The Family Feud: The Family Feud / Stop The Wedding?!

Jan rolled her eyes and muttered, “Oh, now, that’s mature.”

Tired, hungry and exasperated to the extreme Jan stalked to Morgan’s house to retrieve her suitcase, then cursed when she found the door locked. Reversing direction she approached her car and flung herself onto the seat.

No good deed, it seemed, went unpunished. She’d tried to rescue her sister from her own stupidity and had inadvertently, embarrassingly, interrupted the aftermath of her sister’s initiation into passion. Who would’ve thought the much-sought-after Kendra, the gorgeous, well-built, blue-eyed blond bombshell had taken time to analyze the male psyche and realized she was a challenge and acquisition to her endless male admirers. Kendra had more depth and insight than Jan had given her credit. Yet, Jan still wasn’t sure Kendra was thinking clearly, for she could’ve been motivated to give herself to Evan, just to spite Richard.

Jan put her car in Reverse and backed away from her dad’s Winnebago. Although she was desperately trying to help her family, Kendra was furious with her. Her dad wouldn’t speak directly to her and her mother thought Jan had joined the enemy camp. Worse, her family was turning her into a raving lunatic, who would’ve ripped Richard Samson to shreds at the hardware store, if Morgan hadn’t kept her chained in his arms. No doubt, that little scene would be zipping along Oz’s grapevine. The whole town would think she’d gone as bonkers as the rest of her family. Then Jan had burst in on her sister and Evan during their monumental tryst. Jeez, she just couldn’t catch a break today.

Fighting the urge to bawl her head off, knowing it would aggravate her megaheadache, Jan drove to town. What she needed was the privacy and isolation to fall to pieces, then regroup. Unfortunately, she didn’t have that luxury. She had to hightail it to Oz and assure her mother that she hadn’t taken Daddy’s side in the feud and that she was striving to find a workable solution to the separation.

Ten minutes later Jan pulled into the only available parking space, which happened to be in front of Dorothy’s Hair Salon. The owner and proprietor’s name wasn’t Dorothy. She’d recently changed the salon’s name to promote tourist trade in Oz. The town’s original name was Oswald, but after that whole Lee Harvey fiasco, the name had been cropped off to Oz. Then someone had the bright idea to change the image to a magical city. In Jan’s opinion—which obviously counted for zilch in her hometown—combining the tale of Oz with the peanut capital of the world didn’t quite fit. But the Chamber of Commerce was advocating the transition for the sake of tourism. Next thing Jan knew the school system would be renamed Munchkinland. Goober Pea Tavern would become Wicked Witch’s Saloon—or some such nonsense. If Morgan’s two shops combined to become Tin Man’s Supply Shop she would lose all the respect she’d recently gained for him….

The thought caused Jan’s hand to stall over the door latch. It dawned on her that she’d gained tremendous respect for the man she’d held a grudge against for a dozen years. Through all her family chaos Morgan had been her anchor, the calming waters beside the whirlpool of emotional undercurrents that kept sucking her under. Well, except for the kiss—which carried the impact of a thermonuclear bomb—he’d delivered last night, she amended.

Jan climbed from the car and reminded herself that she didn’t have time to delve into these feelings for Morgan that kept ambushing her at inopportune moments. She had to speak to her mother before the poor woman’s resentment festered up and exploded like Kendra’s had.

Before Jan reached Sylvia’s Boutique, three women, with their hair in curlers, scampered from the salon and bore down on her. Gina Thompson, owner and proprietor, led the brigade.

“Janna, hon, we want a word with you,” Gina insisted.

Jan bit back a groan as she appraised Gina’s dyed copper-red hair, thick coat of makeup, false eyelashes and trendy clothes that suited her age of fifty no better than John Mitchell’s outrageous attire. She smiled faintly and nodded a greeting to the women. “Is there a problem?”

“Absolutely,” Gina confirmed. “You aren’t going about this business of getting your folks to kiss and make up the right way. The other girls—”

Jan presumed that anyone under the age of eighty qualified as a girl.

“—think that since John is flaunting Georgina in Sylvia’s face that she should return the favor. We’ve selected a man to serve as the jealousy factor for Sylvia. We want you to approach your mom with the idea,” Gina went on. The curler brigade nodded in perfect agreement. “We’ll send Stanley Witham over to the boutique. He’s a lonely widower and he could use some female companionship. This’ll work splendidly.”