Saving Home

There’s more than the inn at stake...

Logan MacArthur had to have grown up under a rock. Was anyone really that cold-blooded? Sure, Andy—the youngest Roman daughter—understood that attorneys had to be detached and analytical, but Logan took it to a whole new level. How could she make him see that acquiring her family’s beloved inn for his client—the State of California!—was so much more than just a real estate transaction?

She had only a few days, with Logan marooned by torrential rains at Ladera by the Sea, to figure out if he actually had a heart, and if she could thaw it just enough. For her family’s future. And maybe for hers...

“You want to buy Ladera by the Sea?”

It seemed to take him a moment to even remember that was the name of her family’s inn.

“The state does,” he corrected her.

Her father, Andy knew, would never sell the inn. The inn was like another member of the family to him. It was their heritage and had been for more than a hundred and twenty years.

It would be like asking him to sell one of his daughters.

“The inn is not for sale,” Andy informed the lawyer crisply.

“I’m afraid it has to be,” Logan contradicted her in a calm voice that was making Andy crazy. “I just don’t want to make this unpleasant.”

“Too late,” she told him coldly.

Dear Reader,

Looks like we’ve come to the end of our stay at Ladera by the Sea. I, for one, will miss wandering its sandy beach and sitting on the veranda, listening to the night sounds and the occasional whispers of young lovers.

This book belongs to Richard Roman’s fourth and youngest daughter, Andrea. One semester away from graduating, Andy still doesn’t know what career path she is going to take. Interested in everything—medicine, business, writing—she can’t make up her mind. The only constant in her life, other than her family, is the inn. But one day a lawyer named Logan MacArthur arrives threatening to take it away. The state of California, in the interest of bringing in more revenue, declares eminent domain over the land the inn is standing on and just like that, the Roman way of life is threatened with extinction.

Well, not if Andy can help it. She and her sisters—the very pregnant Alex and Cris and the bride-to-be Stevi—begin a letter-writing campaign inundating Logan’s senior law firm partners with stacks of letters of protest written by the friends and former guests of the inn. Logan comes by in person to make her cease and desist, but winds up being stuck at the inn himself, thanks to a flash flood making routes out of Ladera impassable. Logan begins to see firsthand what the inn means to the Romans and what they mean to the inn. He also learns that the impossibly infuriating Andy is not quite so impossible after all.

As always, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my book, and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

All good wishes,

Marie Ferrarella

Saving Home

USA TODAY bestselling author

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARIE FERRARELLA is a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author who has written more than two hundred books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, marieferrarella.com.

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To

Victoria

For

Her

Patience

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

Copyright

PROLOGUE

THE PATH FROM the back of Ladera by the Sea, the family-owned, one-hundred-and-twenty-one-year-old bed-and-breakfast inn, to the small, private family cemetery far below was a little harder for Richard Roman to negotiate lately. The fault wasn’t due to any subtle change in the inclined terrain, but to the less-than-subtle change in the way he’d been feeling of late.

It was as if someone had siphoned out all his available energy.

Still, he felt the need to make this pilgrimage down the hill so he could share his thoughts and feelings with the two people who had been so very close to him in life. The two people who still meant the world to him, even though both were now gone.

Richard was perfectly aware that he could do his “sharing” anywhere. All it took was the privacy of his own mind. But for him, it felt far more personal, as if he were still in touch with his Amy and with Dan, if he came here, to stand—or sit—between their two headstones and talk to them.

Reaching the bottom of the hill, Richard paused for a moment to catch his breath, something that had become trickier than it had been even a little while ago.

There was a seat carved into the base of the pine tree that stood like a sentry guarding the two graves. The seat had been created by his second daughter Cris’s husband, Shane, so that he could stay here longer, if he so chose. Richard eased himself into it now.

He still hadn’t caught his breath. Air seemed a little harder to draw in and out these days and he felt himself growing winded far faster than he was happy about. So far, he’d been able to keep this annoying change in his health from his four daughters, but he’d noticed that both Alex and Andy, his oldest and his youngest, had taken to looking at him thoughtfully.

