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Olin spoke up next, his tone just as sharp. “I’m a detective, and Kat has been part of a case we’re working on. Due to threats against her, it isn’t safe for her to go places alone currently.”
“Katherine,” Elizabeth said, her tone exhausted. “What have you done, now? If you expect us to clean up your mess again—”
“Mom,” Kat said, voice soft but breaking into the tirade. “It’s not like that. I didn’t do anything.”
“How am I supposed to believe that? I know you, and you show up here with three men like this? What were you thinking? What would the neighbors think?”
“We had today planned. I wasn’t going to just cancel.”
The look on her mother’s face said she should have.
It made Olin have to close his hands into fists to stay quiet. Funny, because he didn’t normally feel this protective over others, this quick to anger to defend them.
“Well, what’s done is done. Have you considered getting a real job?” Her father asked the question as he took a bite from the plate someone had brought and set before him. He hadn’t even looked up at the person, hadn’t acknowledged them at all.
Kat, on the other hand, said thank you to the server before responding to her father’s question with a tired tone. “I have a real job.”
“Hamilton’s son, Greg, just opened up a second location to his medical practice.”
“He puts implants into vapid women, Dad. Let’s not act like he’s curing cancer.”
Her father sat straighter, and Olinalmostpitied him. Or, he would have if the man wasn’t such a colossal asshole. Olin knew exactly how it felt to be at the other end of Kat’s biting tongue and her wits, dulled against her parents as it was.
“Sorry,” Kat rushed out, the apology surprising him as much as anything else had. Kat never apologized for the things she said, never even seemed bothered by them, so what was with that? “I’m sure Greg’s parents are very proud of him.”
“Of course. It would be nice if we had something positive to say about you.”
“She’s a talented artist,” Dean said, breaking into the conversation and getting a simultaneous look from Kat and her parents. “She works hard and supports herself from her work. Before I’d even met her, I’d seen her artwork around.”
Elizabeth made a derisive sound and took a slow drink from her glass of water before answering. “Yes, I’ve seen those little cartoons before. Do you really expect me to sing her praises at gatherings while showing off a crudely drawn racoon with the words ‘trash panda’ beneath it?”
Fuck.She wasn’t even talking to Olin and he could feel layers of his own skin coming off at her caustic words. It made Olin take a second hard look at Kat, wondering just how the hell she had managed to grow into the sweet woman she was when she’d been raised by people like this? People without a speck of warmth within them.
It seemed like a miracle.
However, where Kat would have taken anyone else to task for the rude comment, she just crumbled further in front of her father.
“About the reunion,” Kat said, her voice quiet in what was clearly a change of topic as she looked at her father. “I still haven’t gotten the official invitation. I can take work off, but I just need to know the exact times so I know when to come.”
“You aren’t getting an invitation.”
A heaviness started in Olin’s stomach, like the herald to a disaster.
“Oh? That’s fine, I don’t need a regular invitation. Sending one to your daughter who lives so close would be silly—”
“You misunderstand,” Barlow cut in. “You aren’t getting one because you are not invited to this reunion.”
“What?”
“Just as I said. I’ve spoken with your mother and we feel it would be best to do this event without you. There will be a lot of important guests attending.”
“Guests?” Kat’s voice trembled. “This is a family reunion, Dad. It’s aboutfamilyand whether you like it or not, that means me.”
“Family isn’t just about blood. It is about people who support one another, who all move toward the same goal. You have never wanted to move with us, have caused us so many problems, that we don’t feel this is the right place for you.”
Olin struggled to keep himself in check as he listened to Kat’s father talk about her that way. He talked about cutting her off from her family as if she were some diseased limb he had to sever for the good of the whole body.
And Kat?
