Free Angel Crawford #2: Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues by Diana Rowland Page B

repeated. “I was trying to protect you…keep you from getting uptight—”
    “Uptight?”
    He winced and lifted his hands in surrender. “Wrong word. Um, nervous, ill at ease.” He groaned and ran his hands through his hair. “Shit, Angel. I guess I was hopingthat if I could avoid telling you about my parents maybe being here, that by the time we got here and you saw them you wouldn’t have time to get upset.” He exhaled. “It was a dumb, dumb plan. I’m sorry. Will you please go in with me?”
    A weird feeling of betrayal swam through me, and I had to fight for several seconds to get past it. “Don’t ever do that to me again, okay?” I finally said. “I don’t like surprises, let alone being blindsided.”
    “I won’t. I swear.”
    He looked so damn forlorn and upset that I had to sigh. “Fine. Let’s go meet your family.”
    I tugged my sweater down and my jeans up as we walked up to the house. For the first time in my life I was glad that I had hardly any boobs at all. At least I could maybe get by with just “skanky” instead of “skanky whore.”
    “Wait,” I said. “Do your parents know about me?”
    He gave a noncommittal shrug. “I might have mentioned you to them earlier this week.”
    “Great,” I muttered. What sort of image would I have to live up to?
    Marcus gave my hand a reassuring squeeze as we followed a path of granite paving stones around to the back yard. A hum of conversation and low music greeted us as we passed through a heavy iron gate. I plastered a smile on my face and hoped that I looked more friendly than manic. At first I didn’t think there were as many people as I’d originally suspected. It certainly didn’t seem crowded. But then it sank in just how enormous the back yard was. Easily bigger than the house and front yard and driveway combined, though it was broken up intosections which disguised how huge it was, somewhat. Whoever had designed the landscaping had interspersed hedges, garden plots, and fountains to form areas for people to wander, or sit and talk with at least the illusion of privacy. I counted three gazebos, two koi ponds, and half a dozen outdoor heaters—useful since there was a bit of a nip in the air. Oh, and at least forty people.
    A “couple of people” my ass
, I silently grumbled. There were a few faces I thought I recognized, and I had another rude jolt when I realized it was because they were politicians. A couple were clearly local, such as the Sheriff and the mayor of Tucker Point. But I was almost positive one of the men was a U.S Senator. He’d been involved in a sex scandal a few years back, and his picture had been all over the news.
    Pietro is rich as hell and has a ton of connections and influence. Yeah, no reason at all to be nervous.
    I didn’t have long to wait before the frenzy of attention started. Well, frenzy wasn’t really the best word, though I definitely felt like a tasty juicy fishy in a school of sharks. Did sharks have schools? Or was it some other word? Well, whatever it was, I was certainly getting sized up. Every person in the backyard seemed to be giving me the
Who the hell is that?
eye.
    Marcus gave everyone he saw nods and smiles and kept a firm grip on my hand as he steered me toward a couple seated in one of the gazebos. They looked up as we approached, and it was clear from the delight on their faces that these were his parents. One look at Marcus was enough to confirm it. He looked like the perfect combination of them both. He’d gotten his height, build, and rugged good looks from his dad—a seriously handsomeman, with brown-hair, blue-grey eyes, and a friendly, easy smile. If I was into older men I’d have been drooling over Marcus’s dad.
    And, for that matter, if I was into older women I’d have done the same for his mom. Marcus’s dark hair and eyes had clearly come from her, a curvaceous woman who was nothing short of stunning. She had to have been in her fifties, but she carried her