Claimed by a Cowboy

“She’ll be missed,” one of the scheduled guests had told Lorelei, choked up by the news that the inn’s proprietor had died. “My husband and I came to the Haunted Hill Country every year for our anniversary, and we just loved Wanda. Your mother was a special woman.”

Ava came toward her with two cups of coffee. “You look like you could use some.” Then she reached into a cabinet beneath the counter and procured a bottle of whiskey. “And maybe a shot of this with it.”

Lorelei gave a dry laugh. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but she appreciated the thought. “Thanks, Ava.”

“Least I can do.” Ava slid her glasses up on her nose with a finger. “I wish you had let me help with those calls. You didn’t have to take care of them alone. Can’t be easy to tell people over and over that your mama’s gone.”

“I wanted to.” Saying it forced her to accept it. Running from the truth wouldn’t change it. “I needed to be doing something, keeping busy.”

Ava cast a sheepish look over her shoulder, at the crammed full refrigerator. “Guess I can understand that.”

Lorelei poured a modest token shot into her coffee and raised her eyebrows questioningly at Ava, who nodded and pushed her own mug across the counter.

“Hit me, barkeep.” Ava waited for her own more generous slug, then stirred cream into both mugs with a cinnamon stick.

Lorelei inhaled deeply. Her mug smelled like heaven. “Ava, can I ask you a…delicate question?”

The older woman nodded, her faded grey eyes earnest. “I know we haven’t seen much of each other in the years since you got your degree, but Wanda was the closest thing I ever had to a sister. I’d be honored if you thought of me as kin.”

“Was there something romantic going on between Mom and Sam Travis?”

Ava spluttered, choking on coffee.

“Sorry.” Lorelei handed her a couple of napkins, feeling guilty as Ava continued to cough.

“What a thing to suggest!” Ava finally managed to say, cream dotting her upper lip. “Of course there wasn’t anything romantic. Thank God you asked me and not Sam. He’d be horrified.”

Lorelei’s face grew hot. Now that she’d voiced the question, it did sound absurd—especially given how devoted Wanda had remained to her late husband. “Well, I didn’t think so, but I wanted to be sure. It’s not like she was always conventional with her beliefs, so she might have overlooked the age difference. He was cryptic and grudging. All he told me was that they were ‘good friends.’ But he’d obviously talked to her right before she went to sleep and he was the one who found her in her bed.”

Had Sam Travis been the person to hear her mother’s final words?

Lorelei couldn’t help flinching, recalling her mom’s last words the last time they’d spoken. I’ll be here. The mug trembled in Lorelei’s hands. She’d taken for granted that her mother would, indeed, always be here.

She cleared her throat. “The biggest reason I wondered about their relationship is because of you.”

“Me?” Ava squeaked.

“Well, you didn’t mention him to me when we spoke on the phone and you said all the guests had gone.” A heads-up that someone else was going to be under the same roof with her would have been nice. “But every time he’s come up in conversation this afternoon, you’ve…”

Ava turned away, busying herself with a rag and wiping down the long expanse of already clean counter.

“You’re acting weird about Sam.” Almost guilty, which had made Lorelei speculate that maybe Ava harbored a secret about her mom and the cowboy. Something was clearly bothering Ava.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?” Lorelei prodded.

“Only that it’s wonderful to see you again.” Ava put the rag down and smiled sadly. “I just wish you could have come home before this.” There was no accusation in her voice, but that made it even worse somehow.

Lorelei was tempted to agree with Ava, to say I wish I had, too, but Lorelei had given up wishing a long time ago. When her dad died, she’d wised up—no wishing wells or “first star I see tonight” or fairy stories for her. Those were all just pretty guises for denial. Lorelei needed to live in cold, hard reality. And that meant she knew what to do with the inn.

She’d sell the property and use the money to help with her staggering college loans. Wanda would approve. Her mother had been proud that Lorelei got into such a prestigious school and she’d always fretted that she couldn’t do more to take care of her daughter from so far away. The woman who’d once given her crystals and dream catchers for protection would be assisting in protection from debt, a far more useful security. It was something tangible and parental Wanda could do for her, which made Lorelei feel, for a moment, closer to the mother she’d lost.

Lorelei bit her lip, wondering if she should tell Ava what she intended to do. But it seemed cruel just now, with the inn being the most visible reminder of Wanda. Lorelei didn’t want the kind-hearted woman to feel as if she was losing her friend twice in one week. I’ll tell her after the memorial service Saturday.

With the decision made to sell, Lorelei felt as if she could breathe easier. As an adolescent, grieving for her father, she’d hoped that they could move away, start fresh somewhere his memory wasn’t so potent. At the very least, she’d wanted Wanda to date, to set the example that it wasn’t a betrayal to move on with life. Instead, Wanda had continued to talk about him as if he were a member of their household. On holidays and special occasions, she set a place for him at the table. She talked about having spirit conversations with him in her dreams and seeing his ghost in his favorite recliner. The lack of closure had ripped at Lorelei.

