Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Kenny drifted through the rest of the evening in a daze. She spoke when spoken to, smiled and laughed on cue, but if pressed would not be able to recall a single conversation.
They were all seated in the tiny, cramped living room with plates perched on their knees.
The conversation was peppered with laughter and teasing commentary about Fern and Gideon’s recent interview on the Holmes@Home talk show.
Kenny was only half listening, most of her focus going to her surly husband, who’d somehow managed to place himself as far away as possible from everyone else despite the limited seating space.
His head was down, eyes glued to his paper plate.
He’d piled it high with food but didn’t seem particularly interested in eating any of it.
It was only when his head snapped back up and his eyes narrowed on Fern that Kenny tuned into the conversation again.
Fern was glaring at their father, while Niall who was incongruously seated at her feet—so uncharacteristic of her straitlaced oldest brother—had craned his head back to look at Fern.
Her brother had a look bordering on adoration in his eyes.
What had she missed?
“Now see here, young—” Her father began in his most intimidating voice.
He was interrupted by Niall’s quiet voice.
“Dad, leave her be. I won’t let you intimidate her.” The dark warning in his voice was unmistakable.
Kenny’s eyes widened. Her brother had never taken that tone with their father before.
“I’m not trying to intimidate the lass,” her father said, sounding chastened. “Just educating her as to how this family works.”
“Maybe this family doesn’t work as well as you think it does,” Fern said, and Kenny’s jaw dropped.
Beth often challenged the old man, but this was wholly unexpected from the sweet, timid-seeming Fern.
“I may be the new addition and I may not know much about anything, but it’s pretty clear to me that Cade has some hang-ups about this name business.
No matter how much he might deny it. Our marriage may be a sham—” Kenny’s mind drifted to the doubts she was starting to have about the other couple’s belief that their marriage would be temporary.
In fact, theirs would probably last a hell of a lot longer than Kenny’s.
She tuned back into what Fern was saying, but caught only the tail end of it.
“…I have no idea why the rest of you are so hellbent on ignoring that.”
She winced and cast an apologetic look toward Kenny, who was still too stunned by the way she’d spoken to their father to react.
It was about Niall’s name. Fern had questioned them about that before. Fern called him Cade. When Kenny had first heard the other woman calling her brother by that name, it jolted her.
Cade. Her big brother who’d always looked out for them all.
He’d become so distant after their mother’s death.
But even before that, when their father had insisted on calling him Niall after his divorce from their mother, Cade had changed.
He’d seemed separate from them. And now, looking at him with that fierce glow in his eyes as he stared up at his wife with naked joy on his face, Kenny could see her big brother again.
The Cade who’d been lost to them for so long.
She momentarily forgot her own problems, so happy for her brother she ached with it.
Fern was stammering apologies now. Everybody looked shell-shocked. Gideon had that same looked of awed recognition on his face that Kenny felt.
Beth was comforting Fern. The other two women were already firm friends and Kenny felt a pang at being excluded from their burgeoning friendship.
“Anybody want some dessert?” Gideon asked, the consummate host, trying to ease the awkwardness of the moment.
Their father had been quite comprehensively shut up, but he was also casting uncertain, searching glances at Nia—no, Cade. He would be Cade to Kenny from now on, as he always should have been.
The evening had been overwhelming and emotional, and Kenny needed to get out of there right now. She needed to have an honest conversation with Smith. She couldn’t continue pretending that everything was okay in front of her family anymore.
“We have long drive, so I think we’ll give it a miss,” she said, casting a quick glance at Smith, who’d once again lost interest in everything around him.
“What is going on with you two?” her father asked in his usual blunt way.
Kenny winced. She’d hoped to get out of here before the inevitable questions.
“Dad, it’s fine. We had an argument, that’s all. Isn’t that right, Smith?” She met his unfocused gaze, silently begging him to go along with her excuse. His lip curled.
“Massive fight, yeah.”
“See?” Kenny smiled brightly, hoping her desperation wasn’t evident. “We’re fine. It’s all good.”
