Читать книгу The Family Feud: The Family Feud / Stop The Wedding?! - Carol Finch, Carol Finch - Страница 14

MORGAN WATCHED in admiration as Janna drew herself up to full stature, cut a quick glance toward Kendra’s car, and then strode determinedly toward the two-story farmhouse. Despite the apparent exhaustion and emotional turmoil swirling around her, Janna was intent on dragging her sister from Evan’s clutches and saving Kendra from a critical mistake.

What Janna didn’t know was that Evan Gray was probably the one man in Oz who could handle Kendra and who loved her still, despite her engagement to slick Richard, the ladies’ man. Morgan well remembered Evan’s drunken binge after he’d lost Kendra to the smooth-talking lawyer. What Morgan didn’t know was whether Kendra had lingering feelings for Evan or if she was just looking for vindication. Whatever her true agenda, Morgan didn’t want to see Evan hurt again.

Morgan bit back a chuckle when Janna pounded both fists on the door, then grabbed her aching head. One look at her ashen face indicated she was operating on sheer will. When no one answered the insistent knock, Janna invited herself inside.

“That might not be a good idea,” Morgan cautioned, then sighed when she flagrantly ignored him. The woman was hell on wheels, he decided.

Morgan grimaced when he heard country music and slumberous laughter wafting down the hallway. He snagged Janna’s arm, but she shook loose and darted ahead of him. “No,” he muttered as he clamped his hands over her eyes as she rounded the corner to the bedroom.

Sure enough, Evan and Kendra were exactly where Morgan predicted they’d be and they’d done exactly what he presumed they’d done. In between a raft of four-letter words, Evan more or less told them to leave. Not that the command had any effect on Janna. She clawed Morgan’s fingers from her eyes and gasped in dismay.

“Kendra!” Janna yelped as her face turned a dozen shades of red.

To Evan’s credit, he protectively shielded Kendra with his brawny body. As Morgan suspected, this was far more than a reckless tryst to Evan. The man was in it for the love, not just for the lust. Morgan had no way of knowing Kendra’s motives, but he hoped like hell she didn’t bring this rugged rancher to his knees, leaving him holding his heart in his hands and triggering another monthlong binge.

“I said get the hell out of here!” Evan roared furiously.

“Go away!” Kendra wailed, covering her head with the sheet.

“No. If you aren’t in the living room in five minutes I’m coming back for you,” Janna insisted, her face still pulsing beet-red, her back ramrod stiff. “I don’t care if I have to go through Evan to get to you. Got it, sis?”

“Yes,” Kendra simpered, still cowering under the sheet.

When Janna wheeled around and stalked off, Morgan tarried in the hall. After Kendra dashed past him, her blouse inside out, her jeans sagging on her hips, Morgan stepped into the bedroom to meet Evan’s menacing scowl. “Sorry about that. I tried to stop her, I really did.”

Evan zipped his jeans and snatched up his work shirt. “Right, you couldn’t manhandle that shrimp of a female,” he bit off sarcastically.

“Right, just like you couldn’t tell a rebounding blonde no and you couldn’t fight her off when she had her way with you,” Morgan retaliated with equal sarcasm.

Evan’s hands stalled over the buttons of his shirt, and then he smiled wryly when Morgan arched a challenging brow. Evan’s smile evaporated as he fastened his shirt. “I never got over her,” he confided. “I’ll take her back any way I can get her—in a red-hot minute.”

“Obviously,” Morgan murmured. “But what if she’s only using you, Evan? What if she’s here today and gone tomorrow?”

Evan crammed his shirttail in his jeans, refusing to meet Morgan’s steady gaze. “Doesn’t matter. I love her. Always have. Always will. You know that. Hell, who in town doesn’t know it?”

“Fine, it’s public knowledge,” Morgan agreed. “But, damn it, I consider you a friend and I don’t want to see you hurt again.”

Evan smiled faintly. “Thanks, Morgan. I appreciate your concern. But Kendra needs me. She may be too distraught to realize it yet, but today was a milestone.” He sent Morgan a meaningful glance. “Ever been in love so deep that you couldn’t let a day go by without driving by her place, catching sight of her on the street and wishing she was still yours?”

“No, can’t say that I have,” Morgan admitted truthfully.

“Then don’t judge me until you’ve stood in my boots and wanted someone so badly that you ache with it. Hell, I know I don’t have Richard’s cash flow, his social connections or his dashing good looks, but I’d sure as hell never do to Kendra what Richard did to her. I’m not gonna cower in the bedroom while her sister—and damn, does she look like a fox these days. When did that happen?”

Morgan shrugged and waited for Evan to finish his comment.

“Anyway, I’m offering Kendra moral support and I want Janna to know this isn’t a fly-by-night fling on my part.”

