two
Angel’s senses were on full alert the moment she stepped through the front door of her ground-floor apartment.
Someone had been there.
Darting a quick glance around the room, she didn’t see anything out of place. No indication that anyone had broken in and taken anything.
But she felt it.
Cautiously, she stepped farther inside, gripping her car keys in a tight fist, prepared to turn around and bolt back out the door at the first sign of danger.
She started with the kitchen, visually cataloging everything, then worked her way back toward her bedroom.
She didn’t get that far.
No sooner had she stepped foot in the hallway that was shorter than she was tall, the bathroom door swung open. Angel had only time enough to register the figure stepping into her path before she screamed and swung.
The fist holding the car keys made contact with the fleshy human face faster than she could realize her error.
“Holy fucking shit! Oh my God!”
Angel’s jaw dropped open, her hands flying up to cover her mouth as she watched her little sister crumple to her knees. “Rena, Jesus! Oh my God,” she cried out, horrified by her actions. She dropped down next to her, her hands fluttering across Rena’s back, pulling back her curtain of hair.
“I think you broke my face,” Rena cried.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” Angel rushed out. She had no clue how to make this better.
“If you didn’t want me here, you could have just said no. Mom always said to use your words!”
“I didn’t know you were coming! You should have given me a heads-up,” Angel scolded. “How did you even get in here?”
“Oh please, as if I can’t pick a lock,” Rena snapped, her pain morphing into anger.
Angel was feeling irritated too. The last thing she expected was to come home to find her wayward sister lurking around. Last time she’d heard from her was two years ago when she’d called collect from a jail in Utah asking her to wire bail money.
Her initial sympathy wearing thin, Angel took her sister by the shoulders and helped her to her feet. Pushing her back into the bathroom where she kept basic first-aid supplies, she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me you were in town?”
Lowering onto the toilet lid, Rena’s mismatched blue and green eyes squinted up at her. “I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.”
Angel scoffed as she retrieved supplies and laid them out on the counter. “So you thought you’d just break and enter instead?” Pouring peroxide onto a washcloth, she grimaced at the mess she’d caused. Rena’s right cheek was split open just below her eye, blood staining her fair skin all the way down the side of her face and neck. She was going to have one hell of a bruise. “This is going to sting,” she informed her as she pressed the towel over the gash.
Rena winced. “Damn, you got one hell of a right hook, sis. I guess I kind of deserved that, huh?”
“Kind of?” Angel smirked as she tore open a wide bandage and started patching her up.
“I should have called first,” Rena admitted. “I just wasn’t sure…so I figured…well, surprise!”
Angel shook her head as she dropped the empty wrappers into the trash and cleared the counter. “You were always good at those.”
Theirs hadn’t been a happy childhood—no guidance, no parental figures to offer support or warmth or anything like that. They’d practically raised each other while their mother chose to split her time between a bottle of Jack and her many boyfriends.
Neither one of them were perfect, hadn’t gone on to make much of themselves after high school, but whereas Angel had chosen to keep her nose clean, Rena had gotten herself into more than her fair share of trouble. By the time she was a teenager, she’d spent more time in juvie than she had in school.
Angel had always tried her best to look out for her little sister, but the day she turned eighteen, Rena was in lockup on an aiding and abetting charge. So Angel had no choice but to move forward with her life, refusing to stay under their mother’s roof another day.
She’d moved all over the country, bouncing from one place and job to another, always doing her best to keep in contact with her sister. At some point, though, she’d lost track of her.
Now she was back…and Angel was asking herself why.
“Why do you look like you’ve been digging through a dumpster?” Rena asked as they left the bathroom.
It was then Angel remembered why she’d come home in the first place. She had errands to run, but Kade had trashed every inch of her with motor oil. Man, she loved the smell of it on his skin. Loved even more that she’d carried that smell home with her. She hadn’t had a chance to look at herself in the mirror yet, but she could just imagine what her sister was seeing.
“A story for another day,” she said, brushing the topic aside.
Leading the way into the kitchen, Angel indicated for her sister to take a seat at the little table in the corner while she got them each a glass of ice water.
“So what kind of trouble are you in this time?” she asked.
Rena looked appropriately shocked. “What, I have to be in trouble in order to visit my big sister?”
