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The blanket on the couch, the pillow on the arm. The print of Kia's slight body was still in the cushions, testifying that the young woman used it often to sleep in. It was more than likely her bed, and the knowledge of that was sad indeed.
Ella knew that kind of loneliness. The soul-deep, bottomless pit of cold that a large bed only intensified.
Kia closed the door and watched the two warily. "Are you certain you meant to come here?"
Ella Wyman was friends with her mother, and she knew Ella's husband did quite a bit of business with her parents.
"Have you had coffee yet?" Ella turned to her, her soft auburn hair swinging around her shoulders as she stared back at her with the same expression her mother used when attempting to convince Kia to do something she didn't want to do.
"Yes," Kia answered her slowly. "Would you like some?"
"I'll fix it. " Ella waved her hand dismissively and headed to the open kitchen. "You need to get a shower. "
"I do?" Kia watched her cautiously now, aware of Tessa standing back, her amused expression and sparkling gray eyes, so like her mother's, filled with warmth and a little too much purpose.
Ella moved into the kitchen and began opening cabinet doors as she turned back to glance at Kia.
"We're going shopping," the older woman informed her. "Dress for comfort, because the sales are numerous and the crowds are horrendous. "
"Why are we going shopping?" Kia asked, carefully keeping her voice level despite the fear that a madwoman had invaded her home.
Her cabinet door slammed as Ella rounded on her, propping her hands on her slender hips and glaring back at Kia.
"Your mother should be ashamed of herself for allowing you to hide as she has. I had a very interesting discussion with her last night, and Tessa and I have decided to take you in hand. Now, get your shower, and get ready to shop. Consider yourself in our hands and don't screw your face up like that. It isn't becoming. "
Kia instantly smoothed the scowl from her expression, then frowned again when she did so.
"What does my mother have to do with this?"
"I love Celia like my own sister. " Ella shook her head. "But it's obvious she had no idea what to do with you. I do. "
"Do you now?" Kia crossed her arms over her breasts and regarded the other woman with mock curiosity. "What is that?"
"By informing you that you have allowed your ex-husband to win, you've tucked your fluffy little tail between your legs and disappeared. "
Her fluffy little tail? Kia had an insane urge to reach back and see if she had somehow managed to add additional pounds there without meaning to.
Drew had dealt a blow to her pride that had been hard to overcome.
"So you care if Drew thinks he's won, why?" Kia tilted her head to the side as Ella continued making coffee in a kitchen that was not her own.
Ella Wyman had balls. Kia's mother had always made that statement accompanied by affectionate laughter.
"Sweetheart, if the only ones we care about are ourselves, then we're no better than that trash that tried to destroy you. Now, take that shower. I'm fixing breakfast and coffee, and then we're going shopping. It's girls' day out, so get prepared for it. "
How long had it been since she had had a girls' day out? Years, in fact. She'd even refused her mothers invitations. But Kia and her mother disagreed on just about every article of clothing that Kia preferred for herself.
"You're only allowing Rebecca to believe she's won," Tessa inserted at this point. "That's a mistake in this town, Kia, and you know it. You never let them see you bleed. But even more, you never let them see you hide. And refusing to be seen in public with Chase Falladay after you were seen leaving a party with him is an even larger mistake. There were comments made when you weren't at the dinner club with him and the friends he meets with there. "
Humiliation flared inside Kia.
"Perhaps I wasn't invited. " She smiled coolly. "You're under the impression Chase Falladay and I have a relationship, Tessa. It's a mistaken impression. "
Surprise narrowed Tessa's eyes as she glanced at her mother.
Ella was outraged, though she was careful to keep that knowledge from the young woman whose eyes flashed with pain and whose expression filled with quiet pride.
Tessa had unintentionally hurt her, but they had watched Chase carefully. He was cool to the women who approached him at that club, where he was rarely cool to any woman. Chase gave all the signs of a man involved. And even James had been smirking the night before the dinner that Chase was falling for the Rutherford girl. And James was rarely wrong.