Had they actually put the question to him, Richard would blame it on the fact that they were once more heading into their second busiest season of the year. Summers were first, but the approach of Christmas always ushered in a host of repeat guests who enjoyed celebrating at the inn.

And if that wasn’t enough to explain why he appeared to be more harried than usual, he was also anticipating the pending births of not just one grandchild, but two. Alex and Cris were due within days of each other. That made this simultaneously a time for joy and a time of immense tension.

It was enough to give a man an occasional irregular heartbeat—or two.

The cherry on the sundae was Stevi’s pending wedding. Mike, the former undercover DEA agent who had literally washed up on their shore at Stevi’s feet, had recently decided to settle down here because “here” was where Stevi was. Now a homicide detective for the local police department, he’d proposed to her right in front of the entire family a moment before Thanksgiving dinner was served.

Stevi had been the wedding planner for her older sisters’ double wedding but when it came to her own, surprisingly, she wanted something small and intimate.

“Knowing Stevi,” Richard said, addressing the two tombstones that perforce took the place of Amy and Dan, “she’ll probably wake up one morning, knock on all our doors and say something like, If you want to come see me get married, you’d better get a move on because it’s happening in half an hour.”

He laughed softly to himself. “That’s our Stevi,” he said fondly to Amy. “Unconventional and spontaneous.” He laughed again, but the laugh became a cough that took him several minutes to get under control.

“Sorry,” he murmured, doing his best to regulate his breathing again. “I want to see Stevi married,” Richard confided. “But between you and me, I’m hoping she holds off until after Alex and Cris have their babies. Maybe even after the first of the year,” he added with a half smile. “Things calm down in January. It would be a perfect time for the wedding.”

He rolled his eyes. “As if I could ever influence anything Stevi did. She’s even more headstrong than Alex.

“Speaking of Alex,” he continued, turning toward the headstone of his best friend, “it won’t be long now before you’re a grandpa, Dan. Who would have ever thought, during all those summers that you and your boy spent here, that someday Wyatt and Alex would be married, waiting for the birth of their first child? I certainly didn’t, not with the way they were always trying to outdo each other, playing tricks when they weren’t arguing.” He shook his head. “Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?”

The pain he’d been feeling off and on took a backseat to the ache he was experiencing right now. He would have given anything to spend even five more minutes in the actual company of his wife and best friend.

Richard’s mouth curved as he allowed himself to remember another time, a time when his life had been so full of promise, of hope. Now it felt as if—for him—everything was in the process of winding down.

“I know you’re probably sick of hearing this, but I miss you both so very much.” He looked from one tombstone to the other. “The girls are wonderful, the men they’ve married or, in Stevi’s case, are going to marry, are fine, upstanding young people, and my days and nights are filled with so many things to be grateful for. But I still miss you, still wish you were here to share in all this. Although, Dan, you trained me to only expect to see you a couple of times a year, with all those globe-trotting absences of yours, tracking down the next big story. Any more visits than that were a bonus.”

Sadness seeped into Richard’s smile. “Now there’re no more bonuses, no more expectations.”

Pausing, Richard blew out a breath. “Sorry, I didn’t have any intentions of sounding so negative when I started to come down here for our visit—and yes, before you say anything, I know that the visits haven’t been as regular but I seem to be lacking energy these days. Like the old joke goes, my get-up-and-go seems to have got-up-and-went. Guess I’m just getting old.” He sighed.

“Okay, older,” he amended, knowing that Dan would have taken him to task for that if he were here in more than just spirit. The late reporter maintained that “old” was always fifteen years older than the age you currently were.

Richard’s eyes shifted to the headstone of his beloved Amy. He knew exactly what she would say right about now. “Yes, dear, I’ll go see the doctor soon, but he’ll say the same thing. That it’s just old age. But to make you happy, I’ll give him a call. Soon,” he added with a wink.

Then, rising slowly to his feet, Richard glanced over to the path leading back up the incline to the inn and he squared his shoulders.

“See you two soon,” he murmured, glancing over his shoulder at the graves.

A sharp twinge cut through him. It was gone the next second.

Getting old was a bear, Richard silently lamented as he started back to the inn.

