Chapter 29
EVERYONE CROWDED AROUND THE OFFICERS, ONE giant, dripping amoeba, talking at once, while Darling shook himself dry, then ran around the edges, forgetting his training and trying to jump on everyone.
“Darling, sit,” Alec commanded when Darling tried for attention by jumping on the older policeman. Darling sat with a whine.
“Officer Mead, arrest that woman,” Louise said to Darling’s new friend, not bothering to specify which woman.
“She assaulted me,” insisted Angela, pointing to Zona.
“No, you assaulted me,” said Zona.
“I have a restraining order against this woman,” said Alec, pointing to Angela, “and she’s obviously broken it.”
“And she hit him with a chair,” added Zona.
Officer Mead held up a hand. “Okay, one at a time.” He turned his attention to Alec. “You say you have a restraining order.”
“He didn’t mean it,” Angela protested, and her lower lip began to wobble. She pulled her sodden hair out of her eyes and squeezed out a tear.
Zona took in the tat on her arm, a cute little fairy. Ha! It should have been a demon.
“I did mean it,” Alec said calmly. “And she also assaulted both myself and my neighbor here. She pushed Zona in the pool, and she whacked me with that chair.”
“Would you like to press charges?” Officer Mead asked both Zona and Alec.
Zona had had enough. Of everything.
She shook her head, but Alec said an emphatic, “Yes.”
“What about her? She assaulted me,” Angela cried, pointing to Zona.
“She went after my mom first. I saw it,” said Bree, narrowing her eyes at Angela.
“Officer, I want to press charges on assault, and on identity theft,” Alec continued. “This woman used my name without my permission to get a credit card and then went on a spending spree.”
Angela gaped at him. Then she went from gaping to red-faced fury. “You bastard! You would do this to your own sister?”
“Only by marriage,” he said. “I’m sorry, Angela, but someone should have reined you in long ago. It’s time. You’re out of control.”
“I hate you,” she screamed, and rushed at him, hand raised.
“Whoa, that will be enough of that,” said Officer Mead, catching her by the arm.
“This is all your fault, you bitch,” Angela informed Zona.
“That’s enough, young lady,” Officer Mead said to her. “Okay. Folks, we’ll take your statements and then you can all go home.”
The younger officer cuffed Angela, who had gone from sobbing to wailing, and led her off to wait in the patrol car while Officer Mead did cleanup duty, taking everyone’s statements.
Zona, Martin, Louise, and Bree all gave theirs. Once done with them, the officer sent them on their way, remaining to talk further with Alec. And that closed the book on the almost love story of Zona Hartman and Alec James.
“Mom, you were a beast,” said Bree, full of admiration as they all dripped their way across Alec’s front lawn toward Louise’s house.
“I’m done being a victim,” said Zona. The adrenaline was still coursing through her veins and she was ready to karate chop through an entire tower of cement blocks.
“Good for you,” said Louise.
“You should have seen her, Gram,” said Bree. “It was totally dope. Awesome. Like women’s wrestling. Mom, the way you took down that woman, you could be a WOW.”
Zona smiled. Yes, that had been satisfying. “Thanks, daughter.” She saw the skin around Bree’s eye was turning red. It looked like it would soon be blooming into a black eye. “I’m so sorry about your eye.”
“It’s no big deal,” Bree said. Then added, “I’m sorry about . . . everything.”
“That’s life,” Zona said stoically. “But you can’t keep a good woman down, right? Not even in a pool.”
“You got that right,” said Bree.
Zona lowered her voice so Louise and Martin, who were walking a couple of steps ahead of them, couldn’t hear. “And, by the way, you can be glad your Gram didn’t hear some of those choice words you said in the pool.”
Bree grinned. “Heat of the moment.” She, too, lowered her voice. “It looks like Martin got some superhero points with Gram.”
Louise had an arm linked through his and was smiling up at him. Her words drifted back to them. “You were so brave.”
“Brave? He almost drowned us,” Bree whispered, and Zona laughed.
“It’s all good,” she said, but then sobered at the knowledge that what had looked like such a promising beginning with Alec was at an end. And what an ugly end it had been. It wasn’t all good, not even close.
Bree picked up on her changed mood. “This kills things with the neighbor, right? Unless you want his sister to come after you with a piece of broken mirror.”
“Stepsister,” Zona corrected.
“Maleficent,” Bree said. “You don’t need a man to be happy, Mom. You’re good enough on your own.”
“I know,” said Zona. Bree was right, she didn’t. But she wasn’t happy.
Martin went home to change into dry clothes. Bree decided it was time to go home and she, too, left, holding a package of frozen peas to her face.
