Chapter 5 – Kendall
Since Johnnie turned into a fucking conscienceless monster and forced her to his will, Kendall tried her best to avoid breaking bread with him. She didn’t know if she had the wherewithal to put on a happy face for her children when she was falling to pieces on the inside.
She didn’t know if she’d scream or sob if Johnnie turned up the charm and pretended she wanted him in her bed, when she most definitely didn’t, a sentiment that he ignored.
She might break down and blab everything to her sweet, innocent children because she was so confused and traumatized, hating, despising Johnnie while mourning and missing the man he’d once been. Loving that one but loathing this one.
This past week, she’d had a built-in justification to avoid family meals.
Family anything really. Since Brooks and Charlotte went on an unexpected vacation, Kendall was needed at the office early to take his case load.
Last Tuesday, she’d found a note on her desk from him, stating an urgent matter had come up and he’d return as soon as possible.
She hadn’t heard from him since. As angry as she was with Charlotte for her bullshit, Kendall dialed her number several times, but voicemail always picked up, which was how she’d concluded they were together.
She’d used it everyday since, including this morning when she’d taken a light breakfast in her home office, away from the illusion of a loving husband and happy family. They were anything but.
Mutiny stirred in Kendall’s belly. The words, ‘give me liberty or give me death’ rose in her head. Patrick Henry rebelled against a nation—a king. Certainly, she could prevail against a tyrant. Her shoulders slumped. If the tyrant wasn’t named John Peter Donovan and hadn’t been invaded by a demon.
If she challenged him and lost, she risked losing her kids instead of her complete sanity, but she had to do something. Stand up for herself and Mattie, if not her sons. No, if not Rory. JJ and Blade wouldn’t want to be with Johnnie anymore than Mattie.
Maybe just exploring her legal options would soothe her, even if she didn’t have firm plans any longer.
Before she lost her nerve, she grabbed her cell phone and called her attorney. Voicemail picking up disappointed her, but what did she expect on a Saturday?
“Hi Anne,” she started at the sound of the tone, “this is Kendall Miller. I…can…I’d like an appointment with you as soon as possible. Please call me at your earliest convenience.”
Disconnecting, she stared at her phone, trepidation her overriding emotion.
There was a miniscule chance Johnnie would discover her actions, especially since she used her maiden name, but she’d just say she was working on one of Brooks’s case.
Whenever Anne gave her an appointment, Kendall would solicit Charlotte’s help or just use the excuse of a spa trip with her to get away.
Johnnie didn’t know both Brooks and Charlotte were out of town.
Her anxiety skyrocketing at the delicate situation, Kendall glanced around, soothed by her surroundings.
The room’s décor was the same as her office at the law firm, understated and quiet, filled with sintered stone, iron, and wooden office furniture, comfortable chairs in front of her desk, an oversized Executive’s chair, and a sitting arrangement on the other side of the room.
Unlike at the law firm, she had two windows on each side of her desk that overlooked the stream and the land beyond. Shades of cream and colorful paintings completed her decoration.
A glance at the sunburst wall clock revealed it was 3:15.
Her children knew where to find her, so she turned her cell phone off.
Anne probably wouldn’t call today, but on the off chance that she did, Kendall didn’t want to talk to her right now, already regretting her decision to call.
It was done. She’d deal with the fallout when she came to that bridge.
Soon, she’d leave her safe haven to start getting ready for CJ’s Science Fair. She wasn’t sure who besides her, JJ, and Mattie were going, but she wouldn’t miss the chance to support her nephew.
Foregoing lunch, she asked Ella to bring her another bowl of cereal and a cup of tea. Now, she sipped her chamomile tea, then set the delicate crystal cup with a butterfly handle back on the matching saucer. Sliding her chair back, she stood and stretched, deciding to work one more hour.
The Bells of Westminster Abbey pealed through the silence. They had a visitor. She wasn’t expecting anyone and she trusted Ella to send anyone other than family on their way. She definitely didn’t want to be bothered with the few of Johnnie’s cronies he allowed entry into their home.
After grabbing her laptop from a drawer and opening it, she powered it on, waiting for the sign-in screen to appear where she’d use the fingerprint reader to log on.
