Chapter 60
CHAPTER SIXTY
T ired, Moon let himself into the house. All he wanted to do was grab something to eat, shower, and go to bed. However, he saw Kendra sitting at the dining room table, scrolling on her cell phone, while Larissa worked through what seemed to be a godawful amount of paperwork. There were several stacks of papers and two towers of books.
He placed a caressing hand on Larissa’s shoulder and started gently rubbing her bunched muscles. “Hey.” Bending down, he kissed the corner of her mouth, despite Kendra watching. “You look busy.”
When he caught the faint blush spreading across her cheeks, he figured it was because she felt uncomfortable with him kissing her in front of her mother.
“Hey.” She shut her laptop and gave him a relieved smile. “You worked late tonight.”
Puzzling at the tense atmosphere he detected emanating from the two women, he nodded. “Viper needed my help with a problem.”
“Were you able to help him?”
“I think so. You move your office to the dining room table?”
She laid her hand on the closed laptop, and Moon felt the tension in the room increase.
“I don’t want to get behind. Mom thought it would be less stressful for me to work from home.”
“I see.” He moved his gaze away from the laptop to slide it toward the end of the table.
“Kendra,” he acknowledged her cooly.
“Moon.”
When he first met Kendra in Bowling Green, he had sensed something was off between Larissa and her mother. Since she had come to Treepoint, he had become surer.
Larissa kept saying how close they were while he thought the mother and daughter were polar opposites. Kendra even acted differently with Larissa than she did with Lana and Priss.
The discrepancy was so obvious that he had asked Larissa if they all had the same fathers, or if she was adopted. She hadn’t talked to him for two days.
He broke the stare-down, not because he was backing down, but because he was hungry as fuck.
“Any dinner left?” Releasing Larissa’s shoulder, he started for the kitchen.
“We had eggplant parmesan.” Kendra’s lofty voice grated on his last nerve. “There’s plenty left. Larissa wasn’t very hungry, yet she managed to make some room for a bowl of cereal when I was talking on the phone with Lana.”
Turning on his heel at Kendra’s less than subtle recrimination, he didn’t bother moving closer to the kitchen. He hated anything eggplant. He actually hated anything that grew in the ground, other than potatoes. Kendra cooking eggplant parmesan after she had just made soup the day before filled with nothing but eggplant, squash, and zucchini after he had explained his dislike of the fucking things sent his blood simmering.
“Despite my attempts to get her to eat more nutritious food for the baby’s sake, Larissa still doesn’t take my advice and eat healthier, like I do.”
As he stared at the pinch-faced prune, it was everything he could do not to cut her down to size. The problem with that was he was worried the cunning bitch was somehow recording him, wanting to use it to make him look bad. He didn’t put anything past her. It would be a dirty tactic he wouldn’t be above using himself.
“Are there any left?”
Kendra looked at him like he was stupid. “I said there was plenty,” she replied condescendingly.
“I meant cereal.”
The prune-faced bitch’s face tightened. “No, I threw them out. She can’t be tempted if they aren’t there.”
And there it is .
Moon was a firmer believer in letting people sink themselves. No matter how close people watched their winning hands, inevitably, they would fuck themselves over by one slip of the tongue. He liked to call it I’m smarter than you syndrome.
“Maybe.” Moon looked down into Larissa’s clueless expression that told him she was unaware of the battle of wills going on between him and her mother, then studied Kendra’s cunning one. “Or it might make her want them even more.”
Throwing that bait over his shoulder, he walked back toward the kitchen.
“The soup is on the second shelf.” Satisfaction was obvious in Kendra’s voice.
“I’m making us breakfast for dinner.”
“I already ate.”
“Wasn’t planning on making any for you.” Uncaring of how rude he sounded, he placed strips of bacon in a frying pan before taking a bowl out of the cabinet. “I’m making it for Larissa and me. I’ve been at work since seven—I’m starving. I don’t want soup. I agree that Larissa needs something more substantial besides cereal. I’m going to make her a healthy omelet. She taught me her recipe. How does that sound, Larissa?”
