Almost Perfect (37 page)

If she'd doubted what she felt about this man before, she didn't any longer. She wouldn't apply fancy names to the emotion welling inside her and threatening to spill over into tears, but she didn't think she'd ever feel this way again, not with any other man. She wouldn't destroy him by telling him that, though.

“Even should their mother relinquish her rights, that's asking a lot,” she said cautiously. “You don't know anything about raising kids, and you've got the kind of life that doesn't adapt well to teenagers.”

“I know. I've been giving it some thought, but I figure I'll take this one step at a time.”

The look he gave her curled her toes. She didn't want to know the words behind that look. She couldn't handle them right now. “So I'm supposed to sit here and wait to see if the law comes to haul me off in chains, and leave the kids up to you?”

“Yep.” He finished his coffee. “You had your day in the sun. Now it's my turn.”

Blithely, he unfolded from the bed and wandered off.
Cleo couldn't decide whether his attitude was worth getting angry over. He was depressingly right, and she couldn't think of any immediate solution.

Finishing her food, she heard him go out to the car to find his duffel, listened to him shower, and waited anxiously until he returned to the doorway.

“I'm going out,” he said. “Don't leave. I'll call you to see what you've found out from Social Services after I leave the lawyer's office.”

“All right.” She'd learned a modicum of caution over the years. She used it wisely now. One temper tantrum a decade was enough for her. Until yesterday, she hadn't thrown a proper fit since the time her ex had knocked her against the wall and she'd run away across the country. She really didn't want to repeat the experience.

“I'll be back,” Jared reminded her, before striding off.

She believed him this time. Picking up the newspaper he'd left beside the breakfast tray, she turned to the comics.

The teenage nerd in
Scapegrace
attending a party where marijuana was being smoked wasn't funny, even if the kid fell into a pool and drowned a teddy bear in his frantic effort to escape. The final panel showed Emergency Services arriving to rescue him while all his socialite friends fled.

If Jared was putting himself in the place of his teenage character, the symbolism was too painful to consider, even if the strip had been drawn weeks ago.

“They done tole me not to say nothin' to nobody.” Gene crossed his arms and stuck out a defiant lip.

With Liz's permission, Jared had cornered the boy at school. The counselor had sacrificed her office so they could speak privately.

“You send Cleo up the river, and I'm coming after your scrawny hide,” Jared warned. “She understands, but I won't. You can lie to the law and lie to yourself but you can't lie to me. Cleo didn't give you those drugs. I figure Lonnie the Pervert for that one. What do you think will happen if he gets out before Cleo does? Who do you want to see out there on the streets with Kismet, Cleo or the Perv?”

“Ain't no difference to me,” Gene responded sullenly. “They busted me, and I'm runnin' before they put me behind any bars.”

Jared rubbed his hand through his hair and tried to put this in terminology a terrified kid could understand. “I've hired the best lawyer in the state. He says even if you
knowingly
possessed drugs with intent to sell, they can't put you behind bars for a first offense. They're hassling you if they say otherwise.”

Buoyed by the first sign of interest the boy had shown, Jared shoved the door open a little wider. “If a lawyer can prove you didn't know you were carrying an illegal
substance, you'll walk. You'll need Cleo's cooperation as a character witness, and mine, possibly, but he thinks he can pull it off if you tell him the truth.”

He waited tensely as the boy pondered the pros and cons. The truth would incriminate either his mother or his mother's boyfriend, undoubtedly. It was tough asking a kid to throw his mother in jail. Clenching his hands into fists and trying not to throttle the kid, Jared gave him time to think.

Gene looked up at him through narrowed lashes. “What happens to me and Kis if I tell the truth? Cleo ain't gonna let me stay with her anymore.”

“Cleo would take you both in a minute if the caseworkers would let her. But I'm going to be honest with you, it doesn't look as if they will. I'm trying my best to get you and Kismet a good place to stay, but you'll have to trust me on that one.”

“Kis ain't gonna like it in that home.” Gene crossed his arms so tightly his shoulders drew inward. “She gonna lose it if they make her stay.”

Jared wanted to hug those sturdy shoulders and tell the kid he'd make all his troubles go away, but the lawyer had told him already that as a single man, he didn't have a chance in hell of adopting them, even if Linda signed her rights away. And marrying a convicted felon would demolish all hope. He was still furious and looking for a way out, but he couldn't do everything at once. He needed Cleo's name cleared first.

He'd already called his agent and told him to forget the screenplay. He could hear George's screams of rage and despair still, but Cleo's cries were more powerful, and these kids more important. So, if George didn't want his other idea, he'd wash dishes for a living. He had no business going to Hollywood when he'd finally found a place where he was needed, and where he needed to be.

“Kismet will like it less if Lonnie comes after her,” he told Gene. “We need to put him away for a long time. Then we'll have time to figure out what to do. Cleo will help. I can promise that much. But you've got to help her first.”

Gene struggled a little more, wiping anxiously at moisture in his eyes and fidgeting, looking away from Jared to the crowded bulletin board in the counselor's office. “What about Mama?”

Well, here it was, sink or swim time. “She needs to get some help. She can't fight that stuff on her own anymore, do you understand?”

“I guess.” Gene continued staring at the bulletin board.

Jared knew he understood. The boy had grown up far too early. It was even worse that he had to worry about his mother and older sister when they should be looking after him. Still, with the right support, he could make it in life. Obstacles could be scaled.

“If she gets clean, they'll probably let her go in a few months. But they can send Cleo up for years. Is that fair?”

“No,” the boy whispered.

He'd pushed hard enough for now. Finally giving in to the urge, Jared hugged him. “I'm trusting you to do what's right. Now, you'll have to trust me to return the favor, okay?”

