Innkeeper's Daughter

by Marie Ferrarella

  He didn’t have an ego the way Alex had repeatedly accused him of having over the years, but what he did have was pride. Pride that did not wear humiliation very well. He didn’t want to risk having her humiliate him.

  He knew how to read other women’s signals, other women’s vibes. But though he’d known Alex longer than he’d known any other woman in his life, he just couldn’t read her. He had never quite been able to figure out what was going on in her head. Alex had always been, and most likely would always be, an enigma for him.

  So Wyatt backed away, suppressing the very real, very strong desire to brush his lips against hers, to hold her in his arms for some reason other than to restrain her from taking a swing at him.

  Getting himself back under control, he took a breath, then said, nodding at the garbage bag he’d dropped at his feet, “I’d better get back to work.”

  “I was just going to suggest you go on inside.” Alex slowly looked around the grounds. They had managed, in a very short time, to pick up most everything. “We seem to have made a pretty good dent,” she attested. Then, looking up at the sky, she added, “And there seems to be a fog rolling in.”

  Wyatt was amused by the excuse she’d resorted to. The woman was really clutching at straws. Maybe she wouldn’t have pulled away if he’d kissed her, at that.

  But for now, the moment was gone and he wasn’t about to pursue it.

  “I thought that was a problem only if you were a ship,” he commented.

  What was wrong with her? Instead of getting annoyed at what she heard as mockery, she felt her cheeks heating and found herself being grateful for the cover of darkness. Otherwise, he would have seen how very pink her cheeks were becoming. He would have undoubtedly made some comment about that and make a bad situation that much worse.

  “If it gets too thick, it hampers visibility,” she informed him coolly. “I wouldn’t want to stumble over you.”

  He looked at her for a long moment—as if he knew she was just flailing around, saying the first thing that came to her mind.

  What was wrong with her? she silently demanded again, exasperated with herself.

  “So you’re stopping?” Wyatt questioned, his tone saying he didn’t believe the excuse she’d just come up with.

  She hadn’t wanted to, but stopping was better than being out here in the dark with him—feeling more vulnerable than she ever had before. So she reluctantly said, “I’m stopping.”

  Wyatt inclined his head, his eyes never leaving hers. “Works for me.” Garbage bag in hand, he walked over to the back of the tent and deposited it beside the ones that were already there. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he told her as he walked by her again, toward the inn.

  “You’ll be seeing Ms. Carlyle in the morning,” she corrected him.

  That stopped him in his tracks. “And that means what? That I can only see one or the other? Either Ms. Carlyle or you? You’re not one and the same person, Alex. I’ve seen you standing next to the woman, so I know it’s possible to see you both.”

  Growing up, she was the one who was always able to fluster him. Why—and how—had the tables suddenly been turned?

  Alex struggled hard, determined not to let him suspect what was going on inside her. If he even suspected that she was anything but the cool, collected image she’d been projecting for most of her life, he’d find a way to taunt her about it. She could help him during his time of grief but she was not about to allow him to perceive anything but strength coming from her.

  “No, wise guy, what I was saying was that your first interview with Ms. Carlyle will be taking up most of your time tomorrow.”

  “Maybe so.” Though he doubted it. The woman might have come across as feisty, but she was also rather frail. He didn’t want to tire her out. Getting information out of her was undoubtedly going to be a long, slow, drawn-out process. But he had a hunch it would be more than worth it. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t see you, as well, if only hovering around somewhere in the background.”

  “I don’t hover,” she emphasized. Her expression dared him to say otherwise. “Time to go in,” she announced, not wanting the moment to devolve into an exchange of sharp, choice words.

  Especially not tonight, not after having laid Uncle Dan to rest earlier in the day. It seemed disrespectful to the man’s memory to tell his son he was an opinionated idiot. She’d save that for some future argument since she knew that if Wyatt was anywhere around her, there would definitely be future arguments.

  “Funny,” Wyatt said, looking directly at her, “I was just thinking the very same thing. Time to go in,” he echoed.

