Innkeeper's Daughter

He stepped back, gripped Stevi by the shoulders and studied her to make sure she’d be all right. Then he let her go as he took in the others, coming at last to Alex.

Alex’s eyes had never left her father’s stricken expression—how could she not have seen that? How could she have missed that pain, that sorrow? It was right there for her to see, she berated herself. What was she, blind?

“Is he—?”

Alex couldn’t get herself to finish the sentence. She could feel her throat closing up, not just in sympathy for her father, but because she really, really loved Uncle Dan. They all did.

When she’d been very young, she’d had a crush on the man, daydreaming about going off with him to exotic parts unknown. It seemed hopelessly romantic to her to follow stories to wherever they might lead, no matter what the danger. As long as they had each other to lean on for support, things would work out.

It had irked her at the time that Wyatt looked so much like his father, especially since she and the younger Taylor got along like the proverbial cat and dog. Granted it had been mostly her doing, but that didn’t change the outcome of antagonism. All those summers that Wyatt had spent at the inn, she’d found new and unique ways to torment him so that, somewhere along the line, Wyatt wouldn’t usurp her in her father’s eyes, becoming the son she felt certain he had always secretly longed for.

Once upon a time, she’d accidentally overheard her father talking to Uncle Dan about having a son. The exact words that had all but burned themselves into her brain had been, You don’t know how very lucky you are to have a son to share things with. To her, there had been longing and a touch of envy in her father’s voice. It said, in effect, that she could never measure up to his having a son. But it didn’t keep her from trying, anyway.

Her less-than-easygoing past with Wyatt notwithstanding, she knew what it was like to lose a parent, knew the awful pain that caused, and she felt for Wyatt.

But predominantly she felt for her father.

Especially now, as she watched him grimly nod his head in response to the question she couldn’t bring herself to complete.

“Yes,” her father said hoarsely, “he’s gone.”

“But he was just here,” Andy protested. “How could he die when he was just here?”

It was Dorothy who draped her arm comfortingly around the twenty-year-old’s slim shoulders and murmured softly, “These things happen.”

Alex shared a look with Cris, who bit her lower lip. Uncle Dan had been there for her sister when her husband had died halfway around the world. Although she and the rest of the family had done their best to be supportive of Cris, Dan had been able to supply something the others couldn’t. He had actually been in the region where Mike had died and could by that very fact somehow connect her to the place where Mike had been permanently taken away from her.

It had meant a lot. They’d all recognized that.

After a moment Cris was able to ask her question. “When?”

“Very suddenly,” her father answered in a hushed, hoarse voice, unable to take a deep breath because of the tremendous weight he felt pressing down on his chest. “Yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Stevi cried.

Dan was supposed to have arrived at the inn yesterday with Wyatt. When he hadn’t, they had chalked it up to the fact that there were times when Dan Taylor was not one of the most punctual people.

“Where was he when...when it happened? Why didn’t he come to us? Why didn’t he tell us? He must have known.”

Stevi’s questions tumbled out in rapid-fire succession. Even so, they found no target, scattering to the corners of the room, searching for any answers that made a smattering of sense.

As her sisters closed ranks around their father, alternating between asking questions and offering mutual comfort, Alex quietly took a step back.

And then another.

And another, until she’d managed to unobtrusively detach herself from the inner circle. Once certain that her sisters and Dorothy had surrounded their father with their love and overwhelming sympathy, Alex turned on her heel and quickly made her way to her father’s small office at the back of the first floor.

About to knock lightly on the door before entering, she decided against it.

Instead she slowly pushed open the door, as if she was opening a portal to another world, a world currently filled to overflowing with grief.

Or so she imagined.

She found Wyatt standing at the window with his back to the door.

His body was rigid, as if he was attempting to shoulder something that was far too heavy for him to actually manage. A burden that threatened to bring him to his knees if he took as much as a step in any direction.

A minor tug-of-war took place inside Alex and then she decided to back out of the room, to wait until Wyatt was better equipped to deal with the offer of sympathy from others—especially her.

But as she placed her hand on the doorknob again, preparing to ease the door shut, she saw Wyatt raise his head just a fraction.

“Hello, Alex,” he said in a quiet voice that sounded barely human.

Hearing him speak startled her. She stared at the back of his head. “How did you—?”

“Your reflection,” he answered, anticipating the rest of her question.

He still hadn’t turned around to face her. He was trying his best to get himself under control before he did that. There were times, less now than before, when facing Alex was not an easy thing to do, even under the best of circumstances.

This was definitely not the best of circumstances. Men weren’t supposed to cry. It wasn’t anything that had been drummed into him; it was just something that he felt. Most of all, he didn’t want Alex to see him with tears in his eyes. So he struggled to get control over himself.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

The words came to her lips automatically—and sounded incredibly tinny and hollow to her ear, even though they were filled to capacity and then some with the truth. She meant them from the bottom of her heart.

“I’m sorry for ours, too,” she added in a voice that was even smaller than when she’d begun. “Your father was a wonderful, wonderful man and we’re all going to miss him terribly. Especially me.”

Wyatt turned from the window then, his face a rigid mask of control. Only the sunlight shining on the slight telltale dampness on his cheek belied the control he was attempting to project.

“You’re kidding,” he said in disbelief.

Alex had no idea what he was referring to. Had his grief caused him to temporarily take leave of his senses? “What?”

“You’re actually engaging in one-upmanship? Now?” he asked her incredulously.

“What?” Alex repeated, thoroughly confused. Then his words sank in and she stared at him, horrified. How could he even think that? “No. I only meant that I was going to miss your father a great deal.”

“That’s not what you said,” Wyatt pointed out. “You said ‘especially me.’ That means that out of everyone who is grieving—including me—you are the one who is grieving the most. You, who only saw him for a month in the summer and a couple of times during the year, you’re going to miss him more than I am.”

She refrained from pointing out that he only saw his father the same amount she did. But that would be nit-picking and this was not the time for that.

“That’s not what I meant. I mean—oh, damn it, Wyatt,” she cried in frustration, “I’m trying my best to be nice, here.”

“Something you obviously don’t have much practice at because you’re not succeeding,” he told her.

She pulled back, hurt and confused.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe I’m being unreasonable, but I just don’t see you making an effort. My dad died last night, and all I see is Alex being...Alex. At my expense.”