Chapter 23
ZONA’S HEART RATE SHOT UP. “I need you to let go of my arm.”
He did. “I need you to give me a minute here. Please,” he added.
There was no anger in his voice. On the contrary, he sounded almost humble. It caught her off guard.
“Okay, a minute,” she said and shut the door.
“Angela, the woman who’s been staying with me, the one your mom thought I bumped off, she isn’t my girlfriend.”
Not anymore, obviously.
“She’s my stepsister.”
Zona’s jaw dropped. “Your stepsister.”
“And she’s been making nothing but problems for me. She keeps coming back into my life like a virus.”
Here was a nice way to talk about a relative. “You have no idea how lucky you are to have a sibling. My brother died when he was a baby.”
Alec’s expression softened. “I’m sorry.” His features returned to stone. “This is different. Angela has done some really bad things. There’s a reason I’m trying to cut her out of my life.”
“She came back. It looks like she wants to be in it.”
He shook his head. “I can’t let her. She’s created relationship problems in the past and now, this time she not only got ahold of one of my credit cards and ran it up, she also took one out in my name and went on a spending spree.
Then she got mad at me for ruining her life by spoiling her fun.
If you heard shouting, it was me yelling at her.
And all that yelling she was doing was because I’d found the card and cut it up, threatened to report her for criminal fraud.
She didn’t like that. Called me a monster. ”
“Are you?” Zona asked softly. He sounded more like a man who had been pushed to the limits of his patience.
“I am if you ask Angela. She’s great at making anyone who crosses her look like a villain. And yes, I yelled at her on more than one occasion. The tantrums, the spending, the thieving. And then, to top it all off she drops my phone in the pool.” He shook his head.
“And pushed you in,” Zona added.
His eyes narrowed. “How’d you know?”
I was watching through the fence would not be a good answer. “I heard.”
“She caught me off guard. The woman’s a spoiled little user and she makes me nuts. She finally messed me over one too many times and that’s why I kicked her out.”
“Kind of sad,” Zona mused. She’d have loved to have had a sibling of any kind. Even though she’d been young when her little brother died, she’d felt the loss of him. Still did sometimes. “I’d love to have had a sister.”
“You wouldn’t want this one. She’s been a problem since she was a teenager.”
“Where is she now?”
“Staying with some fool she met in a bar. She’ll use him up and then move on. But not back to my place. I took all her crap to her and told her I’m done enabling her. If she needs a place to crash, she can go crash with her sister in Montana.”
So that was what he was doing the night Louise had seen him hauling all those things to his truck, making sure Angela didn’t have an excuse to come back.
“Sounds like she has issues,” Zona said.
He let out a long breath. “She creates them for everyone around her. I’ve run out of patience with her, and I’m tired of being used.”
“I can identify with that,” Zona said. “People will always use you if you let them. Why did you let her use you in the first place?” It was a judgmental question, and she was certainly in no position to judge. “Sorry, that was tacky.”
“Nah. It’s a question I’ve asked myself more than once.
Our parents are dead. Her older sister got married and moved away and then I was the only one left.
” He gave a grunt of disgust. “Dad loved the girls, especially Angela. And after my stepmom died, they were all he had left of her. Ariel wasn’t too bad, but Angela was another story.
He refused to see she had problems and kept making excuses for her and indulging her.
She’s never had to grow up and accept responsibility for her behavior.
She’s always a victim. Whatever is going wrong it’s always someone else’s fault. ”
“And yet, there she was, in your life.”
“When Dad died, he saddled me with her. Deathbed promise and all.”
“As in watch over little Angela?”
“Something like that. But little Angela is out of control, and, like I said, I’m done.”
No wonder he’d been yelling, and no wonder he’d had that angry air about him. It had started about the time the red PT Cruiser had showed up. And then along had come Zona and her mom, adding to his misery.
“I never hit her,” he said, “no matter what you might have heard.”
“So you told me.”
“Not sure you believe me. Look, I was a jerk at times. Angela was driving me nuts and . . .” He let out another long breath.
“That’s no excuse for how I’ve been acting.
I’ve been sour as a Meyer lemon ever since she showed up on my doorstep.
I thought I was rid of her, figured she wouldn’t want to be here in the burbs, figured she’d stay in LA where the action is. ”
“Why did she show up on your doorstep?”
“Because her latest boyfriend dumped her. She played on my sympathy. Again. So I took her in. Again. But then I discovered the whole credit card thing.” He shook his head and let out a long breath.
“I’d been busy with moving, sorting stuff out.
She’d come over one day to help me,” he said, using air quotes.