  Alex realized that her mouth had gone dry and that queasy feeling she’d been experiencing was intensifying rather than abating.

  She said nothing as she moved swiftly toward the house.

  * * *

  “SO, DO I FINALLY get you all to myself before I have to check out, or is there some planet that needs saving that only you can reach?”

  Alex had gotten up early and was having breakfast alone in the dining room. She hadn’t expected Stacy to be up yet, let alone dressed.

  The woman slid into the chair opposite her. Reaching across the table, Stacy helped herself to Alex’s coffee cup and took a sip before putting it back down. “When we were in college together, I had no idea I was associating with a superheroine who bent steel with her bare hands while juggling a thousand details at the same time.”

  Stacy laughed and shook her head, reaching for the cup again.

  “Really, I thought that my job kept me hopping.” This sip was longer and she paused to relish the hot coffee. “I’m sitting on some island beach sipping mai tais, in comparison to you. How do you do it?” Stacy truly wanted to know. “How do you keep all those balls in the air without dropping one or going crazy?”

  Alex shrugged. It wasn’t something she actively thought about.

  “I just do whatever needs to be done, that’s all,” she replied. Reclaiming her cup, Alex took a sip before the coffee was all gone. Then she rose and went to the sideboard where Cris had put out a thermos of coffee to keep it hot. She poured Stacy a cup and topped hers, returning to her seat with them. “And right now, what needs to be done is for the two us to go somewhere, do a little shopping and finally catch up.”

  Stacy splayed her hand over her chest and pretended to look shocked before grasping the hot mug in her hands. “Do you think the inn can do without you for a few hours?”

  “Most definitely,” Alex answered without hesitation. “My father all but said he was throwing me out today. I’m all yours.” She flashed a smile at her friend. And because she detected a bit of skepticism coming from Stacy, Alex added, “Really,” with feeling.

  “And what about that hot man?” Stacy asked, dropping her voice a sultry octave or two. “Can he do without you, too?”

  Alex knew there was absolutely no point in pretending that she didn’t know who Stacy was talking about, otherwise she would have. But Stacy would only keep coming up with trite adjectives to describe him until she acknowledged Wyatt.

  “Wyatt’s busy today, doing research.”

  A rather smoldering expression bordering on wicked came over Stacy’s face. “Is that a euphemism for...?”

  It was hard to keep from rolling her eyes, but Alex managed to refrain only because Stacy was her friend. “That’s not a euphemism for anything, Stacy. Wyatt is actually doing research today.” That he was actually keeping his word to his father was to his credit, not that she would say as much to him. “Right now, he’s interviewing Ms. Carlyle.”

  Alex could see that Stacy’s brain was going into overdrive. “Well, if he’d like to interview me next about my stay here, I’d be more than willing to bare my soul to him—and anything else he might want me to bare.” Her grin just kept growing. “Seeing as how you said you weren’t interested in him,” Stacy concluded, looking at her pointedly. “Or are you?”

  “What I’m interested in right now,”
Alex told her pleasantly, finishing her breakfast, “is spending an afternoon with you. I’m sure we’ll need an entire afternoon just to begin to catch up.”

  Stacy grinned broadly. “Oh, honey, you have no idea. Get ready to have your ears talked off.”

  * * *

  DESPITE THE FACT that Stacy did monopolize about ninety percent of the conversation that afternoon as well as most of their time together the following day, the time, Alex felt, seemed to go by much too quickly. Before she knew it, it was time for Stacy to check out of the inn and go back home.

  “We have to do this again sometime,” Stacy told her, lingering at the reception desk. She was waiting for the cab she had called to arrive and take her to the airport. “Except next time, maybe we can do it without the funeral—”

  “And without the corporate emergency,” Alex added, reminding Stacy that she was the one cutting her vacation even shorter by two days because of the phone call she’d received from her direct supervisor.

  “Touché,” Stacy conceded. “Still, we did have fun, didn’t we?”

