Rock Chick Reckoning (Rock Chick #6)(82)

“Mace’s sister, your daughter, was murdered?” I whispered.

He studied me and it made me uncomfortable. The eyes were familiar but they were also completely different. There was nothing behind them, no emotion, even when he was talking about his daughter’s murder.

For your information, this creeped me way the hel out.

“Don’t you read the papers?” he asked me.

“I haven’t had the chance,” I replied.

“It’s al lies,” he said.

“What’s lies?”

“Al of it.”

“What, exactly?”

He changed the subject. “I want you out of his life.” This threw me because I hadn’t come to terms with the last mental blow he’d dealt.

“Out of whose life?” I asked stupidly.

Preston Mason’s eyes narrowed. “Kai’s.”

“Why?”

“Do you know who I am?”

I shook my head but said, “You’re Mace’s father.” I watched his lip curl right before he asked, “How stupid are you?”

Now I was getting angry.

What was with this guy?

He kidnaps me and then he’s mean to me?

What was up with that?

“What’s with you?” I snapped.

“I know how stupid you are, 2.5 grade point average, you skipped just enough school so you could graduate, too much to learn anything. You didn’t go to col ege. Your father’s a welder; your mother’s been a waitress for twenty-five years. Neither of them went to col ege either.”

“So?”

“So, Kai graduated with honors from the University of Hawaii with a bachelor’s in civil engineering.” Yowza.

Civil engineering?

That sounded hard.

I shook off thoughts of Mace beavering away at his studies using a protractor (or whatever they needed for civil engineering), forged ahead and clipped, “So?”

“So, the last girl Kai got serious about was the daughter of a senator.”

Yikes.

Real y?

A senator?

I hid my surprise and repeated, “So?”

“My God,” he muttered. “You real y are stupid.” Now total y pissed off, I leaned forward and hissed,

“Stop saying that.”

“You don’t get it, Stel a. What I’m saying is that you aren’t good enough for my son.”

He was not for real!

I sat back and crossed my arms on my chest and threw one leg over the other, bouncing my brown, dusty cowboy-booted foot.

“Let me get this straight, big man. First you tel me your son is responsible for your daughter’s murder and he’s not a good man. Then you act like a poorly-written character out of a formulaic romantic comedy and tel me I’m not good enough for him. I gotta tel you, it’s not me being stupid. It’s you that’s not making any sense.”

“Maybe I should have had a picture book drawn up so you could fol ow along,” he returned.

“Yeah, too bad you didn’t do that so I could take it away from you and beat you with it, you crazy loon,” I snapped back, leaned forward and pounded on the smoky partition that separated us from the driver. “Take me back to the bar!” I demanded.

“Sit back, Stel a, I’m not done with you yet.” I looked over my shoulder at him. “You might not be done with me but I’m done with you.” Then I turned around, banged on the partition again and shouted, “Take me back to the bar!”

“Sit back!” Preston Mason’s voice had risen and he sounded pissed off.

I again looked over my shoulder. “Al right, Mr. Mason, I’m having a bad day. And I mean bad. You do not want to mess with me. Not today. Seriously.” Then I turned back around and banged on the partition and shouted, “Take me back to the goddamned bar!”

“Your father has fal en behind on his mortgage payments,” Preston Mason said and I stopped banging.

This, I knew without a doubt, was not a fortunate turn in the conversation.

Slowly, I turned around and looked at him.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I own his mortgage.”

Shitsof*ckit.

“Mr. Mason, you know a lot about me so I’m guessing you know I haven’t spoken to my father in years. So I have to ask, this would mean something to me because…?” I prompted.

“Because your father has a lot of debt. Your mother’s been sick. He didn’t have insurance and she certainly didn’t. Chemotherapy costs a great deal when you’re too proud and too stupid to take Medicaid.”

Oh no.

No.

I didn’t just find out my mother had cancer and my father was too proud to help her out with government funded healthcare (which the stupid jerk would be) from Mace’s ass**le father.

Did I?

I stared at him.

And, for some reason, I knew he wasn’t lying.

Okay, it was safe to say my bad day just got worse.

My… f*cking… shitty… luck.

I tilted my head back and looked at the ceiling of the limo.

Then I closed my eyes.

Then I sat back, crossed my arms and legs and looked out the window.

“Take me back to the bar,” I said quietly.