The boy nodded uncertainly. He'd never been given any reason to trust anyone. Jared understood that. He could only hope the kid's innate character would surface and give him strength.

Cleo had the same problem with trust. That she had finally given in and trusted him to handle this gave him reason to hope.

“I'll tell Cleo you're looking good.” Jared walked out,
leaving Gene to talk to the school counselor or not, as he wished.

Cleo had looked at him with such hero worship in her normally cynical eyes, she had him believing he could leap tall buildings. Better yet, she had him believing what he wanted to do was more important than what others wanted him to do. His family and his agent and everyone else in his former life would react in horror at his abandoning his lucrative film contract to work on an experimental project that might never sell. Cleo would simply tell him to do what he thought best. She accepted that he had enough sense and intelligence to do what was best for him—and for her, although he didn't think she realized her part in his plans yet.

Feeling two tons lighter for being rid of a screenplay that would have stunk as badly as the television show once the committee of rewriters and producers sucked the blood out of it, Jared swung the Jeep into traffic and headed out to pick up Kismet. He wouldn't try using e-mail to persuade her that a group home was safe. That would require a personal visit. She hadn't said where she was hiding, but he was fairly confident she was on the island, dividing time between unoccupied houses. He hadn't received e-mail from her since Cleo returned home, which meant she was staying somewhere without electricity or phone. That pretty much narrowed it to her mother's or the wrecked beach house.

First, though, he'd better visit Marta. Cleo's livelihood might be the only one they had if his strip syndication bellied up. Grinning at the thought of relying on someone else for support, Jared swung down the usually empty street where the hardware store was located.

To his astonishment, traffic blocked the lanes as cars maneuvered into the few parking spaces at the curb. The public parking lot was packed. Pedestrians gathered be
neath the overhanging oaks to chat in the shade. Others waved to neighbors as they headed down the street—to the hardware store.

Jared sat in the traffic and stared, a growing grin of elation tugging his mouth as he realized the job Marta had done. He had to fetch Cleo for this. Every person she had ever helped and apparently every member of their families, no matter how distant the connection, had arrived to show their support. He recognized teachers from the school walking out with full sacks. A trio of firemen carried out a ladder, and even the sheriff stood talking to one of his deputies, a sack from Cleo's store in his hand.

It was going to be all right, his heart sang as he drove past the store and on toward the island. Everything would be all right. He just needed Cleo to believe it.

Cleo would believe concrete evidence.
Whistling, Jared did an abrupt U-turn. No one honked in rage. Not here. This wasn't New York or Miami. This was Hometown America, a place where kids could grow up decent. His kids, he hoped.

The jewelry store didn't have a large selection, but Cleo wouldn't know the difference between a threekarat diamond or zirconia. Or care. Cleo simply needed proof that he wasn't a transient in her life.

Tucking the prettiest ring he could find into his pocket, one that included an emerald to match her eyes, Jared sauntered back to the Jeep, fully confident that life was seeing things his way for a change. A few obstacles to perfection remained, but he'd find a way to remove them now that he didn't need to worry about what anyone thought but himself. And Cleo. He prayed Cleo would understand.

Too high on life to pass by Cleo's house without stopping, Jared halted in the drive on the way to the beach. Kismet might come out more willingly if she saw Cleo.
The kid hadn't even seen the search for her. She'd been sleeping. Teenagers! If he had Gene and Kismet around, he could keep
Scapegrace
going based on their antics alone.

Cleo flung open the door as if she'd been waiting for him. Barefoot, clad in a green, silky feminine shirt that barely concealed her charms, wearing shorts so short they were probably illegal, she crossed her arms and viewed him suspiciously.

“You're grinning like you've just won the thirty-three-million-dollar lottery. What have you done?”

“I like the new you.” He caught her waist and kissed her. She wore no bra beneath the piece of nothing, and he couldn't resist the opportunity it offered. She wouldn't have worn that shirt if she hadn't wanted him to touch. She looked like a water sprite with the sun glinting off the auburn of her still-damp hair, and with those glorious legs tempting him from beneath a scrap of denim. “No Burt to greet me?” he asked tauntingly when they came up for air.

“He's temporarily retired.” She tugged backward and narrowed her eyes. “What have you been up to?”

She didn't leave his arms, didn't spit in his face, and her fingers were doing enticing things to his chest that he didn't have time to explore. Capturing them with his palm, he kissed her nose. “Working on the future. Is there some way we can approach the beach house without being seen?”

Her eyes lit. “Kismet? Surely not.”

“I left all my drawing stuff there. Where else?”

Pulling away, she dashed inside the house, yelling behind her, “Let me get my shoes. I'll find a way.”

Well, at least Cleo wasn't so stubborn as to believe Kismet would be better off in a wrecked house than a
group home. Now, if he could convince her to let a man in her life again, real progress would be forthcoming.

Wearing an old pair of tennis shoes, Cleo led him out the back door and down a tangled path through her yard. The hurricane had done its work here, as everywhere. Trees torn up by the roots still littered the ground. If she would let him, he could hire landscapers. If he sold his Miami place, he'd have plenty enough to do whatever she wanted. If he could keep his strip going, he could teach her to live in luxury.

Contemplating a future with Cleo first and foremost in it, Jared followed her trail under live oaks and Spanish moss, through mosquitoes and lashing branches without a word of complaint. He was still a little dizzy at all the prospects ahead. He wasn't much for planning, so he'd never contemplated sharing his life to the extent that Cleo and her son would demand. He'd had difficulty envisioning Hollywood glamour and had considered it a joke he'd enjoy for the sake of his family. But he could easily see living here with the beach a short walk away and Cleo's crazy humor to keep him on his toes.