Morgan sighed as he followed Evan down the hall. Love, he decided, was hell—and then some. If he ever found himself in as deep as Evan Gray he might just shoot himself and avoid the misery.

By the time Morgan reentered the living room Kendra was blubbering in tears and Janna was trying to shuffle her out the door. Morgan intercepted the looks bouncing back and forth between Evan and Kendra and he rolled his eyes. He’d never had much appreciation for melodrama. How did Janna deal with this stuff on a regular basis while growing up in her household?

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, Evan,” Kendra murmured as Janna tugged her toward the door. “Janna says I should leave now.”

Evan nodded, his gaze locked on Kendra. “I’ll be here if you need me. I’m just a phone call away…always…” Although Janna glared mutinously at him, Evan didn’t flinch. “I mean it, Kendra. If you need me, just call me and I’ll be there for you.”

Morgan watched Janna haul her sobbing sister away, then turned back to Evan. “You wanna grab a beer tonight…oh say, eightish?”

Evan nodded his tousled brown head. “Yeah, thanks, Morgan.”

Morgan ambled outside to see Janna, behind the wheel of Kendra’s car, chauffeuring her sister home. Well, he supposed his mission here had been accomplished. He might as well head back to town. He wanted to be on hand to see how many more dragons Janna planned to slay in her quest to put the Humpty-Dumpty Mitchell family back together again. Damn, that woman was something, wasn’t she? She’d go to amazing extremes to protect her family.

He couldn’t believe Janna was the same bashful duckling he’d known in high school. No wonder the town was in an uproar and bachelors were crawling from the woodwork to take a gander at her.

JAN DROVE Kendra’s car toward Morgan’s home so she could retrieve her own car and suitcase. Kendra stared straight ahead, her arms crossed hostilely over her chest, her backbone rigid.

“I really wish you hadn’t interfered,” Kendra ground out bitterly. “You embarrassed Evan and me to no end.”

“Well, excuse me for worrying about you,” Jan snapped, then breathed deeply, wishing her hellish headache would ease off. No such luck.

“It’s not what you think,” Kendra mumbled. “You need to know that.”

Jan’s brows shot up at the absurdity of Kendra’s remark. “Not what I think? Hello? You just stooped to Richard’s level to retaliate.”

“No, I didn’t!” Kendra railed explosively.

Jan winced at the high-pitched shriek that blasted her eardrums and vibrated through her sensitive head. “You need to come to your senses and show some respect for yourself. Keni, these escapades have to stop.”

Kendra half turned on the seat, her blue eyes shooting hot sparks. “For your information, Ms. Know-It-All and Fix-All, that was my first time and I’m glad it was with someone who cares about me.”

Jan’s jaw dropped to her chest. Her astounded gaze flew to her sister.

Kendra nodded affirmatively. “Despite what you think, I’m no more promiscuous than you. Do you think I’m so stupid and shallow that I don’t know my outward appearance attracts men and I’ve been some kind of masculine challenge for years? I thought if Richard would wait until we married that he did want me for who I am not what I look like. But his betrayal spoke volumes. I’m just window dressing to him.”

Jan sat there, thunderstruck. She and her sister had drifted apart the past few years. She’d erroneously assumed Kendra had been caught up in her own appeal to men and had become intimate with one or two of them.

“Having drinks with Sonny was all about revenge and inciting gossip for Richard’s benefit. But Evan was always different from the rest. Caring and kind. Why I let Mom and Dad convince me he was too old I’ll never know. I guess I was waiting for Evan to make a commitment to me, but he admitted today that he believed I was too good for him. I didn’t understand where he was coming from until this afternoon. I discovered my feelings for him are as strong as ever. And then wham! Here you come to save the day, dragging the devil’s advocate from Daddy’s camp along with you and taking Daddy’s side—”

“I most certainly have not!” Jan protested.

“Looks like it to Mom and me,” Kendra flung back. “And worse, you interrupted a pivotal moment between Evan and me and I’m not sure I’m going to forgive you for that!”

Jan stopped Kendra’s car beside her own vehicle and climbed out—as did Kendra who stormed around to plunk behind her steering wheel.

“Butt out of my life,” Kendra demanded sharply. “I’m going to marry Evan, if he’ll have me after I foolishly got engaged to Richard.”

Jan’s mouth fell open again. “You can’t rebound to Evan at the snap of your fingers. You can’t keep the wedding gifts, your caterers and your church reservation! Next you’ll be telling me that you’re going to scratch out Richard’s name on the invitation and pencil in Evan’s. Are you insane?”

“No, I’m thinking clearly for the first time in a long time.”

