“And?”
“I love him,” she said simply. “I really do.”
Meredith’s throat tightened.
“But this?” Kate went on, waving a hand toward the sky, the sea, the invisible chasm between them. “It’s a big thing. A deep divide. I keep asking myself—if I can’t believe in what he believes, will he still believe inme?”
Meredith studied her, the woman who made her dad light up when she walked into a room, who had been kind to Jonah, who had written him glowing letters and shared meals and laundry and lullabies. She wasn’t evil. She wasn’t selfish. She wasn’t even trying to change him.
“You said you only believe in what you can test,” Meredith said. “What you can measure. Touch. Prove.”
Kate nodded.
“Does that mean you don’t believe in love?”
She didn’t answer, and the expression that crossed her face—pain, uncertainty, something raw—was gone almost as quickly as it came, but clearly, the question had hit the mark.
“I’ll need some time to think about that,” she whispered.
“Come on,” Meredith said when they reached the boardwalk where they’d started. “Jonah might be father of the year, but he can’t burp that baby for love or money.”
They smiled at each other and as they picked up their shoes and headed into the Summer House, Meredith put a light hand on Kate’s shoulder.
She certainly didn’t want any animosity with the woman her dad loved, just a genuine connection. Kate met the gesture with a warm look, both of them silently agreeing to table all the unanswered questions. For now, anyway.
The palm trees were lit from below like runway models, casting long, glamorous shadows across Ocean Drive as Maggie rolled down the truck window and let the humid, sea-soaked air warm her face.
They hadn’t planned to arrive in Miami Beach at this time, but stopping in the little hotel in Fort Lauderdale like their itinerary said seemed like a waste. Maggie had stuck to her decision not to tell anyone in Destin where they were or what they were doing. No one had asked too many questions in her brief texts and one call, but she sensed that couldn’t last too much longer.
She hoped they could get to Miami Beach, pick up the car early, then zip back to Fort Lauderdale by seven or so.
Whoa, had she calculated that wrong. Who knew so many cars could be on the roads, jamming South Florida like it was Mardi Gras in New Orleans? The traffic had been ghastly, giving Maggie a headache and a handache from a constant death grip on the wheel.
They’d stayed on the beach road to avoid I-95, of course—some fears couldn’t be conquered—and that was an absolutenightmare where clearly everyone made up their own driving rules and speed limits were casual suggestions.
Now it was too late to turn back, and way too late to get the car they’d come to pick up.
Jo Ellen had used the Great and Powerful Oscar to get a hotel recommendation in Miami Beach, and made a reservation for that night.
If they got there in one piece. That was looking like a longshot as they crawled along Ocean Drive, which was more of a street party than a road.
“Oh, my word,” Maggie muttered, watching a shirtless man on rollerblades weave between slow-moving convertibles while holding a neon cocktail in each hand. “We’ve landed in a spring break documentary.”
Jo Ellen leaned forward in the passenger seat of Frank’s beater truck, clutching the itinerary printed in a font so large, Maggie could read it from the driver’s seat.
“This is exactly what I thought Miami Beach would be like,” Jo cooed. “I half expect to see Don Johnson in a white suit with his gun drawn any minute!”
A man walked by wearing nothing but a bathing suit that made him look like a professional grape smuggler.
“Careful, Jo. Having your ‘gun drawn’ might mean something completely different down here.”
Jo Ellen snorted. “Look around, Maggie. It’s so alive!”
“Oh, it’s alive. It’s practically vibrating with…” She searched for the right description, seeing nothing but lithe bodies, long hair, and tiny threads pretending to be clothing. “Youth,” she finished on a sigh.
“Well, then we’ll stand out like that man’s bright pink drinks,” Jo said. “By the way, is everything made of blindingly colored lights down here?”
She wasn’t wrong—the neon was relentless. Pink and turquoise signs blinked like they were in competition. Music thumped from somewhere, and every building looked like the set of a movie made in the 1920s.
