“What?” she whispered.
“I’m disappointed in you.”
The dim light in his eyes backed up his harsh words and she flinched. Kendall had expected many emotions from Rick, anger being the primary one. She hadn’t anticipated his intense disappointment nor could she believe how small and defeated she felt, having let him down.
Every experience she’d had since coming to this small town had been foreign and new.
Frightening for someone who’d never known stability or family. How dare Rick condemn her for it? “Well, I’m so sorry I’m a disappointment, Officer Chandler. But like you said, it’s not like I wasn’t up front with you from day one.”
“And you backed up your words with actions. Congratulations.” He clapped his hands in a slow round of applause. “You came here running from a situation in New York, and you’ll leave here the same way. Running from me.” His palm came to rest on the tabletop as he leaned in closer. “But remember something, Kendall. You can’t run from yourself or your own feelings. Someday they’re bound to catch up with you. Excuse me if I don’t wait around for that time to come.”
He straightened his shoulders and met her gaze with a lingering look. “Sorry to sound like a cliché but we could have had it all.” He shook his head, turned, and walked away.
Not once during his exit from the restaurant did he look back. But his words remained long after he was gone, reverberating inside her head until it pounded.
“Oh, God.” She lay her forehead against her hands.
“You blew it, didn’t you?” Hannah’s verbal condemnation came on the heels of Rick’s abrupt departure.
Kendall lifted her bleary gaze and glanced around before dealing with her sister. Every surrounding table was filled with eavesdroppers eager to catch the gist of Kendall’s next confrontation. Heck, she wondered if they weren’t taking notes.
Since this day just seemed to get better and better, she might as well face Hannah now, she thought, meeting her sister’s expectant gaze.
“Well? Did you blow it with Rick or not?”
“I suppose it depends on your definition of blowing it.”
Hannah had obviously reapplied shocking pink lipstick while in the ladies’ room and her full, colored lips turned downward in a frown. “I left you alone with him. All you had to do was say you’d stay. Say you loved him. Say anything but you didn’t, did you? And now he’s gone,” she said, her voice rising along with her hysteria.
“Hannah, please.” Kendall clenched her fists and fought down the rising tide of embarrassment. Kendall had come to care what these good people thought. “Can you lower your voice?”
“Why?” Hannah practically shouted. “Everyone’s already watching you. Which reminds me. I heard someone in the bathroom say something about you and that picture last night.
What picture?” She barely paused for breath. “What’d I miss? And how bad did you screw things up with Rick?”
Kendall groaned and rested her head in her hands, massaging her aching temples. She was dizzy and nausea rose quickly.
“Kendall?” Hannah asked, more quietly this time.
“Hmm?” She barely raised her gaze as she answered. Her head hurt, she was emotionally spent yet Hannah had an agenda that wouldn’t be deterred.
“Did I mention I stuffed Norman’s toilet and it’s overflowing?”
“Oh, God.” That got Kendall’s adrenaline flowing again and she jumped up and flagged Izzy down.
“Just a second,” the older woman called.
“But . . .” Kendall tried to catch her but Izzy disappeared into the kitchen before returning with food on her tray and heading in the opposite direction.
“It wasn’t my fault. I mean it was an accident, I swear,” Hannah continued at full speed.
“An accident? This from the girl who stuffed the toilet in the teachers’ lounge at Vermont Acres?”
Her sister had the good grace to blush before going on with her rambling explanation.
“The garbage was full and the paper towels from washing my hands kept falling onto the floor.” She gestured wildly with her hands. “And I wouldn’t normally care, ya know? But you’re always saying to be polite and clean up after myself, so I tried to flush them down the toilet instead. See? An accident.” She shrugged too innocently in Kendall’s opinion.
“Isabelle!” Norman’s voice bellowed from the back hall. “Damn toilet’s overflowing,”
the owner of the restaurant yelled in an extremely pissed-off tone.
Kendall lowered herself back into her seat. She tried unsuccessfully to blink back tears and when that didn’t work, she lay her head back in her hands so she could alternately cry and laugh hysterically.
Her life had become a complete and utter mess. And based on Hannah’s acting out, her inquisitive questions, and push for Kendall’s reconciliation with Rick, things weren’t about to get easier anytime soon.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kendall dragged herself home after the episode at Norman’s. She’d let Hannah leave with Jeannie and her parents while Kendall had stayed until the plumber arrived and she’d been successful on insisting he send her the bill. She walked up the front stoop, pausing when the obvious aroma of chocolate assaulted her senses, giving her a needed boost of energy.
She knelt down in front of the foil-covered plate on the stoop and lifted the white note taped to the top, reading aloud. “Kendall Dear. Your favorite comfort food at a time you need comfort badly. It’s the least family can do. Ignore the gossips and they’ll get bored quickly. Hugs and kisses, Pearl and Eldin.”
It’s the least family can do. “Family.”
The word seemed to come up again and again, mocking her. Until her move here, Kendall had considered herself more a loner than someone with connections, especially family connections. She had kept everyone on the periphery of her life, even Hannah.
And they’d both paid for that lapse, Kendall thought sadly.
Yet here were Pearl and Eldin, whom she’d just met, worried about her feelings and taking her into their life because they cared. Just like Raina Chandler, like Charlotte and Roman, Beth . . . the list of people who cared for Kendall seemed to go on and on. Yet wasn’t she equally concerned about them?
She wiped a tear from her cheek, one she hadn’t realized she’d shed. And what about Pearl and Eldin, she thought, taking in the brownies. How could she tell them they needed to move out of the large house into the smaller one just so she could sell the home out from under them?