Which was exactly what her father wanted.
KENNEDY COULDN’T BELIEVE what she was hearing. Based on the bits and pieces of the conversation taking place outside the bar, she gathered that her father and Mack had gone to AI. She wasn’t going to get into all the reasons why that pissed her off. She also picked up on the fact that something else had happened. Rumors?
Her father wasn’t one to get angry often. Not like this, which meant that whatever had gone down was bad.
When her eyes met Sawyer’s, she saw . . . Was that guilt? Or regret?
Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to find out, because he took the steps down into the parking lot and headed for his car, passing her without a word.
“Dad?” Kennedy called to her father when Sawyer was pulling out of the parking lot.
“You shouldn’t be here tonight, Kennedy,” he said firmly.
“Why not?” she asked.
Jeff merely shook his head, his eyes sliding down to the ground between them.
“What’s goin’ on?”
“Nothin’ for you to worry about,” he stated firmly.
The doors to the bar opened and out walked two old men Kennedy recognized. They were talking, neither of them paying any attention to Kennedy and her father standing there.
“That’s how it goes down. That damn resort has screwed up this town. How many more will turn gay?”
What the fuck? Kennedy watched the two old men pass by and she knew her mouth was hanging open. Turn gay? Were they serious?
“Now it’s Mack,” one of the men said. “Next, hell, who knows who it’ll be?”
“Mack?” Kennedy whispered, her eyes meeting her father’s.
“Someone started a rumor,” he said roughly, his eyes pulling away from hers as he looked past her, in the direction Sawyer’s car had gone. “If I had to guess, he’s the one.”
“Why would he do that?” she asked defensively. Kennedy knew how protective Sawyer was of his brothers, and both Travis and Ethan were gay. How would Sawyer benefit from starting a rumor like that?
“Maybe he’s bored. Needs to stir up some shit. Either way, you need to stay away from him, Kennedy.”
Kennedy snapped her mouth shut, not sure what she wanted to say to that. Her father was telling her to stay away from Sawyer Walker because . . . “Why?”
“He’s . . .” Jeff met her eyes again. “He just can’t be trusted, Kennedy.”
With that, her father turned around and went back inside the bar, leaving Kennedy standing on the porch, wondering just what the hell had happened.
chapter TEN
One month later
After dinner, Kennedy helped her father and Mack clean up, but she didn’t linger. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted to sit around and talk with the two of them, but Mack had informed them that he did have to get back to the bar—after all, it was Friday. And that meant, what little time he did have off, he probably would’ve preferred to spend it alone with her father. For the last month, ever since the night Kennedy ran into her father and Sawyer arguing on the front porch of Moonshiners, it seemed that Mack and Jeff were spending a lot of time together, but they were trying to keep things on the down low.
She figured it probably had a lot to do with the fact that word was spreading that Mack was gay and the two men were doing their best to stay far away from one another in public. Kennedy hated what they were going through, but she understood.
Sort of.
However, she didn’t understand why Sawyer would’ve done what her father accused him of doing. She’d had more than one conversation with her father since that night and he insisted that Sawyer was the one who’d spread the rumor about Mack. When she had questioned him repeatedly, her father finally broke down and told her about their visit to AI.
“Mack’s always been curious about that place,” Jeff explained.
“The hotel? Or the sex part?”
Jeff glared at her, not answering either question. “I guess his curiosity got the best of him, so he questioned Kaleb one night. That’s when Kaleb offered him an invitation. When Mack asked me to go with him, I told him it wasn’t a good idea. See where that got me?”
“No one has mentioned your name,” she told him abruptly.
“Not yet. But I’m sure they will.”
“Why would they?” she asked. “I don’t understand.”
“There’s nothin’ to understand, girl. Sawyer’s lookin’ for publicity. This is his way of gettin’ it. That’s all this damn town’s talkin’ about these days.”
At first, she’d been floored that he would step foot into the place after all the warnings he’d bestowed on her about staying far, far away from there. From what she could tell, Sawyer wasn’t defending himself against the accusations that he’d been the one to spread the rumor, but she hadn’t talked to him once since that night, so she really didn’t know.