Chapter 12 #3
The hum of tension running through her amplified to a roar. The pieces were locking together, forming a picture. “So, what does this mean for the inn?” That warehouse held a lot of stock. And it seemed he might be spending more time building furniture than running the Wild Rose.
To be honest, she’d never considered the toll the inn might’ve taken on him. They’d had so much fun running it, and he’d made it look effortless.
But she was a woman now, and she knew what was involved—impossible hours, endless complaints, deliveries that didn’t show up, boilers that quit in the middle of the night, and the quiet, constant work of making strangers feel at home.
She glanced at the monitor. The blood pressure read 186 over 104—still dangerously high, but lower than when they’d come in.
“We’ll hire a general manager to run the place.
That way, you can make your beautiful furniture and just take care of the books.
” Well, hang on. He had to do his own accounting for Holland Woodworks.
“Scratch that. Let’s hire that out, too. ”
“That won’t be necessary.” His shoulders tensed.
“No, it can be part-time. I’ve seen it with businesses before—they hire someone for just a few hours a week. Even for events like Wild West Days, we could hire an event planner or—”
“Willa.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m thinking about selling the inn.”
She reared back as if he’d slapped her.
She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “You can’t sell it. We’re the original owners. It’s been in the family for more than a century.”
“You’re the original owner. It’s your legacy, sweetheart. Not mine.”
“What are you saying?” She got up so abruptly, the chair screeched. “Dad, it’s…God, it’s the heart of Calamity. It’s…important.” She had nowhere to move in the curtained space, so she paced to the end of the bed. “You can’t sell it.
“Come back here. Don’t be angry with me.”
Against her every instinct to rail against him, she stood beside him.
“Look, I held onto it for you. But you’re thirty-one, you’re going to be a partner in your mom’s firm—I’m so proud of you. You’ve accomplished everything you set out to do—but you’re not coming back. And your mom doesn’t want it.”
Her senses sharpened. “You talked to Mom?” As far as she knew, her parents hadn’t talked in a decade.
“Of course. It’s her family’s. I had to discuss it with her.”
“And what did she say?” She felt rigid, brittle. Ready to snap.
“She said she didn’t care what I did with it.”
The room spun, and Willa reached for the chair. “She didn’t tell me. She didn’t ask what I wanted.” And just like that, she was the ten-year-old girl whose mother promised to come to her birthday party but never showed up.
And the sixteen-year-old girl who was packed and ready to go to the airport to spend her birthday in New York City with her mom, “splurging” on outfits and a Broadway show, only to have her dad come into her room with that familiar expression.
“She can’t make it, sweetheart. The deal fell apart, and she’s in crisis control. ”
“Did she even mention me?” Her thready voice disgusted her. She wasn’t that little girl anymore. She didn’t need her mother in the same way.
What she needed was answers.
But he had that same expression from her childhood when he’d had to deliver the bad news.
He was the one who’d consoled her when she’d wept uncontrollably after she’d visited her mom in New York that first time when she was thirteen and spent the entire visit with a nanny.
Through all the countless promises broken, the expensive gifts she couldn’t wear or use in a small mountain town, and the missed events like graduation and holidays, it had been her dad who’d supported her through all the heartbreak.
Never her mom.
“No.” He said it decisively, but his expression showed he understood the cost to her.
“So, you asked my mom, but you didn’t talk to me about it?”
“Not yet.” He reached for her hand. “Not until I’d weighed my options and made a final decision.
There was no possibility I’d put it on the market before giving you the option to keep it.
The first step was checking in with your mother, and that was just a courtesy.
” He studied her. “Your reaction surprises me. To be honest, you haven’t mentioned the inn in years.
I didn’t think it mattered to you beyond childhood memories. ”
“I’m not sure I knew either until you said you were going to sell it.” She’d taken for granted it would always be in her family. Seems to be a running theme in my adult life. “Doesn’t it mean anything to you? Do you really want to sell it?”
“Of course, it means something. I got to raise you in it.”
Dad. She loved him so much. But she hadn’t prioritized him in a very long time. “All this time, I thought you loved it.” When he didn’t answer, she tried to make sense of the situation. “Mom said the inn ‘was right up your alley.’”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“She said you’re a ‘small-town man with small-town appetites.’ That you didn’t want more out of life.”
Her dad held her gaze with conviction. “I am a small-town man. There’s nowhere I’d rather live than Calamity.”
“But your passion is furniture.” It was sinking in. She was seeing him for the first time as a man and not just her dad. “Not running the inn.”
“That’s right.”
“So, all this time, you were doing something you didn’t want.”
How did she not know any of this?
She’d grown up with this man, and she knew nothing about him.