Rocking Kin (Lucy & Harris, #3) - Terri Anne Browning Page 0,70
on one more child to pay for and play daddy to. I’d never felt right calling him ‘Dad’ in all the years I’d been a part of his life, but we both knew that I considered him as just that.
My dad.
The man who had stepped up without so much as a grumble and taken me in like I was just as much his blood as Angie and Caleb were.
“McKinley is grounded,” Jillian informed Carter now, sounding like the pretentious bitch she was. “She has been causing trouble for weeks now and I have finally reached my boiling point. I am not just going to let you come in here and take her out for a special treat like she has done nothing wrong.”
I gritted my teeth to keep from arguing. I hadn’t done a damned thing to cause trouble. All my grades were A’s and I tried to stay as far away from Jillian and her daughters as much as possible. She was just pissed I didn’t want to play with her snot-nosed little brats and give them a ride on the coattails of new fame that I had apparently acquired as not only Scott Montez’s reclusive daughter, but as Lucy Thornton’s new best friend.
Not that I had to explain that to Carter. He’d raised me, for Pete’s sake. He knew how troublesome I could be, and what a good person I was too. He wasn’t blind to my faults, nor was he immune to my good qualities. He loved me regardless of the good or bad.
Thank God.
“From what I’ve heard, you grounded Kin because she wouldn’t play nice with the overly made-up blond kid behind you.” Carter nodded his head at Georgia who was standing with a smug expression on her face beside her mother. At his words the smugness turned into a glare and then a pout, as if she thought that look would work on my stepfather. “Your kid got in trouble and you expected Kin to lower her own morals to get her out of it. All while making sure the girl got a few minutes in the spotlight.” Always one to call any situation as he saw it, Carter had Jillian gasping in outrage within three seconds at his analysis of the situation. “Grounding Kin was uncalled for. And not to step on toes—ah, fuck, who am I kidding? I don’t really care whose toes I step on right now. But you have no say in what Kin does. The only reason she’s even here is to get to know Scott-douchebag-Montez. Abby is probably rolling over in her grave—God rest her soul—because she must see what a mistake it was to force Kin to come here and have to deal with a cunt like you.”
“What did you just call me?” Jillian shrieked. “Scott, are you just going to stand there and let him do that to me in our own home?”
Scott just shrugged. “He’s spoken no lies, Jillian. Shut up for a few minutes, would you?”
With another screech she stomped her foot, looking more like a spoiled child than the adult she so obviously was. “I will not stand for this, Scott. Make this man leave. Now.”
“Happy to leave,” Carter assured her. “But Kin is coming with us. We haven’t seen her in months and we’re here for four weeks to catch up. Whether you like it or not, she’s going to see us all she wants.”
“Scott!”
Carter reached for my hand. “Get ready, Kin, honey. Your brother and sister and I will be outside waiting on you.”
I didn’t have to be told twice. I rushed upstairs, pulled on boots and grabbed my phone and a coat. If Carter was going to break me out of the ninth circle of Hell I wasn’t going to say no. I was running back down the stairs before they had even made it to the front door. Without a glance in my father’s direction who was now soothing Jillian’s rumpled feathers, I grabbed Caleb’s hand as he offered it to me and let him pull me out into the sunshine.
Laughing, I jumped up on Caleb’s back and he carried me to the rented Escalade Carter was climbing behind the wheel of. With us all finally buckled in, I glanced around at the three Jacobsons and wished with all my heart I had the same last name.
“Where to?” Angie asked from the front passenger seat.