Lady Be Good (Wynette, Texas #2)(98)

The miles crawled by, and finally they reached the northern edge of Wynette. “Would you drop me off at the hotel, please?” Even as she was saying it, she wondered why she’d wasted her breath because she knew exactly how he’d respond.

“If you’re going to run away from home, you’ll have to do it on your own. I’m not going to help you.”

She was too tired to argue with him. Tomorrow was soon enough. She leaned back in the seat, closed her eyes, and didn’t open them again until they reached the ranch.

They entered the house from the garage. Kenny moved ahead with her suitcases, then set them down to unlock the door. He held it open for her and she stepped inside.

One moment the kitchen was dark, and the next it blazed with light.

“Surprise!”

“Surprise! Surprise!”

“Here comes the bride . . .”

Emma gazed at all the bright, cheery faces that filled the kitchen and realized that her miserable day had just taken a turn for the worse.

“Time to cut the cake!” Patrick called out after the toasts had been delivered and guests introduced.

Kenny and Emma moved from opposite sides of the room toward the confection Patrick had created, a creamy vanilla tower with two of Peter’s Fisher-Price figures perched on top, along with paper flags of the bride’s and groom’s respective countries. Emma wondered if anyone had noticed that the bride and groom in question had been talking to everyone except each other.

Her head ached, and she wanted nothing so much as to curl up and go to sleep. She gazed enviously at Peter, who had fallen asleep on Kenny’s shoulder, leaving a drool mark on the collar of his golf shirt.

In addition to the Traveler family and Dexter, Ted Beaudine was present, along with Father Joseph, a few executives from TCS, and a score of Kenny’s friends from the Roustabout who’d been entertaining each other with more stories of Kenny’s misbegotten childhood: how he’d stolen one woman’s science project, thrown someone’s best pair of sneakers onto a power line, lost someone else’s little brother.

She pushed aside the protective instincts that their gleeful stories of Kenny’s headlong rush toward self-destruction always aroused in her. He was a grown man, and if he didn’t choose to defend himself, it was no concern of hers.

She moved toward the cake from one side of the room, while Kenny approached from the other. As Warren came forward and took Peter, he smiled fondly at Emma. “If I haven’t said it before, welcome to the family, Lady Emma. I couldn’t have found a better woman for Kenny if I’d picked her out myself.” He regarded his son with that overly eager look that broke her heart. “Congratulations, son. I’m proud of you.”

Kenny barely acknowledged his words as he positioned himself in front of the cake. Her heart ached for both of them: the father who wanted to make up for old sins, and the son who couldn’t forgive a childhood of neglect.

Patrick handed Emma the cake cutter, which he’d decorated with red, white, and blue ribbons. “More patriotic than bridal,” he sniffed, “but I didn’t have much warning.”

She smiled at him, then looked down as Kenny’s hand settled over hers, that broad, tan palm sheltering her own smaller, whiter one, those strong, elegant fingers curling around hers. The sight of their joined hands made her eyes sting. If only their hearts were as tightly linked.

Kenny took a sip of wine, then moved across the kitchen to turn off a light that had been left burning on the sunporch. Lady E had fled upstairs the minute the last of the guests had left, and he knew it wasn’t because she was in a hurry to hop into his bed. No, Lady E was holed up by herself tonight. He wondered if she’d go so far as to lock her door, but then he knew she wouldn’t. She’d rely on his honor instead to keep him away.

His honor. To the public, it was badly tattered, but nothing could make him regret what he’d done to Hugh Holroyd.

He stepped out onto the sunporch, then saw too late that he wasn’t alone. His father sat on the couch with Petie curled up asleep in his arms. He felt himself stiffen as he always did when he was with his father. “I thought you’d left.”

“I sent Shelby back with Torie. I wanted to talk to you alone.”

Warren was the last person Kenny wanted to talk to tonight, or any night for that matter. “In case you haven’t notice, I’m on my honeymoon.”

“From what I saw tonight, it doesn’t look like much of a honeymoon. Lady Emma was barely speaking to you.” Petie made a little mewing sound in his sleep, and Warren cuddled him closer.

Had his father ever held him like that? He was startled to feel a stab of jealousy. It made him ashamed, and then something inside him relaxed. Emma was right. Warren had learned from the past, and all the worries Kenny’d been having about his little brother were groundless. Petie wasn’t going to have to earn their father’s love.

“Petie should be in bed,” he said gruffly.

“He will be soon.” Warren pressed a kiss to the top of the baby’s head. “He was so comfortable, I didn’t want to disturb him.”

Once again, that queer, painful stab. Petie was being given his father’s love as a birthright. Torie had received the same thing. Only Kenny’d had to earn it—one tournament at a time.

Now his father wanted to pretend that everything was fine between them. But it wasn’t fine. Kenny had needed a father when he was a kid; he sure as hell didn’t need one now.