Innkeeper's Daughter

by Marie Ferrarella

  If he couldn’t touch it, he couldn’t trust it.

  “I thought I’d go through the people on that list and find someone to start vetting so that we can get rolling on that addition you want.”

  He was still standing and looked down at her now. He’d caught something in her voice when she’d said that. “And you don’t?”

  Alex shrugged, avoiding looking into his eyes. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Sometimes,” he told her thoughtfully, “it’s what a person doesn’t say that’s more telling than what she does say.” And, he decided, there was no time like the present to straighten things out. “You never told me what you thought about the idea of putting another addition on the inn.”

  Alex shrugged, still avoiding his eyes. “You never asked me.”

  He laughed, which caused her to look up quickly. How could she have missed seeing the humor in what she’d just said? “Since when do I have to ask you your opinion on anything?” he demanded, still laughing. “You’ve always been more than generous about dispensing that opinion before. To anyone with ears.”

  Alex’s mouth curved ever so slightly. “Well, since you asked—”

  “I did,” he confirmed with a quick nod of his head.

  “I don’t like things changing,” she finally admitted.

  Her father smiled. “I already know that,” he told her kindly. “But sometimes, things change whether we want them to or not. Take kids, for instance,” he said. “The four of you grew up, even though I would have loved to keep those sweet, obedient little girls I had for a while longer.”

  “We were never obedient,” Alex reminded him. “A Mrs. Abernathy, if I recall correctly, once asked you why you were raising four wild Indians.”

  He remembered the incident. “And I asked her to leave and she did.”

  “Without paying you.” She’d been too young to remember that on her own, but Uncle Dan had told her that part. Told the story more than once, as well, so that it remained vivid in her mind.

  “It was worth it just to get rid of her. No one insulted my girls and got away with it.”

  “If we hadn’t chosen to stay on,” Alex said, “who would have helped you with the inn?”

  “My point exactly,” he declared, leaning forward. “Everything changes, you just have to find the good in that and focus on it, not on the change itself. We need that addition,” he told her, then explained why he thought so. “Business has picked up. We’ve had to turn away people calling in to make reservations.”

  “Some of them rescheduled.”

  “And some went to another bed-and-breakfast,” he countered. “Every guest we can’t accommodate is one we risk losing permanently.”

  He was right and she knew it. And, she assumed, as with all the other additions, once it was completed, it would look lovely—as long as there were no new, outlandish ideas implemented by an unpredictable contractor like the one she’d fired.

  “And that’s why I’m here, ready to start vetting them. If I ever find that list,” she added with just a touch of exasperation. “Where did you put it?”

  Rather than say anything, her father crossed to the stand he’d purchased to accommodate the printer.

  He opened the drawer that held the extra paper and took out a manila folder. The folder was slightly mangled from the tight fit.

  He deposited the folder in the middle of his desk. “I believe this is what you’re looking for.”

  Alex flipped it open. There were several pages of names and addresses plus phone numbers.

  “Okay, I’ll input all these into the computer—so we won’t lose the list,” she commented.

  “I didn’t lose it,” he protested. “I knew exactly where it was.” His tone told her he was confident she couldn’t even begin to challenge him about that.

  She sighed. “Okay, so that I can always find it easily when I need it. Who knows, I might decide I want a whole bunch of new additions put on the inn.” She saw the expression on his face. “Stranger things have happened.”

  He wasn’t about to get into a long discussion over that. Alex had a gift for winning arguments.

  “I suppose maybe they have.” He deftly switched subjects. “Has Wyatt interviewed you yet about the inn?”

  “No. I’m getting the feeling that Ms. Carlyle’s got a lot more stories about this inn than I thought. I guess Wyatt must feel as if he struck gold.”

  Her father nodded. “Then he should be very grateful to you. That was a good idea, getting the two of them together.”

  Since she hadn’t told her father that it was her idea to bring Wyatt together with the woman, and since Ms. Carlyle ordinarily wasn’t the type to volunteer information unless specifically asked, Alex was rather surprised that her father knew she was the one who had initially orchestrated the interview sessions.

  “Ms. Carlyle told you I brought Wyatt to her?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “Wyatt did.”

  That was even more surprising. She would have never thought that Wyatt would give her credit for anything.

  And then it occurred to her how the topic might have come up. “You asked him how he was doing, didn’t you?” she guessed. “And instead of telling you about how he was dealing with his father’s death, he started talking about writing the book instead.” Alex smiled. That was so typical of him, worrying about the people he cared about. “Wyatt’s lucky to have you, Dad. I hope he realizes that.”

  Richard looked at his firstborn, puzzled by her strange phraseology. “Excuse me?”

  “Well, he lost his biological father, but his spare is alive and well,” she said. “That has to be comforting to him.”

  Richard had a feeling that this wasn’t just a flippant remark on his daughter’s part. It went far deeper than that. He thought he’d already reassured her that she and her sisters came first in his heart and he didn’t need a son to fill some missing hole she imagined in his life.

