With that startling statement, he grabbed his clothes and walked out. Well, hell. He certainly wasn't shy about his nudity, she noticed as she watched his taut buttocks stride away. She wanted him all over again, and considered going after him to have her way.
She'd never chased after a man in her life. She'd been perfectly happy sleeping alone before he came along.
The wind howled in derision as Cleo pulled the covers over her shoulders and firmly shut her eyes.
Chapter 24
"Carolina sunshine..." caroled off-key from a not large enough distance as Cleo rolled over and jerked the sheet over her head.
The deep male chords jarred loose all the shattered pieces of her defenses, until she could practically hear the shards tinkling to the ground and disintegrating. The damned man was singing. In the morning.
Oh, God, save her. She wrapped her arms around the pillow and squeezed, but she couldn't suffocate herself. Her body hummed with vibrations she didn't recognize as her own. She didn't even know who the hell she was anymore.
Jared had come to her bed in the early hours of the morning and made love to her with a gentleness that had her weeping. Weeping, for crying out loud. She'd felt beautiful and cherished and whole—she'd damned well been dreaming.
Jared didn't just come from Mars. He came from a whole 'nother galaxy, far, far away, one to which he'd return one day.
Despite all her clever warnings, she still felt—odd. She'd lived in hiding for so long, she felt as exposed as an unshelled crab. She couldn't go out there like this. She had to toughen up, find her armor, something.
A knock interrupted that piece of panic, and she wildly grabbed the sheet to cover herself as she turned over and swiped at her hair.
"Make yourself decent, Sunshine, you've got company."
Company, her ass. She'd kill him. She'd pound him into sawdust and scatter him to the winds. She didn't own a robe or gown. She dived for a discarded shirt on the floor and pulled it over her head. "Go away, McCloud," she shouted in muffled tones through the cotton.
"We made coffee, Cleo," Gene called happily.
Oh shit—shoot, sugar. She struggled into the T-shirt, ran her hands through her hair again, and pulled the covers around her. "I'll be right out," she grumbled, but she knew the man behind that door too well.
The door popped open as expected, revealing the glorious sight of a smiling Jared in a rumpled golf shirt straining at the shoulder seams, carrying a tray of steaming coffee, eggs, and bacon. She hoped the bacon hadn't gone rancid.
She couldn't tell him she intended to kill him, that she hated surprises, and she really needed to get up and inspect the damage now that the storm had passed. The kids smiled too proudly, and Jared looked too damned pleased with himself. She wanted to cry all over again.
"You aren't going to burst out in song, are you?" she asked suspiciously as he lowered the tray to her lap and the kids piled on to the bed to help her eat.
He grinned hugely at her predicament. "Depends on how many weapons you're hiding under the pillow."
He knew quite well what he was doing to her, and he was doing it on purpose. Embarrassment, helplessness, and other emotions she couldn't name swamped her. No one had ever done anything like this for her. No one. Ever. She had no concept of how to behave.
"You've struck her speechless. I declare this a red letter holiday and no one has to go to school." Jared pulled up an aging chair with arms, propped his sock feet on the mattress, and reached for a burned piece of toast as the kids scoffed at his declaration. School would be closed until the roads opened.
Cleo shot him a glare and turned a wavering smile on the anxious teenagers. "You're beautiful, both of you. Thank you. I feel like it's my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one."
The kids grinned in relief, chattered, and helped themselves to the food as if this were a picnic and the bed, their table. They were so eager to please and so easily hurt—Cleo choked on the panic welling inside and threw Jared a frantic look.
He leaned over to hold a coffee cup to her lips, and his chocolate gaze warmed and reassured. "You make me feel the same way," he murmured as she took the cup from his hands.
Tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed into the coffee.
Salty coffee, damn him.
* * *
They all climbed through the attic window to the roof to survey the submerged landscape lapping around them.
"At least the soil is sandy and we have no river to flood," Cleo said with a sigh as a raft of dead palmettos drifted toward the coast on a muddy current.
