“Then who was that woman staying with you?”
“Angela? She’s my own personal nightmare.”
“She said you were a monster.” Not the wisest thing toshare. “It’s none of my business. We didn’t call the cops and now you’ve helped me and we’re even.”
“But you did call the cops,” he said.
“My mom did that, and I apologized.”
“But you believed her, didn’t you?” he said, his voice low.
This conversation was getting awkward and creepy. He turned into his driveway and Zona put her hand on the door handle, ready to jump out. “Let’s put that behind us.”
He put the truck in Park and she opened the door, but he laid a heavy hand on her arm, stopping her. “Wait.”
Chapter23
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 oneout 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 fencewould 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.”
