Page 85 of Summer with the Single Dad

She was lost.

Riddled with self-doubt, guilt, grief, and longing. Longing for direction and answers.

He still didn’t know what happened in the OR with her patient that died, but something told him Keturah Katz knew. Even though shame was etched deep into Justine’s face, he could see a bit of lightness there that wasn’t there before. Something had been lifted between last night and today. Maybe she just needed to get it out and tell her story in order for the healing to begin.

It stung that she didn’t see him as someone she could talk to like that. That she found Keturah more personable to share her secrets with, but then again, Keturah had a way about her. She could pry information out of trained government spies if she had to.

His head bobbed in another nod.

What could he say?

Talk to me. Tell me your woes. Let me help you fix them.

The look in her eyes told him that she’d shut him down and move out—and not just to the trailer—if he pushed too hard.

“What are your plans for the day?” he asked, giving her a break and changing the subject. Relief filled her gaze.

“Well, pack and unpack. And I’ve been asked to join the kids at the beach just below the restaurant. Aya begged me.”

A small smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. His daughter could be very persuasive.

“Do you want to go to the beach?”

She nodded. “I do, actually.”

Sounds of small children waking and using the bathroom echoed through the house. Then there was arguing. Aya yelled at Emme. Emme growled and called her sister a brat. Then a door slammed.

Bennett rolled his eyes. “And it begins.”

Her smile was forced and fake. “Sisters. It’s what they do. I have two of them.”

With a nod that held more confusion than anything else, he shot her an equally fake smile before heading off upstairs to go keep his daughters from killing each other. When he came back to the kitchen to start the girls’ breakfast, Justine was gone.

And so were her shoes.

She knew what she was doing was rude.

Harsh even.

Bennett showed her nothing but patience, understanding, and unprecedented kindness.

And she met that with shutting down, freezing, and vanishing while he was upstairs with his amazing children.

But since she didn’t get in a run—because no, she wasn’t going to wake up at three in the morning to avoid him—she at least needed to walk.

However, that walk didn’t have the cleansing properties she hoped for. It was just fuel for her thoughts to spiral. For the guilt and grief and self-deprecation to find new crevices in her brain to claim a foothold.

When she returned to the house, still wrapped up in self-doubt, and lost with where her future might take her beyond this expensive vacation on the island, small human voices met her. Emme and Aya were eating breakfast and bickering over the table, while Bennett repeatedly asked them to use nicer tones with each other.

It was just going to be one of those days.

At least one of Bennett’s children woke up on the wrong side of the bed and was looking to fight. And by the sound of it, even though all signs pointed to it being Aya—who loved sleep and hated waking up—it was actually Emerson who was on the warpath.

“Justine, is that you?” called out Aya.

Justine ditched her shoes in the foyer and met the girls in the kitchen. “Good morning.” Her smile wasn’t nearly as fake as this morning’s because she was genuinely happy to see these sweet children.

A storm cloud hung dark and heavy over Emme.

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