Page 48 of When You Got a Good Thing (Misfit Inn 1)

She wouldn’t. The family needed her employed, so to work she’d go like the busy little worker bee she was. But every cell in her body wanted to curl up and hide. Because this wasn’t like working the taps at O’Leary’s or any of the other pubs, bars, and taverns she’d served in over the years. This was Eden’s Ridge, where everybody knew her or knew of her, and they thought that gave them free license to poke into her personal life.

After Xander’s display at lunch yesterday, they’d all be asking about him and whether they were back together for real. Kennedy didn’t know what the hell they were, but together wasn’t it. He’d made that perfectly clear when he’d stormed out.

Her heart twinged. That whole awful scene had been playing on repeat in her brain since he left. It had taken her already raw grief over her mother’s death and compounded it. Since she’d come back, Xander had been an ally—almost her only ally—and now…

A soft knock sounded on her bedroom door. Kennedy managed to wipe away the latest round of tears before Pru stepped into the room.

“I’m finally finished with my last client of the day—Mrs. Haller—who really digs the new set up, by the way. You really did manage to pull off a little spa vibe in there. The essential oil diffuser was a nice touch.”

“Glad she liked it.” There was no hiding the croak in her voice that betrayed the crying jag.

“Honey.” Pru crossed over to the bed and sat down, wrapping Kennedy in a tight hug.

That did it. That simple gesture of support broke whatever control she’d managed to cobble together. Burying her face against her sister’s shoulder, she wept, pouring out all the aching pain and regret she’d been carrying around for years. She cried for the loss of her family, the loss of the life that might have been. Most of all, she cried for Xander. Because she’d blown her miracle second chance.

Pru held her through the storm, offering tissues when Kennedy had cried herself out.

“Better?”

Kennedy jerked her shoulders in a shrug. “I just hurt, Pru. Everywhere. I miss Mom so damned much. There’s all this stuff I wish I could’ve told her. To explain...”

“Is that what this is about? Something you regret not getting to say?”

Kennedy nodded, though, of course, that wasn’t the whole truth. It seemed she no longer knew how to tell the whole truth.

“She knew you loved her.”

“Not that. I said that as often as I could. I just—I wish I could’ve told her the truth about why I left.”

Pru angled her head. “You’ve never talked about it. With any of us.”

That secret had robbed her of her family and the man she loved. She could either keep it and let the bonds between her and her sisters remain fractured, or she could break her silence and hopefully build some kind of bridge.

She took a shaky breath. “I was blackmailed into leaving.”

Pru’s mouth fell open. “By who?”

So Kennedy told her. All of it, including what she now knew about how none of it had to be that way. And the airing of the secret was like drawing poison out of some wound she’d been carrying around for years. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but at the end she felt like she was bleeding clean. Like maybe it was the first step in starting to heal.

“That’s reprehensible! He should be arrested! Sued. Something!”

“I’m sure it’s far too late for whatever recourse might have been available.”

“But he lied!”

“Cops do it all the time in interrogation. At least if all the books and movies are to be believed. I was young and naive, and he played on that. I don’t think there’s any law against it.”

“There is no excuse for what he did,” Pru declared.

“No. No I’m not defending him. I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that none of it was real. There are all these what-ifs rolling around in my head, and they’re just making me sick.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell any of us?” Pru asked. “I mean, I understand initially, but later. You’ve taken so much flack for how you’ve lived all these years, and none of us ever knew the why.”

“Because I was afraid. I have no idea what the statute of limitations is on that kind of crime, and legal ramifications aside, I was terrified that if I told, that you wouldn’t believe me either, and I’d end up getting kicked out of the family completely.”

“Kennedy.” Pru’s hug was fierce, almost punishing in its intensity. “You are a Reynolds. You’ve been a Reynolds from the moment Mom signed those adoption papers. You didn’t have to do anything to earn

that. Mom loved you. We all love you. You’re our sister, and nothing you can do is ever going to change that. You’re stuck with us for life, woman.”

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