Innkeeper's Daughter. Marie Ferrarella

ten.”

      “Okay, ten,” Cris acknowledged. “So? What’s the problem?”

      Alex looked at her sister for a long moment. Didn’t Cris think she would have gone back to the other man if that had actually been an option? “Other than the fact that he’s dead, nothing.”

      “Dead?” Cris echoed in surprise. “When did that happen?”

      “Around the same time he stopped breathing, I imagine. Give or take,” Alex replied in the calm voice she used when she was trying to remove herself from a situation. Situations that usually only involved her sisters and came from being one of four kids. Growing up fighting to get an edge over the other three.

      She expected her father to say something to rein her in, but he didn’t. She found that a little odd.

      “Very funny,” Cris retorted, her expression indicating that was exactly what she didn’t think it was.

      Alex ignored her. “Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll find us another general contractor. One who listens to what the inn is trying to say.”

      Richard laughed shortly, but there was no humor in the sound. Alex picked up on it instantly.

      “I’d settle for a contractor who doesn’t charge an arm and a leg,” her father said.

      “No body limbs, just reasonable rates. Got it,” Alex promised with a wink.

      Cris glanced at the oversize watch on her wrist. It was large and bulky and made her seem even smaller and more fragile than she was. The only time she ever took it off was when she showered.

      The watch chastened Alex and she regretted what she’d said to Cris. The watch had belonged to Mike. It was the last thing he’d given her before he’d left, saying that every time she looked at it, she should think of him and know that he was that much closer to coming home.

      Except that he wasn’t and he didn’t.

      Mike’s unit had been called up and, just like that, he had been deployed to Iraq. He’d been there less than a week when a roadside bomb took him away from her permanently.

      He’d died before he’d ever been able to hold his newborn son in his arms.

      “Looks like I’m out of time,” Cris murmured. She raised her deep blue eyes to look at Alex. “Looks like you get your wish, big sister. I’m out of here.”

      “No, wait.” Richard held up his hand like an old-fashioned policeman charged with directing the flow of traffic.

      “Sure,” Cris answered after exchanging a look with Alex. Alex saw by her sister’s expression that Cris had no more of a clue what was going on than she did. “Carlos can watch Ricky a few more minutes,” she said, referring to the busboy who also helped out in the kitchen when things got a little too hectic at the inn. “What’s up, Dad?”

      “I came in to tell you girls that...” Richard hesitated and Alex could see that whatever was on his mind was not a subject he found easy to talk about.

      “Well, I’ve got beds to make,” Dorothy said to no one in particular, turning to leave the reception area. She clearly assumed that whatever their dad had to say was intended only for his family.

      But she’d assumed wrong.

      “Stay, please, Dorothy,” Richard requested. “This concerns you, too.”

      “Of course, sir,” Dorothy said politely, staying where she was.

      An uneasy feeling feathered through Alex. “Okay, now you’re scaring me, Dad,” she told him.

      This was the way she’d discovered her father was ill all those years ago. Fortunately his lung cancer was still in the early stages when it had been detected and she had done the research to find an excellent physician who was able to halt the progression of the disease and eventually get her father back on his feet.

      “What’s wrong?” Alex pressed, wanting him to get the information out now.

      “Are you ill, Mr. Roman?” Dorothy asked, in concern and compassion.

      “Dad?” Cris only uttered the single word, obviously too fearful to say any more. Probably, thought Alex, too afraid that if she said anything more out loud, it would come into being.

      Apparently realizing how his request for their attention must have sounded to them, Richard was quick to set their minds at ease, at least about this one point.

      “Oh, no, this doesn’t have anything to do with me. At least, not in the way you might think. Although...”

      As long as her father’s cancer hadn’t returned, she could handle anything else, Alex thought. Rolling her eyes dramatically, she said, “Dad, you are really, really bad at breaking news to people, you know that?” She shook her head. “C’mon, out with it.”

      He suddenly turned to Cris and asked, “Are Stephanie and Andrea around? If it’s all the same with you, I’d really rather only have to say this once.”

      “Okay, back to being scared,” Alex announced, trying to keep the situation light even though she was filled with a sense of foreboding and dread.

      “I’ll go find them,” Dorothy volunteered.

      But Alex was already on the inn’s conference line, calling both her younger sisters’ cell phones—something neither girl was ever without except, possibly, in the shower and not always then. She was convinced that Andy was hermetically sealed to hers.

      “Stevi, Andy, Dad wants to see us at the reception desk. Now.” It wasn’t a request, it was an order, issued with an undercurrent of fear.

      “Anyone ever tell you you make a great dictator?” Cris asked mildly.

      Ordinarily that might have sparked an exchange that bordered on the lively, but right now, Alex paid no attention to her sister. She was focused on her father, to the exclusion of everything else.

      “Do we get a hint, Dad? A glimmer of a coming attraction while we’re waiting for the two divas to show up?” she prompted.

      “It’s not about me, I promise,” Richard told her with what she assumed was his attempt at a reassuring smile. It didn’t work.

      “Or the inn?” Alex asked, watching her father’s face. Family was exceedingly important to her, but the inn was a close second.

      The next moment she told herself that it couldn’t be about the inn. She handled all the accounts as well as the never-ending piles of paperwork that went along with running the place. She would have known if there was a lean on it or a second mortgage taken out—

      Wouldn’t she?

      She looked uncertainly at her father.

      “Or the inn,” he assured her. Again, he qualified his answer a moment later. “At least, not in the way you mean it.”

      “All right, just how does it concern the inn?” Cris demanded, clearly not able to take another moment of suspense.

      Without meaning to, Richard sighed. He’d left Wyatt sitting in his office. The young man had arrived quietly just a few minutes ago, entering through the gardens and the back door that was always unlocked during daylight hours. Guests hardly ever made use of that entrance, but friends did. And Wyatt was a friend. More like a son, actually. He’d known him since the day the boy had been born.

      “Wyatt has come to see me. He’s just arrived.”

      “Wyatt?” Alex echoed.

      The name brought with it a legion of memories that ran the expanse of two decades and more. Theirs was an ongoing, antagonistic relationship that seemed to be the very embodiment of the war between the sexes—even though he got on well enough with her sisters and they with him. Complicating this was the fact that her heart never failed to skip a couple of beats the first time she saw him each year. Her physical