Читать книгу Saving Home - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 13

CHAPTER THREE

THERE WAS A thin line of perspiration running along Alex’s hairline. “Maybe you should see your doctor,” Andy suggested, as they all remained huddled around the worktable in the kitchen, partially finished potpies forgotten in the scare of Alex’s possible labor pains.

Back to her old self, Alex shook her head. “I’m not due until the end of the month, and right now I don’t have the time,” she said, brushing the incident off.

“Make the time,” Cris told her pointedly.

“What I’m going to make is tracks before you all gang up on me,” Alex replied. Using the worktable for support, she began to push herself up to her feet.

“You’re as bad as Dad,” Cris continued. “How can you even think of forcing him to go to the doctor when you won’t consider going yourself?”

Stevi placed her hand gently but firmly on Alex’s shoulder. “Sit,” she ordered. “Finish eating.”

“I have to get back to the reception desk,” Alex argued.

“No, you don’t,” Andy said. She had finished both her impromptu lunch and feeling sorry for herself. It was time to make herself useful. “I’ll go.” She stood. “Take as long as you like. Great potpie, Cris—as always.”

Cris merely smiled as she reached for the empty pie plate.

Jorge managed to insert himself between the pie plate and the woman he considered his boss. He deposited it in the sink and proceeded to wash it.

“You are working too hard, Miss Cris,” he told her simply.

Cris knew better than to argue with Jorge. Given the opportunity, he could go on and on for hours until he won his point. It was far easier just to go along with him.

“Thank you, Jorge.”

It was the last thing Andy heard as she left the kitchen.

* * *

SHE HURRIED THROUGH the dining area, noting that several of the inn’s guests had trickled into the room. Jasmine, the college student who was their part-time waitress, was busy taking their orders.

It looked as if Cris was going to be busy for a little while, Andy mused. It was a good thing her sister had Jorge as her assistant. He was quick and competent and, most important, he wouldn’t allow Cris to work too hard no matter what she said.

The only person currently in the reception area when Andy got there was Dorothy.

Like most of the small staff at the inn, Dorothy had a story. The woman had checked into the inn for an overnight stay—the last one, she had believed, that she would spend on this earth. It had been luck that brought Richard Roman to her door to check on her before he turned in for the night.

And instinct that had kept him there, talking with the lonely, distraught woman until well past dawn.

That dawn had signaled a new beginning for Dorothy. Richard Roman had a knack for sensing who needed support and who needed nothing more than a meal and a pat on the back. He offered Dorothy a place to stay for as long as she needed it. More than that, he had offered the woman hope.

Twenty-five years later, Dorothy was still living and working at the inn. Along the way, she had become part of the family in every sense of the word.

Seeing Andy, the woman looked at her with concern. “Is Alex all right? She was a little pale when she left here.”

“Alex is pale. But I think she’s just very impatient to have all this behind her,” Andy confided.

Dorothy chuckled under her breath. “You’re probably right.” She tucked the well-worn paperback novel she’d been reading back into the oversized pocket of her apron. She didn’t like being idle for long. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s what I can do for you,” Andy corrected her. “I’m here to take over the desk.”

Had this been in the middle of the morning, she would have quickly relinquished the duty.

“If you have something else you need to do, I can stay here a little longer,” Dorothy said. “I don’t mind. All the beds are made, the rooms are cleaned.”

They were almost booked up, which meant that most of the various rooms and suites were filled.

“I don’t know how you do it, Dorothy.” Andy shook her head. “Anyone else would still be making beds. If I ever move away, I’m taking you with me.”

“Are you?” Dorothy asked before clarifying, “Moving away?”

“Maybe,” Andy replied.

Wasn’t that what people did after graduation? Moved away? Of course, none of her sisters had. They’d just become integrated into the business of running the inn. Alex handled bookings and the business end, Cris manned the kitchen and Stevi did the on-site event planning.

With her future in a state of flux, Andy shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. Everything’s such a big question mark.”

