Page 44 of When You Got a Good Thing (Misfit Inn 1)

Why the hell hadn’t Kennedy told him? He could see why she hadn’t told him then. She’d been running scared. But now? She’d had every opportunity to tell him the truth when he’d apologized for the fight. Every chance to tell him it wasn’t his fault. Instead, she’d continued to lie about it.

His mother’s car was in the garage when he pulled up to the house where he’d grown up. Did she know what his father had done? Xander slammed the door of the car and stalked into the house without knocking. Buck was watching ESPN in his favorite recliner.

“Xander. What are you doing—”

“You son of a bitch.”

Buck’s brows drew down like thunderclouds. “Now hold on a damned minute.”

Mom hurried into the room, a kitchen towel clutched in her hands. “Xander? What’s going on?”

“Did you know? Did you know he blackmailed Kennedy with some bogus felony drug charges to leave town and stay the hell away from me?”

His mother’s mouth dropped open. “Buck?”

“They weren’t bogus charges. She was picked up at a road block with a bag of drugs in her car.”

“It was fucking coral plants. Not even marijuana. Don’t even try to lie to me. I saw the lab reports from the bust you made on Nelson Rimer.”

“Didn’t know that at the time,” Buck defended. “And she’d been at a party with minors.”

“She’d been at a party with me and the entire senior class. Where she was the designated driver and one of the only sober people there. And even if she was found with drugs in her car, the likelihood that they were hers was nil. She had no history of drug or alcohol use. No criminal record of any kind. She wouldn’t, not only because was she a good girl, but she would never have done anything to risk Joan’s wrath. And you knew that. You knew and you fucking well used that against her.”

An ugly flush was rising up his father’s face. “She tell you that?”

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Conscious of protecting Essie as he’d promised, Xander ignored the question. “It doesn’t matter how I found out. Why would you do that? Why would you go to such lengths to get rid of her?”

“Because I didn’t want to lose you,” Buck hollered back. He was red all the way up to his hairline and he was breathing hard. “You would’ve followed that girl anywhere, whether it made any goddamned sense or not. And if you’d left, you’d have stayed gone.” He made an obvious effort to calm himself. “I only wanted what’s best for you, son. She was bad news.”

“She was an innocent girl. You used your authority in a wholly unethical fashion and straight up lied to her, emotionally manipulating her for your own sick ends.” Rage made him half blind. “You’re a disgrace to the badge.”

“It’s not my proudest moment, I admit, but how much did she really love you if she stayed away all these years?”

The blow struck Xander somewhere around his heart. It was a question that had been circling around beneath the surface of his brain for days. And one he was damned well going to get an answer to.

“It’s not about how much she loved me. It’s about how much I loved her. How you railroaded out of town the only woman I have ever loved and made her stay gone for ten goddamned years. How is that what’s best for me? It’s only what’s best for you.”

His mother took a step closer, the towel knotted in her hands. In contrast to Buck’s face, hers had gone chalk white. “Let’s everybody take a deep breath.”

Xander barely spared her a glance. All his focus, all his rage was on his father. “You cut her off from the only family she had all this time. For the rest of her mother’s life. Years she’s never going to get back, and time she didn’t deserve to lose because you didn’t approve of her as a girlfriend.”

“Son—”

But Xander couldn’t hear it. He took a step backward. “Fuck you, Dad. You aren’t the man I thought you were. Stay the hell away from me and from Kennedy.”

Turning on heel, he stalked back out of the house.

Chapter Eleven

THE HOUSE WAS BLESSEDLY empty, at last. It had taken some creative persuasion on Kennedy’s part to convince Ari and Pru to go on to the movies without her. Not that she minded being in a house with other people. She was a social person by nature, and this house never felt quite right unless there were several people around. But she’d wanted some time to begin putting all the details of her plan together without drawing Pru’s curiosity. And to write the email to Elena she’d been composing in the back of her mind all afternoon. After Xander’s enthusiastic support, she’d finally taken the plunge and emailed back that she was interested in further discussion of the possibility of a book. It wasn’t a done deal by any means, but Elena had already emailed back to set up a call to talk about details. Caught up in equal parts excitement and terror, Kennedy had set that aside to focus on her business plan for the inn.

The living room was covered in lists. It looked like her legal pad had vomited pages on every horizontal surface. The coffee table, the chairs, the end of the sofa. Kennedy was on the verge of making a list of her lists, just to keep things straight. Which rooms could be turned over to guests, which would remain family space. Which areas of the house would be public, which would be private. Lists of supplies to price. More lists of furniture to be swapped out from the barn. Lists of details associated with building a website. If Maggie had put something like this together, it’d be all neat and orderly, organized in spreadsheets, with all kinds of estimates and profit and loss statements. That was what she responded to. So once Kennedy finished gathering all her details, she’d have to translate it into the language her sister spoke, if she wanted to be taken seriously. God help her.

But Kennedy could do it. She would do it. She might not have the business degree to go along with the presentation, but she’d learned a helluva lot more than how to do menial labor in all the jobs she’d worked. She had a solid and agile mind. She just learned better on the job than from a book or a classroom. And she intended to prove that she had something to offer this family.

A knock on the door dragged her away from all her lists. The vague sense of irritation fled as she saw the familiar broad shoulders through the sidelight.

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