Her opening door interrupted her plans. Johnnie guided Ophelia in, then closed the door and escorted his cousin to one of the chairs in front of Kendall’s desk.
Ophelia plopped down and Kendall scowled at her husband, then looked at Fee and smiled gently. She hadn’t talked to her cousin-in-law since the night of the bombshell revelation about Fee’s paternity was made.
“Hi, darling—”
Ophelia stiffened. “Don’t you ‘darling’ me. How could you? How fucking dare you?”
Kendall wasn’t in the mood for more Donovan bullshit, especially belated bullshit, designed for sympathy rather than real despair. Otherwise, this confrontation would’ve happened days ago.
“You’ve upended my life, Kendall.”
“I understand you’re upset, but—”
“You aren’t taking it out on Kendall,” Johnnie interrupted in a steely voice, hands on hips, legs braced apart. Once, Kendall had adored that powerful stance. “It isn’t her fucking fault your mother pitched pussy around.”
As expected, Ophelia gasped, her outrage deepening. She knew nothing of what a murderous, oversexed maniac Patricia had been, who only loved Outlaw, Zoann, Cee Cee, and Big Joe, and tolerated everyone else.
“How dare you, Johnnie!” Ophelia cried, forever a spineless whiner.
“I dare!” he replied. “I definitely fucking dare. If I would’ve known you planned to confront Kendall, I would’ve slammed the door in your fucking face.”
“Either I would’ve pounded on that door until you answered or I would’ve called Cash. He would’ve made you listen or you would’ve suffered the consequences.”
“Get out,” Kendall snarled, furious because that bitch was making her defend the motherfucker looming next to her like an overgrown specter.
“Stand up to Cash before you think to come in my fucking house and threaten my fucking husband.” He smiled at her and she resisted the urge to flip him off.
“I don’t know who the fuck you think you’re talking to, Ophelia, but as Johnnie said, those results aren’t my fucking fault. ”
“You were the messenger!”
“Fuck you and the message,” she snapped. “It doesn’t fucking change your fucking standing in the family.”
“It does!” she wailed. “I’m not a Donovan.”
“Aunt Patricia was a Donovan,” Johnnie pointed out, not as aggressive as he had been. He actually sounded sympathetic. “That hasn’t changed.”
“It feels as if the essence of me has, though. I thought only Christopher had a different father and I was like Zoann and our other sisters. We shared the same mother and father.”
Fucking bitch! She wasn’t upset about who the fuck her father was. She was upset at what she saw as a moral edge over her brother. “You felt superior to Outlaw,” Kendall guessed.
Shame crossed Ophelia’s face and she shrugged. “Sometimes. I didn’t mean to, ” she said tearfully. “There were just all kinds of whispers and rumors about him that never affected me.” Wiping her cheeks, she gave a mournful look to Johnnie. “You understand, don’t you?”
“No,” Johnnie, the lying motherfucker and original superiority junkie, said with a straight fucking face.
Kendall held her tongue.
Jumping to her feet, Ophelia pounded the desk. “Why, Kendall? Why did you order those fucking tests?”
“Ophelia—”
“No, Johnnie,” Kendall said as sick of Ophelia as she was of Johnnie.
“Let me answer your cousin.” She smiled sweetly and got to her feet, only remembering she wore a silk and lace nightgown with spaghetti straps at Johnnie’s smoldering silver-gray gaze.
He wore jeans and a T-shirt today. No cut.
No business attire. Just ordinary clothes on an ordinary day.
“I ordered those fucking tests at your brother’s request. I ordered those motherfuckers because, instead of moving against the American Scorpions and wiping them off the face of the fucking earth, Cash voted with Johnnie to sue for peace.
I ordered those motherfuckers because those motherfuckers tied Outlaw’s hands and left him no fucking choice but to solve the riddle of whose cum made what child.
Don’t you fucking ever question what the fuck I do if you can’t ask the same of your goddamn husband.
Now, get the fuck out before I drag you out of this motherfucker and toss you in the goddamn stream. ”
Blinking, Ophelia swallowed.
Johnnie cleared his throat. “Uh—”
“Get out, both of you,” Kendall interrupted. “I have work to do.”
If not for the fair, she’d work on the family tree she was trying to build.
In her head, she was missing something vital and that wasn’t good.