“I didn’t realize she’d been snooping and helping herself to my information and my plastic.
After I saw the bills she’d racked up, I have to admit, I wanted to throttle her. But I do have some self-control.”
“She was just back again. We saw her.” Watching from the window like the nosy neighbors we are.
“It was a short visit. She wanted to move back in and I said no. So, how about it? Can we start over?” he asked, his expression earnest. “I don’t need your mother searching my yard for dead bodies anymore.”
Neither did Zona. They’d had quite enough neighborhood drama.
“Okay. Hi, I’m Zona Hartman,” she said, and held out her hand.
“Hi, I’m Alec James. Nice to meet you.”
He took her hand in his large one and there went the live wire. She felt the jolt clear up to her chest.
“So, how about that burger? Lunch tomorrow? Our personal détente.”
Having lunch with this man could prove risky to her emotional health. “Just a lunch. Nothing more?”
“I’m not asking you to the prom, Zona. You did say you wanted to pay me back, didn’t you?”
Money was safer.
But it was only burgers. And she did owe him for rescuing her. “Okay, lunch tomorrow. The In-N-Out on Lone Hill. Meet you there at one.”
“I’ll leave my hatchet at home,” he cracked.
“OH, MY,” LOUISE said weakly when Zona shared her conversation with Alec about his stepsister the next morning.
“It looks like we jumped to conclusions about him,” said Zona.
“Me, you mean.”
“Me, too. I haven’t exactly given him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Well, who could blame us? Things sounded scary over there.”
“I know. They did.”
“So you believe him?” Louise still sounded doubtful.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“People lie.”
“True. But what a weird lie to make up. It’s too far-fetched not to be true.” And maybe Zona wanted it to be true. Maybe she wanted Alec to be a nice, honest guy. “Plus, he did me a favor with the car.”
“I’ll write him a check for whatever it costs to repair and then you’ll be even.”
“We’ve already taken care of that,” said Zona, and hoped her mother wouldn’t ask her how.
“How?” Louise asked.
“I’m buying him lunch.”
Louise’s brows dipped into a disapproving V. “You’re going out with the man?”
“Not really going out,” Zona hedged.
“Don’t you be rushing into anything,” cautioned Louise, the internet man hunter.
“Especially not with the man you wanted me to check out when he first moved in.”
“We’ve already checked him out.”
“Let’s not go over that again,” Zona said.
“I know, I know. I jumped to conclusions. But he definitely comes with his own set of problems, and you don’t need any more problems in your life.”
“I’m not going to date him. This is a onetime goodwill gesture. That’s all.”
“Good. Then I’m coming with you,” Louise said firmly.
“What? Mom, I’m forty-two. I don’t need a chaperone.”
“If it’s a goodwill gesture, I should be the one to make it,” Louise insisted.
Oh, boy.
IF ALEC WAS surprised to see both Zona and her mother walking up to join him at an outside table at In-N-Out, he hid it well.
“I came along to help Zona thank you,” Louise said. No smile attached. “I’m sure you don’t mind.”
“Why should I mind?” he asked. “What would you ladies like?”
“You’re not paying,” Zona told him. “I’m thanking you.”
“You’re not paying, either,” Louise told her. “I’m assuming you’d like a burger and fries?” she said to Alec.
He didn’t look pleased at being indebted to Louise. “I’ll pay.”
“No, you need to let me pay,” said Zona.
“Okay, we’ll all pay for our own,” Louise said, and marched off inside the building.
“Nice of your mom to come along,” he said to Zona as they followed her.
She frowned at him. “Are you being sarcastic?”
“No. I’m teasing.”
“She’s . . .” Oh, boy. How to explain this?
“Making sure I don’t have a psychotic break and kidnap you?”
Zona shrugged and held up both hands. “I did explain about your stepsister, but you’re still a bit of a mystery.”
“And she’s Jessica Fletcher.”
Zona’s cheeks began to burn. “My mom did love that show. We watched it when I was a kid.”
“I bet you did.”
“Come on, you said yourself you were a jerk. You didn’t exactly make a good impression that last time you brought Darling to the door.”
“And at the next block party we’ll all have a good laugh about it?”
“Maybe. Mom’s writing a mystery, by the way.”
“Heaven help us,” he said as they reached the counter.
He managed to end up paying for their lunch, and Louise spent most of it giving him the third degree, wanting to know about his family life growing up. What had his mother been like? Zona had been dealt a raw deal by her ex-husbands. Did Alec have an ex?
With that one, Zona’s cheeks turned from burn to three-alarm fire. “Mom!”