Free What a Girl Wants by Kate Perry Page B

untouched.” Esme crossed her arms, looking cross. “Because I said so.”
    She raised her brow. “Really?”
    “One of those arguments was bound to work.” The woman shrugged. Then she leaned forward, her gaze intense. “Seriously, though, I have a bad feeling about this. Nothing good can come from it.”
    Ariana tucked the photo away, afraid it was going to go up in flames. “Did you see something?”
    Esme shook her head. “I only see love.”
    “Love comes in lots of different forms,” she pointed out as she stood up.
    “It does.” Esme stood, too, her mouth set into a stubborn line. “But it’s always obvious.”
    What she didn’t say echoed loudly in the silence—that there wasn’t any obvious love in the photo.
    *
    The yoga instructor padded out of the room and turned off the lights to let them lie in meditative peace for as long as they wanted.
    Ariana stretched on her mat, eyes closed, mostly because she couldn’t move any of her limbs. Somehow she managed to roll out of savasana onto her side to face her mom. “He tried to kill us.”
    Chuckling, Lillian rolled up to sitting. “It wasn’t so bad.”
    “Only because he’s pretty to look at,” she whispered.
    Her mom got a playful gleam in her eye. “Why do you think I drive all this way for the class?”
    “And here I thought you came to workout with me,” she joked.
    “That’s just a side benefit, sweetheart.” She rolled up her mat and rose fluidly. “Juice?”
    “Yeah.” Ariana got to her feet and followed her mom to the cubby that held their flip-flops and hoodies. They chatted as they went next door to the juice shop. Once they got their juices, they sat at one of the café tables outside the shop.
    “Have you talked to your dad?” Lillian asked as she propped her yoga mat by her chair.
    She looked up at the peculiar tone in her mom’s voice. “Why do I feel like you’re asking for a specific reason?”
    “He’s acting strange.”
    “He’s been acting strange since he retired.”
    “Yes, but this is different.” Lillian’s brow furrowed as she untwisted the cap on her juice. “He asked me to lunch. What do you think that means?”
    “That he’s hungry?” she offered.
    Her mom shook her head. “He hasn’t asked to have lunch with me in I don’t know how long.”
    “Maybe he’s trying to change that,” she said, attempting to channel calmness. Except that this was about her parents, so calmness was impossible, not to mention that her dad trying to change was alarming.
    “Maybe,” her mom said without sounding like she meant it. She forced a smile. “What do you have going on, sweetheart?”
    “Not much,” she evaded, toying with the straw in her juice. She wanted to talk to her mom about the picture. Rick had left a message out of the blue, wanting her to call him. He said he’d had thoughts on the woman in the picture. But Esme’s warning rang loud in her mind, and she didn’t know what to do.
    Except she didn’t want to upset her mom, so she picked a safer subject. “How’s your art?”
    Her mom perked up. “Did I tell you there’s a gallery that’s interested in including my work in an upcoming show?”
    “That’s super, Mom.”
    “That reminds me, I need to email the gallery manager pictures of the paintings I think will work.” She stood and gathered her things. “I’ll walk you home.”
    “But it’s so far,” Ariana joked, picking up her yoga mat. She turned to cross the street, slowing when she saw Sebastian leaning against the entrance, typing into his phone.
    He looked up and smiled when he saw her.
    Her heart beat harder with anticipation, and that made her walk even slower.
    “Is that man waiting for you, sweetheart?” her mom asked in a low, curious voice.
    “Unfortunately.” Before her mother could say anything more Ariana walked up to him, digging into her purse for her keys. “You know loitering is against the law.”
    “I’m less loitering and more lingering.” He