  “I care about Wyatt because he’s my best friend’s son,” he said. “I’m not his ‘spare’ father, Alex. I told you that.”

  “It’s only natural that Wyatt think of you as a spare—a second—father if you will,” she amended. “And it’s all good, because no matter what you said the other day, Wyatt takes the place of the son you cannot deny you’ve always wanted.”

  Was she still hung up on that? Just what did it take to convince her that, as intelligent as she was, this time she was dead wrong?

  “Alex, I never wanted a son. Certainly not in place of you and your sisters.”

  “Every man does. Unfortunately, Mom kept popping out girls, so you did the next best thing. You gave us boys’ nicknames.”

  She’d said that to him earlier.... Was that it? Was that where it had started? he wondered. With something so simple and insignificant? And so incorrect? “No, that was your mother’s idea,” he corrected. “The nicknames were all her idea.”

  “Mom picked feminine names for us,” Alex said. “She told me that.”

  “That, too.” He could see that Alex needed more convincing. “Your mother always liked very feminine-sounding names that lent themselves to boys’ nicknames. She got a kick out of it—just be happy I was there to deflect her when she wanted to call you Henri.”

  Alex rolled the name over in her head and shrugged. “Henri’s not bad.”

  She watched the corners of her father’s mouth curve in amusement. “How would you have felt about your teachers calling you Henrietta?”

  “Henrietta?” she echoed, cringing. She could just hear what the kids in school would have made out of the name, teasing her mercilessly—until she flattened them. “Thank you for saving me.”

  Her father grinned and inclined his head. “You’re welcome.” And then he glanced at the folder, pulling it closer. “Tell you what. I’ll go through the list first, narrow it down, then have you complete the vetting on the top three choices. We’ll do the interviews together before I sign on with anyone.”

  A
lex was about to say that he didn’t have to go through all that, that she could handle it all for him. But she caught herself just in time. She had to remember to curb her tendency to take over like that.

  Alex flashed him a smile. “Sounds like a plan to me, Dad.”

  * * *

  A WEEK LATER they wound up going with a man who not only had excellent references and who they both could enthusiastically agree on, but the general contractor was also someone who coincidentally met with Cris’s approval, as well.

  It turned out that the man they hired, Shane McCallister, was also the older brother of one of Cris’s friends who she’d gone to school with.

  After the deal was finalized and both a fee and a time frame were agreed upon, Richard invited Shane to have lunch with them. He agreed after confiding that he was rather curious to find out just how good a chef Cris had turned out to be.

  “Back when she used to hang out with my sister, her idea of preparing a hot meal was having a pizza delivered.”

  “She’s come a long way since then,” Richard told him proudly.

  Rather than send out one of the inn’s employees who doubled as a server during mealtime, Cris brought out the food she’d prepared herself.

  The pleased look on Shane’s face was not lost on either Alex or her father.

  “Why don’t you sit down for a few minutes, Cris?” Richard suggested. “Join us.”

  She begged off. “Can’t. But I can bring you my special dessert later.”

  “Looking forward to it,” Shane said.

  When Cris returned a little while later, the tray she was carrying held four desserts, not three. Placing one in front of each of them, she took the last one herself and sat at the table with them.

  Alex caught her sister watching Shane with hooded eyes to see if he liked her version of Baked Alaska. When he told her as much, saying it with unabashed pleasure in between bites, Cris made no effort to hide the smile that rose to her lips.

  * * *

  “YOU KNOW,” ALEX commented after Shane had left and she and her father went back to his office to file away the signed contract, “I don’t think I’ve seen Cris smile like that since...well...since before Mike went into the service.”

  It had been a long, painful time for her sister. The adjustment to being a widow and a single mom had not been easy for her, even with all the emotional support they’d given her.

  Alex looked at her father and added, “I think that hiring Shane might turn out to be not just good for the inn, but good for our resident chef, too.”

  “That would be an answer to a prayer,” her father agreed wholeheartedly, then amended, “Or to at least one of them.”

  About to leave, Alex stared at her father, trying to understand what he’d just told her. “You’ve been praying for a man to come in and sweep Cris off her feet?”

  “Yes. Why is that so strange?” he asked when he saw the confused look on her face. “Every father wants someone special to come into his little girl’s life and take care of her.”

  But that wasn’t what had really caught her attention. Alex narrowed her eyes, hoping she had misunderstood his meaning. “What did you mean by ‘to at least one of them’? Just what else do you pray for?”

  “Health, happiness...” Richard’s voice trailed off as he raised his shoulder in a vague shrug. “I’ll leave the rest of it up to you to figure out.”

  She’d already figured it out—and was hoping she was wrong. “Stevi and Andy are too young to get married.”

  The father in him agreed. “Your mother was younger.”

  “You don’t—” About to protest that times had changed and her sisters were far too young to be as old as her mother had been—in maturity—when something else suddenly hit her. “You...you don’t actually mean that you pray for some guy to come stomping in and drag me off with him, do you?”

