LITMIR.BIZ

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Besides,” she added with a touch of asperity, “I didn’t exactly ‘grow’ as a wife.”

      “That’s because you weren’t allowed to be one for very long,” Alex reminded her. Cris and Mike were barely married before he was shipped out to Iraq, where his young life was cut short by a roadside sniper. The letter from Cris telling him she was pregnant was found in his breast pocket. “Next time will be better.”

      “Not going to be a next time,” Cris informed her with quiet conviction.

      Alex’s mouth curved in a smile. “I think Shane’s got other ideas on that subject,” she said. They’d hired the general contractor for the latest renovations to the 120-year-old inn. Aside from excellent references, Shane McCallister was also the older brother of one of Cris’s high school girlfriends.

      Alex’s pending nuptials had her evaluating everything around her with fresh eyes, and the way Shane was looking at Cris spoke volumes.

      “Now you’re babbling,” Cris said dismissively, then eyed Alex. “This is your clever way of deflecting questions, isn’t it?” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not prying, Alex, I was just being concerned about you.”

      “I’m fine,” Alex replied with finality, calling an end to what she deemed an unnecessary discussion.

      “Then what are you doing out here, communing with the azalea bush in the middle of the morning?” Cris didn’t add that the behavior just wasn’t like Alex, but her tone implied it.

      Impatience creased Alex’s brow. “It’s called taking a break, Cris.”

      That was fine, except for one thing. “You don’t take breaks.”

      “I didn’t used to take breaks,” Alex corrected. “This is the new, improved me.” Alex smiled. “‘The times, they are a-changin’,’ little sister,” she added glibly. And then she glanced at her watch. Alex-in-Charge was back. “Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen, working on lunch, using whatever time you have left before your three-foot assistant gets sprung from kindergarten? According to my calculations, Stevi should be picking Ricky up soon and bringing him home. Don’t forget, Wyatt’s back in L.A. for a week, so he’s not here to play with your energized off-spring and be his sidekick.”

      Cris knew she could count on her father to spend a little one-on-one time with his only grandchild. That was the good part about living at the inn with the rest of her family. Someone was always around to help out with Ricky when she was busy cooking.

      “I did forget,” Cris confessed. “But have you worked out the logistics yet?”

      “What logistics?”

      “Where you and Wyatt will live after the ceremony?”

      “Here,” Alex said with finality. “Where else would we live?”

      Granted Wyatt had grown up spending summers at the inn with his father, but a lot of men would have wanted to begin their marriage in a place of their own. “Well, Wyatt does have that house in Brentwood.”

      To Cris, Alex had always had an answer for everything. Now was no different. “Where he’ll stay when he can’t avoid being in L.A. Otherwise, we’ve got dibs on the new section being added to the inn. Whenever your guy gets around to finishing it, that is.”

      “He’s not my guy,” Cris protested, even as a bit of color climbed her cheeks, highlighting her embarrassment. “You hired him.”

      “You knew him,” Alex countered.

      “That has nothing to do with anything,” Cris declared. At the time, they’d needed a general contractor and giving her old friend’s brother a job seemed the right thing to do. Her father and Alex made those kinds of decisions, so her input wouldn’t have carried much weight, Cris told herself.

      But Alex had a different take on the situation. “Your knowing Shane helped seal the deal,” she told Cris.

      Cris couldn’t help wondering if there was a reason Alex was laying this at her doorstep. If so, her sister was overlooking one obvious fact.

      “Ha. He could have been Santa Claus, and if you hadn’t liked his references and his plans for the extension, you wouldn’t have hired him and you know it.”

      “Let’s just say you have a point. Meanwhile, break—not that it actually turned out to be that—is over, and I’ve got to be getting back to the front desk. I left Dorothy in charge and you know how much she dislikes being in a position of authority.”

      Cris smiled sympathetically. She herself didn’t exactly care for manning the front desk, although she was getting better at it.

      As for Dorothy, she was one of her father’s lost souls, people who occasionally turned up at the inn. Their father would extend a helping hand until that person could stand on his or her own two feet.

      Dorothy, her life in shambles, had come to them years back. She’d booked a room for one night so that she’d spend her last night on earth in a place with clean sheets and the smell of the sea through the opened window. Sensing her hopelessness and desperation, Richard Roman had stayed up all night with her, talking about everything and anything. When dawn finally arrived, the world somehow didn’t seem quite so bleak for the woman.

      Because she confessed that she couldn’t pay for the room and she wouldn’t take charity, Richard gave her a job. That allowed Dorothy to keep her dignity. The job turned into a vocation and she worked her way up. She became head housekeeper—and was fiercely devoted and loyal to Richard and his four daughters.

      As they walked into the front room, Dorothy immediately released a sigh of relief. She moved away from the desk as if the floor had suddenly caught on fire and she was barefoot.

      “You act as though you didn’t expect me to come back,” Alex remarked, amused.

      Now that Alex had returned, Dorothy could be a little magnanimous. “Of course I did. It’s just that those were the longest twenty minutes I’ve ever spent.”

      “Don’t understand how,” Alex commented, “seeing as I was only gone for fifteen. And I would have been back sooner, but Cris just kept talking and talking.” She slanted a sideways glance at her sister, then added with a completely straight face, “Didn’t seem right, cutting her off and walking away just like that.”

      “No, of course not,” Dorothy agreed solemnly. “I wouldn’t have expected you to.”

      “She’s pulling your leg, Dorothy,” Cris said. There was never any winning with Alex. “You are impossible. I should start composing my letter of condolence to Wyatt now. Better yet, I should tell him to run for the hills while he still can.”

      “Don’t you dare,” Stevi warned, entering with Cris’s five-year-old son in tow. “You do anything to mess up this wedding I’ve been working so hard on and I swear, it’ll be the last thing you ever do.” Stevi’s eyes narrowed as her threat became more menacing. “Alex and Wyatt are getting married Christmas Day if I have to hog-tie both of them and pull them up to the altar in a horse-drawn cart.”

      “Nothing weird about that statement.” Alex laughed, shaking her head. “Maybe I should elope.”

      “You do and I’ll hunt you both down and make you pay dearly for my pain and suffering,” Stevi warned.

      Threatening vibes were all but wafting from Stevi’s five-six form. “You do realize,” Alex said, “that you’re just organizing a small wedding reception and not staging the second invasion of Normandy or a military coup in a third-world country, right?”

      “What I realize,” Stevi responded, “is that you have no concept of what’s involved in carrying off a successful reception.”

      Alex extended a sympathetic smile and an offer she knew would be refused. “If it’s too much for you, Stevi, I’ll gladly relieve you of the responsibility.”

      Stevi’s

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