Almost Perfect (24 page)

He drove slowly, apparently hoping to see the kids through the waterfall of rain and leaves slashing across the windshield. Gene could find the road if he wanted. Kismet was probably hunting for her drawing box. If Cleo knew how to pray, she'd pray they'd be all right. She had to stop thinking.

“I should have called Maya,” she said irrelevantly, in a futile attempt not to think.

“Phone's out,” he replied, bending over the wheel to see out the window better. “And what would you say anyway? ‘I'm staying out here in a hurricane’? Maybe she'll think you're safely trapped in traffic on the highway back to her.”

He turned the car down the drive. A palmetto lay across the path, and he steered the Jeep around it. The
wheels sucked mud but successfully pulled back to the shell drive again.

Cleo stifled her natural inclination to laugh derisively at his assumption. “Maya knows me better. My selfdestructive tendencies have been evident since childhood.”

A transformer exploded somewhere in the distance, and the automatic security light over the house flickered. Cleo drew in a breath and willed herself not to search too obviously for some trace of the kids.

“Flashlights and battery radio?” Jared asked.

“I own a hardware store. What do you think?”

He looked grim as he steered the Jeep as close to the house as he could. Maybe the kids were already inside. Their path through the woods was shorter than the road. “I think you ought to stock weather radios, is what I think.”

A blast of blustery air rushed in when Cleo opened the car door. She cupped her hand around her ear as if listening to her own private radio. “The forecast is for rain and wind throughout the night. Evacuate all outlying areas.”

He slammed out of the Jeep and came around to get her before she blew away. “Smart-ass. I'm the comedian around here.”

Her ten-ton burden lightened perceptibly when Jared wrapped his arm around her, sheltering her from the wind. Surrendering to the inevitable, Cleo allowed him to guide her toward the house. The tall palms bent to the ground, the wind threatened to whip their wet clothes from their backs, but Jared's strength pinned her firmly to the uncertain ground they trod.

A shout from the distance brought them both to a halt. They swung in unison and scoured the woods for the source.

“We've got company.” Jared's comment was the only
dry spot on the island as two bedraggled figures raced from the cover of trees.

The electric lines blew out not long after the kids sauntered off to the back room for the change of clothing they kept there. Cleo switched on her battery-operated radio to see if they still had time to reach the mainland.

She ignored Jared as he returned to the Jeep to retrieve his suitcase so he could change. The kids were safe. He could go now. She didn't want him here. She could deal with Gene and Kismet. She couldn't deal with an active volcano—and she could tell Jared was rapidly approaching that state. She hadn't forgotten that much about the male psyche.

The radio reported the causeway as well as the main highway into town were closed. So much for that fantasy. She snapped it off and wished she'd had the sense to call Maya. Matty would worry.

Jared blew in with the wind, creating a daunting awareness of her own drenched clothing. Puddles of water soaked the floor beneath her feet, but that wasn't the reason for her self-consciousness. She thought her overheating skin ought to steam the cold damp cotton of her clothes while she watched her unwelcome guest stripping off his shirt and shoes. She was thankful the lights had blown.

“You can hang your wet things in the bathroom,” she said with what she hoped was a dry tone. She thought her voice shook a little.

As Jared bent to shove off his shoe, he glanced up at her from beneath a fall of wet hair. “I'm giving you first dibs on a hot shower, unless you want to share one?”

She
knew
this wouldn't work. She wanted to wrap the tablecloth around her so he couldn't see the way her shirt was plastered to her skin, revealing the aching swell of her breasts. He was too damned observant not to have noticed, hence the shower suggestion. Wrapping her invisible dignity around her, she stalked past him, toward her room. “Wells operate on electricity, remember. No shower.”

It was going to be a long night.

“Spaghetti from a kerosene stove never tasted so good.” Jared lazily threw a stick of kindling onto the fire and leaned back against the cushion Cleo had thrown on the floor for him. Although anticipation hummed somewhere just below his skin, he liked the restful hominess of the warm fire, a full stomach, and a woman at his side.

Not exactly at his side. She'd relegated him to the floor. But she was within reach, and that was all that mattered. This was a far cry better than the lonely house on the beach, even with the howl of wind and crash of surf to keep him company.

“And you're a connoisseur of kerosene cooking,” she said with sarcasm, dropping onto the sagging couch after checking on the kids.

“Learn to take compliments. It was delicious. Are they sleeping?”

“Like babes. Living in terror is exhausting.”

Jared leaned back against the pillow and let the fire warm his socks. The old house creaked and
swayed beneath the tumult of wind and rain, but other than the two tall palms, Cleo had no trees threatening the roof over their heads. He tried not to think too hard about his newly restored beach house at the mercy of the tide. He could hear the roar from here.

The chaos outside seemed somehow diminished by the disturbing vibrations bouncing around inside this small room. If he had any smarts at all, he'd bury his head in a book and pretend he didn't notice. That had always worked in high school. College and career had taught him to let problems slither off his invincible shield of laughter. He could apply that now, but he no longer wanted to.

He wanted—needed—to pierce Cleo's equally indestructible shield. He had the gut feeling if he let this opportunity slide by, he'd spend the rest of his life slipsliding away.

“You know all about the exhaustion of fear?” he asked casually, not looking at her. Just listening was painful enough. He'd spent a lifetime complaining about his dysfunctional childhood. He knew enough already to understand Cleo's pain outdistanced his whining by miles.

“Shut up, McCloud.”

He didn't have to look to know she had curled up defensively in the far corner of the couch, beside the kerosene lamp. She would fight him tooth and nail every step of the way, but he thought she was worth the battle. “Are you going to call Social Services when this is over?”