  It wasn’t really a question, but Alex could sense that her friend needed to hear the sentiment reinforced. “We always do,” Alex reminded her.

  Stacy caught her lower lip between her teeth, hesitating for a moment before she made the next admission. “Truth be told, I kind of envy you.”

  Alex was caught off guard by that admission.

  She would have thought, if anything, Stacy would have said something about feeling sorry for her. She was fairly confident that Stacy perceived her as being stuck, working in a position where the end goal was not advancement and perks.

  “Okay, I’m braced,” Alex announced. “So, go ahead. Out with it.”

  “Braced?” Stacy asked, not following her again. “Why?”

  “Because,” Alex explained patiently, “the Stacy I know and love would have looked at what I do and think of it as more or less a death sentence.”

  “Good point,” Stacy agreed. “But that was before.”

  “Before?”

  Stacy nodded. “Before hopping on a jet at a moment’s notice started getting a little old,” she admitted. “Before one relationship after another fell through for me because I had to keep breaking dates and backing out of plans because of these last-minute emergency calls to duty I’d receive.”

  Alex looked down at the guest book between them on the desk, fiddling with the open page.

  “Guys are patient only up to a point before they start resenting coming in second behind a career. Meanwhile, you don’t have to try to remember what city—or what country—you’re in when you wake up in the morning. And you don’t have to try to remember what time zone you’re in so you can make a call and not disturb the person you’re calling. You know that when you wake up, you’ll be exactly in the same place you woke up yesterday.”

  The smile she’d been forcing faded a little from her lips.

  “You get to save the day and be told that you did a good job,” she added wistfully. “I saw the way your father looked at you at the reception. It was all right there in his eyes, how proud he was of you. People depend on you—”

  “They depend on you, too,” Alex was quick to point out.

  “Yes, but when I come through, no one says anything. It’s expected of me. I’m supposed to come through—and the second I don’t come through, someone else will be put in my place. If I want to hear praise or gratitude, I have to record it myself and then play it back. There’re just no emotional rewards in my line of work.”

  Alex had never seen her friend quite so down. She didn’t want Stacy leaving like this. That was no way to end a vacation, even a “power” vacation.

  “That salary of yours has to be a pretty good size,” Alex reminded her.

  “Oh, it is,” Stacy agreed, but it was obviously not enough. “But money doesn’t always fill the hole that’s inside. Still,” she went on, allowing herself to be rallied a little, “I can buy myself some really nice trinkets to soothe the pain.”

  Alex looked at the gold bracelet Stacy was wearing on her right wrist. The morning sun was reflecting off the bracelet’s intricate weave.

  “And that is one really nice trinket,” Alex said appreciatively.

  She grinned again. “It is, at that.” Leaving her purse on the counter, Stacy rounded the desk and threw her arms around Alex. “We didn’t get nearly enough time together,” she lamented, hugging Alex as hard as she could.

  “Next time.”

  “Next time,” Stacy agreed.

  They both knew that if Stacy remained in her present position, “next time” would be a very long time in coming. And when it did, she, Alex, might be up to her neck at the inn.

  But Alex firmly believed that promises were good for the soul. They kept a person going.

  The sound of a horn broke the still morning air.

  “Well, that’s my taxi,” Stacy announced, releasing Alex. Moving back around to the front of the desk, she grasped the handle of her suitcase.

  Alex came around to stand beside her. “Still wish you’d let me drive you to the airport.” She looked toward the front door. She could still dismiss the cabbie and take Stacy to the airport herself.

  But Stacy shook her head. “You’re needed here, Alex. Besides, I really hate to cry in airports. This is much better,” she said, pausing a last time to give Alex a final, one-armed hug. “Tell your dad I appreciate the lovely room, but he’s never going to make ‘Fortune 500’ by giving away rooms.”

  Alex laughed, shaking her head. Her father didn’t even own a copy of that magazine, much less read it. “I don’t think my dad’s really interested in getting into ‘Fortune 500,’ he just likes extending his own brand of hospitality.”

