Carol Finch - The Family Feud - The Family Feud / Stop The Wedding?!

“You’ve got it all wrong,” he said sharply. “Just because I like your dad and hired him when he had so much idle time on his hands, and no one to share it with, doesn’t make me the villain here. Your mother is so wrapped up in her la-di-da clothing store that she isn’t giving John’s transition in lifestyle the slightest consideration. She’s too self-involved, inconsiderate and uncompromising, if you ask me.”

“No one asked you,” she sassed him.

He smirked derisively then shot her a critical glance. “I’m sure you can relate to self-involvement. You’ve been away for years, and suddenly you’ve come buzzing back to peanut country from the big city, expecting to snap your fingers and resolve this crisis overnight. Well, I’ve got a news flash for you, sugarbritches, it won’t work that way. Your dad has some legitimate beefs that need to be addressed. Until you’ve heard both sides with an open mind, don’t pass judgment on me or anyone else.”

“Who are you to tell me how to deal with my parents, Mr. Nuts and Bolts?” she retaliated hotly. “You’re an outsider!”

His thick brows flattened threateningly over his silver-blue eyes. “I’m the guy who can help or hamper your attempt to settle the family feud. So you don’t want to make me angry. Got it, sugarbritches?”

“Just what, exactly, is your interest in this feud? Aren’t you too old to be looking for a new daddy?” Jan asked sarcastically.

He bared his teeth and growled, “You’re annoying the hell out of me, so if John’s interested in my mother, then maybe that’s fine by me. You’re right, I never had the luxury of a father, just a string of men coming and going through the swinging door at my mother’s house. Just about the time I adjusted to her latest boyfriend or husband she went hunting for a new one. Why do you think I spent all my time in the gym shooting hoops? My home life wasn’t fun, but you probably took family stability for granted. Maybe you deserve to find out what I’ve put up with every day of my life!”

Jan stepped back a pace, surprised by the ferocity behind Morgan’s words. Obviously, he was sensitive about the subject of his fickle mother. Jan hadn’t given much thought to the upheaval and frustration he’d endured because of his mother’s reputation in town. But still, she didn’t want him stealing her father out from under her nose and more or less taking her place since she’d become the absentee sibling.

Morgan retreated a step, let out his breath in a whoosh, and then raked his fingers through his hair.

“I’m sorry, Janna, I don’t usually fly off the handle, but you managed to tick me off. The plain and simple facts are that, like it or not, I’ve become your dad’s confidant and friend. If he won’t open up to you about this rift with Sylvia or discuss his need to recapture his lost youth, then you can come see me and I’ll give you John’s perspective.”

“Thanks, but I’ll muddle through by myself,” she insisted, tilting her chin stubbornly. “This is my family problem, after all.”

He shrugged those impossibly broad shoulders. “Have it your way, Janna, but don’t expect me to stop listening when John needs to blow off steam and discuss his problems with Sylvia.”

With a curt nod, Jan turned on her heel and exited the store. It rankled that her father confided in Morgan and refused to talk to her—his oldest daughter who’d dropped her important project at work in her assistant’s lap and had come running to solve the Mitchell clan’s problems.

She supposed she was partly to blame for her parents’ separation. She’d moved away to establish her own life and career and didn’t get home as often as she should to ensure things ran smoothly. But she’d come home the instant she learned there was trouble because family was family, and they should stick together, stick up for one another, not confide in outsiders.

Composing herself, Jan stepped onto the sidewalk to inhale a breath of fresh air. Her encounter with Morgan hadn’t gone as she’d hoped. She’d overreacted to seeing him again. She’d become spiteful and defensive and yes, damn it, a little juvenile. She supposed years of suppressed resentment had finally erupted. Now that she had the nerve to lambaste him, she’d let him have it with both barrels blazing. But she shouldn’t have allowed Morgan to affect her because he was ancient history and she wasn’t the teeniest bit attracted to him. She hadn’t given Morgan a thought in years.

Right, Jan, since when did you become a pathological liar? said that taunting voice inside her head. Okay, so maybe she’d given him a thought on occasion, but it didn’t mean a thing. She’d just take a wide berth around Morgan and focus on reconciling her parents. The first order of business was to get her parents to speak to one another.

MORGAN HAD major difficulty concentrating while he waited on the three customers that arrived shortly after Janna stormed off. He hadn’t been prepared for her hostility toward him. The moment he saw her up close all he could do was marvel at how attractive and assertive she’d become. He hadn’t expected to feel an immediate flash of awareness and interest, but he had. Watching her pearlescent skin glow in the florescent light, staring at her petal-soft lips, and appraising the sculpted features of her oval face had drawn his undivided attention and inspired a few fantasies.

He hadn’t expected her to walk in and flay him alive, as if he were responsible for the change in her father’s appearance and behavior. Her verbal jabs had set fuse to his temper. Morgan rarely lost his temper. He’d learned to take life in stride and roll with the punches. But Janna had provoked him and he’d reflexively lashed out at her.

Some reunion that had turned out to be. She had her heart set on disliking him because of that kiss at Home-coming. True, he’d suffered a severe case of the guilts when the incident swelled out of proportion and she got her feelings trounced on. He’d tried to apologize about a half dozen times, but she had avoided him and wouldn’t answer his phone calls.

Everyone in school had known plain-Jane Janna had a flaming crush on him. It was the worst-kept secret in Oz. Like a fool, Morgan had let his friends dare him into planting a juicy French kiss on Janna’s lips that night after he’d shot the lights out of the gymnasium in a game against Oz’s biggest rival. He’d been riding an emotional high after the victory, after his coronation as Homecoming King. Since his ornery teammates teased him about Janna constantly he’d decided to kiss her and appease his curiosity.

Truth was, there’d been something about Janna’s shy demeanor and those wide-eyed innocent stares that appealed to him way back when. Even though she was two years younger and didn’t run with his circle of friends, he’d kinda liked her. Even a dozen years ago, those enormous, deep-set, thick-lashed hazel eyes that were flecked with chips of gold had fascinated him. They were hypnotist’s eyes and he’d been drawn to Janna on some level that an eighteen-year-old kid failed to comprehend.

And so Morgan had kissed her soundly that night, not just because of that idiotic dare, but because he’d wanted to. She’d been soft, incredibly sweet, yielding and giving in his arms. But by the time his knucklehead friends spread the word that they’d dared Morgan to kiss the skinny little self-conscious sophomore his potential friendship with Janna shattered in a zillion pieces. He’d made a stupid adolescent mistake and it looked as if Janna planned to hold it over his head for the rest of his life.

Ah well, no sense worrying about something that happened over a decade ago, he told himself realistically. Janna wouldn’t be in town long enough for him to mend fences with her. She didn’t want his input in the feud, didn’t want his friendship…But damn, she looked sensational. The entire time he’d been arguing with her he’d had to resist the wild urge to reach over and unwind that sleek hairstyle that made her appear stuffy and unapproachable. He’d wanted to crack that cool, sophisticated exterior, hoping he’d find that sweet, moon-eyed teenager who’d idolized him.