Imperfect Rebel

by Patricia Rice

  Jared politely stifled his laughter. He might be a failure in the career department, but Tim had a long track record of failures with the feminine gender. "She went for passion, did she? Women are weird like that."

  "I thought a physicist would be logical." TJ leaned forward to better view the brief flash of peacock strutting away from the road. "I didn't think peacocks native to the low country."

  "Iguanas and potbellied pigs probably aren't either, but there's one of each. For all I know, there's wild boar and panthers. I don't think you'll find my landlady is strong in the logic department either."

  "Interesting." Tim sat back and regarded the approaching ocean view with apparent pleasure. "I thought her quite helpful and forthright."

  Jared felt a twinge of the old competitive urge, and fought valiantly to quell it. Tim had no interest in a hardware-store clerk who wore tinted glasses and an attitude. He was just being deliberately provoking. "Candid to the point of brutality," he agreed.

  TJ almost grinned. "Yeah. The two of you in one place ought to spark spontaneous combustion. Invite her for dinner."

  "If you're that bored and in need of entertainment, invite her yourself." Steering into the weed patch he called a driveway, Jared halted the Jeep. "There's beer in the fridge. Make yourself at home."

  "Jared."

  He turned to his brother questioningly.

  "Thank you. I needed a bit of time away."

  Ah hell. Tim must have really fallen for the fickle physicist. He punched his brother's arm and threw open the door. "This is away, all right. No one will find us here."

  * * *

  Petey shrilled his warning scream, and getting up from the desk where she'd spread her drawings of the courthouse clock gears, Cleo leaned against her bedroom window frame to see who was invading her territory now. The construction crews usually didn't slow down enough for the peacock to scream at them.

  She'd had to rip out the rotten sill in here before she could glaze the windows, and she'd replaced it with a wide polished pine board for piling up pillows and sitting on. Maybe she shouldn't call what she did "repairing" houses so much as improving them.

  A lone bicyclist, blond hair streaming from beneath her cap, pedaled past the pop-up warning sign, probably because it didn't pop up. A flaw in the design required the weight of a car to trigger the action. Crossing her arms in irritation, Cleo waited to see which way the intruder went. She really needed to finish that barrier, but without a fence, it wouldn't stop a bicyclist. Maybe a swamp on either side of the road...

  The woman pedaled past the drive and on down the lane toward the beach. Did everyone in the world believe No Trespassing signs weren't for them? Maybe she needed to erect a Panther Crossing sign. That should give people something to think about.

  Especially if she could play a recording of one roaring. Hmmm.

  Wandering back into the cool shadows of the house, Cleo checked the refrigerator for some evidence of dinner. The days were getting shorter. She hoped the bicyclist had a way back that didn't involve pedaling. This end of the island didn't have street lights.

  The phone rang, and she ignored it. Answering machines existed for the sole purpose of answering phones. She scavenged a bottle of Coke and a Styrofoam box of leftovers from yesterday's lunch at Porky's. Soggy fries and barbecue should nuke well.

  Jared's mechanical voice spoke over the machine. "Cleo, I know you're there. I've got the kids' teacher here. Come over and we'll talk."

  The kids' teacher. The blond bicyclist. She remembered the woman from the hardware store, buying pink paint for her toddler's room. Not a teacher, but the school counselor. Just what the world needed, another counselor.

  She hit the microwave setting and sipped her drink while leaning against the terra-cotta tile counter, admiring the satiny finish she'd given to the kitchen's old pine flooring. The place had been a pigsty before she'd bought it, but she was turning it around.

  "Cleo, pick up the damned phone or I'm coming up there!"

  Well, hell. Giving up on positive thinking, Cleo grabbed the receiver. "Come on over, lover boy," she cooed, "and I'll feed you to the alligators."

  He laughed. The wretch had the nerve to laugh! How in hell did one get rid of idiots?

  "I'll bring TJ sometime and you can let them feast on him. We'll be up in a minute."

  Cleo stared at the phone in disbelief as he disconnected. No one came over here but Maya and the kids. She didn't invite people here. Was the man deaf, dumb, and blind? Or impervious to verbal bullets?