The sky had been looking ominous all day. He wanted to make it back before it decided to rain.

CHAPTER ONE

SHE HAD A PROBLEM.

As far back as Andrea Roman could remember, the month of December had been, by far, her very favorite time of year. The fourth daughter in a family of four girls, Andy had always been the effervescent one during the rest of the year, as well. She was always the one who not only saw the glass as being half full but who assumed it was about to be completely filled to the brim very soon.

Negativity and pessimism were just not part of her makeup.

That was why this strange, empty feeling gnawing away at her worried Andy as much as it did. She hadn’t even felt this kind of prolonged, almost debilitating malaise after her mother died.

Back then, she’d devoted herself to keeping her father’s flagging spirits up. Granted, Andy had been very young at the time, but her sense of family, of loyalty, had always been exceptional.

Family still meant everything to her.

But these days, her family—her three older sisters—had moved on in different directions and she felt as if she was being left behind. She highly doubted any of her three sisters, Alexandra, Cristina or the soon to be married Stephanie, realized how she felt.

At least she hoped they didn’t, Andy thought listlessly as she slowly walked around the inn.

Her insides ached and felt so hauntingly empty.

Empty despite the fact that the level of her activity had gone up several notches recently, the way it always did at this time of year. Empty despite the fact that both Alex and Cris were due to give birth very, very soon.

Or maybe the feeling of desolation was there because of all that.

Both of her oldest sisters were married, and although Alex and Cris—and Wyatt and Shane, their respective husbands—all lived at the inn, each couple was involved in the creation of their own little family unit. Satellite units of the family they’d been born to.

The only family she knew, Andy thought as she slowly moved across the grass that Silvio, their gardener, kept so lush.

Andy supposed that she wouldn’t have felt so desolate if Stevi was still unattached. Back before Mike had come into Stevi’s life, it had been two against two, so to speak. She and Stevi on the one side while Alex and Cris were on the other.

But now Stevi was on the other side of the fence with Mike, her pending husband. And she was left to feel like a kid with her nose pressed up against the candy store window, allowed to see, but not to join in.

Oh, for her part she was crazy about all three of the men in her sisters’ lives. She’d grown up with Alex’s husband, Wyatt. They all had. During all those wild, wonderful summers when they were kids, Wyatt had been like the big brother they never had.

But like them or not, having Wyatt, Shane and Mike here underscored that she was very much alone.

Of course, she’d dated a few guys herself, especially during the three and a half years she’d just spent in college—eclectically sampling several different majors and trying to find herself—but there had just never been anyone with that special something that told her this was the one. This was the guy she wanted to face forever with. A weekend, or a month, or even the summer, maybe. But forever? No, no way.

Maybe she’d been too picky. Andy turned around again, this time heading toward the back entrance. She’d promised Alex she’d take over the front desk and it was almost time to spell her very pregnant sister.

The dark rain clouds seemed to grow even darker with each step she took. It didn’t help her mood.

If she lowered her standards, Andy thought, still trying to wrestle this feeling of hopelessness to the ground, she’d be settling. And she didn’t want to settle. At least not when it came to choosing a partner for life.

Andy frowned.

She absolutely hated feeling like this.

“What’s up, Andy?” Alex asked, as she watched her making her way toward the reception desk. “You look like you’ve just lost your best friend.”

“I have,” Andy replied before she could censor herself. When was she going to learn to think things through before she spoke?

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alex told her, instantly sympathetic.

If nothing else, Andy thought, marriage and this pending pregnancy had turned her sometimes waspish, dictatorial, type-A sister into a kinder, more thoughtful version of herself.

“Who was it?” Alex coaxed. “Did I know her?”

“Me,” Andy replied, looking away. She didn’t want to make eye contact.

“Excuse me?”

“Me,” Andy repeated. Resigned, she glanced up at Alex who was a shade taller than she was. “I just don’t feel like myself anymore. It’s like someone conducted a scorched earth policy inside me.”

The old Alex instantly returned with a vengeance. Andy watched as her tall, temporarily un-slender sister snorted and shook her head.

