He could see the struggle between disapproving teacher and feminine flirt as Liz sought a reply. Flirt won. She beamed at him. "I'm sure you'll do what's best, Jared. Are you ready for a hurricane? We just heard the forecasters say it turned away from Florida and our likelihood of being hit is up to thirty percent."
"I live in Miami. I know how to run." He considered reaching over and squeezing Cleo's hand to prevent her from scratching Liz's eyes out, but she'd just tell him that assuming she was jealous smacked of male ego. She'd be right.
"Good seeing you again, Cleo," Liz said cheerily. "Gotta run."
"I bet she knits baby booties," Cleo growled as the counselor walked away, blond hair swaying gently across the pink silk of her round collar.
"And sticks pins in pincushions," he agreed solemnly, enjoying the flash of ire in eyes he could swear suddenly turned pure green.
"Shut up, McCloud." She stabbed her fork into a chicken nugget on the salad that had just been delivered. "Your superficial tendencies are showing."
"So, shallow is easier. We can't all hold grudges against civilization." He sampled his mashed sweet potatoes, considered the levels of butter and sugar that rendered them palatable, and wondered if he should save them for dessert. "I assume there's some sort of hurricane alert system if the storm does turn this way?"
"You assume wrongly, unless you have a weather radio. Costs about a hundred bucks, and no, I don't have one."
"Primitive. With the way my luck is running, the whole island will blow away." He considered the likelihood pretty high. Maybe he ought to pack up his computer and move inland.
"My truck is available if you're thinking of leaving," she said sweetly, reading his mind.
He shot her a dark look. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Then you could pretend I didn't exist and whatever this is between us is a product of your imagination."
She sucked in a breath and stared at him in disbelief over a forkful of lettuce. "And you said I was blunt. Do you ever listen to yourself?"
Not if he could help it. He was already down for the count. He might as well lie here and let her walk over him. Maybe it was this damned tendency to lay himself open that got him trampled so often by his family. "You're gonna deny it?" he demanded. "I'm scaring you silly, and you're trying to close your eyes and make believe I'll go away."
Cleo shoved her lettuce aside and forked a cherry tomato. "This is not a productive topic," she said stiffly. "If you want to discuss how to help Kismet—"
"Counseling will help her. Arresting that pervert will help. Getting her out of hell will be a major step forward. But I'm not calling the sheriff until you give the okay, so this isn't a productive topic either."
Cleo gritted her teeth and tried to stay calm. This was the reason she didn't socialize. People prodded her private space, battering old bruises. Instinct required she strike out, but she didn't want to strike this man anymore. It wasn't any more effective than slamming her fist into his iron gut.
"Then maybe we should discuss hurricanes," she agreed gloomily.
"The weather as a conversational icebreaker, how original. Look, Cleo, I'm trying to help. I want to help. You're just not giving me any options."
"What difference does it make to you?" she demanded. "You'll be gone in a couple of months. Go back and draw your pretty pictures and let us scrabble along like we have been."
The lines around his mouth tightened but he calmly finished chewing his chicken while his dark, understanding gaze penetrated her soul. She hated it when he did that. It made her feel things she had no right feeling, want things she couldn't have.
"Ever heard of cars, Cleo?" he finally asked. "Telephones? Airplanes? The world is a very small place these days."
"Definitely not big enough," she agreed. "But I can promise when you finish whatever it is you're working on, you won't look back here. Just drop it, all right? This isn't a date, we have nothing in common but deprived hormones, and we'll never agree on anything."
He grinned as if she'd handed him the moon. "It isn't just me, then. You're feeling the tug too. Admit it, and make the one bright spot in my really lousy day."
"I'd have to be a loon to admit any such thing." She was already kicking herself as it was. "You'd never leave me alone. The lunch was nice, McCloud. Let's not do it again."
* * *
Cleo left the store early to be home when the school bus arrived. She wanted to make certain the kids got off at her stop. She hadn't had time to confront Linda and her new boyfriend. In actuality, she hoped they'd both go away and make things easy on her.