Jared massaged the nape of her neck and knew he'd made progress when she didn't automatically duck away. He felt more pride in accomplishment at breaking her prickly barriers than he had at scripting the stupid TV show. Reaching out and touching a woman as proud and strong as Cleo felt right. The TV show hadn't.
"You think Mama is all right?" Gene asked anxiously.
In Jared's opinion, the bastards of the world always survived, but he wouldn't say that to the kids. They both wore worried frowns, and he let Cleo offer the reassurances they wanted to hear.
It was pretty much a given that his beach house was wrecked and the condos out at the point had to have taken a brutal beating, but these farmhouses in the island's center had been built to weather storms. Rowboats bobbed on the deeper water along the road bed and drainage ditches. People were emerging from the security of their homes to check on neighbors and damage. Several boats lingered so their occupants could hail them, but Cleo waved them on. There were others who needed help more.
He ought to be finding a way back to phones and electricity so he could send in his strips, but he feared the intrusion of the outside world might sever the slender bonds that held Cleo to him for now. Once she returned to her usual routine, she wouldn't need him. Or wouldn't admit she did, anyway.
Jared felt as oddly floating and cut off as the house. He didn't mind the feeling, but he knew it couldn't last. The real world waited out there, ready to dig its claws into the still vulnerable connection they'd developed. He didn't know how anyone could establish a solid, steady relationship in this day and age.
"You need one of those power boats if you're going to keep living here," he said idly, watching one zip by, destined for a crash.
"I'll trade in my truck." Her sarcasm lacked its usual edge.
Jared smiled and ran his fingers into her stubby hair. This time, she brushed his hand away but didn't fight when he caught her waist instead. He had no idea why this bristly porcupine attracted him. Maybe he was under a spell and it would dissipate when he left here.
He didn't think so. He couldn't think of another woman in the world with whom he would be willing to share a two-bedroom farmhouse and two teenagers and still feel good about it. If he tried analyzing the whys and wherefores, he'd figure he just knew Cleo was rock solid honest, and she valued his opinion. And he knew her well enough to know she wouldn't have gone to bed with him unless she thought he was special. Obviously, the knowledge had gone to his head. And elsewhere.
"We'll do pizza when the water goes down," he promised.
The kids cheered, and Cleo slanted him an odd look. Damn, but he liked the way she looked like a mischievous elf and an evil genie at the same time. She had the kind of thin, aquiline nose and pointed eyebrows and delicate chin to pull it off. The short auburn hair completed the picture. His fingers were itching for the drawing board again.
"You hear that helicopter?" she asked.
Uh oh. He watched her expression in suspicion. "Yeah. TV news, I figure. They love disasters."
"Wave when it goes over," she said complacently.
Damn. He scanned the sunny sky, finding the distant dot over the causeway. He could see it now on the Channel 6 Sky News broadcast across the country—Jared McCloud, comic artist, stranded on rooftop in nation's worst flooding since yadda yadda. His mother would be in hysterics—especially when she saw who he was with.
"Maybe we
should go back in before we make a spectacle of ourselves," he said doubtfully, not really believing anyone would notice or care where he was. Of course, Tim knew, but he was probably on the other side of the Pacific somewhere and hadn't a clue. His agent knew, but he'd just curse and walk the floor and fret about the missing strips and the complaints pouring in from the newspaper syndicates.
"Pity you haven't met Maya." Cleo leaned back on her palms and admired a bird flying overhead.
"I'm not about to, am I? You haven't got a helicopter pilot for a sister as far as I can tell."
"Nope. I've got a dreamer for a sister. But she's smart, Maya is. She married a man who gets things done."
He could tell from the way she said it that he wouldn't like the kind of things the mysterious Axell got done. Visions of cruise ships mooring to the rafters rose before him. An entire army of aircraft and rescue boats, perhaps. Hadn't she said he was a bartender or some such? Impossible. Maybe the guy had a lot of drunken cronies with fishing boats.
The helicopter drifted closer, occasionally dipping to check out other roofs or entertaining sights. Definitely TV news, Jared figured. The place would be crawling with journalists. Shit.
