Chapter 346

The next morning, after dressing in my one piece swimsuit, I stood in front of the vanity in the bedroom, trying to decide how best to wear my hair, as to eliminate the most friction and increase my speed in the water.

Swimmers, I knew, wore swim caps to cover their hair, but lacking that, I wasn’t sure what to do other than tie it up in a ponytail and hope for the best.

Elva, already dressed for the day, watched me. She wore a look of determination, as if she was the one about to go out and race. I appreciated the solidarity.

More so, when she gave me a thumbs up and said, “You got this, Mommy!”

I laughed as I turned to her and scooped her up into my arms. “How can I not, when I know you will be cheering for me?” I said. “We both need to give it our best.”

“I’ll cheer for you,” Elva said. “So do well, okay?”

“Okay,” I said and kissed her cheek. She wrapped her tiny noodle arms around my neck. I held her closer.

I would be careful, I’d already promised Nicholas. But now was the time to make the same vow, silently to Elva. My little girl needed me to come back to her, so I would do whatever I needed to, to both win the competition and make it safely back to shore.

Motivated, I decided to go to the window to check on how choppy the waves were today. That would determine how difficult my swim was certain to be. The waves weren’t too bad, thank goodness.

But then my gaze lowered to Bridget practicing on the beach. She must have finished stretching early, because she was already sprinting a short distance.

God help me, she was fast. She culminated her sprint with a few cartwheels and a backflip, which she landed perfectly. Her confidence hadn’t been an act, then. Bridget was actually a good athlete.

“Wow,” Elva said, and I could help but agree. She really was impressive, even I had to admit it. Though watching her made a deep kind of pit open up in my stomach. I knew the competition was sure to be strenuous, but… I couldn’t do a backflip.

No. Stay strong, I reminded myself. Backflips were not part of the competition. I just had to run and swim faster than Bridget. I could do this.

I gripped hard onto that dwindling confidence and carried it with me as Elva and I went downstairs. We met Veronica out on the beach near the deck. She had already begun stretching. I immediately began to follow suit. Elva did as well, copying us.

I looked around but there was no sign of the princes yet. Thoughts of Nicholas and I kissing out on the water flashed in front of my mind, but I pushed those memories down. Now was neither the time nor place to be thinking such things.

As we stretched, I realized Veronica was very limber. I hadn’t thought of her as competition before, mainly because we were friends, but I now belatedly realized that I had more than just Bridget to watch out for in this race.

Veronica must have seen me sizing her up because she gave me a flat look and said, “I have no interest in winning this race.”

I blinked, surprised. “What? Then why compete at all?”

Veronica glanced around. Her suspicious eyes landed on Bridget, still bouncing around farther up the beach. “I don’t trust anyone. You’ll need someone out there to watch your back.”

She was competing just to help protect… me? My heart warmed with affection. Veronica was such a good, loyal friend.

I was embarrassed. I wished I could be in a position to not need her to sacrifice her part in the competition to help me, but the truth of it was, I did need her help. I was in over my head here.

I’d promised to be careful, and I would be. But I didn’t know how careful I could be when I was swimming out in the ocean, unable to fully take notice of my surroundings.

To have a friend like Veronica, someone I trusted so implicitly, guarding my back, gave me relief without measure.

“Thank you, Veronica,” I said. “I mean it.”

She nodded.

Near us, about halfway between us and Bridget, Jessica was stretching alone. Watching her, she seemed to be the least flexible of the ground. Perhaps the least athletic? Her deep-set frown seemed to indicate that she was not at all happy about today’s event.

“Don’t be overconfident,” Veronica said softly, so that Jessica would not hear. “Jessica has never flexed her wolf before. We’d don’t know what she’s truly capable of.”

I took the words to heart. Everyone and everything felt like a wild card today. Who knew what the race might bring out of its contenders today?

What I needed to focus on was pushing my own limits and doing the very best that I could. Concentrating on myself, I push-pulled my muscles to ready them for the strain I was to ask of them today.

Truthfully, I wasn’t much of an athlete myself, and my wolf and I weren’t so fully in sync yet for me to be overly confident about all this. But when I had worked at the restaurant, I had pushed myself for long hours, on my feet most of the day. That combined with my days-long runs as a wolf, I thought I might stand a chance.

As I contemplating this, I didn’t notice Bridget approach us until she was right at our side.

“Elva,” she said, smiling.

Elva had given up on stretching and was sitting on the sand. She wasn’t making a sandcastle exactly. What she was doing was more like moving sand from one pile to another and then back again. She seemed to like the way it felt slipping through her outstretched fingers.

When Bridget said her name, she dropped all the sand she’d been holding like she’d done something wrong.

“What did you need, Bridget?” I asked, standing up for my little girl.

Bridget didn’t acknowledge me at all. Her smile stretched wider, as big and bright as the sun. It almost hurt to look at her.

“Elva, why don’t you come with me for a minute? I have something to show you,” Bridget said. Finally, her gaze slid to me. “Your mother can come too of course.”

“We should be preparing for the race,” I said.

“Elva’s not taking part,” Bridget said. “It’s just a little surprise, but it will give her something to do while we’re all competing. Just watching must be so dull for a little girl.”

I glanced at Elva. She was frowning, with her brow pulled together. She wasn’t very good at hiding her emotions. She was too young. Although she might have come by it honestly. Jane might have been better at hiding her true self nowadays, but I never was.

Elva seemed to be taking after me.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I told Elva. She looked between me and Bridget.

She was troubled. She didn’t trust Bridget, but I could see her curiosity flash in her eyes. She wanted to know what Bridget wanted to show her.

“It will be fun,” Bridget said.

Elva looked at me, and I sighed. “I’ll go with you.”

I didn’t know what Bridget wanted to show Elva, but there’s no way I would let Elva go see it alone.

After everything Bridget has done, and everything I suspect she has done but can’t prove yet, I’m not letting Elva go anywhere near her without me.

Bridget simply could not be trusted.