LITMIR.BIZ

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as Uncle Dan was gone.

      “I guess you know, don’t you?” Richard said to his wife, staring at her name on the tombstone, his voice throbbing with emotion though it was hardly above a whisper. “You’re going to have company soon. He’s finally gone.”

      For a moment he was almost overwhelmed by the dark sadness he felt and had to pause before continuing.

      “My best friend died last night at 10:05. I know it’s better this way, better for him, because he won’t be hurting anymore. I know it got pretty bad toward the end, even though he wouldn’t admit it. I should be happy for him, but he left this world far too soon and I feel so incredibly alone.

      “Oh, I know, I know,” Richard continued, anticipating exactly what his wife would have said if she were the one right in front of him instead of her tombstone. “I’ve got the girls and I love them all dearly, but it’s just...not the same thing. They’re all fine, independent young women now and I don’t know what I’d do without them, but...I don’t share the same history with them as I did with Dan.” He pressed his lips together, taking a deep breath. “As I did with you.”

      He sighed. Granted, sometimes he hadn’t seen Dan for months at a time because Dan’s work had taken him all over the world, but he’d always been able to reach his best friend by phone. Or at least almost always.

      Dan was also the very last fragment he had left of Amy. He and Dan had known each other since childhood, which meant Dan had also become Amy’s friend long before Richard had married her.

      In losing Dan, he’d lost another piece of Amy.

      “Dan had this crazy idea....” A sad smile creased his lips. “You know how he always hoped that his Wyatt and our Alex would get married someday? And I told him it was never going to happen because those two would never stop locking horns long enough to fall in love? Well, he came up with a plan shortly after he was diagnosed with that awful disease. He didn’t live long enough to watch it bear fruit, but he made sure he launched it. Even in his weakened state, he managed to drive himself from Southern California north more than two hours to Hollywood last week—only a week before he died.... I don’t know how he did it.”

      Richard shut his eyes, shook his head.

      “Poor Wyatt thought his dad was coming to spend a few days with him—that he’d get to show him an insider’s view of Hollywood—before they both drove here for their annual vacation at the inn. Wyatt told me over the phone he was stunned when he saw Dan’s deterioriated condition. More stunned, he said, when his dad told him he was going to the hospital, that he was dying...and that he wanted to ask him for one last favor.”

      Richard knew the disease had moved fast, but still, he couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be for a father to keep it from his only son until the week before he died.

      A sad smile continued to play on his lips. “Dan left it up to me to stand on the sidelines like some sort of invisible puppeteer and see it through.” He laughed then, a small, aching laugh as he shook his head. “Dan could always get me to do anything he wanted. He had that way with people.”

      Richard glanced over his shoulder at the inn that had been in his family for generations. “I’d better be getting back. Wyatt’s coming to tell me the news of his dad’s passing. He isn’t aware that I already know.”

      He and Wyatt had spoken after Wyatt had helped Dan check into the hospital a few days ago. But it was Dan’s attending physician who had phoned Richard last night. At 10:05 precisely. Leaving nothing to chance, Dan had given the doctor instructions to alert Richard the moment he took his last breath.

      “I’ll keep you posted, Amy,” Richard promised. Before turning to walk up to the inn, he added, “I love you.... And if you have any influence up there, get someone to help Alex open herself to the notion of doing something other than working. After Dan’s deathbed wish, we’re going to need all the help we can get down here. If his plan’s going to work.”

      Taking another deep breath as he looked up toward the inn, Richard started back.

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE OLD VICTORIAN-STYLE bed-and-breakfast inn played a part in Alexandra Roman’s earliest memories.

      Majestic and regal, the Wedgwood blue-and-white building had seen its share of history. A more compact version had been standing there long before she was born and, Alex had no doubt, the inn would continue to be there long after she was gone.

      Unless, of course, it was torn down for having been transformed into a nauseating eyesore because her father, in one of his never-ending bouts of kindheartedness, had given the go-ahead to a fast-talking general contractor whose taste, she was more than certain, began and ended in his mouth.

      Periodically, Ladera-by-the-Sea, the 119-year-old bed-and-breakfast Alex’s father owned and ran, underwent renovations. Those renovations either involved expansion—which took place when business was booming—or inevitable repairs as they became necessary.

      Sometimes both.

      This time, they seemed to also involve a contractor who admittedly spoke only one language—English—but for some reason, did not seem to understand the word “no.” No matter how many times she repeated it.

      Or how loudly.

      When J. D. Clarke smiled, it always looked like a sneer to her—and he was smiling now. However, at this point, the smile—in any form—was wearing a little thin.

      As thin as Alex’s patience.

      Taking off the baseball cap that pledged his allegiance to the San Diego Padres, Clarke wiped his damp brow, then repositioned the cap on his completely hairless head.

      “Look, trust me, honey, you’re gonna love the changes. All we need to do is knock out that wall...” He pointed vaguely in the direction of the load-bearing wall that separated the reception area from the dining room. “And then you’ll have—”

      “What I’ll have is a huge gaping hole I not only will not ‘love’ but also definitely don’t want.” Alex narrowed her sharp blue eyes as she did her best not to glare at a man she found to be incredibly annoying. “Do you even realize that’s a load-bearing wall?” she questioned. Not leaving him time to answer, Alex continued her verbal assault to get him to back off. “You’re not knocking out anything. I am not your ‘honey.’ And I have no reason to trust you since you won’t listen to reason and seem to have only half the attention span of a mentally challenged striped shoelace.”

      Clarke stared at her as he obviously attempted to untangle her last sentence so he could strike it down. But he failed. What he didn’t fail at was displaying his contempt for her and her opinion. His smile was now very much a sneer.

      “Look, lady, your father told me to use my judgment—”

      Alex cut him short before Clarke could get going. “That was when my father believed you had some, which, looking at those scribbles you showed me that you call ‘plans’—” she waved at the papers he had spread out on the reception desk “—you clearly do not.”

      The smile/sneer completely vanished, replaced by an angry scowl. “I intended to show these to your father before you cornered me,” he accused her. “And if you think I’m just going to stand here and be insulted—”

      “No,” she informed him sweetly. “What I think is that you and your oversize ego should be getting ready to leave now. I’m really hoping I’m right about that.”

      There was neither patience nor friendliness in her voice. Those had become casualties in the last volley of words. It never ceased to amaze her how her father could see the good in everyone, including someone who was so obviously a con artist. Her father definitely belonged in a gentler, kinder era. Possibly the era that had seen the original construction of the building they were presently living in and running as an inn.

      Her father also seemed to be preoccupied lately.

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