In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,100
was angling for money. From the people he’d stolen from.
Freddy took in a deep breath, wiped some of the wetness from his face. “But you know what made Pete MacKilligan truly wealthy? It wasn’t his money. It wasn’t houses and cars and property in the Caribbean. No. It was the legacy he left. The legacy of his sons. There is nothing greater in this world than for a man to have sons. Loyal, protective sons. Willing to do anything for their father and to carry on the family name. Sons are the most important thing in the world. Nothing else can compete.”
It was then that Stevie heard bodies turning in the pews, felt the eyes on her and her sisters. Everyone was staring at them now, because they all knew . . . the idiot had forgotten he had daughters.
Daughters sitting in the same room where he was making this men’s rights–like speech.
Embarrassed, mortified, and wishing she was back in Switzerland immersed in science and math and the future of the universe, Stevie looked up. She expected to see the rest of the family laughing at Freddy’s pitiful daughters. But they weren’t. They all felt bad for Stevie and her sisters. She could see it on their faces. Feel it in the room. For once, honey badgers felt pity.
“Does he remember you guys are in the room?” Shen asked her.
“Wow,” Kyle said from her other side. “I thought telling my kindergarten teacher I was an only child and an orphan was bad . . . I was wrong.”
Stevie sighed. “But you were in kindergarten, Kyle. Not a grown man.”
“I still don’t know what’s happening,” Shen muttered. “But I do want to call my dad and tell him I love him.”
“And you should also thank him for not being an asshole.”
“Oh, I will.”
“Sons,” her father went on . . . still oblivious, “give a man something that no woman—related or not—can ever give him. An empire.”
“I guess all those royal daughters in the middle ages who married to solidify power were meaningless,” Stevie said with a head shake.
“Pete was truly blessed to have as many sons as he did,” Freddy went on, ignoring Bernice as she tried to stop him or, at the very least, remind him that he had daughters sitting in the room, “Because sons are so important. They’re the most important thing a man can have in his life. Sons are everything. I know this because, unlike Uncle Pete, I was never blessed with sons. Imagine . . . going through life childless.”
“Oh!” Stevie gasped in surprise, “he just forgot he had daughters . . . altogether. How nice for him.”
Freddy stared at the sons and grandsons of Pete MacKilligan. The confused men and boys gawked back . . . their sisters, wives, and daughters beside them.
The silence went on for a very uncomfortable amount of time . . . until laughter rang out in the church. Hysterical, unstoppable laughter.
Stevie felt those eyes on her again but the family soon understood it wasn’t her. The crazy one. Nope. It wasn’t Stevie. It was Charlie.
Charlie was laughing so hard, she was the one crying now. She had her arms around her stomach and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop. It got so bad, she finally stood and waved at the priest.
“Sorry . . .” she managed between the wheezing. “I have to . . . I have . . . go . . . bye!”
Now coughing, wheezing, and laughing, Charlie made the long walk down the aisle of the church to the exit.
“I’ll . . . uh . . . I’ll go with her,” Max said before jumping up and running after her.
After the pair disappeared out the big double doors, Freddy shook his head in disgust and said, “Well . . . that was inappropriate.”
That’s when Stevie lost it too. She slapped her hand over her mouth to stop the laughter but it wasn’t helping.
With tears filling her eyes, she stood and followed her sisters. Desperate to get out. Desperate to not be the one laughing at a funeral.
But come on! What else did anyone expect?
* * *
It amazed Max that sometimes her sisters—whom she knew so damn well—still managed to surprise her. She’d been thinking that, by now, she’d have to peel the remains of her father off the church altar, find an exit strategy from the country for Charlie, and calm down a hysterically crying Stevie.