Instead of the school bus, Jared's bright red Jeep roared into the drive bearing both Gene and Kismet.
Apparently not seeing anything strange in this development, both teenagers ran for the kitchen and food while Cleo remained on the porch, arms crossed, waiting for an explanation.
"I didn't want them going home," he said gruffly. "This haphazard arrangement of yours needs to be ironed out."
Another time, another person, and she'd have smacked him for the insult. Instead, she admired his directness and his concern. He'd finally succeeded in turning her brains to mush. "They're not stupid," she reminded him. "They know they can come here when Linda is orbiting another moon."
"That's a nice way of putting it." He climbed up the porch stairs and met her nose to nose even though he stood on a lower step. "I've got to get some work done. Will you let me kiss you before I go?"
He'd actually asked. She stupidly wanted to reward him for his thoughtfulness. Her heart thumped hard enough to be a reply as he lingered too close for comfort and met her gaze with a hot look that could smolder stone. She wanted his kiss more than she'd ever wanted a drink or a toke. The result would most likely be just as destructive.
"I'm an addict, remember?" she said softly, willing him to understand.
She watched her announcement hit him and course rapidly through his overactive brain. She thought the heat between them escalated another ten degrees as he grasped how her admission affected him.
"I think I like the idea of someone being addicted to me," he said slowly, testing to see if he'd taken her words correctly.
"That's swell of you." She stayed where she was, waiting for him to grasp the rest of it. She trembled beneath the intensity of his stare. She really, really wanted him, she finally acknowledged. She wanted the insanity of first love, the overwhelming loss of self in sensation, the bliss of that first meeting of minds and souls, and surrender into someone else's care. She longed for it with all her lonely stupid heart.
Been there, done that. She didn't need to be that naïve kid all over again. She had matured enough to know she couldn't blame her late husband for her chemical dependencies, but she'd seen the disaster of relying on anyone else for happiness.
Jared's dark gaze dipped to her mouth, and arousal coursed through her veins in a drug more powerful than any created by man. She tried not to look at the competent hands that had held and comforted her, the strong arms that had made her feel secure when she needed them, but Jared was all man and every cell in her body was aware of him. It finally occurred to her that he hid his brains and talent and courage behind a mask of humor just as she hid behind her cynicism. Just that knowledge breached her defenses far more than anyone else had in a long, long time.
"I don't know how to handle this," he finally admitted, returning to studying her expression. "I'm usually pretty good at talking women into bed, and I never say stupid things like that to anyone else." His smile was rueful. "You force me to be honest when I don't want to be."
"If you're really honest with yourself, you'll realize this won't work, and you'll go back to your drawing board and leave us alone. This is where mature adults recognize the impossibility and part ways." She crossed her arms protectively across her chest.
"Maybe that's why I'm resisting growing up." He rubbed a finger over her bottom lip, nearly bringing her to her knees. She couldn't respond even had she wanted.
&nb
sp; "But I've grown up enough to know how to wait. I'm not one of the nightmares you try to scare away with your mechanical monsters, Cleo. I won't hurt you. I'll give you time to realize that."
He walked away, leaving her weeping inside for what she could never have.
Chapter 18
Jared tossed on his rumpled sheets, threw back the top one, and cursed the sweat-soaked pillow. It was nearly the end of September. It shouldn't be so danged hot.
The rhythmic pounding of waves against the shore should have soothed his restlessness. He'd left the windows open for just that purpose. He could hear the wind rising, but no air blew through the screens.
He'd been dreaming again. What his imagination denied him during the day was appearing in Technicolor and Surroundsound in his sleep. Images of Cleo's emerald eyes weeping crystal tears etched the drawing pad of his mind so thoroughly, he wanted to reach out and comfort her. He could even imagine those firm curves and small bones pressed into him, his leg wrapped around hers, his hand stroking the soft red strands of her hair. He could imagine a damned lot more than that, and he threw his feet over the side of the bed, sitting up, rather than go there.
