Innkeeper's Daughter

The next moment, any possible escalation of a verbal exchange between Alex and Dan’s son was interrupted as people came flooding into the small office, filling it to capacity.

Cris, Stevi and Andy surrounded Wyatt, offering their condolences in what came across as a cacophony of sympathy and kind words tripping over one another.

Only her father noticed Alex retreating from the room, moving back to the threshold.

“Everything all right?” he asked her.

“No,” she answered, forcing herself to tear her eyes away from Wyatt and her sisters. Their comfort was easing his pain. She was glad for him, really glad—but she had tried to do the same thing, she really had. And he had just railed at her. “Uncle Dan’s gone,” she added in response to what she knew was going to be her father’s next question. “How can anything be all right at this moment?”

“I meant between you and Wyatt,” her father clarified.

“No,” she told him honestly. “But then,” she added, “it never was.” Alex shrugged the matter off. “That’s not important right now.” She focused on something she could help with. “If Uncle Dan just died yesterday, then there hasn’t been a funeral yet.”

“No, there hasn’t,” Wyatt said, speaking up. Despite having three women talking to him at once, he had still managed to hone in on what Alex had said to her father.

“That’s part of the reason Wyatt’s here,” her father told her.

Alex was still contemplating ducking out, but with everyone watching that seemed too much like running and it wasn’t the kind of message she was looking to send. When she came right down to it, she wasn’t sure exactly what kind of message she was trying to send.

“To carry out Dan’s last wishes,” her father was saying. “Dan wanted to be buried here, in the family cemetery. These past twenty years, Ladera-by-the-Sea was really the only place he called home. His summers here with Wyatt and you girls were his haven, it was what he considered both his goal and his reward for a year well lived.”

“And Uncle Dan actually said he wanted this to be his final resting place?” Alex asked her father.

Before her father could answer, Wyatt did. “That was what he told me.”

That sounded right and fitting somehow, Alex thought. His visits had been the highlight of the summer when she was younger. When he’d suddenly turn up at other times of the year, it always felt like Christmas.

Who was she kidding? Dan and Wyatt’s visits were both the highlight of her summers, although admittedly for different reasons. Reasons she wasn’t about to pick apart right now because she wasn’t up to it.

And might never be.

“So we’ll hold the services here?” Cris asked her father.

“That’s the general idea,” Richard replied. He looked at his daughters, each precious to him in her own way. He could see that they were all deeply affected by this. “I think that might help us to say one final goodbye to him.”

As usual, Alex instantly began to take charge.

It wasn’t so much that she had a need to be in control. It was more that she felt that by picking up the reins, she was allowing everyone else the freedom of doing what they needed to do without having to concern themselves with the bigger-picture details.

“Okay, first off, I’ll need a list of people to contact about the funeral services,” Alex said to her father.

She knew that the list would be coming from Wyatt, not her father, and this was her way of letting Wyatt know she would be taking care of the arrangements. At this point, she was certain that his state of mind was a shambles. He had trouble accepting what she said during the best of times.

Wyatt surprised her by saying crisply, “Already done.”

Wyatt had never been what she had thought of as organized. But then, maybe he hadn’t put the list together. Maybe he had one of those movie starlets she’d seen hanging off his arm each time he attended a premiere of one of the movies he wrote. None of them looked as if she had an IQ rivaling that of a peacock, but obviously one of them probably knew how to write.

“Okay, moving on,” Alex announced, shifting her attention to Wyatt. “What date were these people told? For the services that were being held?” she elaborated when she received no answer.

“Day after tomorrow,” he finally replied.

Well, that was really quick, she couldn’t help thinking. “Pretty confident my father would say yes,” Alex said, her eyes locking on to his.

“Why wouldn’t he?” he replied, treating her as if she’d just accused him of something. That’s not why she’d said it. Something just didn’t seem to make sense in this two-day timeline.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Her father asked the same question Wyatt had.

“No reason, but the inn could have been booked solid, making holding the funeral service rather difficult,” she pointed out. “Besides, even though the inn isn’t booked solid, it would have still been nice to have the details nailed down on our end before alerting—how many people were alerted?” she asked, realizing she still didn’t have a number to work with.

“My father made friends with the immediate world,” Wyatt told her.

“The immediate world,” she repeated. “That’s going to make for pretty difficult seating arrangements. I’m not sure if we have enough folding chairs for everyone.”

“But I cut it down to a hundred,” Wyatt continued as if she hadn’t said anything. “Is that all right?” he asked, looking at his father’s oldest friend.

“Any number you come up with is fine, Wyatt,” Richard assured him with feeling. “No matter how many people you want attending the service, we’ll find a way to accommodate everyone, so feel free to increase your list if you want to.”

But Wyatt shook his head. “No, a hundred’s good. But thanks for the offer.”

“Well, at least we’ll be saving on folding chairs,” Alex said, doing her best to keep the situation as light as she could.

If she didn’t, Alex was fairly certain she was going to break down in tears herself.

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU WERE KIND OF sharp with Wyatt back there,” Cris commented as she and Alex headed back toward the front of the inn. There was an underlying note of disapproval in her voice. “You could have gone a little easier on him, Alex. After all, the man just lost his father.”

“I know. I was there when Dad told us, remember?” Alex said impatiently. “And if I’d suddenly changed and gone completely soft and sweet on him, tiptoeing around his feelings—” she forced a smile to her lips and nodded as they passed one of the inn’s recurring guests, Mrs. Rafferty “—Wyatt might have let his guard down—and then who knows what would have happened? This way, he’s got his guard up, he knows what to expect and he’s too busy trying to block my next barb to let all that pain flatten him.”

Cris looked at her older sister, clearly impressed. “So this was actually a ‘humanitarian’ act on your part?” she asked, trying but failing not to laugh.

Alex could only agree with her: this had to be the most creative excuse for verbally sparring with Wyatt she’d ever come up with.

“Something like that,” Alex admitted with a vague, dismissive shrug. She didn’t want to harp on the subject, but the truth was, if she’d treated him with kid gloves, Wyatt wouldn’t have had the sparring partner he was accustomed to and right now, she had a feeling he needed that. He needed that touch of the familiar to help steady him. “Let’s just say that’s what I would have wanted if I was in his place.”

“Still,” Cris pointed out, “a few kind words wouldn’t have killed you.”

She and Wyatt didn’t have that sort of a relationship. Maybe the rules would change sometime down the road—although she really doubted it—but what she did know was that this wasn’t the time for change. He needed someone to vent at and right now, for better or worse, that was her.

She cocked her head, as if she was trying to make out something. “I think I hear Ricky calling for his mommy.”

Cris shook her head. She had superhearing when it came to her son. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“I’m also older,” Alex reminded her with a smile that said she was the one who got to make the rules.

“Next time around, I get to be the older one,” Cris declared.

“We’ll talk,” Alex promised. Rounding the desk, she got back to work.