Misfit(22)

“First a joke and now an observation,” she hissed. “Are you advertising your own experience or bragging about it?”

“Please, can we forget about this? We’ve been getting along for the past few months.” Kendall thrust her chin toward the side board. “I have fruit for you. To extend an olive branch. Until we settle this, you’ve agreed to keep it from Outlaw. For our men’s sake. I appreciate that. I didn’t mean to insult you by suggesting Ryder belonged to Johnnie.”

“I’ll stay and eat the fruit.” Meggie stomped to the sideboard. “I’m so over your petty spite, Kendall.”

“And I’m over your interference,” she retorted.

Fee stood as a silent witness to Meggie’s and Kendall’s volatile relationship. More than that, she realized the lengths the two women went to, to protect Christopher and Johnnie. If Fee ran to Christopher with everything she’d learned, all hell would break loose.

It didn’t matter he’d hired her to report to him. Protecting him and their family mattered most. If that meant being a real friend to Kendall and hiding everything from her brother, then Fee would.

Meggie adored Christopher and would never do anything to jeopardize him. Yet, even she kept her arguments with Kendall under wraps.

“Fee, I just remembered you have a pile of emails to answer for me.”

“Kendall, if you don’t allow Fee to eat with us, I’m leaving.”

“No, Meggie,” Fee inserted, not wanting to add fuel to their simmering fire. “I intended to excuse myself anyway. I have a few appointments to schedule for Kendall.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to sit with us?”

Fee nodded. “Positive, Meggie.”

“The three of us can go out to eat,” she suggested.

“Not on my account.” Fee backed towards the door, leaving them to their version of friendship.

She questioned her own reasons for referring to Kendall as a friend. After today, she wondered if it was her sanity she should question.





Cash lifted his head at his ringing phone, pushing Daphne off his chest and reaching over to his nightstand. The moment he grabbed the phone, it stopped ringing. He ran his fingers over his bleary eyes. Raising his arm, he looked at the time on the watch he’d never removed.

11:43.

Intending to press redial, he frowned at the name beneath the words missed call. Not Georgie like he suspected, but Josh, their brother. Usually, the guy was in the middle of a business deal, especially so early on a Monday. Shit! Something awful must’ve happened. Their father flashed in his head. If something was wrong, then it would also affect his little sister.

Cash didn’t want Georgie to worry about their dad. Parnell’s antics had jeopardized her enough because of how much she loved the motherfucker. He hadn’t developed the same closeness or devotion for their father. Parnell didn’t support Cash’s biker lifestyle, his sexual preferences, his casual attire, his drug and alcohol use, his…in simpler terms, Parnell approved of nothing about Cash. Even his military service didn’t impress Parnell. Instead of “finding” himself in the Marine Corps, Cash had decided being a lifer in the United States military was definitely not for him.

Now, their dad was having issues with Abby Mason—he was just a dickhead like that—and Georgie worried about his state of mind, despite everything he’d put her through. Josh held Abby partly responsible for his mother’s suicide. He’d forgiven Parnell for whatever wrong doing he might’ve been responsible for. Which, knowing his father, had been a lot.

Parnell McCall was a fucking womanizer. He could couch it as boredom or falling out-of-love. His father liked young women, so it wasn’t surprising to Cash that at almost sixty, the asshole shacked up with someone not quite thirty.

His mother was much better off without Parnell in her life. She’d just returned from Iceland. Lake Myvatn. She adored luxury and dragged her second husband around the world to resorts of all types, with the search for the perfect hot spring, her latest obsession.

Her traveling suited Cash perfectly. It kept her out of his business and her quest to fix him.

Cash sat up, ignoring Daphne’s sleepy groan. Just as promised he’d locked himself in his room at the club with her. If anyone asked, she would say they’d fucked like monkeys the entire weekend.

They’d drank like monkeys but he hadn’t put his cock in her yet. He’d promised her he’d do her, so he would. He didn’t want to piss her off, since her cooperation would assist him in the jam he might be in with Outlaw. Not only couldn’t he rely on Slipper’s silence regarding Fee attending the party, but the motherfucker would know Cash had something to hide. He’d be at the alcoholic ass’s mercy, subjected to blackmail.