Angel shot her a look. “Yes.” In all their years, the pattern hadn’t changed. Why would it now?
Tilting her head in concession, Rena said, “I may or may not have skipped my probation hearing and now have a warrant.”
“Rena!”
“It’s not my fault! I was going to go, but then something came up, and I missed it. That damn judge is just such a ballbuster. He never gives an inch.”
“Maybe because you practically live in his courtroom and it’s his job?” Angel ran a hand through her hair. “Jesus, Rena, when are you going to get your shit together?”
Rena glared. “Oh yeah, right. As if you have your life all neat and tidy.”
Angel resented that. “At least I have a steady job, a car, and a roof over my head. And I sure as hell don’t have to worry about the police knocking on my door. Actually, I probably do now that you’re here,” she amended. Great, just another thing for her to worry about. “Why can’t you ever just be normal?”
“Normal is overrated,” Rena grumbled. She dipped a finger in her glass, chasing around a piece of ice.
“Don’t you think it would be nice to not have to constantly look over your shoulder for once?”
“Sure. I mean, of course it would be. But that’s just not how the cards were dealt.”
“We may have been dealt a shitty hand, but that doesn’t mean you had to play it.”
Honestly, she wasn’t even sure why she bothered. Trying to talk some sense into her sister was about as effective as beating her head against a brick wall. She’d done it too many times over the years to count, and look where she was now—still walking on the wrong side of the law.
“You can’t spend your whole life doing this, you know. One day, you’re going to burn all your bridges, and you’re going to be too old to start over.”
Rena refused to look at her, which told Angel that she more than knew she was right, but instead of agreeing, she just shrugged. “It’s my life, sis. You do you, and let me do me. Okay?”
They fell into a tense silence after that, neither one knowing quite what to say. The sad fact of the matter was, Angel would never approve of her sister’s antics. But she also would never abandon her.
“So…” Rena said after a while. Hopeful eyes, one that matched her own and the other that matched the father she’d never met, met hers. “Can I stay for a couple weeks?”
She’d already known the question was coming, so Angel was far from shocked and already had an answer prepared. “Of course you can,” she said with a put-upon sigh.
“Yay! Roomies again!” Rena shouted, jumping from her chair and throwing her arms around Angel’s neck to squeeze her tight. “I’ll make up the couch.”
“For you,” Angel said as her sister bounded off.
“Aw, man,” she heard Rena say, making her chuckle.
Some things never changed. Maybe she’d let her sleep a night on the sofa before she offered her the spare bedroom…
While Angel waited for her sister to rejoin her at the table, she thought about her day so far. It wasn’t even afternoon yet, and she was already feeling worn out. Some of it had to do with Rena and the shock of her being there, but a whole lot more of it had to do with the zealous way Kade possessed her body earlier.
That man…he was the hottest thing walking on two legs. She’d gone into this…well, she wasn’t dumb enough to consider it a relationship, but it was something, and she hadn’t intended for it to get so intense.
But that just seemed to be who he was. Everything Kade did was done with acute focus and attention to detail. The way he tooled those bikes was a perfect example of that. His hands on her body were another.
She could still feel their imprint on her skin. Goose bumps pebbled her arms as she thought about what he’d done to her in that garage and the promise he’d made to her just before she left.
Shit! How could she have forgotten?
Rena, that’s how.
Angel got up from her seat and went in search of her sister. If Kade was coming by tonight, she needed the little brat to get the hell out for a couple hours.
She found Rena in her bedroom closet collecting a pile of blankets and a spare pillow from one of the shelves. “Hey,” she said, standing in the doorway, “how would you feel about running some errands for me?”
Looking over her shoulder, Rena stared at her for a moment, brows pinched, then said, “You got a hot date or something?”
“Maybe,” Angel said with a shrug.
Leaving the closet, Rena carried her pile over to the bed and set it down. “No problem. I’m sure this place has plenty of nooks and crannies for me to explore. How long you need me to go for?”
“A couple hours, at least.”
“Consider it done then,” Rena said with a brilliant smile. Gathering the blankets and pillow once again, she headed toward Angel and the door. As she brushed by, she threw over her shoulder, “But you gotta pay me!”
Angel just shook her head. Yeah, she should have seen that one coming.