Almost Perfect (16 page)

“So I've been told,” he replied without rancor, his thumb rubbing at her ankle. “But this isn't about me. Kismet has enormous talent and potential, and it's being crushed by the hell she's living in. We can't let that happen.”

“I think it's about time you recognize that all the money in the world can't fix some things,” she answered wearily. “People have to
want
to change. I can buy Kismet's mother a new house, put her through school, find her a job, but until she's ready to accept that she's worth saving, she won't give up drugs or booze. Believe me, I know. And those kids need their mother.”

He sifted through her words and came up with the wrong part. “How do you know? How can you say a new house and job won't give the woman her self-respect back?”

Her stupid statement could have raised any of two dozen questions, and he had to pick on the personal one. Well, fine. Let him know up front what he was dealing with here. No point in getting too comfortable. “Because I've been there, done that, and I know. Got it?”

He sat silent for a while longer, his thumb tracing a steady circle around her ankle. His touch drove her crazy, but she wouldn't let him know he was getting under her skin. People didn't touch her. She didn't like being touched. But he hadn't run the instant the words were out of her mouth, and she couldn't break the tentative bond forming between them. He was listening. Really listening. She longed for someone to actually hear what she was saying, for a change—someone who wouldn't condemn or pity her for what she said.

“You're a recovering alcoholic? What brought you
around? Is there some way we can apply it to their mother?”

He was listening, but he wasn't hearing. She ought to be content with half a glass, but she couldn't leave well enough alone. For the first time in centuries, she'd forged a human contact, and she wanted all or none.

“Forget alcohol. I'm an addict, period. My brain chemistry is screwed, my life is screwed, and my selfesteem rates right around minus ten. I dried out in a jail cell, and came out still possessing enough intelligence to figure out if I touch another illegal substance, my life is over and Matty will end up like me. Linda hasn't got that much intelligence, and no family for support. Just exactly what do you think her chances are?” That ought to sever any illusion of bonding.

His fingers circled her ankle again. “If she wants her kids back, wouldn't she be willing to straighten out?”

Cleo listened, amazed. She'd just told him she was an addict and an ex-con, and he still wasn't letting go. Didn't he have any understanding of what was happening between them? He should be running for his life.

“No. I just told you,” she said with irritation, momentarily surrendering to his insanity so she could get her point across. “She has to want to dry out for herself, and that isn't going to happen if she loses the kids. That will just give her one more excuse to kick herself. And the kids will be shoved into situations they can't handle, which is even worse.”

“Worse than rape?” he asked quietly.

There, he'd said it—the word that scared him shitless— “rape.” Jared wasn't at all certain he had the right interpretation. He wasn't a child psychologist, after all, just a cartoonist. He was still struggling with Cleo's revelation that she was an addict who had been in jail.

His mother would call his current companions trailerpark trash. She would be appalled at his association with any woman who'd admitted to addiction, much less jail time. He was pretty appalled, as well, but whether with himself or Cleo, he didn't know yet. He had ten dozen questions and no lessening of interest in the woman who was barely tolerating his stroking. Electricity and tension vibrated through his fingertips, and he didn't think it was all his. He'd done shallow attraction before, but what he felt right now shot off the altimeter.

But first things first. They had to save Kismet. Like he was capable of that.

Cleo dug her fingers into his hair. Jared merely glanced up at her.

“You saw that in her sketchbook?” she demanded, hastily releasing his hair at his heated look.

“The sketch is ambivalent, but I'd say it reflects oppressive fear and an unhealthy knowledge of male physiology, okay? I don't know how a psychologist would say it.” He released her ankle before she yanked his hair.
Tension throbbed between them, and he figured he'd better concentrate on matters of importance. Avoiding Kismet's situation wasn't an option.

Cleo practically breathed a sigh of relief as he inched to a safer distance. Jared was tempted to reach over and stroke her, just to feel her tense up again. His ego shot several notches higher knowing she wasn't as impervious as she pretended. Better yet, he liked that she was focusing on his concerns and not scoffing at his overactive imagination.

“I can't believe Linda would let her men out of her sight long enough to cause harm, but if today was any evidence …”

He waited while she struggled with the consequences. He didn't understand her passion to protect the children on her own. As far as he was concerned, that was the job of the police and social workers and whatnot. But he didn't live here and she did. He'd have to rely on her judgment, respect her opinion as she apparently did his. He could get into being appreciated for his intelligence instead of his money or warped humor.

She unconsciously ran her fingers through his hair as if he were no more than one of her weird animals. Well, he could handle that, he supposed. For now.

“I'll keep Kismet here, talk to Linda again,” she muttered aloud. “She may take a knife to her current boyfriend if she suspects it's him, or she may not believe me. It's a no-win situation. I wish I could teach Kismet how to protect herself, but she doesn't know the meaning of fighting back. I could teach Gene …”

He wanted to shake her. That was not the reply he wanted. This respecting each other's opinion business only went so far. Yanking his head away from her invading fingers, he glared up at her. “There are
laws
, Cleo! This has gone beyond negligence to child abuse.
They need to throw Linda's screwed-up head into jail and get those kids some help. Why the
hell
do you think you're the only one who can protect them?”

She stood up and walked away, toward the woods. Not a word. Not a sound. Just walked away. Damn, but he'd thought
he
was good at avoidance. Cleo could win awards for it.

He didn't know why the hell he cared. Maybe some of his mother's do-gooder training had surfaced. He despised the patronizing ignorance of his mother and her cronies, but he simply couldn't ignore this situation. That kid needed help. And Cleo knew it. Something else was wrong.