Not this time. After the service and the will-reading, when she officially inherited the inn, she’d call the would-be guests in her mom’s files and break the news to them. She’d sell the B and B to someone who could create their own niche here, and she’d return to her life in Philly, her ties to Fredericksburg severed. Lorelei would have the closure she so desperately needed.

SITTING IN THE MIDDLE of a semi-circle of pictures, Lorelei debated opening a window. It’s stuffy in here. Given the high ceiling of the great room and the dropping evening temperatures, she knew the stifling sensation was in her imagination. Raising a window would be yielding to her sudden illogical claustrophobia. Lorelei was a pragmatic woman. She refused to start acting squirrelly just because it was late and she was all alone in the inn.

Sam’s estimated “couple of hours” of being gone had turned into all afternoon and evening. Ava had insisted on staying long enough to have dinner with Lorelei but then had returned home to her husband. Both women had listlessly pushed their food around on Wanda’s sunset-colored ceramic plates. During the meal, Ava had tentatively broached the subject of the eulogy Lorelei needed to write for Saturday’s memorial. There was also the task of selecting pictures for display at the funeral home. A salon decorated with mementos of Wanda Keller’s life would open an hour prior to the formal service so that loved ones could gather to share their recollections. And their grief.

The service would take place there at the funeral home. Wanda, never really a churchgoing woman, had decided against having her final farewell at one of the local chapels. Since she was being cremated, like her husband before her, there would be no graveyard burial, either.

Lorelei shoved her hands through her hair. Her first attempt at drafting a eulogy had been disastrous. She’d thought that pulling out all these old photos, conjuring the memories, would help organize her thoughts. Sort of like an outline for a college paper. But seeing her mother’s life, now ended, spread out on the carpet around her…

A jagged keening broke the silence, and she pressed her fist against her mouth, trying to stem the dark wave of despair. Though she was usually comfortable with solitude, right now the overpowering sense of aloneness choked her. She gripped her cell phone, wanting to escape by talking to someone outside of Fredericksburg. But it was too late to call any of her work friends back in Philly, especially given the time difference. Rick, maybe?

No. She recalled with a grimace his distant response when she’d learned of her mother’s death. He’d said he was sorry, naturally, had even offered the rote “if there’s anything I can do…” But he’d sounded more like a lawyer giving a client bad news than a potential lover. “Can I send flowers?” he’d asked. “Or was she one of those people who’d prefer a donation to charity, in lieu of?”

A metallic jiggling cut through Lorelei’s thoughts and she stiffened. The B and B had never seemed creepier than it did at that moment.

Once she realized that what she’d heard was the back door being unlocked, she expelled a shaky breath. Sam. When they’d met earlier today, all she’d wanted was for him to get the hell out. Tonight, though, she was grateful for his presence. She almost called out to him but bit her lip, embarrassed by her neediness. He’d come through here anyway to get to his suite.

Sure enough, a moment later, booted footsteps sounded in the short, hardwood hallway leading from the kitchen. Then Sam appeared at the edge of the spacious living room, his face shadowed by his cowboy hat and the dark hall. It probably would have been better for her nerves if she’d turned on more lights than the standing fixture in the corner and a stained-glass antique table lamp.

She felt exposed in her circle of photos and muted light. The fact that she was wearing a tank top and flannel pajama bottoms didn’t help. “Hi.”

He leaned against the wall, seeming caught by all the images of Wanda. “Can’t believe she’s gone.” His quiet murmur didn’t completely mask the emotion in his voice. Once again, Lorelei wondered how Sam and her mother had met and what their relationship had been. It was easy to picture Wanda and Ava as best friends, laughing over botched recipes and antiquing together on the weekend. But what had Sam and Wanda shared?

“I’m supposed to pick photos for the funeral home,” she told him, her voice cracking only the slightest bit when she said funeral.

“Would you like to know which ones were her favorites?” Sam offered.

Her erstwhile relief at his company crisped and blackened to irritation. “I’m her daughter,” she said defensively. “You don’t think I can figure that out for myself?”

He tipped his hat back with a finger, staring her down with those green eyes.

“You think you knew her better than I did,” Lorelei said.

He somehow shrugged without ever moving his shoulders. “Even when we suppose we know someone, we can be surprised. But I did spend some time with her.”

And I didn’t spend nearly enough. Guilt clogged Lorelei’s windpipe, making it impossible to speak.

“She dragged out her box of photos plenty,” he said. “Made me look at them so she could talk about her husband. Or brag about you.”

Lorelei wanted so badly to ask what her mother had said. How had she described the brainy, estranged daughter who had so little in common with her?

Sam straightened slowly, awkwardly, and it was only as he moved away from the wall that she realized he was unsteady. Come to think of it, was his drawl more pronounced than it had been that afternoon?