“Just restless,” she said as she considered sitting out on the balcony for a few. She shook her head. Sitting still, trying to relax sounded like torture.
“You should’ve taken Nadia up on the offer to have a drink in the bar.”
“I almost did. But I was afraid I’d say something to give away Penn’s secret. I nearly slipped up three or four times at dinner.”
“Heavens, me too. Just one more day to get through without blowing it, thank goodness.”
Zoe’s phone vibrated on the nightstand between the two beds, and she went to it, hoping for a text from one of her friends from home, any of them, to distract her.
Her heart dipped into her stomach when she saw Cooper’s name on her phone.
You awake? the text message read.
Zoe let out a frustrated breath.
“Who is it?” Nell asked.
“Three guesses.” She returned the phone to the nightstand and went back to the balcony door, needing the physical distance from Cooper and his message.
“Cooper?”
Zoe didn’t answer.
“You’re being kind of hard on him, aren’t you?” Her mom’s voice was gentle, more sympathetic than her words, and tears threatened in Zoe’s eyes.
“Not on purpose. I just…” She shook her head. “It’s tougher than I expected.”
The phone buzzed again. Another message. Zoe fought the need to check what it said.
She sensed her mom watching her, felt her mother’s sympathy reaching out to her as if it had fingers. Zoe swiped the tears away.
“Have you ever given serious thought to moving here, Zoe? To be with him—”
“Of course I have! A thousand times.” Zoe swallowed down the pulsing lump in her throat. “I can’t do it, Mom. Not in good conscience. After everything Celeste and the others have done for me, allowing me to start building my name even before I was officially done with school, I can’t just walk away from my job. It’d put them in a bind just as much as it would mean starting from scratch for me, and financially, I don’t have the years it would take to build up a new following.”
“They have been extremely good to you,” her mom admitted.
“I saw what it did to the clinic when David Jennings moved to Chicago. The other two ended up working sixty-hour weeks to handle his clients as well as their own. Until I could step in and officially start taking some of them over. And they trusted me to do that, Mom.” Zoe knew her voice was much too emotional, loaded with defensiveness, but how could her mom even ask her this stuff? She of all people knew. “I’m five years ahead of where I’d be otherwise.”
“It’d be bad to leave them in the lurch after all their support,” Nell acknowledged.
“I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.”
“Do you think,” her mom said, “it might be a good idea for you and Cooper to deal with this awkwardness now, so you don’t ruin your brother’s big weekend?”
Her words were like a jab to Zoe’s chest. That was the one thing her mom could say to make her back down. Zoe wanted Penn’s weekend to be amazing. He deserved it, especially after all the suffering he’d gone through because of his back injury.
Inhaling a deep, unsteady breath, she willed the tears away. She marched to the nightstand and picked up the phone, turning away from her mom for privacy.
Would like to talk sometime. Settle the air, Cooper’s text said.
Zoe bit her lip. Closed her eyes hard. Summoned her big-girl panties and replied:
Meet me on the beach in ten.
3
Cooper’s stomach was in a knot. Which was stupid when he thought about it. So Zoe was on her way outside to talk to him. So what? They were over. History. His gut shouldn’t be all tied up just to talk to her. If she couldn’t treat him decently, what was it to him?