“You have one semester to go before you graduate.” It wasn’t a question. Dorothy kept close tabs on everything that went on in the lives of the family she’d adopted. The family that had taken her in when she most needed to attach herself to something solid. She was certain that Richard, and subsequently his daughters, had saved her life. As far as she was concerned, her life was theirs.

“I know,” Andy replied. Even to her own ears, her tone didn’t reflect an eagerness to get her degree and get on with her life. Her voice sounded rather hollow and empty.

“It’s only natural to be confused, dear, frightened of what lies ahead of you in the next few months and years.” Dorothy gave her a heartening smile. “Feeling that way, Andy, doesn’t mean that you’re going crazy.”

Andy’s eyes widened. “How did you know?” she asked incredulously.

“Because almost everyone goes through that—if they’re lucky. The future can be a scary place.”

“Lucky?” How could feeling this nameless confusion be considered lucky?

“Yes. The ones who aren’t lucky, who don’t feel scared, are the ones whose future has been dictated and sewn up for them right from the moment they first drew breath. They’re the ones whose choices are limited and whose options are nonexistent.”

Andy considered what she’d said. “Put that way, I guess I am lucky.”

“Absolutely,” Dorothy confirmed with a good measure of enthusiasm. “The whole world is opening up for you, Andy. You can be anything you want to be.”

“Anything, huh?” Andy asked, a touch of mischief shimmering in her eyes. “What if I want to be a six-foot-tall, skinny brunette model?”

“You can be almost anything you want to be,” Dorothy amended without skipping a beat. Twenty-five years in the family had taught the woman to be ready for anything.

Andy laughed, brushing her lips against the housekeeper’s soft cheek. “I love you, Dorothy.”

The housekeeper looked immensely pleased. She’d heard this declaration from the girls more than once. However, each time was special, as touching for her as the very first time she had ever heard the words.

Andy, barely a toddler, had been the first to say I love you. They were grown women now, but they were her grown women even if she didn’t share a surname or their blood.

“I love you right back,” Dorothy told her, slipping off Wyatt’s stool. “Remember, call me if you need anything.”

“Don’t I always?” Andy asked innocently.

Dorothy snorted in response. “You’re just as stubborn as your sisters so, no, I’m sure you don’t.”

“I’ll work on that,” Andy promised, and then a thought hit her. “Okay, here’s something you can do for me—and I’d really appreciate it if you did.”

“I’m listening.”

“I want you to quietly look in on Dad,” Andy told her.

“Because?” Dorothy asked.

Andy shrugged, knowing that the request sounded a little strange—maybe she was worrying for nothing. But having Dorothy confirm that would go a long way toward making her feel better. “Just to see if he’s okay.”

Dorothy cocked her head, scrutinizing her. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

Andy shrugged again. “Something is off about Dad. He’s slowed down lately, like there’s some big rock pressing down on him, taking the zip out of his step.”

Dorothy smiled indulgently. “It’s called getting older, dear.”

“Maybe,” Andy said. But she really didn’t believe it. Granted, her father could never have been accused of being an athletic go-getter. He certainly wasn’t anywhere near as full of life as Alex and Stevi. Still, her father had always been slow but steady, like the tortoise in the fable.

“But I’d feel better if you peeked in on him,” Andy said. She gave Dorothy a plaintive look, one that had never failed to melt the housekeeper’s kind heart.

As if Dorothy could ever say no to any of them. She nodded. “Consider him peeked in on,” she said as she left reception and went in search of Andy’s father.

There were no new guests checking in and, according to the roster, there wouldn’t be any arriving until around noon the next day.

It took Andy all of about thirty seconds to remember Cris’s comment about the Christmas tree needing more decorations on the one side.

That was easy enough to do, she thought. And while she enjoyed the camaraderie of decorating the tree with everyone else in the family, there were times when she savored doing things alone.

This felt as if she was carving out a niche for herself. Okay, it was only a niche partially filled with decorations and a couple of barren branches belonging to a Scotch pine. But it was her niche.