  She slammed the phone back on the hook and gazed frantically around her humble abode. She hadn't graduated to the decorating level of home improvement. She had a kitchen table and two chairs, one for her, one for Matty. The living room had a couch she'd rescued from the roadside and re-covered so she'd have a place to flop down and stare at the TV at night.

  The rest of the place was more or less inundated in electrical components, gears, cogs, bits of wood and sheet metal and whatever else she happened to be working on. They'd walk in here and know she was every bit as dysfunctional as she appeared.

  Muttering curses, Cleo contemplated turning on her security system and scaring the bejeebers out of the blond Nosy Parker.

  School authority figures communicated with legal ones. The blonde would probably report Cleo to the sheriff as a dangerous psychopath. He'd look her up, and before she knew it, her supervisor would be down here snooping.

  She'd known better than to let anyone out here. Hell.

  With resignation, Cleo took her Coke outside, slammed the door shut, and wandered out to wait for them in the drive. No one said she had to be polite.

  Chapter 7

  Body language said it all, and Cleo had a hell of a loud body, Jared thought admiringly, watching her T-shirt pull tight as she crossed her arms at their approach. Trim tanned legs that could have matched the best in Vegas emerged from a pair of cutoffs. He'd have to catch her by surprise more often so she didn't have time for her usual disguise.

  "Hey, Cleo, do you know Liz Brooks?" He gestured toward the guidance counselor. If they'd had teachers who'd looked like Liz back when he was in school, he might have paid more attention in class. To the teacher, anyway. But he'd outgrown the need for sweet blondes since those days. He liked sassy redheads now.

  Cleo nodded curtly and waited for an explanation. Had he a sensitive nerve in his body, he would have backed away from the icy waves rolling off her, but sensitivity wasn't one of his strong points.

  "Liz says Kismet may be developmentally handicapped and should be in some special program. Do you know Kismet's mother? Can you introduce Liz to her? In a special program Kismet can—"

  "I know all about special programs," Cleo said coldly. "When square pegs don't fit in round holes, schools find a special program for them."

  "Square pegs need special attention," Liz said with her best guidance counselor's smile. "Teachers can't devote enough time to the ones who don't fit in with the rest."

  "So you stick them in a special class where they don't have a chance of ever fitting in, instead of trying to figure out some way of making square holes for them. Kismet isn't developmentally handicapped," Cleo laced the words with heavy sarcasm. "She's socially handicapped."

  Liz stepped backward at the hostility. "Well, that's possible, I suppose, although her tests say—"

  "The mother, Mrs. Watkins?" Jared intruded with this reminder to turn down the heat. Or the cold. Freezers had nothing on Cleo. "Is she around here?"

  "She works nights," Cleo responded sweetly.

  Jared knew to be suspicious of that tone, but the counselor was oblivious.

  "Perhaps I could see her some afternoon," Liz bubbled eagerly. "Kismet is a wonderful little girl with lots of potential if we could get her the right help."

  "And Gene?" Ice edged Cleo's voice again. "Do you have a special program for truants?"

  "Actually, we do—"

  "But that won't be necessary," Jared interru
pted. "Gene and I had a talk. If I can find sponsors to start a wrestling team, he'll stay in school. Now that he has a decent pair of shoes, he's willing to give it a try. Do you think his mother would mind if I took the kids shopping? Kids his age are clothes conscious. That could be part of their problem."

  For a moment, Jared thought he might have almost caught a look of approval in Cleo's eyes. Her fleeting admiration fired his ego sufficiently to work for it again.

  "I'm sure they'll appreciate the attention," she said with polite scorn. "If you'll excuse me, Miss Brooks, my dinner is on the table. The children's phone number should be in your records. Call Mrs. Watkins after noon and before six, and you might catch her."

  "Thank you, Cleo, and it's 'Mrs.' I'm a widow."

  Jared thought that might be for his benefit, and from Cleo's uplifted eyebrow, she did, too. She smiled silkily, made her farewells, and escaped behind the closed walls of her fortress.