“We still have food left. We may as well finish it,” Louise said to Zona. “Except it’s been sitting in the sun.”
Yes, let’s have a picnic, Zona thought sourly. “I’m tossing the quiche. How about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?”
“That sounds perfect.”
“Let me just dry off first,” said Zona, and went upstairs to shed her wet clothes.
Once she was dry, she cleaned up the leftovers from the interrupted lunch and made her mother a sandwich.
“You’re not having one?” Louise asked, when Zona joined her at the dining room table.
Thinking about what had happened and what would no longer be happening had stolen Zona’s appetite. “I’m not hungry,” she said.
She looked out the window at the house next door. The cop car was gone, and Alec’s truck was still in the driveway. What was he doing? Probably patching up his back. Had Angela broken a rib?
Louise laid a comforting hand on Zona’s arm. “I’m sorry, sweetie.”
“He’s not a bad man,” said Zona.
Louise nodded. “But we’ve both seen what he comes with.”
Zona sighed deeply. If she truly loved Alec, would it matter who his family was? In novels it wouldn’t. The couple always overcame any obstacles so they could be together.
But that was novels. Zona’s love life had to be a shared love one because she had a very scarred daughter to consider. It wasn’t fair to Bree to bring more chaos into her life.
It wasn’t fair that Zona had to make that choice, either. It wasn’t fair that it had taken her two love losses to find Alec. But life wasn’t fair. She wanted to cry. She was going to cry. She deserved to cry.
“Maybe it’s all for the best that this happened,” said Louise.
What a stupid saying that was. Zona vowed then and there never to use it on anyone.
“I’m going to go upstairs and lie down for a while, Mom. Will you be okay?”
Louise’s eyes were filled with sympathy. “Of course, dear.”
Zona went upstairs to her bedroom, shut the door, then flopped on the bed, buried her face in her pillow, and howled.
But self-pity was a waste of time and crying was giving her a headache.
She gave up, got up, washed her face, and went back downstairs, determined to be a new woman.
No more rushing into love, no more needing a man to prop herself up emotionally.
Her daughter was right. She was strong enough on her own.
And she wasn’t going to think about how much she’d been enjoying being with Alec. Or how his kisses had been fire. He was fire.
Fire was dangerous. She owed it to both her daughter and herself to level out her life. No more crazy ups and downs. Just a nice straight line.
Like what appeared on the heart monitor when you died.
She frowned. She’d been doing fine on her own before she got involved with Alec. She’d be fine without him. Eventually. As long as she didn’t think about him.
Her cell phone rang. Alec.
“She’ll go to jail, Zona.”
“For what, a couple of months?” Zona scoffed.
“A couple of years at least. More time once assault is tacked on.”
“But then she’ll be out, and she’ll be back.”
“I’ve already talked to her sister. After she gets out, Ariel will take her to live with her in Montana. She’ll be far out of the picture.”
“She won’t stay that way,” Zona predicted.
“She will. She’s only stuck around here because she thought she could keep leeching off me. She knows she can’t now.”
He made everything sound so easy. His stepsister would end up in an orange jumpsuit in front of a judge. She’d get hauled away and they’d live happily ever after. Happily-ever-afters were for fairy tales.
“Alec, I’m sorry. I really do want to be with you, but with everything that just happened I can’t. It’s not fair to my daughter. I’ve put her through enough.”
“What about fair to yourself?” His voice was soft, reasonable.
“I guess I lose.”
“I guess we both do.”
She had nothing to say to that. There was nothing to say.
“Think about it, Zona. Please. Don’t make a rash decision. Can you do that much for me? For us? We’ve started something good. Let’s not let anyone take that away from us.”
She could almost see Bree’s angry face, hear her demanding, “What are you thinking, Mom?”
It’s all for the best.
“Alec, I’m sorry,” she said. Then she ended the call. And that officially ended what they’d started.
“AND TO THINK I missed it all,” said Gilda the next day as she helped Louise steady herself in the shower.
“It was something,” said Louise.
“It doesn’t look good for your daughter and him.”
“It’s all for the best,” said Louise.
“Does she think so?”
Louise sighed. “I doubt it.”
“Well, let’s hope she gets over him.”
If a woman was truly in love, did she ever get over the man?
“And Martin,” Gilda went on. “I bet you never thought he’d go all macho like that.”
Now, there was a memory to bring a smile to Louise’s face. “He jumped right into the fray without hesitating. It’s a side of him I’ve never seen before.”
“All men like a good brawl,” said Gilda.
“But he didn’t go over for a brawl. He went to help Zona and Bree.”
“Well, gotta say, he’s a cut above your average man,” Gilda said, holding out a towel. “Has he got money?”