Page 7 of When You Got a Good Thing (Misfit Inn 1)

Maggie went ramrod straight. “Have they threatened to?”

“No. Mae knows this is devastating. She’s not going to rock the boat right now. So I’m her guardian until something more permanent can be decided on.”

“Permanent like what?” Athena asked.

Pru shrugged. “I don’t know. I think Mae’s been putting out feelers to see if she can track down Ari’s birth parents. She didn’t have any luck when Sofia—Ari’s grandmother—passed away, but with this… She doesn’t want to leave any stone unturned.”

“Poor kid,” Athena muttered. “No wonder she’s terrified.”

As Beethoven rolled into Debussy, Kennedy tried to imagine what she’d have done in Ari’s shoes. Her mother had taken off when Kennedy was only seven. Her dad had done his best for a while, taking her on the road in his eighteen wheeler as he trucked across country. But even he’d given up on the parenting gig after a while, announcing that it’d been a good run, but it just wasn’t working anymore. She’d been twelve when he dumped her into the system, nearly thirteen by the time she’d come to Joan, saddled with the kiss-of-death moniker of “troubled.” If there’d been even a whiff of a possibility that they’d send her back to her father, she wouldn’t have hesitated before bolting.

“We have to do something.” Kennedy wiped at her own eyes. “We have to make her feel safe and protected, like Mom did. We all know what it feels like to have the rug pulled out from under us. She has enough to deal with without adding worry that she’s going to get thrown back into the system. We have to look after her. It’s what Mom would’ve wanted.”

Athena turned from the window. “You’re hardly in a position to know what Mom wanted.”

Kennedy absorbed the blow, biting back the protest that rose in her throat. She was too tired to fight with Athena. Too tired to fight with any of them. And what could she really say? She hadn’t been here. That none of them knew the true reason why hardly mattered. She still couldn’t explain. The fact was, it had been a risk coming back here, even now.

“Kennedy’s not wrong,” Maggie said. “Mom considered Ari another daughter. The fact that the legal paperwork didn’t get finished before she died was just a formality. That makes her our sister. And that means we fight for her.”

A little of the tension leeched away. They’d fight. So sayeth Maggie. Nothing short of God himself would dare go against her.

“There will be time to figure it out after today,” Pru said. “The music’s stopped. Maybe she’ll finally eat something. I’ll go see.”

Feeling raw and wanting some space, Kennedy scooped up her carry-on and purse. “I’m gonna get that shower now.”

~*~

/> Xander considered it an honor to lead the procession to Joan's final resting place. The line of cars snaked down the mountain, filling multiple switchbacks. The cemetery was an older one, high up on the ridge where you could look out over the Great Smoky Mountains. She'd loved those mountains all her life, and he thought it fitting that she be laid to rest with such a view. He hoped that when her daughters came to visit the graveside—if they came to visit after today—they'd find some comfort in that.

Stepping out of his cruiser, Xander looked toward the car parked behind the hearse. The doors opened and the sisters slid out, all in unrelieved black. Pru, Maggie, and Athena he'd seen, already offered his condolences. Kennedy was the last one out. He wanted to be cool and unaffected, wanted to hang on to the bitterness and anger over her abandonment. And it was there, as it had been for years. But even at this distance, he could see the signs of weeping, and he couldn’t harden his heart. Not fully. His ribs felt too tight, and he couldn’t take a full breath.

She'd grown up. He'd known that objectively. He certainly had in the last ten years. But he'd worked hard not to imagine her as a woman, not to wonder how she'd changed, so in his mind, she'd stayed the fresh-faced girl of eighteen. Grief and exhaustion did little to dim her beauty. She was a knockout, with a subtle edge of...something. A confidence he didn't remember from high school, as if she was comfortable in her own skin now. Or as comfortable as she could be under the circumstances.

Not trusting himself to maintain the necessary emotional distance, Xander stuck to keeping physical space between them, busying himself by directing the parking lineup of all the mourners as the pall bearers gathered at the rear of the hearse. They were all former fosters of Joan's, now men grown and off on their own. Xander had heard their stories, and dozens of others, when he'd called to break the news of her passing. With only a few exceptions, every single person on Joan's list had returned to say goodbye and pay their respects to the woman who’d changed their lives. Between them and all of her many friends from Eden’s Ridge, the graveside was packed.

At the direction of the funeral home staff, everyone gathered in neat rows around the plot, careful not to trip over the artificial turf covering the grim reality of a freshly dug grave. Tensions between the sisters were evident as they stood at the edge. Their postures were stiff, no hands or arms linked in support. So different from growing up, when they’d been a unit. But even as Xander crossed over to join the crowd, the four of them closed ranks around Ari, taking her hand or touching her shoulder. The Reynolds sisters might be a family divided, but they were still a family at the heart. Joan had forged those links, and he thought the child would be the one to reinforce them.

Pastor Hodgson began the service, his booming baritone carrying across the cemetery as he spoke of a life cut tragically short. “Joan Reynolds was a good woman, a good Christian, who believed in healing the world through love. After spending fifteen years working as a social worker and being frustrated with the limitations in her ability to help the children on her caseload, she left that job and opened her home as a foster parent. She spent the next twenty-five years devoting her life to that endeavor, impacting the lives of more than a hundred children—none more so than her daughters.”

The minister rolled on through the service, offering prayers and platitudes. When, at last, he lapsed into silence, heads bowed in respect, in mourning. Then a single, tremulous voice lifted in song. Kennedy. Eyes closed, face raised to the sky, she sang, gaining strength with every word. After a few bars, Xander recognized the lyrics to “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Raw and unaccompanied, the sound of it sent chills down his spine, stripping away the hurt and resentment, until all he wanted was to comfort and soothe. Because she was aching, and no matter what had passed between them or how it had ended, a part of him still needed to protect her.

She was weeping by the end, tears streaming down her cheeks and sobs stealing her breath for the final lines. Pru took her hand. Maggie looped an arm through hers. Even Athena reached out to squeeze her shoulder. In this, at least, it seemed they could put aside their differences.

Pastor Hodgson made a few more remarks. And then it was done. Each of the sisters stepped forward to lay a single white rose over the polished coffin before slowly stepping away. Kennedy pressed a hand to the wood, chin quivering. Then she, too, stepped away.

Mourners moved in clumps toward parked cars. They would, Xander knew, be heading back to the house for the reception. He’d told himself he wasn’t going, that he didn’t want to add to the strain with his presence. Pru, at least, would worry about him and Kennedy being in the same room again after all this time. Who knew whether Kennedy herself would be bothered? But Porter had made it up for the funeral after all, and Xander didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to see one of his oldest friends. And, for better or worse, a part of him wanted to see Kennedy, just to check on her.

By the time he arrived, the house was packed. It might’ve looked like a party but for the quiet murmur of voices and the lack of music. People already had plates of food and visited in clusters of three or four. Porter Ingram stood across the living room, hands jammed in the pockets of his suit, scanning the gallery of photos, much as Xander had done the other day.

“A lot of memories here,” Xander murmured.

Porter turned and offered a small smile. “Yeah.” He opened his arms, and Xander returned the back thumping hug.

“Glad you could make it. How’s Gatlinburg?”

When wildfires had broken out in November, Porter had headed south as part of the National Guard to try to contain the blaze. The aftermath had left Gatlinburg ravaged and burned more than a hundred thousand acres across eight states. In the face of the devastation, he’d stayed as part of the reconstruction efforts.

“It’s going. We’re starting to see some solid progress, but it’ll be a long damned time before the land heals. The Ridge was damned lucky the fires didn’t make it this far.”

---