  "Well, I think that went well, didn't it?" Liz said perkily. "Cleo is what is known as one of our eccentric southern characters. Every town must have one." She frowned as much as her smooth brow would allow. "She earned the reputation rather quickly, but I suppose befriending the town drunk has something to do with that."

  "Come along, Mrs. Brooks, I'll put your bike in the Jeep and drive you home. It will be dark soon." Eccentricity didn't offend him. Ignorance did.

  "Why, that's so thoughtful of you! And offering to help sponsor the wrestling team... Why, I..."

  Jared listened to Liz's prattle with half an ear as they strode back to the beach. He'd much rather hear Cleo's opinion—not on his sponsorhip of the team, but on the subject of the children's mother. He had a feeling she knew a lot more about the mysterious Mrs. Watkins than she was willing to relate for a guidance counselor.

  Did Cleo only befriend drunks and truants? What did he need to do so she'd befriend him?

  * * *

  Her burglar alert system bellowed its impressive cop routine, and lying on the sprawling sofa, Cleo sighed as she threw a banana peel at the waste can. The siren on the drive had gone off when Jared took the counselor home, and again, half an hour ago, when he returned. She'd have to shut the whole damned rigmarole down just so she didn't establish his routine with the local spinsters and widows.

  The door knocker sounded even though she'd heard the skeleton chain whir into place. "Go away, McCloud," she shouted, turning up the television so she didn't have to hear his reply.

  He opened the door as if she'd invited him in. "You really ought to get a bolt for this thing," he commented, shutting it behind him.

  She didn't want to look at him, but his energy charged the air, drawing her eye to the sexy sight of a long, lean, good-looking hunk standing inside her doorway, hands in pockets, absorbing her idea of interior decoration with an air of interest.

  The bottom dropped out of her stomach—not just because he was good-looking, but because he expressed interest where all else showed scorn or wariness. The damned man had so much self-confidence that he didn't need to be wary, and enough intelligence to keep an open mind when he stumbled into something—or someone—different.

  He ought to have Danger—Alert signs flashing above his head.

  "Early teen male, I'd say. Where are the oily car parts?" He dropped into the ratty wicker chair, waited for it to steady beneath his weight, then draped a leg over the chair arm. He grinned at her scowl, and the electricity in the room shot to megakilowatts.

  "In the bathroom, soaking. What do you want, McCloud?" Maybe she could install a lightning rod and ground them both. She might be out of practice, but she knew a look of male of appreciation when she saw one. She tugged her t-shirt back over her belly.

  "Don't I get the standard lecture on trespassing? Or are we past that part now?"

  She could say something about his lack of maturity, but she figured she didn't shine in that department herself. Giving up the routine, she clicked off the television and regarded him with as much hostility as she could summon for a man who grinned like a kid and looked like a stud. "Have you found nice neat holes to stuff the kids in?"

  His grin disappeared. "They're a pair, no doubt. What's the mother's story?"

  "What do you care? Aren't you supposed to be working on some project?"

  "Been talking to Brother Tim, have we? Don't listen to him. He's so uptight, he actually thinks deadlines are supposed to be met. And his girl is getting married in the spring, so he's a bit on the hostile side these days. Do you have a beer? After all that sweetness and light, I need something bitter."

  "Keep that up, and I just might learn to like you." Cleo swung her legs off the couch and ran her hand over her flattened hair. "I don't keep beer." Or drink it. Not anymore. One of the many reasons she limited her socializing. But she needed to be doing something before she succumbed to the intense vibrations in here. "How about a Dr. Pepper?"

  "How about strychnine? Same difference. Never mind. Just tell me about the Watkins woman."

  "Just the usual." Clenching her teeth in frustration, Cleo sat down again. She caught his glance at her legs as she crossed them on the cushion. She needed to dig out her overalls.

  "The kids' mother is poor, has no education, no upbringing. She has a job right now, but when she doesn't, she goes into Charleston and brings back whatever she finds—money, drugs, men, anything that turns up." Cleo watched as he registered what she didn't say.