He jumped up and stalked after her. Against the backdrop of the pine woods, she appeared more wraith than human. The cheap dye job was fading from her cropped hair, and he could catch an occasional glimmer of red. He didn't want to examine why she hid herself behind men's clothes and bad haircuts, but a whole new world was opening before him. Or he'd just opened his eyes for the first time.

Grabbing her shoulder, he sucked in his abs in case she wanted to bruise her fists using him as a punching bag again. She didn't. She simply stared at him blankly. “You've got a kid,” he said accusingly. “Would you want his plight disregarded if someone was abusing him?”

For half a moment, Jared thought her eyes swam with tears, but then she reached for the nearest tree branch and hauled herself up where he could barely see her. He leaned against a nearby tree trunk and waited.

“What do you want, McCloud?” she demanded from the safety of her branch. “My life story? My credentials to prove I know where I'm coming from? Why should I smear it all out for your perusal? Why can't you just
believe I know what I'm doing and go away and leave us alone?”

“Don't you think I've been asking myself that?” He crossed his arms and glowered at her unsuspecting tree. “Damned if I have an answer. What did they do, take your kid away from you? Is that why he's not here?”

An enormous pinecone bounced off the tree over his head, but it fell apart. Apparently, he'd hit too close to home. He almost chuckled. He had her treed like a trapped raccoon. This time, he'd get some answers. He shot her a smirk she probably couldn't see in the rapidly descending shadows. “Pretend I'm Superman and trust me.”

“I should trust a guy in blue tights and a cape? I'd trust your
Scapegrace
character sooner.” She wrapped her hands around the branch above, not looking down at him. “Matty is with my sister. If I'm a real good girl, I can bring him home in December.”

“Then what are you afraid of? You afraid you'll take up Linda's occupation and neglect him?” He was probably risking his life by antagonizing her like this, but it seemed safer than what he really wanted to do. Maybe if she put him off enough, he'd get the message. Generally, he fell out of love as easily as he fell into it.

He just had a sneaking suspicion that this time he'd been snagged by something far more complicated than a few weeks of lust and illusion. Usually by now he'd be hitting the party circuit, not watching angry pinecones flying over his head.

“I won't,” she said fiercely. “I'd never hurt Matty. Never.”

“You just admitted you were an addict. That's what addicts do, don't they? Hurt everyone, including themselves?”

She uttered a foul curse, flung another pinecone, and climbed to a higher branch. Jared feared she meant to
spend the night up there. Maybe he ought to go away so she'd come down before she broke her neck.

“I was clean when I had Matty,” she asserted out of the darkness. “David and I both were. We were in counseling, had jobs, and a decent place to live for a change. I thought we'd finally climbed out of the gutter and found a normal life, and I wanted a family so badly I could taste it. David didn't want the responsibility of me or a kid or anything else, but he said he wanted to make it work. I should have known better. We limped along for a year, until I came home one night to find him higher than the Mars mission. He'd somehow forgotten to tell me he'd lost his job and had taken up pushing to meet expenses.”

She didn't say more, but Jared's insides clenched as tightly as his fists at the lost-child pitch of her voice. He didn't dare speak.

“You might have noticed I don't have a polite mouth on me,” she finally said. “That night, David decided to shut it up by slamming me against the wall. I was nine months pregnant and started hemorrhaging. My screams brought the neighbors running. When I woke up in the hospital, Matty was healthy and David was gone.”

Jared could hear the anger and tears in her voice. He thought he ought to stop her, that he didn't deserve her trust, that he wasn't worth this pain, but she plowed onward as if once under full steam, she had no brakes.

“I knew where David was, of course, knew who he was with and what he was doing, but I'd lived that horror for years and wasn't going back to it. I was scared out of my mind, but I packed everything up, sold anything I could lay hands on, and moved back to the town where I was born, on the opposite coast. I figured running away would keep me safe from who I am inside, but I was kidding myself.”

Tears slid down Cleo's cheeks, but she clung to the
branch above her for support and couldn't wipe them. “I never neglected Matty,” she asserted firmly. That much she knew, no matter what anyone accused her of. “I didn't have a lot of education and didn't know a lot about running a shop, but I set up business and we got by. I got a break on the rent and a loan, and I could work and keep Matty with me. He was the most beautiful baby, and he never gave me trouble. He was perfect, and I'd never hurt him.”

Tears dripped off her cheeks and onto her shirt, because she knew she was lying now. She hadn't wanted to hurt him, but she had, and that was the whole problem, in a nutshell. “But sales were lousy, and I couldn't make the rent, and if I couldn't keep the shop running, I'd lose the apartment, and I knew they'd take Matty away from me. So when I found out the guy who owned the building was dealing with pushers, I demanded a piece of the take. Stupid, but I was desperate.

“I would have slit my
wrists
to keep Matty with me,” she cried. “I knew what it was like to be neglected, and I'd not let any child of mine suffer what I had. Never.”

“You don't have to tell me more,” Jared said quietly from below. “It's not any of my business.”

“If you tell anyone about this, you'll have to die.” Viciously, she swiped at her tears with one hand. “I'm stupid, okay? I'm not like Maya. I didn't go to college, didn't have the sense to stay away from danger, and thought I was tough enough to take on the world by myself. When the bastard offered me a joint, I took it. Big deal, a little pot. I'd been doing pot since I was a kid. I only used it when Matty was asleep, to help me relax. I wasn't hurting anybody. It didn't cost me. It was
free
.”

She choked on a bark of laughter. “Nothing in life is free. I had to buy a gun because the thought of dealers in
the back room scared me shitless. Then one week the bastard told me he was a little short of cash and offered me some crack as collateral. I wasn't into selling, no way. The stuff sat in my cash register for weeks.