“Amazing.” Using the edge of the table, Larissa lifted herself to her feet. “I’ll help.”
Kendra’s expression drew so tight that Moon expected it to crack like a hardboiled egg.
“What about”—Kendra gave Larissa a secretive look—“that paperwork you needed to get done tonight?”
Pretending he hadn’t seen the exchange, Moon started cracking the eggs. “What paperwork?”
Larissa sat back down to open the computer. “I was working on a report. It’s due at twelve.”
Moon raised an eyebrow in her direction. “A.M.?”
“Yes.”
Flipping the bacon over, he walked to the table.
Larissa was looking at the screen so didn’t see him approaching.
Kendra did.
“Moon, you should keep an eye on what you’re cooking …”
Larissa’s head jerked up, her hand immediately going to shut the laptop.
He moved her hand away and raised it again, staring at what Larissa had been working on. “Why are you writing a report on who’s the most successful general in history?”
“Uh … I’m helping my mom’s friend’s son write a topic paper for his history class.”
Larissa sucked at lying. She was so bad at it that all he had to do was give her a certain look and she would spill her guts. The guiltier she felt, the easier it was to find out what she had done. He had found out that little trick when he caught her taking his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. The first two packs that had gone missing, he had blamed himself for leaving them at the club. When the third pack had disappeared and he had reminded himself to double-check they were in his pocket the night before, it led him only to one culprit. She had sung like a canary when he called her out.
“Helping or doing?” He saw where the curser was in the middle of a new paragraph, so he had no doubt of the answer.
“Uh …” Larissa looked toward her mother then him.
Moon narrowed his eyes on her.
“Doing,” she confessed.
He reached over her shoulder. With two quick strokes on the keyboard, he deleted the paper, then hit another button and deleted it to make sure she couldn’t hit Redo .
He had the satisfaction of seeing Kendra’s astonishment before returning to the kitchen to check on the bacon. Whistling, he started stirring the egg whites in the bowl.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Kendra hissed from across the room. “Do you have any idea how long it took Larissa to write that paper?”
“Too long, considering how many words it was,” he said uncaringly.
“What am I supposed to tell Patrick when he calls?”
“You can tell him, from me, to write his own fucking papers.” Pulling the bacon out of the frying pan, he poured the egg whites in. As the eggs cooked, he made toast, sliced an avocado, and poured two glasses of orange juice.
He slid Larissa’s omelet on a plate and topped the plate with the sliced avocado, two slices of turkey bacon, and a slice of toast. Carrying it to the table, he placed it down before heading back to make his own plate.
His omelet was more substantial, with everything but the kitchen sink and regular bacon that he had fried after Larissa’s was done.
He opened the fridge to search for the jelly he had bought off Ginny. When he didn’t find it, he closed the fridge and went into the pantry to get another jar.
The whole shelf where he had carefully placed the box of jellies and preserves was empty.
He walked out of the pantry and went back to the fridge, this time searching for the store-bought jelly he only used for peanut butter sandwiches. Nada.
Carrying his plate with the bone-dry toast to the table, he sat down. “Where are the preserves?” He kept his voice even.
“I threw them out.”
The self-satisfied declaration coming from Kendra was exactly what he had expected. From the wealth of satisfaction he could read on her face, Moon would bet his last dollar that the prune-faced bitch had just been waiting for him to ask.
Larissa stared at her mother as if she had grown two heads. “Mom, why on earth would you do that?”
“They were filled with sugar, of course.” Kendra smoothed her styled hair as if unconsciously checking to make sure no loose tendril had escaped.
Moon had been around a lot of women in his life, and he had never seen a woman more concerned about her appearance, regardless of the time of the day or night.
“Don’t look so upset. I bought a fruit spread, if you absolutely have to have something. If Moon weren’t so concerned about those DNA killers, he would have seen the jar on the shelf in the pantry.”