Bash was all goodwill and happiness now, but she still hadn’t definitively proven that Meggie didn’t own the club.
Later tonight or tomorrow, she’d search through the files of psychopaths for more letters or information, anything to help her.
“I always thought Fred Sterling was my father,” Ophelia bemoaned around sniffles. “To find out Rack was…”
“Do you even fucking remember Fred?” Johnnie asked in frustration, another point for him. “I was twelve the last time I saw him and I don’t have a lot of memories. You were two.”
“How could Mama keep this from me?” Ophelia wailed, ignoring Johnnie.
Fuck, no wonder Winnie cried so much. Her mama was so fucking whiny, she gave Kendall a headache.
“I don’t think she realized Fred wasn’t your father,” Kendall told her. In all the letters she’d read, she’d never seen any indication that Patricia thought Rack fathered one of her children.
Just as Hopper seemed to sincerely believe Jana was Johnnie’s daughter. Shocking turn of events and another conversation Kendall needed to have.
“Does that mean Mama had sex around the same time with Rack and Fred?” Ophelia sounded disgusted.
“Yeah,” Johnnie said with a nod. “That’s exactly what the fuck that means. Not surprising, considering—”
“Nothing,” Kendall blurted, giving Johnnie a slight shake of her head.
Did this motherfucker have no fucking sense?
He couldn’t blurt the truth of Patricia’s true character without massive repercussions and trauma, especially for Outlaw.
“Considering nothing except a woman who was probably lonely and sought attention from Rack.”
Ophelia’s shoulders slumped. “Fine,” she said, sobbing again and stumbling toward the door.
Kendall considered letting Ophelia leave without another word, but she understood hopeless despair. Ophelia’s life had been blown apart, and Kendall knew how that felt, too.
“Fee?” she called.
Ophelia stopped but didn’t turn.
“You didn’t know Fred and you didn’t know Rack. You’re still Outlaw and Zoann’s sister. You’re still Johnnie’s cousin. My cousin-in-law. You’re still family, honey, and that won’t ever change.”
“Th-thank you, Kendall,” she said and walked out.
“It figures she belongs to Rack,” Johnnie grumbled. “Wally, Jr. was a pathetic little fuckhead and she’s always been a whiny milquetoast.”
Nodding, Kendall sat again. “She doesn’t seem to know she had a brother or that she has two miserable motherfuckers as nephews.”
“Cash doesn’t want her to know,” Johnnie revealed. “He doesn’t think she can handle it.”
“I don’t either.” Kendall wrinkled her nose. “I hate that I agree with Cash about anything.”
Johnnie caught her gaze. “Do you feel that way about me?”
Lowering her lashes, Kendall bit her lip, just wanting to be alone. No matter what she said, Johnnie wouldn’t listen to her, so she wouldn’t bother protesting.
“To be, or not to be,” Kendall started, quoting one of her favorite speeches from Shakespeare.
She lifted her gaze to his again, hoping he saw how close to breaking she was.
“That is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them: to die, to sleep no more; and by a sleep, to say we end the heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to?
'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.”
At Johnnie’s tender smile, Kendall screamed inside her head. It reminded her of his charm, the gentle care he’d once shown her.
“You’re brilliant,” he told her. “You’re the reason Mattie and Harley love Shakespeare so much.”
“Maybe,” she agreed morosely. “I was the cerebral one out of all the moms. I thought I bored them.”
“You’re many things, gorgeous, but never a bore.”
His nickname for her always instantly brightened her day and gave her the strength to carry on. Today, she couldn’t even find it in herself to smile.
“It never fails to amaze me how many English literature passages you remember off the top of your head.”
“To be or not to be is a question I ask myself all the time lately, Johnnie.”
His nostrils flared. “I love you. I know you still love me—”
Before she answered, Val knocked on her partially opened door and walked in. The moment Kendall saw him, she knew something was wrong. He rarely stopped by.
Even if that hadn’t been the case, the look on his face, part shock and anger, would’ve clued Kendall in.
“I been calling you, Johnnie,” Val said, and nodded to Kendall. “Puff been calling you.”
“Our phones are upstairs,” Johnnie said on a swallow. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Rebel and Jana,” Val said in a shaky voice. “Motherfuckers tried to kill them.”