“You want to talk about not feeling like yourself?” Alex challenged. “I feel like the Spanish Armada every time I try to negotiate going from here to there—never mind just standing up.” She waved her hand. Since there were no guests in the reception area, Alex continued, working up a head of steam. “And my ankles, do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen my ankles? I have to take Wyatt’s word for it that they’re swollen because I certainly can’t see them. All I know is that walking anywhere these days is a challenge.”

Alex’s blue eyes narrowed as she shot her sister an accusation. “I look at you with your skinny little body and it’s everything I can do not to drag you down to the pier and toss you into the ocean.”

Andy forced a smile to her lips. She was deeply regretting having said a word to her sister.

But again, that still didn’t change anything about the way she felt, Andy thought in mounting despair.

She wasn’t exactly sure what possessed her, but Andy needed to make Alex understand. What she was experiencing had nothing to do with any sort of envy, but it was daunting and bordering on debilitating.

“Okay, I’m very sorry that you’re going through all this, Alex, and everything you just complained about is probably true—”

“Probably?”

The single word was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

“Probably?” Alex repeated, a flash of anger just beneath the surface.

Andy ignored all the very visible warning signs from her sister and pushed on. “But at the end of your temporary misshapen time as the Goodyear blimp’s stand-in,” she told Alex, “you’re going to have a really amazing, mind-blowing prize for all your trouble. You’re going to be holding a baby in your arms.”

She couldn’t contain the hopeless sigh that escaped her lips.

“Me, I’m going to go on feeling inadequate and adrift.”

“Adrift?” Alex repeated incredulously, mocking Andy’s choice of words. “Well, point your nose back toward home port, Melancholy Girl, because you’re supposed to be taking over this front desk so I can eat and put my feet up before they get way too heavy for me to lift.”

As Alex slid off the extra-padded, wide stool she’d been perched on, she caught a glimpse of Cris heading for the kitchen.

Perfect timing, Alex thought.

Cris had been the inn’s resident chef for several years now, but as her own pregnancy had progressed, she had slowly—and reluctantly—been relinquishing some of her duties to Jorge, her chief assistant. Not to mention they’d hired a couple of part-timers who were currently working alongside of her.

Still, Richard Roman’s second born was determined to continue working in at least a supervisory capacity for each and every meal prepared. Breakfast and dinner were included in the overall price of a room at the inn, lunch was not. But Cris still insisted on opening the kitchen in case any of the inn’s guests felt like dining in.

As far as Cris was concerned, the inn took the place of home for guests. In this she and their father were of like mind.

Catching Cris’s eye, Alex beckoned her over. She watched with a touch of envy as Cris seemed to maneuver with what appeared to be far less effort than she’d had to expend to cover the same ground.

This baby had her completely out of shape, Alex thought, frustrated.

When would this ordeal finally end so that she could have her life—not to mention her body—back? At this point, she was starting to feel as if she’d always been pregnant and there was no other way to be—no matter how much she wished there was.

“Hey, Cris,” Alex began before the latter reached her. “You’ve been through this before, right?”

Where was this going? Cris wondered.

Of course she’d been through this before. She’d given birth to a son six years ago. Ricky. Named him after his grandfather. It still hurt her that Ricky’s father had died halfway around the world, fighting for freedom, before he had ever set eyes on his son.

What was Alex getting at?

“I believe you know my son, your nephew,” she replied, waiting for Alex to continue.

“If you’ve already been through this once,” Alex said, underscoring the point, “how could you have willingly let it happen again? It’s like being possessed by some alien life form that makes you go to the bathroom every ten and a half minutes. Why would you want to go through all this a second time?”

Andy bent over and addressed the very large bump that was to be her future niece or nephew. “She doesn’t really mean it, Baby. Your mother’s just a very grumpy lady at times.”

Glaring at her, Alex shifted her stomach away from Andy.

“Because,” Cris told her older sister, acting as if the question was a perfectly logical one rather than something Alex’s haywire hormones had made her spit out, “there is nothing in the world to equal the feeling of holding a baby in your arms for the very first time.”

Alex was clearly not sold. “If that’s all it is, you could get a part-time job volunteering on the maternity ward at the local hospital,” she retorted.