“I told you before—”

“I know, I know, but isn't fear of violence a little more destructive than the coldness of a damned group home?” This time, he turned sufficiently to watch her face.

In the flicker of the lamp, she looked pale and weary, and he thought he ought to be ashamed for driving her
harder. But he wanted this battle settled and out of the way so they could move on to the good parts. If he was wrong and there were no good parts, he wouldn't die of it. Not immediately.

“They put Maya and me in group homes a couple of times.” Defenses down, she responded with irritation. “Maya was always doing something weird that freaked people out, like painting walls with roses and dragons, so we got thrown out a lot. Most foster homes don't like teenagers and don't want two at a time if it can be avoided.”

She sank into silence as if this much confession exhausted her. Jared waited patiently. She had reserves she didn't know she possessed, and he counted on them. His patience was rewarded.

She tilted her head back against the couch and stared at the darkness of the ceiling. “They have counselors in group homes, and security guards, and sometimes a few jerks who don't know any other way of making a living, along with the do-gooders.”

He wasn't going to like this, he could tell already. “They hurt you?” he asked harshly, hoping to get it over with all at once.

She shrugged. “Most of the time, I'm my own worst enemy. I know that now. I didn't then. One creep offered me cigarettes if he could cop a feel. I figured, sure, why not?”

Jared shuddered and started to rise, but her body language blatantly warned him to back off. “We can warn Kismet,” he said carefully.

She ignored him. “I liked it,” she said defensively. “Nobody had touched me since I was a kid. I mixed up touching with feeling. I had no self-respect anyway. What did I know?”

He was sorry he'd started this. He had the gut-awful
feeling he knew what came next. Pushing his pillow back from the fire, he reached over the cushion to capture her foot. She swung it restlessly, but he wouldn't let her go. He pressed the curved underside reassuringly with this thumb. “What you did then isn't who you are now.”

“Don't be a dolt, McCloud. We're made up of all these bits of our past. Block on block, we build ourselves. Cop a feel for cigarettes one time, neck a little for a car ride and a movie, what's one step more? By the time I graduated from group homes, I could get drugs or alcohol or cash anytime I wanted. That's how I learned to deal with life.”

He leaned his back against the couch and circled her foot with both hands, massaging. He knew what she was saying. He hadn't figured her for a virgin. “So group homes taught you a trade. Are you still practicing?”

“Screw you, McCloud,” she said wearily. “And this is about Kismet, not me. I'm telling you I know what it's like. Trying to determine if she's better off with one pervert within the familiar boundaries of home or exposed to different ones on unfamiliar grounds is not a decision I want to make.”

He idly rubbed the slender tendon above her heel. “All right, that's a tough call, and you don't feel qualified to make it. I buy that. What if I make the call? I'm telling you frankly, I'm not letting them go back there.” Lay it all out on the table. If she was going to cream him, he might as well have it over now.

“Fine. You make that call. Give me time to list the house and store and move out, because Linda will make my life a living hell after you do.”

“Maybe I can prevent that.” Sliding his palm up her firm calf under her khakis, he couldn't fight the pressure building beneath the unforgiving denim of his jeans. But
wanting Cleo and having her were two entirely different equations, and he didn't know how to solve either.

“Too many superhero comics, boy genius,” she taunted.

“Yeah, I know. I've got this complex that makes me think I can save the world. No wonder everyone laughs at me.” He didn't entirely know what he was doing here. He wasn't a man who got involved—with women or kids or politics or anything else. He scribbled his irritation with the world's foibles into his comic strip upon occasion, and he sometimes wished for a stronger platform from which to launch his opinions, but he'd never actually got off his butt to make a difference. He'd never had to work hard at anything.

He dearly wanted to do something now. He craved Cleo's respect, and his own, when it came down to it. He wanted to save those kids.

He wanted Cleo, in more than just the usual way.

So he stayed where he was, massaging the tension from her muscles, letting her become used to his touch much as a horse whisperer calmed a nervous mount.
Bad choice of words, McCloud,
he corrected. His chances of mounting Cleo were pretty close to nil, he figured. Seduction wasn't his department. Women generally came on to him, not vice versa.

He was trying now, but he thought his chances hopeless.

“I'm not laughing,” she said tensely. “Let me go.”

He glanced up with interest at her tone, his thumb pressing into the muscle of the one leg she allowed to hang over the edge of the couch. She looked pretty grim and wild-eyed with her auburn hair practically standing on end, but from the way she crossed her arms over her breasts, he judged she was holding herself back with a thin thread.

“You know we could work things out much better if
you'd quit fighting me,” he said thoughtfully. “Together, I think we'd be a formidable force.”

“Yeah, together we could destroy each other instead of just ourselves,” she mocked. “We'd make a great pair.”

“You plan on spending the rest of your life behind walls, never risking anything?”

Ire flashed briefly across her expression, her nostrils flared, and she regarded him with all the intensity of her passionate soul. Here was the depth he didn't possess, and he just might drown in it.

“You figuring we've got a few days to kill and we ought to do it in bed? That the kind of risk you have in mind?” she demanded.

Well, he'd certainly never have to read Cleo's mind. That might make life more difficult, but he was ready to take her on any level she preferred.

“I had a physical not too long ago,” he answered with equal bluntness. “I'm clean. I've got condoms. That the kind of safe risk you want?”

The way she flinched, he thought maybe he'd hit her too hard, but she rallied quickly enough. Pure malicious devilment lit her eyes. “I quit screwing around when I walked out on my husband. My head's messed up, but the rest of me is just fine, thank you.”