  Stacy was a bit more pragmatic in her take on things. “It’s harder to be hospitable if there’s not enough money to cover the costs of the fresh groceries needed to make breakfast.”

  “There always will be enough money to cover breakfast,” Alex told her with confidence.

  “Because you’ll see to it,” Stacy said knowingly.

  “You’d better get out there before the cabbie up and leaves you here.”

  “Then I’d take you up on your offer to get me to the airport.” Stacy grasped the handle of her suitcase one more time. “Make my goodbyes to the rest of your family and tell Dorothy that if she ever gets tired of working at the inn, I’ve got a place for her with me.”

  And with that, Stacy hurried out, pulling her suitcase in her wake.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  WHEN SHE HAD GOTTEN the two of them together, Alex had assumed that Wyatt’s interviews with Ms. Carlyle would last an hour or maybe even two and take a couple of days. Perhaps three.

  She certainly hadn’t believed the woman remembered enough stories for these interviews Wyatt was conducting to continue past a week.

  And the sessions didn’t just go on for an hour or two. From what she could ascertain, the interviews went on all day long.

  Had she not known the circumstances behind the sessions—and the two people involved in them—she would have thought she was witnessing a wealthy dowager vacationing with her much younger paramour. Whenever she ran into Wyatt and Ms. Carlyle in the dining room, on the veranda, strolling—actually strolling—through the flower gardens that surrounded the front of the inn, Wyatt appeared to be hanging on Ms. Carlyle’s every word.

  She’d known the older woman all of her life and Alex could not recall ever seeing her look so alive.

  Initially, Alex had assumed that once Wyatt had gotten as much information about the inn’s history as he could from their resident senior citizen, that she would be next on his list. Although, now she thought about it, why would she think that when her dad had more perspective on the inn to share...? Still, she’d braced herself to be cornered and followed around for several exceptionally long, excruciating days.

  But she’d braced herself each morning for no reason. Because, from the look
s of it, Wyatt didn’t appear to be anywhere near finished questioning Ms. Carlyle.

  After more than a week had gone by, Alex stopped bracing in anticipation of meeting with the writer.

  Once she’d decided that it was going to be a while before Wyatt would even get to her and start picking her brain, Alex was surprised to discover that rather than relief, what she actually felt was an annoying sense of disappointment.

  It wasn’t as if she was actually looking forward to having Wyatt dog her every move, throwing her normal workday into absolute chaos.

  No. What she was experiencing, Alex finally decided, was just disappointment that she couldn’t put the ordeal behind her yet.

  That was her story and she was sticking to it.

  And for all intents and purposes, from what she’d picked up as she passed by their table at breakfast this morning—was he taking all of his meals with this woman now?—Wyatt and Ms. Carlyle weren’t anywhere near the home stretch yet.

  Which meant that Wyatt was out of her hair.

  He hadn’t even been in her hair yet. That was reason enough for her to be very happy.

  So why wasn’t she?

  Annoyed, Alex deliberately focused her attention on her regular duties. In addition, she reminded herself that she also had to begin the search for a general contractor. At the very least, the roof had to be repaired.

  “Can I help you find something?” Richard asked, addressing the top of Alex’s head. She was so completely engrossed in searching through the side drawers of his desk, she mustn’t have heard him come in.

  Alex was perched on the edge of her dad’s custom-ordered office chair. The thing was too comfortable, she lamented. Her mind had wandered again. She wasn’t used to this, operating at less than her usual hundred and ten percent.

  She cleared her throat as she looked up at him. “I’m looking for that list you said you had. The list of general contractors,” she added.

  Although her father owned one of the newest computers on the market and that computer was currently sitting on his desk, he rarely used it for more than just a giant, glorified paperweight. He’d always preferred keeping things in physical files he could see and touch rather than ones comprised of megabytes and changeable fonts, existing in the virtual world.