Cris remained undaunted. “Talk to me after you’ve given birth to little whose-its-what’s-it and see if you feel the same way,” she told her older sister.

“I will,” Alex promised.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have special lunch orders to oversee,” Cris told them.

As she turned to continue to the kitchen, Cris glanced at the Christmas tree that the entire family—not to mention a number of the inn’s paying guests—had spent the better part of the weekend putting up and decorating. Her eyes narrowed as she weighed its appearance.

“That side seems a little barren,” she finally assessed, pointing toward a section that faced the kitchen rather than the front desk. She looked over her shoulder toward the only one of the three of them who could safely negotiate a ladder at this point. “Andy, could you do the honors?”

Andy was always one eager jump ahead of everything and everyone. So when she replied with a less than enthusiastic, “Sure, why not?” the response—more to the point, the tone of her sister’s voice—made Cris immediately halt in her tracks.

She gave her younger sister a lengthy scrutiny. “Is there something wrong, Andy?”

Before Andy had a chance to reply, Alex spoke up for her, summarizing what she viewed was the problem.

“Apparently our little sister is battling a case of the doldrums.”

Cris, her mothering instincts hardwired into her from birth, retraced her steps to Andy. She paused to press her lips against her younger sister’s forehead.

“You don’t feel unduly warm,” she judged, stepping back.

“That’s because I’m not running a fever,” Andy retorted, pulling her head back.

Cris stareded at her for what seemed like an eternity before she said, “No, you’re not. You’re also not smiling—or behaving anything like Andy.” She tried a little humor to alleviate the situation. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with our little sister?”

“She’s feeling sorry for herself,” Alex said matter-of-factly.

For one of the few times in her life, Andy felt her temper flare. She banked it down successfully. However, she wasn’t about to let the accusation go unanswered. “No, I’m not,” Andy firmly denied.

Cris put her arm around Andy’s shoulders in a move that fairly shouted camaraderie and protectiveness.

“Don’t worry, honey, we all feel a little sorry for ourselves once in a while. It comes with the territory.” Cris smiled broadly, glancing over in Alex’s direction. “After all, we’re related to Alex, which is enough of a reason for anyone to feel sorry for themselves.” She winked at Andy.

The wink was not lost on Alex.

“Great, two against one,” she complained to the world at large. Her eyes swept over the other two. “I can still take you on, you know.”

“No one’s taking anyone on,” Cris told her calmly. “Especially not around Christmas.”

Alex did her best to hide the knowing grin that was threatening to come out. “You’re just saying that because I’d win.”

Cris merely smiled the knowing smile that had always driven Alex crazy.

“If you say so,” Cris replied accommodatingly. Then she turned toward Andy. “You want to come help me in the kitchen?”

Alex suddenly came to life. It was one thing to banter, but business was business and she wasn’t in the mood to allow that to just slide. “Hey, Andy’s supposed to be taking over for me at the front desk, remember?” The last of her question was directed toward Andy.

“Wyatt got you that extra-wide stool. Use it,” Cris told her, nodding toward where it was parked beneath the reception desk.

Threading her arm around Andy’s shoulders again, Cris gently guided her in the direction of the kitchen.

“It is not extra-wide,” Alex cried defensively, raising her voice slightly. “It’s just extra-comfortable, that’s all.”

“Either way,” Cris answered without turning around this time, “use it. I need Andy. C’mon, I’ve got a chicken potpie in the refrigerator with your name on it.” She knew it was Andy’s favorite comfort food. “I’ll heat it up and you can tell me what’s bothering you.”

Andy sighed as she walked into the kitchen beside her sister. “I don’t really know what’s bothering me.”

That was, more or less, a lie. But she was not about to tell Cris that she was envious of her and the others, that she felt left out because she was a single to their doubles.

“Then we’ll figure it out together,” Cris proposed cheerfully. “Can’t have my baby’s godmother moping around like this, you know.”

Andy frowned, confused. “I’m not Ricky’s godmother.”

There was a mischievous glimmer in Cris’s eyes as she smiled and said, “No, you’re not.”