Page 65 of Recipe for Temptation (Madewood Brothers 4)

She stepped forward, wanting to make sure the next words out of her mouth were heard loud and clear, but the flames were damn hot. She settled for moving to the outer edge of the pit, opposite Beth.

“I shouldn’t have lied about us. Although, we weren’t really an us, still aren’t an us, but I don’t want to lie anymore. Not about Cole. Not about who I am. Never again.”

“I don’t like this one bit, Pennie,” her father said. “That boy—”

“That boy is kind,” she interrupted. “Ambitious. Selfless and supportive. He likes me just the way I am, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for you.”

She’d thought she’d made some progress with her siblings the other night at the club. She’d thought she’d given them enough to realize on their own that she wasn’t the little girl they thought she was. But it hadn’t been welcomed.

These were the people who were supposed to love her no matter what. And it was damn time they started.

“If you love each other so much,” Dave retaliated. “Why did he leave you, Pennie?”

At the sound of her nickname, something snapped. All of the anger she’d been holding back exploded.

“For the last time, my name is not Pennie!” She spit out the nickname with as much contempt as she could muster.

Dave jerked back at her outburst. A gasp sounded on the opposite side of the bonfire. She didn’t blame them; she barely recognized her own voice.

“It’s Penn or Pennelope.”

She wanted to believe it was the use of her nickname that had sparked her outrage, but if she was honest, Dave’s comment had hit too close to home. She did love Cole, and he’d left her.

Her failure to stand up and fight for him had forced him to relive his traumatic past. How was she ever going to get him to trust her, love her, after that? She only hoped that when she returned home, they might be able to salvage some kind of a friendship.

“Look at me. I am not the chubby, nerdy, uncoordinated wallflower I was when I was fifteen years old. I have a tattoo. I own fifty-six pairs of stilettos that probably cost as much as a year’s college tuition. I dance on tables. I’m the bad influence.” She looked over at her father, trying to prove a point. Her behavior had nothing to do with Cole.

She glowered at them. Maybe just at Dave and Beth.

“And I like to say fuck.” She held her arms out and let her head fall back. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

“Aunt Pennie said a bad word,” Andy yelled out.

“Yes, Andy. I did.” She turned to look at the little ones who were off by themselves away from the fire. “And one day, you will, too.”

“Penn, really.” Ian thrust up his arm and let it fall down to his knee with a thump. “Do you have to encourage my child to swear?”

“I’m just telling it like it is.”

Other than Pete and Christine, the rest of her family stared at her in shock. Dave’s mouth was practically on the sand. Her father’s jaw twitched. He was holding in his anger. She could see it clearly even through the dancing flames. She couldn’t decipher the look on her mother’s face.

“That was five F-bombs,” Dave yelled, then turned to her father. “So fifty pushups, right, Dad?” His current expression was the same one she’d seen on her brother for her entire life. The look of a man seeking approval.

“Tell me something, Dave.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Does it make you happy doing everything Dad tells you to do? He wanted you to be a teacher, so you did. He wanted you to play football. So you did. He wanted you to get married and have a family. And you did.” She held out her hand, gesturing to Beth, who now paced the edge of the pit with Hannah in her arms.

“You think that just because I didn’t follow the path Dad wanted me to that I’m unsuccessful. You tease me. You dismiss me and my work.” She choked back tears. “I’ll have you know Cole and his brothers help thousands of kids a year, Dad. In different ways than you do, but they’re changing lives just like you are. All of my work, everything I do, supports their efforts. So I am helping kids. I am making a difference. But I’m doing it my own way. Not yours.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be a drone. A damn carbon copy of the rest of you.”

When this was all over, she was going to have to apologize to Pete and Christine. She didn’t have the same harsh feelings about them as she did the rest of her family, even though Pete had toed the Foster line his entire life.

She just hadn’t been able to swallow the identity pill that would make her exactly like the rest of them. She wanted to do something completely different. Achieve it all on her own. On her own merit and determination. Which was why her job with the Madewood family was so important. Which was why, if she got a spot on the board, she didn’t want it to be tainted because people found out she’d had a sexual relationship with Cole.

“Are you quite finished making a scene?” Her father looked behind him. Probably making sure that no one was paying attention to her inappropriate outburst. But the only people on the beach were a few couples who were too engrossed

in each other to care about her freak out.

She narrowed her eyes, thinking about it, staring at the blank faces of most of her siblings. She’d said her piece. She’d tried. The ball was now in their corner.

With a heavy breath, she grabbed one of the s’mores sticks and began poking the fire. “Yes, thank you.”

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