Room at the Inn for Christmas (Second Chance at Star Inn)(11)

“Another expensive update.” Mandy should just let it go; there was nothing to be done about it now. But it hurt. “Why didn’t Dad want me home? I always thought he loved me, but now—” Her voice broke.

Cart rose from his work and turned to face her.

A hard shake of her head steadied her. “Sorry, it’s not important. I still cry for him now and then. It’s hard to have both of my parents gone. It’s a very lonely feeling. And now, trying to figure out why Dad didn’t want me here. Especially as he got older. Running this place—” She couldn’t say more because the tears could not be stopped.

Cart handed her a clean white handkerchief, then slid his arms around her and pulled her close and let her cry. She hadn’t had any human contact for so long until Angel and Cart. Dad was the last of her family, and he hadn’t been a hugger.

Now Cart held her close. His arms and his kind words kept her warm and safe in a big, cold world. It felt so good to not grieve alone. Finally, it seemed as if the worst of her pain had washed away on the flood of saltwater tears. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, then rested her achy head on his shoulder.

“Mandy, I can’t tell you what he was thinking, but last night, at home, I got to wondering if—if it’s all got something to do with . . . me.”

That cleared her tear-muddled brain enough so she lifted her head to meet his eyes. “Because he told me you were married?”

“Did he really say that?” Cart shook his head.

“I’ve tried to think what he actually said. I think it was at—there was a parents’ day at college, a month or so before graduation. He came and, well, Dad wasn’t much of a talker, you know.”

“True enough, unless he was talking about the Seahawks or the Mariners.”

“Yeah, typical man, he talked about sports but not about how he felt.”

“Well, who can blame him for that?” Cart shuddered.

Mandy pinched him.

He pulled her closer. “Just rest against me for a minute.”

She did because she couldn’t resist.

“I said I was coming home. I just made some passing comment, no big deal. I’d always planned to. And that’s when he, well, he shocked me by saying I should be hunting work. The inn was struggling. I know he said it made enough for him to get by, but not to support both of us. He said those exact words.”

“And that’s when he talked about me?” Cart asked.

“I can’t remember just what he said. Something like, ‘Cart’s finally settling down with a good woman.’ Something like that. Not a big announcement, more like he tossed it into the general talk. And I was so stunned about not coming home that we mainly discussed that. I had my whole life figured out, and he pulled the rug out from under me. All of a sudden, I needed job interviews and to get a résumé together. I needed to be thinking about rent when I’d never considered anywhere but here to be home. I needed a business suit for the job hunt. My head was spinning. Then you, well, my best friend was gone, too.”

“And you never questioned that you weren’t invited to the wedding? You never asked your dad about me?”

Mandy eased away and looked down at her toes and was silent for too long. Finally, she said, “I’d better get back to the kitchen. Angel might need—”

Cart lifted her chin until she had to look at him. Then he lowered his head and kissed her.

The kiss was the answer to a thousand wishes that she’d long ago given up on. He’d kissed her a few times long ago. Just enough that Mandy had pinned her future on Anthony Carter. She really believed he’d held back to give her the chance to go to college before they began a future together. And then Dad not wanting her, and telling her Cart was married . . . it had been twin blows that knocked her into a whole different life.

The kiss ended, followed by smaller, slower kisses, sweeter. At last he said, “Why didn’t you ever come back?” He ran strong hands up and down her arms. “That would have cleared things up. But you’ve never been home, not once since the Christmas before you graduated.”

“Dad never invited me.” She shrugged and felt his touch. She wanted it to last.

“A girl doesn’t need an invitation to come home.”

“I know that.” Impatiently, feeling like he was blaming her, she brushed his hands away and slid sideways so he didn’t have her pinned so close to the wall. “But I did tell him I was coming, several times, and he’d say he wanted to come to me instead. He did it every time, until I just quit planning trips and instead I’d tell him I missed him and we needed to get together. That was so obviously what he wanted. I had this whole image in my head of the inn getting shabby, needing paint. I make decent money; I asked him a couple of times if he needed any.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He’d act embarrassed, tell me to keep my money, he was getting by okay.”

Cart shook his head.

“I traveled a lot for work, and he met me if I got close enough, Seattle, Portland; he even drove to San Francisco a couple of times and flew out to Denver to meet me once. And he’d come to my place in Los Angeles for holidays.”

“We missed him here. No one to run the place during Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter. But a man gets his holidays, especially when his only child refuses to come here to see him.”