“Alex, come in the house,” Kimberly called, leaning out of the porch with a foot on the deck. Alex turned and nodded. He stabbed the hoe quickly into the ground to disguise the long break and how he’d spent it. The act was so impulsive, almost subconscious, he barely realized what he’d done. He hoped the timing of Kimberly’s call to him was coincidence. He finished up the patch he was in the middle of with a few more digs into the ground. Then he stepped out of the garden, carried the hoe up toward the porch, and asked Kimberly if she needed something.
“Alex, don’t test me. When I order you into the house, drop what you’re doing and obey. Your dilly-dallying isn’t fooling anyone, first of all. Our neighbors are aware of who is the head of this household. I could make them more aware. I c