"Think they brought Matty?" Gene inquired with interest, evidently fully believing Cleo's insinuations.
"Nah. Maya wouldn't trust him up there. And Matty would want to climb down, and she'd have a heart attack."
"So would you." Jared knew that much from her brief expression of alarm at Gene's words. She loved that kid. He needed to meet him.
Cleo shrugged. "Maya is a ditz, but she'd never let anything happen to any kid, ever, if it was within her power to help."
"Wonder where she got that from?" he asked teasingly.
She shot him a disbelieving look, but the helicopter seemed to pick up speed and roared closer, distracting her.
"Hey, they've got something hanging!" Gene shouted, starting to jump up until Cleo caught his belt and yanked him down.
"This is a roof, kid. Sit or you go back inside."
"Yes, ma'am." He didn't look daunted but continued watching the dangling crate from the helicopter as it hovered closer.
Jared read the huge television news call letters on the side and rolled his eyes. "Your sister has TV connections?" he asked in disbelief.
"Heck if I know. Maya can connect with anybody, anytime." She waved at the crew filming in the big window as the co-pilot carefully lowered the container into reach.
Jared held Gene down with one hand, and carefully stood to grab the rope with the other. At least no one was climbing down to join them. He unhooked the heavy crate and gingerly settled it on the shingles.
The helicopter lifted to a safer distance but hovered. He could see a camera aimed through the back window as he cut the straps with a knife from his pocket. Special delivery in a hurricane zone. He'd shake his head in disbelief but he figured his brains would fall out.
Cleo snapped the lid open with crisp efficiency, and laughed out loud at the cell phone displayed prominently on top of an assortment of other packages that the kids eagerly dug into.
Jared loved the way she smiled. He'd have to figure out how to make her do that more often. Bless her sister and the unknown Axell. Maybe the world out there wasn't as bad as he'd feared. His family might not care if he drowned, but hers did. For Cleo's sake, he was glad. That kind of support had saved her; he better understood that now.
Cleo punched in the numbers attached in a note to the phone. "Okay, which one of you is the joker?" she asked with her usual tough edge. But she laughed at the reply, and Jared relaxed. Let the news shows make of it what they would. He didn't mind as long as Cleo didn't.
"Yeah, tell Headley hi and I'll give him a kiss next time I see him. That ought to scare him into moving to California. Tell Matty I'm sunbathing up here, we're all fine, and his menagerie is safe, eating like the pigs they are."
She listened for a minute, shrugged, and smiled faintly. "Maya's a nag. Don't worry her with the details. And no, I have no intention whatsoever of verifying the occupants of my rooftop. Thanks. We have all we need for now."
She clicked off, the helicopter dipped a farewell, and slowly drifted toward the more disastrous areas along the coast.
Sitting patiently beside her, Jared waited. Cleo studiously ignored him while watching the kids dig into candy bars and explore the battery-operated computer games Maya had sent to entertain them. One package apparently contained lettuce and animal food from Matty. He figured the rest contained canned food and bottled water. For a dreamer, her sister had her head on straight.
"Well?" he finally demanded when she made no attempt to explain.
Cleo shrugged, but the smile still played faintly around her mouth. "Told you. Maya worried, Axell got on the phone, and voila! Things happened."
"Who's the Headley you're going to kiss?" All right, so he was learning he had a jealous streak. He'd handle it.
The smile played brighter and reached her eyes as she glanced over her shoulder at him. A look like that could smite him straight through the heart and tumble him off the roof if he wasn't careful. She didn't know how dangerous she was.
"Friend of Axell's. Says he's retired, but he knows everybody in the media business. I suspect Maya told him you were out here and that inspired the news crew. They asked about you."
"Well, that ought to look just swell on the morning news," he grumbled, watching Gene shoot down an alien spaceship on his new handheld game. "Comic-strip hero stranded on rooftop in backwoods of South Carolina. My mother will be thrilled."