  He just didn't know that she was also saying, "There but for the grace of God, goes me."

  "So Liz isn't likely to find her between noon and six unless she wants to be found, right?"

  "With luck, she won't. Linda doesn't handle stress well. If Liz pushes her, she's likely to push back, or just drop off the deep end and drown her sorrows."

  "It's a form of suicide, isn't it?" he said thoughtfully, sinking deeper into the chair. "How can she abandon those great kids for the depths of despair?"

  "That's easy for you to say. You've never been there. You've got what you came for; you can go back home now. The school will do what it wants with the kids, and we don't have any say in the matter."

  Jared lowered his eyebrows and glared at her. "The hell we don't. Where did you get that attitude, anyway? We've got advantages they don't. We should use them."

  Cleo was momentarily taken aback by being included in his "we" with the "haves" instead of the "have nots." Why did he just automatically assume she was on his side of the money and education table? Because she owned property? Was that all it took to cross the cultural divide?

  "How?" she demanded. "Buying the kids clothes is like slapping the mother in the face and telling her she's too dumb to provide. Even poor people have pride."

  "Don't give me that 'poor people' crap. People are people. Some have pride, some don't. What matters are those kids. Don't you think they have pride? They don't want to look as if their mother doesn't care for them."

  "What the hell do you care?" Offended that he was right when he had no business knowing anything about it, Cleo stretched one leg out and studied her wiggling toes rather than look at him. She hadn't had a man in her life in so long, she'd thought all her working parts had dried up and shut down. She didn't need his brand of electricity jump-starting her dead batteries.

  Then she'd damned well better cover up her legs because he was staring a hole in them. A hot thrill shot up her spine, but she refused to acknowledge it. She was real good at ignoring what she didn't want to see. She tucked her leg back under her.

  "Right. I'm just an airhead cartoonist who doesn't know beans from shit. That's what my family tells me. I'll go paddle in my lily pond and leave you alone." He unfolded himself from the wobbly chair and stood. "Sorry if I mistook you for someone who cared. That pretty well proves I have dip for brains."

  He stalked to the door, threw it open, and walked straight into the unfurled skeleton. Cleo giggled. She couldn't help it. He looked so startled and aggrieved and chagrined, that he could have been the cartoon instea
d of the cartoonist. "Burt wants to say good-night," she called after him.

  His grin was almost sheepish. "I almost had it going there, didn't I? I never was good at grand exits."

  "You're doing fine, cowboy. Just don't invite me to your rodeo. I'm allergic to beefsteak."

  His grin disappeared as he studied her. "One of these days, you gonna tell me your story?"

  "Nope. Now get gone. I need my beauty sleep." She wanted him out of here, immediately, if not sooner. He made her edgy and itchy and anxious for things she wouldn't name and wouldn't think about. She needed him out of her life—right now.

  "You're a beaut, sleeping or not. Why don't I take you to dinner tomorrow?"

  "Why don't you take Liz to dinner?" If he lingered any longer, she'd be inviting him in again just to bask in one of those admiring looks of his. "She'll be properly appreciative. Now go before I power Burt up, and he wraps his bony fingers around your neck."

  He rubbed his nape as if anticipating the encounter. "All right, I'll bring Porky's barbecue over around six, and we can picnic. See you then."

  He bowed at the skeleton, and walked out whistling, reminding Cleo she still hadn't thanked him for the cartoon gift, if that was what it was. Torn between irritation at his presumption and guilt at her neglect, she merely threw a couch pillow at the door as it closed behind him.

  She could do inventory at the shop tomorrow night.

  * * *

  "Liz is just what you need, big brother. Take her to dinner instead of moping out here, let her fluff your mind and other body parts south. I've got a date." Jared held up his bag of mouthwatering grease.

  Outside, the carpenters were packing up for the day. It was almost six and he'd pretty much wasted the day doing push-ups and running the beach instead of working on his script, but he figured Cleo would rake him over a few hot coals and stir his creative juices. He'd certainly accomplished little more than think about her all day. He had a drawing pad full of cartoon sketches of evil pixies to attest to that.