Free Infinite Harmony by Tammy Blackwell

you are a horrible, bad person . Nice girls don’t think about kissing people who aren’t their boyfriend. Her hand automatically drifted to the phone lying in the passenger’s seat. And they probably respond to any of the fifteen text messages their boyfriend sent them .
    She hadn’t texted Marsden back since Kathy came in and started talking about the Donovans and the shirt she’d found. After that, she’d been too consumed with thoughts about confronting Joshua to bother checking her phone. Once she did, the number of texts were too overwhelming. She’d thumbed through them and saw the dreaded “we need to talk” at least twice and decided it was a conversation better suited for the light of day. Unfortunately, as she pulled into her parent’s driveway, she realized that wasn’t going to be an option.
    She checked the time on her dashboard, and then double-checked it against her phone.
    What on earth was Marsden still doing at her house at two-thirty in the morning?
    The dread she’d felt when she saw his car turned into outright panic when she noticed all the lights on in the house. She both wanted to run in as fast as she could to make sure everything was okay and walk slowly so she could put off the inevitable as long as possible. Because even though she had no idea what was going on, she knew whatever happened when she walked through that door would change everything forever.
    “Hello?” she called out as she opened the front door. She’d come through the same door a million times before in her life, it was her home, but suddenly it felt like she was intruding.
    “Ada?” Her father came out of the kitchen, still in his suit and tie. “Do you care to tell me where you’ve been, young lady?”
    “I’ve been at work,” Ada said. She could see Marsden and her mother both sitting at the kitchen table. Her mother had her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee. Tell-tale lines of worry bracketed her mouth. Marsden’s left leg was bouncing up and down so rapidly she could see the table tremble. “I talked to you before I left. You said it was okay.”
    She couldn’t imagine what had transformed him from the proud father of a “good Christian woman” to being so angry a blood vessel in his temple was following the same tempo as Marsden’s leg. Reverend Jessup wasn’t a violent man, but Ada worried he might try to strangle her if she stood too close.
    “You got off work over two hours ago.”
    “I—“
    A finger shot up in front of her face. “Don’t you dare lie to me and say you had to work over. I called. I know you left there at midnight.” Every statement was emphasized with sharp jab of his finger. Even though it was still a good foot from her nose, she flinched every time it came hurtling toward her. “Now, tell me where you’ve been.”
    “I went to see the Donovans,” she said, knowing the best way to lie was to stick as close to the truth as possible. “I wanted to thank them for helping me last night.”
    The finger dropped, but her father’s eyes were still skeptical and angry. “At midnight?”
    “They were awake. Jase called down to the desk right before I got off.” She inwardly flinched, wishing she’d chosen another Donovan. Her father had never been fond of Jase since he had a way of making sin look like a fun and exciting option. “Angel was even awake when I got there,” she said, attempting to salvage the story by including her father’s favorite member of the Donovan clan. “We started talking, and I didn’t realize how late it had gotten. I’m sorry if I worried you.” Not that they’d ever noticed when she’d came home from work before. Typically her parents were in bed by the time the news came on every night.
    It wasn’t like she’d forgotten Marsden was there, but still she was somewhat startled and perplexed to hear him say, “You didn’t answer my texts.”
    “Because I was at work.”
    “That’s never stopped you before.”
    True, but it was