Ariel Exposed!
And the worst:
Ariel Sullivan Could Never Make It Without Her Famous Aunt.
She let go of the mouse, turned from the screen as Molly Banks’s sneering face, backstage at the Dove Awards, dropped into her memory.
You’re good, but you’d never win anything if Dahlia Denton didn’t prop you up.
Ariel came here determined to find out if this very thing was true. To learn whether she could make it on her own. Was this her answer?
“How viral is this video?” A huge part of her didn’t want to know.
“Half a million in the past hour.” Josie laid her hand on Ariel’s arm. “I’m sorry. It’s hard telling how many versions will come out. A couple hundred people were there, and probably at least half of them recorded some portion of the rehearsal.”
Ariel rested her head in her hands for a moment, then lifted it again. “Is my reputation ruined? Have you found other videos like this?”
“Honey, there are dozens of them floating around, taken from different angles.”
“And my reputation?” she repeated.
“I have tons of experience with issues like this,” Josie said. “We can take some measures that might help.”
Good. Maybe one of them would remove the stone that had somehow landed in the pit of her stomach. “Does Aunt Dahlia know?”
“I texted her but she didn’t answer.”
“Don’t try again. I’ll handle it.” Ariel had just wanted to bless a bunch of kids and help Caleb’s inn. What a mess it had become.
“We’ve all seen things like this on social media.” Caleb chose his words slowly, carefully. “It’ll blow over.”
Was there a place where she could get away from everyone and every social media platform, where nobody paid attention to such things?
In her suite ten minutes later, Ariel started a video chat with Aunt Dahlia. Her aunt sat at the table in her Gatlinburg hotel suite, eating yogurt, granola, and dates. “Josie texted me. I just watched some of those hateful videos.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Pray, then call Paxton.”
Take it to the Lord then their manager. Good plan.
On her tablet, she saw Aunt Dahlia opening her Bible—the most tattered and abused-looking Bible Ariel had ever seen. Her aunt opened it to the middle of the book. “After that, I’ll call Stan.”
Ah. The junkyard-dog lawyer who’d been with Aunt Dahlia throughout her whole career.
Now that they had a plan, Ariel’s stomach settled a little, and she could think.
Aunt Dahlia went to prayer in that bold, brassy, Southern way of hers. And when that woman prayed, heaven listened.
As Ariel agreed with her in prayer, adding her own voice to her aunt’s vibrant, faith-filled petitions, a sense of calmness fell upon the room, and she breathed it in. By the time they said their amens, her sense of panic lifted.
In its place settled a fierce determination to prove them wrong.
Aunt Dahlia read aloud the passage she’d selected. “‘He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.’ Hide yourself away with the Lord in prayer, darlin’.”
She sure would.
A knock sounded on the door. She peered through the peephole, then opened the door.