“Are you scared of him?” Her father’s angry question startled her. And when Cade surged to his feet, and Gideon moved to join him, her eyes widened as she comprehended what the question and their response to it meant. They thought… Oh God, how horrifying. How utterly mortifying.
“Has he hurt you?” Cade asked, his hands forming tight fists as Gideon loosened his stance, as if preparing himself for an altercation.
They all three looked ready to pummel Smith to within an inch of his life.
She cast a quick glance at Smith and bit back a despairing moan.
He was grinning recklessly, clearly spoiling for a fight.
Even though the odds were decidedly not in his favor.
He was a big man, but so were her brothers and father.
He didn’t stand a chance against all three of them.
How the hell had it come to this?
“What?” The word was a horrified wheeze. “Oh my God, no. Of course not. Smith would never…” She shook her head. “Oh, for God’s sake, everybody just calm down, okay? Smith and I are going home. We had an argument. That’s it. End of story.”
Smith said and did nothing to back up her words.
God, why did he have to choose tonight to turn into an absolute arsehole? He’d always been a perfect gentleman. Patient, kind, tolerant. But tonight she didn’t even recognize him.
Her brothers relaxed their stances somewhat but their eyes remained hostile. Her father was practically bristling with fury. Smith kept that infuriatingly insouciant smile on his lips.
Beth and Fern were watching the unfolding scene with a comically similar expressions of wide-eyed fascination and horror. Or at least it would be comical if it weren’t so damned humiliating.
She moved determinedly toward Smith and stretched out her hand, palm up. He gave it an amused glance before shrugging and digging the car keys from his pocket, handing them to her without argument.
He enjoyed driving and rarely used a driver to get around. Kenny wasn’t too fond of driving but she was competent enough behind the wheel. The drive home would be stress free enough this time of night.
She exchanged hugs with her family while Smith waited impatiently at the door. She did notice him giving Beth a warm smile and nod of thanks, but he ignored the male members of her family entirely.
“We need to talk,” Cade murmured in her ear and he pressed her close for a hug. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
She offered him a nod and a weak smile in return. Cade rarely wanted to talk. He was the quietest of her three brothers, but his loyalty and staunch support of his younger siblings were unquestionable.
She and Smith finally exited the small house and silently made their way toward Smith’s classic, rugged—currently mud-colored—black Land Rover Defender.
She hesitated for a moment and glared at it.
She hated being a passenger in the damned thing—likely why he’d chosen to use it tonight, considering his mood—but had never driven it
It’s just a car, she prodded herself impatiently and determinedly strode toward it.
Smith, who usually opened car doors for her, went straight to the passenger side and climbed inside. He was already belted in, arms folded across his chest and his gaze directed to the front, by the time she opened the driver’s door.
It was a stick shift, of course, but like many drivers in South Africa, she was used to that. And the only reason the gears ground when she put it into first was because she was rusty.
She tried to ignore his wince at the terrible grating sound and braced herself for some kind comment about it.
She relaxed marginally when—despite his volatile and unpredictable mood—he chose not to belittle her driving just because he was angry.
“Sorry,” she muttered when the gears ground again after she shifted into second. “Out of practice.”
“It’s like riding a bicycle,” he offered, surprising her with the insight. “Your muscle memory will kick in long before we hit the highway.”
With that, he stretched his long legs out as far as they could go, tilted his seat back and shut his eyes. “Wake me up when we get there.”
She knew he’d done so only because he realized that she would be more nervous with him watching her and was grateful for the consideration even as her temper, which she’d held banked throughout the evening, began to slowly simmer.
The drive to their home in the beach town of Noordhoek was forty minutes long and it gave her plenty of time to stew about both his awful behavior tonight as well as everything that he’d said to her before they’d left home.
By the time she pulled his filthy, overly large car into their driveway she’d worked up a nice head of steam.
He was properly asleep by now, head lolling, his face slack, mouth slightly agape.
She turned in her seat to glare at him. The cessation of movement and the sudden silence didn’t wake him and her glare turned into a full-on glower.