Innkeeper's Daughter. Marie Ferrarella

      PROLOGUE

      THE PATH FROM the back of the Ladera-by-the-Sea Inn to the small, private family cemetery seemed longer somehow today. Even though, as the inn’s current owner and head of the Roman family, he’d walked it countless times, especially in the twelve years since his Amy had been laid to rest. He came here whenever he wanted to share a moment or to just feel close to his late wife. To remember a time when he and Amy used to walk hand in hand here, content just to listen to the sound of the waves caressing the shore.

      Today it was to share the news he’d just received by phone, and his heartache.

      Richard stood in front of his wife’s tombstone the way he had so many countless times before, searching for a way to begin, to pour out what was in his heart without breaking down. He needed to hold himself together, to remain strong because he wasn’t the only one who mattered, here.

      His daughters didn’t know yet, didn’t know that the man they had always known and loved 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.