  Richard laughed, shaking his head at the description. That couldn’t possibly be Alex’s definition of being swept off her feet.

  “Definitely not. Those words would never come into any of my prayers,” he assured her. And then he paused for a moment, debating whether or not to say anything further. He was still trying to decide when a single word slipped past his lips. “But...”

  “But?” Alex echoed.

  “But I do worry about you. You spend too much of your time working, Alex. You should be out, having fun. Mingling.”

  It was not an unfamiliar refrain. They’d been through this before—periodically.

  “I mingle just fine right here, Dad. And I am having fun.” She capsulated her life for him, going over all the main elements that were important to her. “Working here at the inn, meeting different people from all walks of life, hanging out with my family, being part of the inn’s long history—this is my idea of fun.”

  Alex glanced at her watch. It was time for her to make a tactical exit before her father came up with anything more.

  “So please, stop worrying, Dad.” She brushed a quick kiss against his cheek. “My life is good—no, make that great,” she corrected. “And I have absolutely no complaints.”

  “But you will, Alex,” Richard said quietly as she shut the office door behind her. “Someday, years from now, you will.”

  And hoping that it would turn out otherwise just wasn’t enough.

  But all he could do was set things up—which he had.

  He crossed his fingers and hoped that things would go according to plan.

  The plan that Dan had come up with four months ago.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SHE WAS GOING out of her way and she knew it, Alex thought hours later.

  Her room wasn’t located on this side of the inn. It was actually in the exact opposite direction and if she was truly calling it a day as she’d told her father she was when she closed down the reception area for the night, she would not have taken this very roundabout path. A path that took her by the dining room and the parlor, as well as allowed her to glance outside along the longest expanse of the veranda.

  Although the kitchen was no longer serving meals, the dining room was still open for guests who wanted a place to simply sit and talk, who preferred doing it in a homier setting than the formal parlor.

  But there was no one in either place. The guests registered at the inn were either in their rooms for the night, or had gone out for the evening and hadn’t returned yet. In any case, all three areas, the dining room, the parlor and the reception alcove, not to mention the veranda, were devoid of people.

  That, in this particular case, really piqued her curiosity. Where was Wyatt? Their paths hadn’t really crossed for a couple of days now, other than her seeing him at a distance.

  And on those occasions, he was with Ms. Carlyle, who at this point had to be setting some sort of a world record when it came to meandering down memory lane. It had been two weeks now since he began interviewing her!

  However, tonight she’d seen the older woman retire early. Which Alex took to mean that Wyatt would be looking for his next culprit to interview for his book.

  But he hadn’t come looking for her.

  That’s a good thing, right? Alex asked herself.

  But if it was such a good thing, why did she feel so antsy? Why was there this restlessness inside her, as if there was something just holding its breath, waiting for Wyatt to make some sort of a move?

  In a way, it was like waiting for the other shoe to fall, only to discover that for some reason the other shoe had been attached to her foot with superglue and wasn’t going to fall for a very long time. Most likely when she least expected it.

  So here she was, checking around the main house, looking for a man she kept telling herself she didn’t want to see.

  And that was when Alex abruptly stopped, realizing that in her preoccupied state, her journey had brought her right up to Wyatt’s door.

  Turn around and go back! she ordered herself. If she lingered here even for a second and Wyatt should happen to open the door, s
he was never going to be able to live it down. She knew him. He’d razz her to the end about her stalking him—or something equally as insulting.

  Alex turned on her heel when she heard it.

  Heard laughter. Female laughter.

  A scowl slipped over her delicate features. The laughter she heard was coming from Wyatt’s room.

  He wasn’t supposed to have a woman in his room.

  Granted, it wasn’t anything that was written down, but it was definitely understood. If you checked in as a single occupancy, you remained a single occupancy.

  She stood at the door, wavering for a moment and telling herself to just move on. This was none of her business and had she not gone in the most roundabout route to her own room, she wouldn’t have even been aware of this.

  Leaning in more closely to the door, she heard it again. That was definitely a woman laughing. Most likely some woman fawning all over Wyatt.

  That in turn reminded her of the kind of wild social life he was reported to lead, according to some of the online blogs and newspapers that she’d read.

  Alex blew out a breath. For a while there, with everything that had been going on, for the sorrow he’d obviously been going through, she’d temporarily forgotten about that. Forgotten about the fact that Wyatt was purportedly a playboy who changed women as often as some men changed socks.

  She continued to stand, staring at the door. Wyatt deserved to be confronted. And embarrassed, she told herself, making up her mind then and there.

  She knocked on his door.

  Hard.

  The door didn’t open immediately. Was he stuffing his lady friend into a closet? Or maybe out the window? After all, he was on the ground floor. It wasn’t all that difficult getting rid of evidence.

  She was about to knock again, even more forcefully this time, when the door suddenly swung open. Without a surface for her knuckles to make contact with, she was thrown off balance.

  Just like that, Alex found herself pitching forward.