Suspended Read Online Free Page A

once.
    “Bastard.”
    Kendall choked out a laugh. “Yeah.”
    “But I don’t understand how. He gave that house to you and
Lily when you were a kid, for God’s sake. There’s no way they should be able to
take the property.”
    “Mom never took his name off the deed.”
    “God dammit, Lily.”
    There was no surprise in Bells’s voice, just the same
resignation Kendall felt. They both had years of conditioning at Lily’s hand.
No man could or would ever be as wonderful as Lawrence Justice. Even if he’d
left them high and dry, there was always some excuse her mother would pull out
to justify what he’d done to them. In the end, the fact that Lawrence had given
her Kendall was a lasting reason not to hate him.
    She wished she could be so forgiving.
    Any attempt at that forgiveness was long gone now.
    “So you have to share the house with your father’s son? What
the hell, Ken? That’s fucked-up.”
    “No, what’s fucked-up is that Shane Justice isn’t even his
biological son. Lawrence remarried and raised him as his own.”
    “He left—” Bells cut herself off.
    But the words were out. The same words that had run around
Kendall’s brain for the last two hours. He’d left her and raised another child.
She hadn’t been good enough. Why hadn’t she and her mom been enough? “Yeah.”
    “Bastard.” This time Bells’s voice was watery.
    “No crying, dammit. You’ll make me cry, and I don’t have
time for tears. I have to figure out how this is going to work.”
    “So you’re just going to accept this?”
    “Shane and I are going through the will to see if there’s
anything we can do to fight it.”
    “Are you sure he’s doing it with your best interests at
heart? What if he wants the Heron for his own?”
    “That’s why I’m staying here and reading over everything
with him. Things aren’t good for either of us. All the money’s been frozen.
Shane went from rich to poor in a snap.”
    “And lost his father.”
    Kendall’s voice gentled. “And lost his father.” As little as
she cared about Lawrence, she understood that Shane had loved him. She’d loved
him once upon a time. She could still remember his booming laugh and the way he
held her tight. She remembered the nights he read to her and the sweet scent of
his breath when he kissed her cheek good night.
    But she also remembered him driving away without a good-bye.
And she remembered her mother’s tears. There were a lot of tears. A lot more
tears than kisses good night. “I’ll know more after we go through the will
today.”
    “Does that mean you’re not coming home tonight?”
    “No, I won’t. And my ticket is nonrefundable. I have no idea
what’s going to happen.”
    “If I could strangle your father, I would.”
    “Get in line.”
    “The B and B is quiet right now, but I’ll go over and help
your mom with whatever she needs.”
    “Thanks. I don’t want to be a bother.”
    “Shut up, Kendall. What are best friends for?”
    “I—”
    “Seriously. Shut up. It’s slow at the office, so I can take
an hour here and there to go check on her.”
    “I love you, Bells.”
    “Oh, crap. Don’t get gushy on me. We don’t do smush.”
    Kendall smiled into the shadows of the chair. “I’ll call
when I can.”
    “Okay. Chin up and kick ass. That’s what we do.”
    “That’s what we do,” she agreed. “Bye.”
    She fisted her hand around her phone and dragged in a
steadying breath. Her shoulders prickled, and she looked up. Shane stood in the
doorway. His shirt was open at the throat, and a thin line of beads showed at
his neck. Another anomaly. He didn’t seem the jewelry type. She sat up and put
her feet back into her shoes. “What happened to privacy?”
    “It lasted thirty minutes.”
    “I still haven’t called my mother.”
    His full lips flattened into a frown. “What exactly were you
doing in here, Miss Proctor?”
    She stood. “Look, let’s get this Mister and Miss crap out of
the way. I’m Kendall.