She hung up and set her phone down and stared at Emma’s, watching one text come in after another, reminding Kate why she hated the entire concept of a “group chat.”
But not so, seventeen-year-old girls. Not when they had a mission and obviously no heart in the lot of them.
Kate glanced at the trainwreck on the bed, unable not to stare, and saw Emma’s name again and again in the preview text.
She absolutely refused to look at her daughter’s phone or open it to read this chain of nastiness. But why were they including?—
An all-cap swear word flashed, followed by “she’s still on here,” and a minute later, it all stopped, followed by the flash of a notification:You have been removed from this group.
Well, that answered a few questions. Yes, the texts were about Emma. Yes, they were trying to get her off the team. And yes…that poor girl shouldn’t have to go back to the worst possible senior year.
Kate’s vision blurred as she tried to imagine what Emma would feel when she saw that chain of messages. Because they could delete her from the group, but not the six hundred texts that proved they were heartless. Emma would be crushed and go spiraling right back into moody misery.
For one crazy second, Kate considered deleting the thread. It would be easy. Emma didn’t have a password—that was a family rule in case of emergency. But that rule held for one reason: trust. And opening her phone and deleting a thread would be…beyond the pale.
Emma would read the texts. She’d feel the betrayal. And she’d have to face the fact that if the coach decided to take her off the team, there was actual cause, based on the pictures Emma had sent.
Would the coach do that? Kate didn’t think so, but if Emma’s teammates petitioned?
It didn’t matter. Once Emma saw those texts, she wouldn’t walk onto a volleyball court with those girls for love or money.
Pushing off the bed, Kate closed her eyes and let the kid pain—the worst pain—squeeze her throat and sting her eyes. Emma didn’t deserve this! She’d made a mistake and was sorry and her only crime was having really flaky friends and flirting with the wrong guy.
She stood at the window, looking out at the Gulf, arms crossed, trying to slow her heartbeat. The water was emerald-green—Destin green—and the sky was cloudless. Somewhere down on the beach, her daughter was playing with a seven-year-old, unaware that the life she’d left behind in Ithaca was still reaching for her with sharp little claws.
Then, from downstairs, she heard the front door open.
“Anybody home?”
Eli.
Kate took one breath, then another, and centered herself, letting the rollercoaster of life take her from low to high.
She went downstairs and found him in the kitchen, setting his bag on the counter, looking tired and tan and so much like home that her throat ached all over again.
“Hey,” she said.
He turned and smiled—the real one, the one that crinkled the corners of his blue eyes—and opened his arms.
She walked into them and pressed her face against his shoulder and held on, letting everything that was wrong fall away. The texts, the school, the faith, the future—all of it dissolved into the simple, solid warmth of this man’s loving arms.
“I missed you,” she murmured.
“Three days felt like a month.” He kissed the top of her head. “How’s everything here?”
She pulled back and looked up at him, adjusting her glasses. “Better now.”
“Aww. I like the sound of that, Lady Katie.”
“I like you,” she countered, speaking from the heart. “And…” Before she spilled out the request for his weekend, she stopped. Emma might need her. Emma might be broken after reading those texts.
“And…” he prompted.
“I’m glad you’re home.”
He gave her a squeeze. “It’s home now, especially with you here.”
She hung on to the sweet pronouncement and knew that date or no date, volleyball team or no volleyball team, she could figure anything out with this man by her side.