She giggled. Actually giggled. Jared grinned with a small amount of pride at accomplishing that. Maybe he wasn't a total loss, after all.
"Could be worse," she admonished when she'd recovered from her unusual fit, although laughter still flirted on her lips. "They could call you a cartoon character and insinuate they'd exposed your secret love hideaway. 'Bugs Bunny and Minnie Mouse, uncovered!' Wonder how desperate the gossip rags are for news these days?"
As the outrageous image hit his funnybone, Jared burst out in laughter. He lay back against the warm shingles and just let it explode as his imagination carried it further. If it wasn't so dangerous, he'd roll with it, but he figured he'd kick Kismet flying if he tried.
"Rocky and Bullwinkle in flooded tryst!" he caroled. "George Jetson and Wilma Flintstone stranded in beach love nest! I love it. Can we call your sister and order copies of all the headlines?"
Gene and Kismet looked at him as if he were crazed as he pounded the roof with his hands and feet and roared. He wanted to plant the stories himself. He wanted to see his parents when their country club friends produced the papers and asked them about it. They'd never had the imagination to see him as his own cartoon character, or even seen themselves in the adults in his strip. His brothers had, though. He'd never dared give his cartoon character any siblings. Pity. The Three Little Pigs Came Home would make a great headline.
"It's okay," Cleo reassured the kids. "He has these fits every so often. We can call for medical treatment if he falls off." She edged her way to the attic window, dragging the crate with her.
"Cell phones don't work out here!" Jared yelled at her, controlling himself enough to halt the progress of the crate before she fell two stories to the muddy ground.
"Obviously they operate on the roof. If you've recovered from your fit, help Kismet down."
He hadn't recovered. He'd probably never recover. Freed of constraint, his mind danced across dozens of topics, all of them hilarious. Whatever spell Cleo had worked on him, it had knocked his writers' block off and smashed it to smithereens. He felt like a helium balloon.
He didn't have to do what his family expected of him. He could sift shells by the seashore, as long as he was happy with that. Cleo thought his characters shallow, and she was right! He'd been protecting himself and his family by hiding what he really wanted to do with them.
These chaotic thoughts tumbled through his head as they helped the
kids inside, lowered the various packages one by one, and listened to the peacocks in the attic squall as Gene fed them.
Cleo threw him an uncertain glance as she dangled on the roof edge. "You all right?"
"Never been better, I promise. I think I love you, you know." Jared ran his hand through her silky hair, pushing the short bits from her face, watching her eyes widen in shock as she absorbed his casual comment.
Then sparkling emerald narrowed to her usual wariness. "And you love Pop-Tarts and comics too. If Maya told those reporters you're out here, they can look up your file photo. The whole world will know you're here."
"The whole world doesn't give a damn." That discovery had set him off. What he did mattered to no one but him. His family worried about how things looked, and he'd thought he should care about that too. Stupid. "My agent will love the publicity. My mother will have spasms. My brothers will laugh and go back to whatever they're doing. That's the extent of it."
She seemed to relax at that. "All right. Just as long as the place isn't flooded with worried fans or news hounds or something."
"I'm hardly a blip on their radar so long as the strip appears every day. My agent will order the syndicate to run re-runs until I can reach a phone and hook up my computer. Your wise sister has done me a favor."
"Maya isn't wise," Cleo grumbled, inching her legs over the edge, toward the window sill. "Maya is insane. The world just seems to respond better to insanity than logic."
"You have a point there. I'd just forgotten it." She was good for him. He'd forgotten a lot of things. And there were a lot more he had yet to learn. He hadn't felt excitement like this since he was a kid and had planted firecrackers in the football team's lockers. The dumb jocks had been so busy griping about the caricatures he'd posted on the board, that they hadn't even noticed the fuse.
Of course, he hadn't been caught that time. One of these days...
Nah. He was an adult now. He wouldn't do anything illegal.
Whistling, he lowered himself through the window into the flock of outraged peacocks. Battling flying feathers and pecking bills, he heard Cleo's laughter trailing down the attic stairs.
Imperfect Rebel Page 20
