“You don’t have to—”
“We both know I do.” Zoe stared at the double-wide and felt like it was foreign to her. It might have stopped being her residence a decade ago, but now it didn’t even feel like a place she was welcome. And she’d yet to breach the front door.
“Do you want me to go in with you?”
Zoe shook her head. “Luke is coming in.” She wasn’t about to go in alone.
Bringing Jo in might prove grounds for all kinds of confrontation simply because of her uniform.
“I’m right out here.”
Zoe’s gaze skirted away from the house and to Jo. The weak smile on Jo’s face matched hers. She placed her hand on Luke’s thigh. “Let’s get this over with.”
The rain had let up, but clouds still filled the sky, and fog closed in the edges of the property. Fog always had a way of making the place look cleaner than it was.
Why that thought sprang into Zoe’s head as she stepped out of the car, she didn’t know.
Luke walked around the front of the truck and reached for her hand. She took it with more force than she expected.
“I’m right here.”
They walked up the steps in slow motion. She hesitated before knocking on the door. Before that moment in her life, a knock would always be followed by letting herself in.
Not today.
The curtains to the right of the door moved before she heard the doorknob rattle.
Zoe held her breath.
Zanya answered in silence. Zoe would have liked to say she saw something, some kind of communication in her sister’s eyes, but there was nothing.
Behind her baby sister, on the sofa that was older than dirt, Zoe’s eyes collided with her father.
Her heart skipped a beat, and physical pain threatened to cripple her knees.
The desire to hit the man ran side by side with her desire to turn and walk back out.
She didn’t do either.
Her mom stood at the edge of the couch in worn blue jeans and a white T-shirt. “You don’t have to knock,” she told her.
Zoe couldn’t look at her mom. Instead, she took in the man who stood as the poster child for deadbeat dad. He looked like the devil to her, but to the unknowing observer, he appeared handsome. Prison had given him gray hair and a trimmed beard. The lines on his face were soft as he stared, his eyes occasionally shifting to Luke. He’d stayed in shape in prison, not surprising when he had nothing better to do while locked away. He hadn’t aged. In fact, he looked healthier than when she’d last seen him. Forced sobriety was probably to blame. In contrast, her mother looked just this side of homeless. Hard living with no sure way of making it better had done that to Sheryl.
“Why are you here?” She directed the question to Ziggy.
“Well hello to you, too, sweet pea.”
Zoe swallowed hard, narrowed her focus. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Zoe!” her mom warned.
Ziggy sat back, placed an arm on the back of the couch. “This is where I live.”
“Not in over seventeen years.”
“That’s part of my past, little girl. I’m a changed man.” He opened his arms. “Now come here and give me a proper greeting.”
Zoe stepped closer to Luke’s side and finally looked away. “What is he doing here, Mom? Help me understand.”
Sheryl opened her mouth, but Ziggy spoke for her.
“This is my house.”
Zoe refused to look at him. “Mom?”
“This has always been his house.”
“You told me it’s in your name.”
Sheryl looked between Zoe and Luke.
“The house is mine, little girl. Your mama is my guest.”
Anger flashed. “I’m not a little girl, Ziggy!” She made a point of using his name and setting boundaries. He may have intimidated her as a child, but she wasn’t about to put herself in the role of victim ever again. “And my mama has been holding this place together since before you went to prison. You have no right to—”
“Show some respect, little girl.” Ziggy’s smile pushed into a thin line.
“Is this his house?” she asked her mom one final time.
Her mother nodded.
“I gave you money to help with the mortgage. A mortgage I thought belonged to you.” To think all these years she’d been somehow putting money in Ziggy’s pocket hit her like a wrecking ball.
“I suppose I should thank you, baby doll.”
“Don’t talk to me. You have no right.”
“A man’s home is his castle, and I don’t appreciate your tone.”
Zoe glanced at Zanya, who’d stood in silence during the conversation. “Fine! Mom, Zanya . . . pack up.” She’d take them back to Texas, find another place in River Bend . . . anything. If Ziggy held them there because he’d somehow been able to keep the piece of crap trailer in his name all these years, then he could have it.
Zanya didn’t move and Sheryl sat on the arm of the couch.
Ziggy snaked an arm around her mom’s hips and pulled her into his lap. When her mother didn’t resist, a piece of Zoe’s heart tore into pieces. “What are you doing? Let’s go. You don’t have to stay here. I’ll take care of everything.”
No one moved.
Ziggy sat with a fucking grin on his face.
Zoe wanted to slap it off.
“Mom!”
“Your dad has changed, honey. I know you don’t understand—”
“Oh, my God. You did not just say that. He’s a piece of crap who beat the shit out of you.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” Ziggy said.
Zoe released Luke’s hand long enough to toss her palm in the air. “I was there, Ziggy. I know what I saw. I know what it felt like to have you whip on me and have me lie to my teachers, my friends. Well, those days are long past. I don’t know who you charmed to get out of prison, but you’re not going to have the opportunity to hurt my family again.”
“You were always a willful girl.”
Zoe took a step closer, wanted to show him just how willful she could be. Luke clasped his hand to hers, kept her close, and spoke up. “Sheryl, Zanya. I have room at my place. You can stay with me while we figure this out.”
The heat of Luke’s frame and warmth of his voice as he volunteered his home to her family filled her heart.
“You’re the Miller boy, right?” Ziggy asked.
Luke didn’t bother looking at her dad.
“C’mon, Mom.” Why was the woman sitting in Ziggy’s lap? Had he already threatened her, found a way to force her to stay?
“You leave my wife alone, little girl. She belongs here, with me.”
The word wife made Zoe cringe. She stared at her mother. “Mom?”
Ziggy kissed the side of her mother’s cheek and bile rose in Zoe’s throat.
“Son of a . . . you didn’t divorce him, did you?”
“You don’t understand.”
“I don’t. You’re right. He’s a felon, an abuser, a piece of shit father—” She was yelling now.
“Zoe, enough.” This time it was Sheryl cutting her off. “We will talk about this another time. You’re upset.”