He slept naked, but his arousal didn't respond to the cooler air from the window as he peered out. He wished he could at least see the lights of Cleo's house through the trees, but it was late, and even if he could see the house, there wouldn't be lights. He wondered if she wore something silky and sexy to bed, but figured it was more likely a T-shirt.
He didn't know why he had this irritating caveman urge to stand as a bulwark between her and the world in place of her ridiculous skeleton. Cleo would probably roll him up as if he were Burt if he tried.
Maybe her defiant attempt to hold off the world was what was so endearing about a cynical case like Cleo. He could see right through her camouflage into her lonely soul. They had a lot in common in the masquerade department.
Well, stewing over their similarities wouldn't put him back to sleep, or get him into her bed, for all that mattered. As long as he was wide awake, he might as well put his brain to work. That script wouldn't write itself, more's the pity.
Thinking of Cleo fed his urge, and he sat down at the keyboard with an eagerness he hadn't known in a long time.
* * *
"They called her a whore," Gene related matter-of-factly over breakfast the next morning. "They said Mama's a whore who sleeps with niggers, and Kismet is one too. So Kis snapped them with rubber bands. Served 'em right."
Cleo ran her hands through her uncombed hair and tried thinking of a reply to the unthinkable. Her brain was too dead to process this. Jared had messed with her mind until she'd tossed the night away. Why were kids so blamed cruel to each other?
"What do you say to the kids when they tease you like that?" she asked sleepily, dragging out the coffee and filling up the filter.
"They don't say things like that to my face because they know I'll beat the snot out of 'em." Gene spread what appeared to be half a jar of peanut butter on his toast. "If I'da been there, I'da whupped them good."
"Fighting isn't the answer." She didn't know what was, but she'd learned that much. "You'll only give them an excuse to kick you out of school, and then you won't get to take wrestling class."
"Don't care," he said defiantly, shoving the toast in his mouth and speaking through it.
Yeah, she knew that attitude as well. She rubbed her face and thought about it. "All right, first off, you know those morons are simply trying to get you into trouble, don't you? They want you to strike first so they can go whimpering to the teacher. That's their way of getting rid of things they're too stupid to understand. Got that?"
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously but nodded as he chewed.
Well, at least he was listening. "So, what you need to do is put them in a place where you can whup them without being thrown out of school. The only place you can do that is in wrestling class. I'll have Jared talk to your teacher, and let him help you out with this. Can you do that? Tell them to take their insults to the gym and then the better man wins?"
Gene screwed up his face in disapproval, but he nodded again. "It ain't gonna work, but I'll try. Can I do that for those shits who ragged Kismet?"
Cleo shrugged and stuck her coffee mug under the flow from the machine. "Give it a try." As she sipped the hot black brew, her mind woke to another thought. "What you both need is some friends who'll back you up. Are there any of them you like? People we could ask over and maybe have a beach party or something?"
Gene's eyes lit with all the joy of a child meeting Santa Claus. "You mean that? Really? We can have people over?"
Cleo thought she'd probably lost her mind, but she blamed Jared for that. "Sure, kid. Why not? What's one more reptile or two around the place?"
"Kew-el! Wait 'til I tell Kismet." He took off like cannon shot, shouting through the back of the house.
Now she'd done it. She'd have half the delinquents in town rioting on her beach. She'd have to remind herself sometime why she wasn't supposed to do self-destructive things like that.
Maybe Jared was right. Maybe the kids did need to be jerked out of Linda's negligent care. She just couldn't see Social Services or a group home providing a beach party to make them happy either.
One of these days, she'd learn to mind her own business.
Sipping her coffee and staring out the window at the wind-tossed trees separating her house from Jared's, she no longer believed her own lies.
* * *
"The radio reports a fifty percent chance of it hitting land near here," Cleo said briskly into the telephone to her clerk. "I'm not feeling lucky today, so I'm staying home and putting up the shutters. Have your son come in and nail the plywood over the storefront, will you?"