Jan shook her finger at her sister’s stubborn expression. “Now you listen to me, Kendra Rose. You go shower and change and go to work. You’ve already missed a full day at the travel agency. And you damn well better cool it with Evan. Don’t you dare hurt him the way Richard hurt y—”

Jan didn’t get to finish her sentence because Kendra shoved the car in Reverse and laid rubber. Kendra stuck her head out the window and yelled, “Leave me alone, Butinsky! You’re not the boss of me, so there!”

Jan rolled her eyes and muttered, “Oh, now, that’s mature.”

Tired, hungry and exasperated to the extreme Jan stalked to Morgan’s house to retrieve her suitcase, then cursed when she found the door locked. Reversing direction she approached her car and flung herself onto the seat.

No good deed, it seemed, went unpunished. She’d tried to rescue her sister from her own stupidity and had inadvertently, embarrassingly, interrupted the aftermath of her sister’s initiation into passion. Who would’ve thought the much-sought-after Kendra, the gorgeous, well-built, blue-eyed blond bombshell had taken time to analyze the male psyche and realized she was a challenge and acquisition to her endless male admirers. Kendra had more depth and insight than Jan had given her credit. Yet, Jan still wasn’t sure Kendra was thinking clearly, for she could’ve been motivated to give herself to Evan, just to spite Richard.

Jan put her car in Reverse and backed away from her dad’s Winnebago. Although she was desperately trying to help her family, Kendra was furious with her. Her dad wouldn’t speak directly to her and her mother thought Jan had joined the enemy camp. Worse, her family was turning her into a raving lunatic, who would’ve ripped Richard Samson to shreds at the hardware store, if Morgan hadn’t kept her chained in his arms. No doubt, that little scene would be zipping along Oz’s grapevine. The whole town would think she’d gone as bonkers as the rest of her family. Then Jan had burst in on her sister and Evan during their monumental tryst. Jeez, she just couldn’t catch a break today.

Fighting the urge to bawl her head off, knowing it would aggravate her megaheadache, Jan drove to town. What she needed was the privacy and isolation to fall to pieces, then regroup. Unfortunately, she didn’t have that luxury. She had to hightail it to Oz and assure her mother that she hadn’t taken Daddy’s side in the feud and that she was striving to find a workable solution to the separation.

Ten minutes later Jan pulled into the only available parking space, which happened to be in front of Dorothy’s Hair Salon. The owner and proprietor’s name wasn’t Dorothy. She’d recently changed the salon’s name to promote tourist trade in Oz. The town’s original name was Oswald, but after that whole Lee Harvey fiasco, the name had been cropped off to Oz. Then someone had the bright idea to change the image to a magical city. In Jan’s opinion—which obviously counted for zilch in her hometown—combining the tale of Oz with the peanut capital of the world didn’t quite fit. But the Chamber of Commerce was advocating the transition for the sake of tourism. Next thing Jan knew the school system would be renamed Munchkinland. Goober Pea Tavern would become Wicked Witch’s Saloon—or some such nonsense. If Morgan’s two shops combined to become Tin Man’s Supply Shop she would lose all the respect she’d recently gained for him….

The thought caused Jan’s hand to stall over the door latch. It dawned on her that she’d gained tremendous respect for the man she’d held a grudge against for a dozen years. Through all her family chaos Morgan had been her anchor, the calming waters beside the whirlpool of emotional undercurrents that kept sucking her under. Well, except for the kiss—which carried the impact of a thermonuclear bomb—he’d delivered last night, she amended.

Jan climbed from the car and reminded herself that she didn’t have time to delve into these feelings for Morgan that kept ambushing her at inopportune moments. She had to speak to her mother before the poor woman’s resentment festered up and exploded like Kendra’s had.

Before Jan reached Sylvia’s Boutique, three women, with their hair in curlers, scampered from the salon and bore down on her. Gina Thompson, owner and proprietor, led the brigade.

“Janna, hon, we want a word with you,” Gina insisted.

Jan bit back a groan as she appraised Gina’s dyed copper-red hair, thick coat of makeup, false eyelashes and trendy clothes that suited her age of fifty no better than John Mitchell’s outrageous attire. She smiled faintly and nodded a greeting to the women. “Is there a problem?”

“Absolutely,” Gina confirmed. “You aren’t going about this business of getting your folks to kiss and make up the right way. The other girls—”

Jan presumed that anyone under the age of eighty qualified as a girl.

“—think that since John is flaunting Georgina in Sylvia’s face that she should return the favor. We’ve selected a man to serve as the jealousy factor for Sylvia. We want you to approach your mom with the idea,” Gina went on. The curler brigade nodded in perfect agreement. “We’ll send Stanley Witham over to the boutique. He’s a lonely widower and he could use some female companionship. This’ll work splendidly.”