One bright Saturday morning in February, Bella woke him early.“I have a surprise, and you have to promise you won’t be mad,” she said.
He looked at her, bleary-eyed from his pillow.“Is it breakfast in bed?I won’t be mad about that.Bring it in.”
She bit her lip.“No, but that would have been a good way to soften the blow.”
He sat up, yawning and stretching.“It’s never too late for breakfast.”
“No, it’s too late.”She shook her head.“We need to go.I need you to pick someone up from the ferry.”
His eyebrows shot up.“Is something wrong?”
“You have to promise you won’t be mad,” she repeated.
If she was in some kind of trouble.
He sat up.“Of course I won’t be mad.What’s going on?”
“Good.”A smile flashed across her face.“I’ve been corresponding with someone.”
His heart rate picked up.This was a rude awakening.“Okay, and they’ve come to find you?”
“No, they’ve come to findyou.It’s that pediatrician I’ve been telling you about.”
Miles groaned.“Bella.”
“What?I was honest with her.I told her that I liked her, but how you weren’t really interested in anything, and how disappointed I was.”
He rubbed his face with his hands.“You told her I wasn’t interested in her, and she still showed up?”
“It’s not like that!She said she happened to be coming to the island for a weekend getaway, and I said we’d love to meet her.”
Miles sat in the morning light, his face resting in his hands.Truthfully, he should only be surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.
“I see,” he finally said.
“You promised you wouldn’t be mad!”Bella pulled a hand off his face.
“I’m not mad,” he said slowly.“ButIdidn’t make any promises about seeing this woman, so I don’t know why I need to pick her up from the ferry.”
“Dad,” Bella bemoaned, “she’s really nice and really smart.Don’t you think I deserve a nice stepmom?She’s a good influence, too.She’s a doctor!”
As if that was the key to sending Bella off to medical school.The real issue was Miles finding a way to survive Bella’s conniving years with her repeatedly outsmarting him.Or would it be decades of this?
He shuddered at the thought.
“That’s if she even is who she says she is.What if the person you’ve been corresponding with is actually a fifty-year-old man?What if he’s come looking for you?”
“Ew, Dad.Be serious.”
He laughed.“I am serious.Don’t they teach you about the dangers of the internet at school?Isn’t there some movie I can scare you with?”
She stood taller, running her hands over her blouse.“Well, her ferry’s going to be here in thirty minutes, so you need to get dressed.”
How did she keep outmaneuvering him?Was there a moviehecould watch?
Miles shut his eyes.He had promised he wouldn’t be mad.If he ever wanted her to come to him with real problems, he had to stick to that.
But meeting some desperate stranger from the internet was the last thing he wanted to do with his weekend.He opened his eyes and formed a protest, but Bella was gone.
