. Even as she said the woman’s name, she silently upbraided herself. How could she have forgotten about Stacy arriving today?

  The brunette on the other side of the desk turned at the sound of her name. As attractive and perfectly made-up as ever, her college friend broke into a huge smile.

  “Alex!” she cried, hurrying to the other side of the desk, tottering ever so slightly in what looked like five-inch heels. “It’s really you! It’s been so long, I was beginning to think I made you up.”

  “Not possible. Nobody has that kind of an imagination,” Wyatt said dryly, walking in behind them.

  Stacy Thompson stopped midhug. As she took in the man behind them, Alex could tell that her friend’s female radar was instantly activated.

  “And who’s this?” she asked Alex, very openly and appreciatively staring at Wyatt.

  Good old Stacy, still true to her colors, Alex thought, and very much on the prowl. Stacy had always had an eye for good-looking men and, no matter what else Wyatt might be, she had to concede he really was a good-looking man.

  “Wyatt Taylor,” Alex said. Then, to forestall Stacy from making any moves, she added, “We’re holding funeral services for his father here tomorrow. His father was my dad’s best friend.” With that out of the way, she proceeded to make introductions. “Wyatt, this is Stacy Thompson. Stacy, Wyatt.”

  “Hi,” Wyatt said simply, sticking out his hand. Because of where he lived and worked, Wyatt could easily recognize a barracuda when he saw one.

  Stacy instantly took his hand in both of hers. Her eyes never left his. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I never had the good fortune to meet your father, but I’m sure he was a fine person.”

  There was nothing he disliked more than empty words, even though he knew that at a time like this, he would be hearing a lot of them from well-intentioned people.

  Still, he could resist answering the shapely brunette with a question. “What makes you say that?”

  She hesitated and looked first at Alex before explaining. “Well, if he wasn’t, there wouldn’t be so many cars in the parking lot.” She glanced at Alex a second time, and then a thought seemed to occur to her. “You didn’t give away my room, did you? Please tell me it’s still waiting for me.” Her friend’s sharp brown eyes gave Wyatt another once-over and her smile widened. “Although, I guess I could always bunk in with someone.” She turned on the full force of her smile. “Did you know that before the turn of the twentieth century, travelers used to share their hotel room—and their bed—with total strangers while journeying out west? It was because there were so few places for them to stay.”

  “Still studying history, I see,” Alex replied. History and marketing were the two subjects Stacy had studied when they’d been at the University of San Diego. But her real major had been men. Alex had always admired the other woman’s frank honesty in her appreciation of the opposite sex. “Your room is still empty and waiting for you,” she said with a knowing smile.

  Stacy looked pointedly at Wyatt. “Maybe some other time, then,” she murmured. She turned back to Alex. “Can you really put all these people up? I know you told me that your dad was expanding the inn, but it doesn’t look all that much bigger since the last time I saw it.”

  “We’ve added four more rooms since then.” And the plans for the next four were now officially on hold until she found someone to replace J. D. Clarke, the general contractor she’d fired yesterday.

  “Just four?” Stacy frowned. “Then how are you going to accommodate all these people?”

  “We’re not,” Alex replied simply. “Most of them are just stopping here to find out about the service. I’m referring them to the Fairmont.”

  Stacy laughed as she shook her head. “You always were a Girl Scout.”

  It was Alex’s turn to laugh. “As I remember, that’s Stacy-speak for boring pushover.”

  Stacy winced ever so slightly. “You really do have too good a memory. Like an elephant,” she said in an aside to Wyatt. “She remembers every flaw, every embarrassing moment.”

  The last thing she wanted was for Stacy to begin rattling off episodes from their college years in front of Wyatt.

  “We can catch up later,” Alex told her quickly. She came around the desk arm in arm with the other woman to where she’d dropped her suitcase. “Why don’t I take you to your room and you can settle in?” she suggested brightly.

  “That’s okay, I’ve got it,” Wyatt told he
r, picking up Stacy’s suitcase before she had a chance to. Behind them, the front door opened and then closed as several more people came in. “Which room?” he asked.

  She would have rather she’d taken Stacy to her room while he dealt with the new guests, but she didn’t protest. She didn’t want to shirk her duties or even—knowing how Wyatt’s mind worked—appear to be, of all things, territorial when it came to him. So she relinquished her friend’s arm, handing Stacy over to Wyatt.

  “I have Stacy in the Queen Victoria Room,” she told Wyatt. It’s a very good thing she hadn’t accidentally double-booked the room when she’d forgotten Stacy was coming. “That’s the third one on—”

  “I know where it is.” Wyatt gave Stacy an easy smile. “After spending close to twenty summers here, I do know the layout.”

  “You lived here?” Stacy asked, clearly ready to hang on his every word.

  “No, I visited here,” he corrected her. “Every summer. With my dad.”

  She hooked her arm through his. Without breaking eye contact, her attention riveted to him, they walked out of the reception area.

  “Oh,” Alex heard her friend exclaim sympathetically. “Then his passing must be even more painful for you, since this is the beginning of summer and all....”

  Alex didn’t hear his answer. They had moved out of earshot.

  Just as well, she told herself. The only problem was, she wasn’t buying what she was selling.

  “Miss,” the tall, heavyset man on the other side of the desk said.

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” she apologized, pulling herself together. “What can I do for you, sir?” She smiled first at the man and then at the woman he was with.

  He looked down at the crumpled paper he’d pulled out of his pocket, then back at her again. “I’m not sure we’re in the right place, but we’re in town for the funeral of an old friend tomorrow—”

  “Oh, you’re in the right place,” Alex assured them, doing her best to put the couple at ease. She pulled over the list of names Wyatt had given her. She’d rewritten them in alphabetical order. “If you could just give me your names...?”