Andy dragged the ladder out of the hall closet where it had been stashed after they’d brought the tree in on the first of December and finished the decorating. Well, almost finished it.

Once she had the ladder next to the tree, she snapped it into place and made certain that all the tabs that needed to be locked were locked.

Arming herself with decorations, Andy carefully made her way up the aluminum ladder as far as she could. She stopped one step short of the very top.

With a critical, artistic eye, she went about hanging the decorations where she thought they would be the most effective.

As she worked, Andy silently upbraided herself for her earlier descent into a funk. She was well aware that life wasn’t all roses, gumdrops and music. But as far as things went, she knew she was one of the lucky ones and to regard her life as anything but privileged was just plain wrong.

Stretching up on the tips of her toes to reach a bare spot, Andy thought she heard the front door open.

Unable to see the entrance Andy listened intently, waiting to hear someone call out.

No one did.

When she didn’t discern anything further, Andy decided it had just been her imagination. She got back to critically analyzing where to place decorations.

“Excuse me?”

Andy was so wrapped up in what she was doing, the deep male voice coming from both behind her and beneath her made her jump.

It wasn’t advisable, she realized the next moment, for anyone perched on the next-to-the-top step of a ladder to jump.

The ladder started to wobble and tip. Andy saw too late that there was nothing to brace herself against. She couldn’t very well grab on to the Christmas tree to steady herself, not without bringing the tree down on top of her.

Faster than it took her to gasp, Andy found herself airborne, separating from the ladder, which was falling with her.

She braced herself for a hard impact, but while she was shaken and the air was knocked out of her, she did not come crashing down onto the floor.

Instead, she found herself in the very strong, outstretched arms of the man with the deep voice.

The man who was to blame for this embarrassing incident in the first place.

As she landed in his arms, she felt his forearms tensing, becoming so hard they could have been made of steel.

It took her a second to get her brain in gear. When she did, Andy found herself studying the face of an exceedingly handsome man of about thirty-two with intense sky-blue eyes, trim, dark blond hair and near-perfect chiseled features.

She had never seen him before in her life. His was not a face she would have forgotten.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Andy hated being caught off guard, hated being perceived as vulnerable in any way. It went against her own image of herself. This damsel-in-distress scenario was far from her liking.

“I would have been more all right,” she informed the man, “if you hadn’t snuck up on me.”

“Sorry. I left my noisy shoes at home,” he said matter-of-factly. “There didn’t seem to be anyone around.”

“Obviously your assessment of the situation turned out to be wrong.”

“Obviously,” he agreed.

Andy twisted her head and looked to see if the ladder had done any damage when it landed. Mercifully, it had managed to go straight down and was on the floor in front of the Christmas tree. None of the balls or decorations had been broken or dislodged.

That’s when Andy realized the stranger was still holding her. “Would you mind putting me down?” she asked.

“Is that a request or a question?”

He wanted to debate this? Andy felt her back go up. “What’s the difference?”

“If it’s a request, I have to comply. If it’s a question, all I have to do is give you an answer.”

Andy stared at him. Bemused and puzzled, she said, “And if it’s the latter?”

“Then I’d say yes, I do mind.”

Okay, she’d had about enough of this wise guy. Granted, he’d broken her fall, but he was the one responsible for it in the first place, so the two canceled each other out.

She narrowed her eyes. “Put me down.”

He inclined his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

Lowering her until her feet touched the floor, the stranger released his hold. Rather than say anything, he turned his attention to the ladder. He righted it with ease. “Looks like there’s no harm done to either you or the ladder,” he told her. Before she could contest his evaluation, he asked, “Could you tell me where I might find Mr. Richard Roman?”

Andy raised her chin. The guy couldn’t miss her combative stance, she hoped. “I could.”

After several moments had gone by without any further information from her, he asked, “Would you tell me where I can find Mr. Roman?”

“That all depends,” she told him.

His eyes narrowed uncertainly. “On what?”

“On the reason that you’re looking for him,” Andy answered.

“I’m afraid that’s between Mr. Roman and, for now, me.”