“The one that says no sugar added ?” Biting off a piece of omelet, he chewed as he debated whether to kick her ass out of the house tonight or in the morning.
“Yes. I prefer Larissa eat fresh fruit, but if she absolutely wants it, at least it doesn’t have any sugar or preservatives.”
“Or any taste,” he said cuttingly.
“I find them very tasty, but then, my taste buds haven’t been ruined by commercial junk put in my body.”
He ate the rest of the bacon, then took a sip of the orange juice and nearly spat it out. He placed the glass back on the table and got to his feet. Going to the fridge, he took out the orange juice. It was the same brand he always bought.
Holding the container, he turned back to the table. “What’s wrong with the orange juice?”
“I replaced it with an all-natural brand.”
“Then why is it in the bottle I bought?”
“To prove you can’t taste the difference.”
His fingers tightened on the bottle. He had just bought the juice the day before.
When he pinned his gaze on Kendra’s forehead, a sound coming from Larissa interrupted the pitch he had been about to make.
At her pleading glance, he set the juice back in the refrigerator.
He reassumed his seat at the table to finish his food as Larissa stared miserably between him and her mother.
“Mother, tomorrow, I think it would be better if you moved in with Priss and Lana.”
Moon was surprised at Larissa finally taking a stand against her mother. So far, she hadn’t said anything, regardless of how derogatory Kendra behaved toward them. He had been about to make the same suggestion, except using more profane language, after they ate.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Larissa. With Moon working, I need to be here in case you go into labor.” Giving a long-suffering sigh, Kendra put her hands in the air. “I promise I’ll let you eat your food without interjecting my input from now on. I was just trying to do what I truly feel is better for your and the baby’s health.”
“Mom, I get that, but what you did was disrespectful. Moon spent a lot of money on those preserves from Ginny. Throwing food in the trash was a total waste.”
“I wasn’t about to destroy someone else’s body by giving it away. Like I said, I’ll keep my opinions to myself from now on.”
“Mom”—Larissa stood, reaching for her empty plate—“I’ll text Lana and Priss that you decided to move in with them tomorrow.”
“You’re throwing me out over something as silly as preserves?”
“It’s not just the preserves. I don’t get why you’re acting this way. You have Moon thinking I was adopted. What’s going on?”
“I’m just anxious with you being so close to your due date.”
Moon’s lips thinned in anger when he saw Kendra reach out and grab Larissa’s hand.
“I apologize.” Kendra’s eyes moved in his direction. “I’ll go to the grocery store in the morning and rebuy the orange juice and jelly. Darling, you know I only want what is best for you and the baby. I didn’t mean to go overboard.”
Moon’s stomach sank at the relieved expression filling Larissa’s face.
“I know you do, Mom. You always have.”
He wanted to cry when Larissa bent down to hug her mother.
“I’m so happy we worked this out. I wanted to be able to spend this time with you alone before the baby arrives. After she comes, it won’t be the same.”
“No, it won’t.”
Moon’s instincts kicked into high gear. He didn’t think Kendra’s words were meant at face value.
“I’ll do the dishes and turn in for the night,” Larissa said, moving toward the kitchen.
“I’ll take care of the dishes. You go to bed.” Moon stood with his plate, took Larissa’s from her, and went into the kitchen.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. This won’t take me long.”
“All right. Good night, Mom.”
“Good night, Larissa,” Kendra replied before resuming scrolling on her phone.
Putting the dishes in the sink, Moon started cleaning up the mess he had made. Once the dishes were in the dishwasher, he walked to the table and sat down.
Kendra didn’t bother acknowledging he was there.
“I think we need to talk.”
Setting her phone on the table, she gave him an inquiring look. “What would you like to discuss?”
“For starters”—he was done pussyfooting around with the bitch—“I want to know what game you’re playing.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He narrowed his gaze on her. “Why have you really been treating Larissa like shit?”