Page 3 of The Beach Trap

“Wait, why?” Blake said. “Don’t you need him?”

She had seen Kat sleep with the stuffed animal every night, then hastily hide it inside her pillowcase in the morning before the other girls woke up.

Kat swallowed, then shook her head. “Keep him until you can give him back to me in person. That way wehaveto see each other again.”

Blake took the bear and tucked him under her arm, aware that this was a rare honor.

“You have to promise to stay in touch,” Kat said. “I’ll send you a letter as soon as I get home, okay?”

“Of course,” Blake said. “Best friends forever, right?”

They had braided each other’s hair that morning in two French braids—Blake’s straight blond hair usually looked nothing like Kat’s thick chestnut waves, but there was a sense of solidarity in the hairstyle. Like they were connected.

Kat threw her arms around Blake and hugged her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kat saw a car pull up outsidethe lodge. The car wasn’t familiar, but when she recognized the man in the driver’s seat, her broken heart leapt.

“That’s my dad,” she said. She rushed toward him, wanting nothing more than to have his arms around her. And there he was, stepping out of the car, her handsome father with his wavy brown hair, his shiny shoes and crisp button-down shirt.

“Hey, Kitty Kat,” he said, pulling her in for a hug.

Kat took a deep breath of his familiar smell, the Hugo Boss cologne he’d always worn. When she pulled away, his face looked sad and tired, and all of a sudden it hit her: his father had died, and she realized that somedayhewould die, too, and she buried her face in his chest and let loose a flurry of sobs.

Behind her, Blake watched the scene, frozen with shock. Her entire body felt like it had turned to ice. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak. It couldn’t be him, she told herself. It couldn’t be him here, now, with his arms around her best friend.

But it was. He was dressed more formally than Blake remembered, and he was a few years older, but it was definitely him.

“Dad?” The word fell out of her mouth and hung in the air.

He looked up, and their eyes locked. “Blake?”

Kat pulled away from her dad, glancing back and forth between Blake’s face and his. Her mind swirled with confusion. Why had Blake said that? How did her father know Blake? It made no sense.

Her dad looked just as dazed as Kat felt, but there was something else in his eyes: recognition. And something underneath that, something Kat had never seen before in her smart, confident, handsome father.

Shame.

“Get in the car, Kitty Kat,” he said abruptly.

“But—” Kat protested.

He opened the car door nearest her and gave her a look thatmeant business. Obediently, she slid into the back seat of the rental car, and he shut the door behind her, sealing her in the silent, leather-scented interior.

Outside, Blake stood stock-still.

Her father was here.

Kat’s father was here.

Her father was Kat’s father.

He turned to face her. Her dad, the man she’d cried for every night for months. The man who’d disappeared when she needed him most.

Blake wanted to ask him a million questions, she wanted to run up to him and beat her fists on his chest and demand answers, but she still couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

His dark eyes met hers. For one split second, Blake thought he was going to open his arms and pull her into an embrace. But then he blinked. He turned around. Got in the car. And shut the door.

Kat, sitting in the back seat with her heart pounding, stared at him. “Daddy? What’s going on? How do you know Blake?”

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