I keep that thought to myself. Even if I’ve already shared it in a moment of weakness with him before, I don’t need to remind him how pathetic I am. Instead I stare, transfixed, down at our hands.

Giving mine a squeeze, he says, “I’m sure now that you’ve all been in one another’s lives for so long, they love you like family.”

“But I’m not family,” I whisper.

“I think they see you that way. Maybe you just don’t realize it because you’re too caught up in the assumptions you’ve made about them.”

Yikes, that kind of makes me sound like a jerk.

I’m at a loss for how to respond. It’s possible there could be some truth to what he’s saying. But how would he know? He doesn’t know them like I do. He hasn’t experienced years of these awkward visits. Hasn’t watched the way they criticize everything I do.

But he’s been around a lot these last few days, and maybe it takes an outsider’s perspective to see things clearly. Or maybe he’s wrong. I don’t know.

“Well, isn’t this cozy?”

I jump at Elise’s voice, tearing my hand from Travis’s on instinct. Although, we’re supposed to touch, so I don’t know why I feel like I got caught doing something scandalous. “Sorry,” I say.

“No need to apologize, hon,” she replies. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. It just gets boring watching those two play that game. They take it so seriously, both staring at their letters so hard I’m afraid they’ll set the tiles on fire.”

“May’s obsessed with Scrabble,” I tell her.

“She’s so smart, I can see why.”

A tiny burst of pride swells in me. As if I can really take any credit for May’s brain. If anything, her intelligence comes from her mom and grandparents.

“Brenden’s always been great about her education,” Travis says. “He used to sit at the diner with her when she was a kid and help her with her homework. And he gets her all the books she asks for, which is a lot. He’ll probably need to add an addition onto the house soon in order to fit them all.”

Elise smiles. “It’s wonderful that she’s such a big reader. She gets that from her mom.”

See?

The oven timer dings, and Travis says, “I’ll get the cookies.” But I jump up first, banging my knee on the table in the process of beating him there.

Trying not to wince at the pain, I hobble over to the oven as quickly as I can. My clumsy, unnecessary eagerness is embarrassing, but I just want to put an end to that conversation. I already know Elise and Grant think I’m unintelligent. They think that, because I run an inn for a living, it means I wasn’t capable of doing anything more.