The Welcoming by Nora Roberts Page A

when he sent me away to school. I loved this place.” She glanced around the kitchen. “In school I pined for it, and for Pop. Even in college I missed it so much I’d ferry home every weekend. But he wanted me to see something else before I settled down here. I was going to travel some, get new ideas for the inn. See New York, New Orleans, Venice. I don’t know. . . .” Her words trailed off wistfully.
    “Why didn’t you?”
    “My grandfather was ill. I was in my last year of college when I found out
how
ill. I wanted to quit, come home, but the idea upset him so much I thought it was better to graduate. He hung on for another three years, but it was . . . difficult.” She didn’t want to talk about the tears and the terror, or about the exhaustion of running the inn while caring for a near-invalid. “He was the bravest, kindest man I’ve ever known. He was so much a part of this place that there are still times when I expect to walk into a room and see him checking for dust on the furniture.”
    He was silent for a moment, thinking as much about what she’d left out as about what she’d told him. He knew her father was listed as unknown—a difficult obstacle anywhere, but especially in a small town. In the last six months of her grandfather’s life his medical expenses had nearly driven the inn under. But she didn’t speak of those things; nor did he detect any sign of bitterness.
    “Do you ever think about selling the place, moving on?”
    “No. Oh, I still think about Venice occasionally. There are dozens of places I’d like to go, as long as I had the inn to come back to.” She rose to get him another beer. “When you run a place like this, you get to meet people from all over. There’s always a story about a new place.”
    “Vicarious traveling?”
    It stung, perhaps because it was too close to her own thoughts. “Maybe.” She set the bottle at his elbow, then took her dishes to the sink. Even knowing that she was overly sensitive on this point didn’t stop her from bristling. “Some of us are meant to be boring.”
    “I didn’t say you were boring.”
    “No? Well, I suppose I am to someone who picks up and goes whenever and wherever he chooses. Simple, settled and naive.”
    “You’re putting words in my mouth, baby.”
    “It’s easy to do,
baby
, since you rarely put any there yourself. Turn off the lights when you leave.”
    He took her arm as she started by in a reflexive movement that he regretted almost before it was done. But it was done, and the sulky, defiant look she sent him began a chain reaction that raced through his system. There were things he could do with her, things he burned to do, that neither of them would ever forget.
    “Why are you angry?”
    “I don’t know. I can’t seem to talk to you for more than ten minutes without getting edgy. Since I normally get along with everyone, I figure it’s you.”
    “You’re probably right.”
    She calmed a little. It was hardly his fault that she had never been anywhere. “You’ve been around a little less than forty-eight hours and I’ve nearly fought with you three times. That’s a record for me.”
    “I don’t keep score.”
    “Oh, I think you do. I doubt you forget anything. Were you a cop?”
    He had to make a deliberate effort to keep his face bland and fingers from tensing. “Why?”
    “You said you weren’t an artist. That was my first guess.” She relaxed, though he hadn’t removed his hand from her arm. Anger was something she enjoyed only in fast, brief spurts. “It’s the way you look at people, as if you were filing away descriptions and any distinguishing marks. And sometimes when I’m with you I feel as though I should get ready for an interrogation. A writer, then? When you’re in the hotel business you get pretty good at matching people with professions.”
    “You’re off this time.”
    “Well, what are you, then?”
    “Right now I’m a handyman.”
    She shrugged, making