Page 45 of When You Got a Good Thing (Misfit Inn 1)

“Xander!” The instant spurt of pleasure faded as she registered the hard set of his jaw, the glittering temper in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t wait for an invitation before stalking past her. He’d changed to street clothes, so he wasn’t coming straight from work. Fury radiated off him like heat waves. The moment he turned those hard, dark eyes on her, Kennedy went cold.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His quiet, deadly tone was more terrifying than any shout.

“Tell you what?” But she knew. Deep down in her gut, she knew that somehow he’d found out about what had really happened the night she left Eden’s Ridge.

“The truth. About why you really left. I asked you for honesty, Kennedy.”

Her heart beat thick and fast and her knees went loose, as she felt everything she’d wanted begin to tip out of her grasp. “I…I couldn’t. Those were the terms I agreed to.” She hated that her voice trembled, hated that she’d been caught in this lie of omission.

“Why?”

“How could I tell you I’d been facing drug charges? Your father had me over a barrel. He didn’t give me a choice. Not really.”

Xander’s nostrils flared. “Tell me what really happened that night. All of it.”

She’d done everything in her power to avoid this moment, but she knew she owed him this or she’d lose him for sure. “When we were at the party that night, I overheard a bunch of people planning on getting high and going over to Peter Bevridge’s house. They wanted to take out his dad’s gun collection to shoot up beer bottles.” She’d tried so hard not to think of it. To block the entire horrible experience out of her mind. But she remembered the scents of alcohol, the too loud music and the press of people as everyone gave in to the insanity of finally being free of mandatory education. “Jason Mather was mouthing off about some weed that he’d scored. There was already a lot of drinking going on, and I figured the whole thing was a recipe for somebody getting killed. So, while everybody was distracted, I hid their car keys and stole Jason’s bag. It was loaded with weed. Too much to just flush down the toilet without risking it getting stopped up. I figured I’d find some other way to get rid of it after I dropped you off at home. I didn’t count on the road block.” She still remembered the flashlight blinding her before Deputy Bailey shone it into the back seat. The zipper on Jason’s bag had been busted. After the fight with Xander, she’d forgotten all about the drugs.

“I got hauled in and your father took me into interrogation. I explained what had happened, but he didn’t believe me. I could see that before I’d even finished. Then he asked for names, for who was at the party. And I—I didn’t want to get every single person I knew in trouble. Especially you. Your dad would’ve absolutely had a conniption fit if he knew you’d been drinking. I was trying to think of who to tell him, if anybody, but then he said it didn’t matter whether I cooperated or not because he had me on felony charges.”

Xander interrupted. “Did anyone ever read you your rights?”

“I—” Had they? That part of the night had been something of a blur. She’d been too shell-shocked at the prospect of a felony to absorb a lot of what came after. “I don’t remember. I don’t think we got to that part.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Keep going.”

Kennedy tucked her icy hands beneath her armpits in a vain attempt to warm them. “All I could think about was protecting you and what Mom would say. How upset and disappointed she’d be. It was the one thing she never, ever tolerated out of any of us. You know Jeanette got kicked out for bringing pot into the house. I guess your dad could see I was scared shitless. And then he said he’d make me a deal. He could make all this go away, waive the charges so Mom would never know, as

long as I left town immediately without contacting you.” It had been like taking a knife to the gut. A choice that had been no choice. “You were the good son, who’d never party with a bad girl like me, and he wanted me out of your life. No longer a temptation. He’d hang on to the file, and if I ever came back, ever contacted you again, he’d use it. So I took the deal. He drove me to the bus station in Johnson City himself.”

Her throat wanted to close up at the look of utter betrayal on Xander’s face.

She was crying again, big, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was never that I didn’t love you. But I couldn’t lose my family. I just...couldn’t. And I couldn’t go to jail for something I didn’t do.”

Xander pinched the bridge of his nose. “You wouldn’t have gone to jail. The charges were bullshit.”

Kennedy stared at him. “What?”

“You were never formally arrested. You weren’t properly mirandized. Even if you had been, a judge would have taken your history into account, the fact that you didn’t drink or smoke or do drugs. At most, you would’ve faced a fine. Buck saw an opportunity to box you into a corner, to manipulate you, and he took it.” His hands were curled into fists and he looked ready to drive one through the nearest wall. “The son of a bitch split us up with some goddamned coral plants. It wasn’t even real drugs.”

The implications of that cut the knees right out from under her. She sank to the rug, her legs just folding like a house of cards. She’d been played. She’d been played, and she’d lost everything. Him. Her family. Years she could’ve spent with her mother.

Xander stalked to the window and back, his body snapping with barely leashed violence. “If you’d told me, I’d have rolled on every fucking person at that party. Someone else saw, someone else would’ve remembered, pointed fingers. The truth would’ve come out, and you wouldn’t have had to go.”

“I didn’t know,” she whispered. “He threatened me, and I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? He’s the sheriff.”

“He terrorized you. I’ll never forgive him for what he did to you. What he did to us.” The furious words should’ve made her feel somewhat better. But he didn’t touch her, didn’t come near her, didn’t do anything to comfort or say he was on her side. Instead, he paced a tight circle in front of the fireplace. “You should have told me, Kennedy. You should have fucking trusted me. Then, and when you came back.”

There had to be a way to fix this, to get past the anger and make him see. “It had nothing to do with not trusting you. I started to call you, to email you a thousand times. But I didn’t know what to say, and I knew that if you knew what had happened, you’d absolutely lose your shit with your dad, and then he’d know I’d broken the terms of our agreement and carry out his threat. The only reason I felt safe coming back at all was because Mom’s dead and his leverage is gone.”

He finally stopped his pacing and scrubbed both hands over his face. “I get why you didn’t tell me ten years ago. I don’t agree with it, but I get it. But as you’ve just pointed out, he lost his leverage when Joan died. Why the hell didn’t you tell me that night at the bluff?”

This was the moment to lay everything bare. He would accept nothing less than the full truth. And yet, could they survive the truth? It was another impossible choice, and he’d backed her into a corner. Was there a chance in hell that he would do anything other than walk out of here tonight? None of her imagined reveals had ended any other way. She’d always known he’d be furious. But she had to believe, had to trust, that the man would be more forgiving than the boy.

“Apart from the fact that I had no idea the charges were phony, I couldn’t just up and drop that bomb. I hadn’t seen you in a decade. I didn’t know where we stood. For all I knew, you hated me, and rightly so. I left you. No matter the reason, I left you. And in all that time you’ve had your family. They were here. And I thought that letting you preserve your relationship with them was more important. I know exactly what it’s like to lose that, and I didn’t want that for you. You’d already lost me. I didn’t matter.”

The silence spun on and her stomach hollowed out. Say something. Tell me I was wrong. Tell me you still love me.

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