She answered Marta's quick questions with only half her attention. Her gaze kept straying to the rising wind whipping the palms outside her window. She had only two of the tall trees, but she figured they served as some kind of signal she ought to obey. Besides, she was feeling antsy and outside of herself, and didn't think she'd be any good at the store.
If the hurricane hit here, it wouldn't be until tonight. Could she persuade the kids into a shelter on the mainland if their mother wasn't home? The town was protected by the island and wouldn't see the waves that would smash out here.
She probably ought to check on Linda, but she needed to nail this place together first. She'd spent months of work and effort on this house, and she didn't want it destroyed by a storm that blew in one day and left the next. Maybe she could persuade Linda to go into town to ride it out.
She'd tried calling Jared, but his answering machine was picking up. He could have heard the radio and taken off for dry land already. He'd said he was used to evacuations and knew enough to leave when a hurricane threatened.
As she wrestled with the last of the shutters, cursing their rusty recalcitrance and wondering why she hadn't had the sense to look at them sooner, a strong gust of wind almost blew her off the ladder. Well, if that wasn't a hurricane moving in, she didn't want to see the real thing.
Black clouds boiling overhead warned she'd better decide whether to hit the road or ride it out. Hurrying down the rungs, she started for the house and the radio. Maybe it had hit the coast south of here and this was just the rough edge. She knew absolutely nothing about hurricanes.
Switching the radio on, she dialed Jared's number again. She ought to go down there and make certain he'd left. He could be working and just not answering.
A pounding on the door interrupted the newscaster announcing evacuation routes. Well, so much for hoping it had hit elsewhere. She'd better add Linda to her list of to-dos. That rolling wreck of hers didn't start half the time.
She hung up the receiver and jerked open the front door.
Linda stood there looking so strung out, she swayed. Cleo started to haul her in and sit her down, but the woman's eyes lit like the fires of hell as soon as Cleo tried to speak.
"I told you
to leave them kids alone!" she screamed. "I've got case workers all over me now, sayin' my kids ain't living with me and threatening to cut off my checks, and it's your damned fault!"
"Linda, calm down. We can talk—" As Linda grabbed the door frame, Cleo recognized the fresh needle tracks on her visitor's bare forearm, and with horror, she cut off whatever she'd been about to say. If Linda was mainlining, there wasn't a chance of getting sense out of her.
"My kids ain't comin' here no more!" Disregarding Cleo's incomplete sentence, Linda belligerently slammed the door frame. "I'm calling the police the next time you kidnap them. Let the sheriff find out what kind of criminal you are! I sent Lonnie in to make sure they come home, so you stay out of this, if you know what's good for you."
Bits and pieces of Cleo's soul tore loose at Linda's threats. The kids could run and hide from their mother, but she couldn't. In offering to take Linda to AA with her, she'd revealed her innermost secrets to a woman who now sported track marks on her arm. The safe, sane world she'd been carefully constructing crumbled as they spoke.
"Linda, you have to listen to reason—"
"Stay away from them! Don't you dare come to my place no more. I've got a man looking out for us now." With that irrational warning, Linda staggered down the porch stairs, nearly tripping on the last step before tottering away on her high heels.
Clenching her teeth to prevent their chattering in fear, Cleo didn't watch her go. She could call the police. She turned and contemplated the phone with as much horror as Linda had generated. The sheriff would ask questions. She couldn't afford to have Linda spilling what little she knew. All it would take was for the sheriff to notify the feds that she'd been hanging out with a woman who did drugs. She'd never see Matty again.
She couldn't let that pervert have Kismet.
Oh, God, what could she do? Matty came first. Matty was her number one priority. The counselor had said she had to list priorities, and Matty was at the top of every single list. He had to have a sane mother, one with a steady job. She wanted him home with her, but Linda's lies could bring the feds to her door, and she might never see Matty again.
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