Page 18 of When You Got a Good Thing (Misfit Inn 1)

“I didn’t.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Remembering how good you feel. He was taller and broader than he’d been at eighteen. The body pressed up against his had filled out with subtle curves she hadn’t had back then. But they still fit. And that was foolishness.

When he didn’t answer, she asked, “Did Pru call you?”

“No.” He didn’t believe in lying. “I came because I was thinking about you.” Even in the dim light, Xander could see the tracks of tears. He had no right to touch her, but he couldn’t stop himself from cupping her face and brushing a thumb gently across her cheek. “You’ve been crying.”

Kennedy broke away from him then. The familiar ache settled in his chest as she stepped out of his arms.

“Been doing a lot of that lately.” The flippant tone didn’t hide the pain beneath her words.

He’d never been able to walk away from her pain. Everything in him itched pull her in and shield her, to soothe the hurts. Once, she’d have let him. But this wasn’t his Kennedy. This woman seemed far more like the skittish, mistrustful girl he’d met years ago, after she’d first come to Joan. That was its own kind of punch in the gut. Did she trust him so little now?

“What happened with your sisters?”

She wrapped her arms around her middle. “A fight that’s been a long time coming. I gave them free rein to say whatever they needed to say to me, about how I left and how I’ve lived my life for the past ten years. I don’t have a right to get upset that they took me at my word.” Turning back to him, she straightened her shoulders. “And you’re here, so you might as well get in your licks, too.”

As if he was really going to stand here and berate her when she was already hurting? “You want me to kick some puppies, too, while I’m at it?”

“That’s more consideration than I deserve. Between you and Maggie, it’s a close race as to who has the most reason to hate me. But I was betting on you.”

So she hadn’t been off all these years thinking she was a hundred percent in the right. It was a thin opening, but one his idiot heart grabbed onto with both hands. “We all felt a lot of things when you left. But I don’t think hate was really in the mix.” He’d tried for a while, but it hadn’t stuck.

“Not so sure you’re right about that.” Turning away from him, she stared out over the valley, dark now but for a few pinpoints of light from the street lamps on Main Street that never turned off and a handful of security lights here and there. “What was it like for her? Maggie.”

He didn’t have to ask what she meant. Perfect, over-achiever Maggie Reynolds had wound up pregnant at seventeen. The scandal had rocked Eden’s Ridge. And despite her career successes as an adult, there were still people who talked about her as that poor girl who got knocked up in high school. He didn’t doubt that subject had come up with her sisters tonight.

“What do you think? It’s a small, conservative Southern town. She was ostracized, gossiped about. It didn’t help matters when she wouldn’t name the father.”

She drew in an unsteady breath. “And after she miscarried?”

He didn’t sugarcoat it. “She’d lost most of her friends. Athena was in fights every other week over the things people said. I missed a lot of it because I was off to school at UT, but it was pretty hellish. She needed her family.”

Kennedy closed her eyes and a few more tears leaked out. “I couldn’t come back.”

And that was on him. It was long past time for him to apologize. “You’ve never told them why. Your sisters.”

She went rigid. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve never told them about the fight. About what an ass I was that night.”

As fuzzy as the events leading up to it were, Xander still clearly remembered being naked with her in the back of her car and not finding the condoms he’d stowed in the glove box. Cliff Newell had been messing around in there earlier that night and had taken them all. The ass. Xander had put forth all of his inebriated charm to convince her he’d pull out. Kennedy had laughed and reached for her shirt. And Xander hadn’t been able to drop it.

No really. How do you not trust me?

She’d tried to put him off, but he’d just kept pushing until she’d snapped.

Excuse me for not being willing to throw away both our futures because you want to get off.

He’d been drunk and horny and so very stupid. If you loved me, you’d trust me.

Never in their entire relationship had he put conditions on her. For someone like her, who’d been in a string of foster homes before she came to Joan, where love and acceptance were withheld for all kinds of reasons, that was a special brand of cruelty. He hadn’t thought of that in the moment, but he’d thought of it plenty since.

The adult Kennedy was staring at him, fresh tears still streaking her face. Xander felt his gut twist, remembering the same look on her face from that awful night. If you loved me, you wouldn’t ask me to take the chance.

If you loved me. Like, for the first time, she hadn’t been down-to-the-bone certain that he’d walk through fire for her. She’d certainly run away for less from many of those previous foster placements.

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