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a lie, his sister speared him with a scowl. "Well, okay. Yeah," he relented. "She’s … she’s really amazing."
"Amazing?" Amanda cried in horror.
He winced. "I mean, she’s okay. I’ve seen better." On magazine covers maybe. But even as he spoke, his eyes were drawn back to 410 South Elm.
"She looks younger," his sister whined. "I bet she’s younger."
Probably, Drew didn’t dare concur aloud.
"I just knew he’d find someone younger," Mandy hissed. "The jerk."
It had to be the ponytail she wore. As she crouched down, finding a few more weeds among the roses, the perky bob to her honey brown tresses gave her a youthful presence. She looked too young for Jeff by a good ten years.
That left her just right for Drew.
The dome light in Amanda’s civic came on and the car started to ding as if to warn them the keys were still in the ignition, which only happened if the door was—
Whirling, Drew found his sister sliding one leg from the opened driver’s side. Diving across the center console, he grasped her arm, keeping her in her seat. "What’re you doing?"
"Let go."
He snorted. "I don’t think so."
"Drew." Her tone turned authoritative. "I’m six years older than you. You can’t tell me what to do. You never could."
"I’m not going to let you do something stupid, Mandy. If you get yourself arrested—"
"I’m not going to do anything stupid," she snapped. "Now, let go. I just want to talk to her."
"Says the woman toting a loaded Smith and Wesson."
His sister threw him an annoyed scowl. When she saw the stubborn expression on his face, she growled out a frustrated sound. "Look, I wasn’t going to use it. You know me. I couldn’t actually shoot anyone."
"Then why did you bring it?"
She gave a helpless shrug. "I don’t know. It was just … back up. That woman is a complete stranger." She jabbed her finger over her shoulder toward flower girl who was still blissfully tending to her roses. "What if I went to confront her and she turned violent? I want to be able to protect myself."
Drew shook his head, growing more incredulous by the moment. "How were you supposed to protect yourself with a gun you didn’t even think was loaded?"
Rolling her eyes, she muttered, "I never even planned on taking the thing out of my purse. Okay? I was only going to wave it around if she came at me."
"Mandy," he groaned, closing his eyes and running a hand through his hair. "Never point a gun at someone unless it’s loaded and you’re fully prepared to pull the trigger. What if she’d had her own peashooter stuck in her back pocket and decided to play High Noon? Come on, sis. Do you know how much trouble you’d be in if you pointed a gun at her? You’d be in jail so fast—"
"Drew," she cut in, sighing as if she thought he was seriously overreacting.
"I’m not joking," he ground out. "Not everyone’s as comfortable around firearms as we are. I bet she didn’t have a dad as big into hunting as ours. I bet her husband isn’t some avid gun collector like yours."
"Probably not," Amanda agreed acidly. "But her boyfriend sure is."
And with that, she tried to exit the car once again.
"Amanda," he warned.
"I just want to talk to her," she repeated.
"And say what? You can’t walk up to a person and ask if they’re sleeping with your husband. She’s not going to just say, why yes I am."
"I don’t have to ask," she muttered. "I only have to look into her eyes, and I’ll know."
