Page 27 of The Comeback Heir

“I’ll bet you were,” he muttered.

She ground her teeth. “I’m giving you twelve hours a day, Monday through Friday. My weekends are my own.” She remembered his earlier caveat. “Unless, of course, you sleep over somewhere on Friday night.” She curled her lip, making sure he knew what she thought of that. Although, come to think of it, Wynn had never—so far—slept away from the apartment.

She stood in front of him. He had been pacing the living room. Or maybe not pacing. More like restless wandering.

He stopped to keep from running her over. “You could have stayed out later.” His tone was snide.

If she didn’t know better, she would say he was jealous. But that made no sense. If it hadn’t been for the funeral and the baby, Wynn would not have been spending time with Felicity at all.

She opened her mouth, but before she could respond to his snarky remark, her phone rang. “I need to answer this,” she said, forgetting all about her spat with Wynn. “It’s a Florida number. Might be my dad or my uncle.”

When she answered the phone and heard her uncle’s voice rush into a clumsy explanation, her world stopped.

Her responses were limited to “uh-huh. Uh-huh.” And “thanks for letting me know.” As she hit the button to end the call, the weirdest emotions strangled her. She wanted to cry, but she was frozen from the inside out.

Wynn came closer, his expression concerned. “What is it, Fliss?”

She stared at him, her lips numb. “My father died.”

Then she burst into tears.

Wynn pulled her into his arms and held her tightly as she sobbed. He was a bulwark in a storm that had struck out of nowhere—without any warning at all. Afterward, she couldn’t have said how long she cried. It might have been ten minutes or half an hour. The ugly, painful emotions ripped at her and left her feeling like a little girl lost in the scary woods.

All the while, Wynn stroked her back, murmuring words of comfort. Finally, when she was calmer, he left her long enough to get a damp washcloth for her face. She glanced in a mirror on the wall and winced.

Her eyes were swollen, and her mascara made tracks on her cheeks.

When she had cleaned her face, he perched on the arm of the sofa. “What happened to him?”

Felicity took a hiccupping breath, twisting the washcloth in her hands. “That was my uncle Danny. He and my father went fishing this morning. They had a good day. On the way back, Daddy spotted a huge grouper in shallow water. He threw in a line, hooked the fish and started reeling it in. But he collapsed.”

“Was there any help?”

“Yes. They were close to shore. The EMTs responded to my uncle’s 911 call immediately. But they assume it was a massive heart attack.”

“I’m so sorry, Fliss.”

His sympathy was too painful. The tears started again. “He was only sixty-three years old,” she whispered.

“I know,” Wynn said. And he held her again...

This time, she pulled herself out of the pit a little quicker, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ll buy you a new shirt. Snot and mascara aren’t a good look on you.”

Wynn snorted out a surprised laugh. Then his expression gentled. He brushed the hair from her hot cheeks. “Go put on your pajamas and come to my room,” he said. “I remember what it felt like the day I got the call about Shandy. You don’t need to be alone tonight.”

She looked up at him, her bottom lip wobbling. “Oh, Wynn. Were you alone that night?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. I was.”

When she didn’t move, he took her by the hand and led her down the hall. “You’re in shock, baby. Try to breathe. Do you want something to drink? A shot of Scotch might help.”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I’ll be there shortly.”

She left him standing in the hall and shut the door in his face.

If she’d been stronger, she might have been able to say no to his offer, but she felt like a star imploding, a dark hole swallowing everything that was light. The feeling was terrifying. She was an orphan now. An adult orphan.

Unfastening zippers and buttons was hard. Her hands weren’t coordinated. Finally, she was done. She tossed her clothes on the bed and went into the bathroom to take a quick shower. She had washed her hair that morning, so it took less than five minutes to get clean.