LITMIR.BIZ

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      THE PATH FROM the back of Ladera by the Sea, the family-owned, one-hundred-and-twenty-one-year-old bed-and-breakfast inn, to the small, private family cemetery far below was a little harder for Richard Roman to negotiate lately. The fault wasn’t due to any subtle change in the inclined terrain, but to the less-than-subtle change in the way he’d been feeling of late.

      It was as if someone had siphoned out all his available energy.

      Still, he felt the need to make this pilgrimage down the hill so he could share his thoughts and feelings with the two people who had been so very close to him in life. The two people who still meant the world to him, even though both were now gone.

      Richard was perfectly aware that he could do his “sharing” anywhere. All it took was the privacy of his own mind. But for him, it felt far more personal, as if he were still in touch with his Amy and with Dan, if he came here, to stand—or sit—between their two headstones and talk to them.

      Reaching the bottom of the hill, Richard paused for a moment to catch his breath, something that had become trickier than it had been even a little while ago.

      There was a seat carved into the base of the pine tree that stood like a sentry guarding the two graves. The seat had been created by his second daughter Cris’s husband, Shane, so that he could stay here longer, if he so chose. Richard eased himself into it now.

      He still hadn’t caught his breath. Air seemed a little harder to draw in and out these days and he felt himself growing winded far faster than he was happy about. So far, he’d been able to keep this annoying change in his health from his four daughters, but he’d noticed that both Alex and Andy, his oldest and his youngest, had taken to looking at him thoughtfully.

      Had they actually put the question to him, Richard would blame it on the fact that they were once more heading into their second busiest season of the year. Summers were first, but the approach of Christmas always ushered in a host of repeat guests who enjoyed celebrating at the inn.

      And if that wasn’t enough to explain why he appeared to be more harried than usual, he was also anticipating the pending births of not just one grandchild, but two. Alex and Cris were due within days of each other. That made this simultaneously a time for joy and a time of immense tension.

      It was enough to give a man an occasional irregular heartbeat—or two.

      The cherry on the sundae was Stevi’s pending wedding. Mike, the former undercover DEA agent who had literally washed up on their shore at Stevi’s feet, had recently decided to settle down here because “here” was where Stevi was. Now a homicide detective for the local police department, he’d proposed to her right in front of the entire family a moment before Thanksgiving dinner was served.

      Stevi had been the wedding planner for her older sisters’ double wedding but when it came to her own, surprisingly, she wanted something small and intimate.

      “Knowing Stevi,” Richard said, addressing the two tombstones that perforce took the place of Amy and Dan, “she’ll probably wake up one morning, knock on all our doors and say something like, If you want to come see me get married, you’d better get a move on because it’s happening in half an hour.”

      He laughed softly to himself. “That’s our Stevi,” he said fondly to Amy. “Unconventional and spontaneous.” He laughed again, but the laugh became a cough that took him several minutes to get under control.

      “Sorry,” he murmured, doing his best to regulate his breathing again. “I want to see Stevi married,” Richard confided. “But between you and me, I’m hoping she holds off until after Alex and Cris have their babies. Maybe even after the first of the year,” he added with a half smile. “Things calm down in January. It would be a perfect time for the wedding.”

      He rolled his eyes. “As if I could ever influence anything Stevi did. She’s even more headstrong than Alex.

      “Speaking of Alex,” he continued, turning toward the headstone of his best friend, “it won’t be long now before you’re a grandpa, Dan. Who would have ever thought, during all those summers that you and your boy spent here, that someday Wyatt and Alex would be married, waiting for the birth of their first child? I certainly didn’t, not with the way they were always trying to outdo each other, playing tricks when they weren’t arguing.” He shook his head. “Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?”

      The pain he’d been feeling off and on took a backseat to the ache he was experiencing right now. He would have given anything to spend even five more minutes in the actual company of his wife and best friend.

      Richard’s mouth curved as he allowed himself to remember another time, a time when his life had been so full of promise, of hope. Now it felt as if—for him—everything was in the process of winding down.

      “I know you’re probably sick of hearing this, but I miss you both so very much.” He looked from one tombstone to the other. “The girls are wonderful, the men they’ve married or, in Stevi’s case, are going to marry, are fine, upstanding young people, and my days and nights are filled with so many things to be grateful for. But I still miss you, still wish you were here to share in all this. Although, Dan, you trained me to only expect to see you a couple of times a year, with all those globe-trotting absences of yours, tracking down the next big story. Any more visits than that were a bonus.”

      Sadness seeped into Richard’s smile. “Now there’re no more bonuses, no more expectations.”

      Pausing, Richard blew out a breath. “Sorry, I didn’t have any intentions of sounding so negative when I started to come down here for our visit—and yes, before you say anything, I know that the visits haven’t been as regular but I seem to be lacking energy these days. Like the old joke goes, my get-up-and-go seems to have got-up-and-went. Guess I’m just getting old.” He sighed.

      “Okay, older,” he amended, knowing that Dan would have taken him to task for that if he were here in more than just spirit. The late reporter maintained that “old” was always fifteen years older than the age you currently were.

      Richard’s eyes shifted to the headstone of his beloved Amy. He knew exactly what she would say right about now. “Yes, dear, I’ll go see the doctor soon, but he’ll say the same thing. That it’s just old age. But to make you happy, I’ll give him a call. Soon,” he added with a wink.

      Then, rising slowly to his feet, Richard glanced over to the path leading back up the incline to the inn and he squared his shoulders.

      “See you two soon,” he murmured, glancing over his shoulder at the graves.

      A sharp twinge cut through him. It was gone the next second.

      Getting old was a bear, Richard silently lamented as he started back to the inn.

      The sky had been looking ominous all day. He wanted to make it back before it decided to rain.

       CHAPTER ONE

      SHE HAD A PROBLEM.

      As far back as Andrea Roman could remember, the month of December had been, by far, her very favorite time of year. The fourth daughter in a family of four girls, Andy had always been the effervescent one during the rest of the year, as well. She was always the one who not only saw the glass as being half full but who assumed it was about to be completely filled to the brim very soon.

      Negativity and pessimism were just not part of her makeup.

      That was why this strange, empty feeling gnawing away at her worried Andy as much as it did. She hadn’t even felt this kind of prolonged, almost debilitating malaise after her mother died.

      Back then, she’d devoted herself to keeping her father’s flagging spirits up. Granted, Andy had been very young at the time, but her sense of family, of loyalty, had always been exceptional.

      Family still meant everything to her.

      But

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