Kate went to check on her father and found him looking through photo albums with Amy.
“This is Elizabeth,” he told her, pointing to a picture. “My wife. Isn't she beautiful?”
“She is,” Amy agreed. “You must miss her.”
“Every day. But Katie looks after me. She's a good girl. Too good, maybe. Never does anything for herself.”
“Maybe she doesn't know how,” Amy said gently.
Kate backed away before they could see her. Even Pop and Amy thought she needed help, needed to change, needed something more than what she had.
Her father’s awareness that his wife was gone was also difficult to hear. Although Kate was happy for these moments of clarity, she felt conflicted over her father’s acknowledgment that he missed his wife.
She went to her room and pulled out the photo album from the attic. There was a picture of her mother at maybe thirty-five, standing in front of the inn with all four children. She looked tired but happy, surrounded by her family, her home secure behind her.
Kate studied her mother's face. Had Elizabeth ever felt this lost? This pulled between past and future, independence and need, staying strong and letting go?
A knock at her door interrupted her thoughts. Pop stood there in his pajamas.
“Katie-girl, I’m supposed to take a nap but I can't sleep.”
She patted the bed beside her. He sat, looking at the album.
“Your mother,” he said, touching the photo gently. “She was stubborn too, you know. Took her three years to admit she needed help after Tom was born. Tried to do everything herself.”
“What changed?”
“She realized that accepting help didn't make her weak. It made her smart.” He looked at Kate with surprisingly clear eyes. “Don't make her mistakes, Katie. Don't wait until you're drowning to take the life preserver.”
After he went to bed, Kate sat with the album, thinking. Everyone seemed to think she needed saving, Ben with his patient understanding, Lillian with her money, Dani with her improvements. But what if she didn't want to be saved? What if she just wanted to be left alone to manage things her way?
Tomorrow she'd have dinner with Ben, pretend to be grateful for his concern. She'd deal with Lillian's suggestionsand Dani's plans. She'd keep the inn running, keep Pop safe, keep everything together the way she always had.
She didn't need anyone else. She didn't need Ben Calloway thinking he understood her after a few weeks of roof repairs. She didn't need romantic dinners or gentle touches or someone to worry about her.
She was fine on her own. She'd always been fine on her own.
But as she lay in bed, she couldn't shake the image of those chairs in Ben's workshop, being carefully restored by hands that had saved them from the dump. He'd done that for her, without being asked, without expecting anything in return.
No,she told herself firmly.He expects something. People always do.
Tomorrow she'd go to dinner, make it clear she wasn't interested in anything more than a professional relationship. She didn't need complications. She didn't need romance.
She didn't need anyone.
The inn creaked around her in the darkness, and for the first time, the sound didn't comfort her. It sounded lonely, like a house holding its breath, waiting for something that might never come.
CHAPTER 10
Kate woke to the sound of car doors slamming and familiar voices carrying through her bedroom window. She recognized Tom's authoritative tone and James's lighter laugh, sounds that didn't belong here on a Thursday morning at 6:45 a.m. Her brothers never arrived anywhere before nine unless forced.
Through the frost-edged window, she could see their cars in the driveway. But it was the luggage that made her stomach tighten. Multiple suitcases, boxes, what looked like computer equipment. This wasn't a weekend visit.
It had been two weeks since they'd all signed the trust papers, since her brothers had returned to their important lives with promises to “check in soon.” Kate had assumed that meant phone calls, maybe a visit at Easter. Not this dawn arrival with what appeared to be half their belongings.
She got dressed and headed downstairs.
The stairs creaked under her feet, each sound familiar as breathing. The third step from the top always groaned, the seventh had been loose for years, the bottom one announced every arrival like a doorbell. The inn talked to her in these smallways, and she wondered if her brothers even remembered its language.
