Almost Perfect (9 page)

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.”

Clenching her teeth in frustration, Cleo crossed her legs on the couch cushion, and watched Jared's mobile expression. He had the kind of rubber face that could be stretched into great grimaces. She could almost bet he'd been the class clown. “Just the usual. Poor, 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.” She watched carefully 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, he could have been the cartoon instead 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 beauty, sleeping or not. Why don't I take you to dinner tomorrow?”

“Why don't you take Liz to dinner?” Why didn't he go away? 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.

“Does Cleo know she has a date?” Tim asked gravely, sipping from a beer on the newly repaired porch.

“She'll pretend she doesn't. I've never met anyone so determined to be antisocial.”

“Caught by the old hard-to-get routine, are we?” Tim raised an eyebrow inquiringly. “Have you talked to any of your carpenters lately?”

Jared juggled his bag impatiently. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because Cleo hired them. At least half of them are recovering alcoholics or deadbeat dads who are trying to
get their acts together. She apparently knows every construction worker on the Carolina coast and all their stories. I get the feeling she's not your usual easygoing love-'em-and-leave-'em type.”

Jared shrugged. “I want to get to know her better, not seduce her. Unlike you, I just let things happen. You gonna be all right here alone?”

TJ swirled his beer. “I'm fine. You're the one who seems to have a problem with solitude. Give my regards to Cleo.”

So he normally liked to party, and solitude was wearing thin. He didn't see the problem, but he wasn't the introspective sort and didn't have time or patience to work it out. “Fine. Maybe I'll call a few girlfriends and have one come down and keep you company if you're planning on staying long. Be good for you.”

He strode off before Tim could throw the bottle at him.

Cleo apparently hadn't had time to erect any roadblocks preventing access from the beach, or she probably would have thrown them in his face as he walked up the road to her place. He didn't know what his obsession was with the prickly pixie, but he needed to know her better. Maybe he just needed his questions answered.

Maybe he just needed to scratch this itch.

He hid his frown as he walked down her drive and noticed the kids sitting on the front step with a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter between them. They smiled at his approach instead of running, which was probably a good sign, but he'd hoped to have Cleo to himself for a change. “What's up, gang? Cleo won't let you sit at her table and eat?”

Gene shrugged. “She ain't home. We're waiting for her.”

Well, he should have known it wouldn't be easy. He
dropped the bag of greasy barbecue on the step. “Your supper is probably healthier than mine. Wanna trade?”

Obviously, shyness didn't apply to food. They tore into the sack and contentedly munched their way into the picnic he'd intended for Cleo. “You guys waiting for Cleo to give you a ride home? I can get the Jeep.”

Kismet merely smiled and bit contentedly into her sandwich. Gene diligently chewed his way through a mouthful before answering. “Nah. Mom's gone into town and we're staying here. Want a Dr Pepper? I can get you one.”

Jared looked skeptically at the house that usually spat nails and dropped skeletons on him. “You can get in?”

“Sure. It ain't locked. We don't have no thieves out here.” Without hesitation, Gene jumped on the step that normally set off the alarm and blithely entered the front door that dropped skeletons.

Damn perverse woman. She only set alarms to ward off intruders when she was home!

Jared wasn't speaking to her.

Which was fine with Cleo. She hadn't invited him to her house or accepted his offer for supper. He'd just presumed he was welcome. Well, he wasn't. She had better things to do than amuse itinerant comics.

Sitting on her roof in the hot sun, she whammed a nail
into a shingle. She'd chosen the expensive architectural shingles, figuring she didn't have much roof to cover, and they would last longer, even if they were more work. Besides, she liked the cottage look of the light wood and shadows it created. She might not be much on decorating, but she knew good material. With some dark Charleston green on the shutters, the place would look comfortable and welcoming someday. Pity a good coat of paint wouldn't do the same for her.

From up here, she could watch the steady stream of cars and trucks and motorcycles roaring down her private drive to Jared's place on the beach. He must have invited the whole effing town for a party, except her. She would figure he'd done it to get even, but she didn't think she rated that high on a celebrity's priority list.

Maybe she ought to build a widow's walk on the roof, a tower that loomed over the trees so she could have a view of the ocean. Sitting up and rubbing her aching back, Cleo contemplated the view from here. She couldn't see the beach house or the couples frolicking on the sand, only the distant lapping of waves toward shore. It was all the view she needed.

She wondered how Jared managed to know so many people after being here only a couple of weeks, but it wasn't any of her business. Country club sorts learned to socialize from birth. Despite his weird occupation, she pegged him for the country club type. He'd probably already been golfing over at Hilton Head. He should have stayed there instead of invading her primitive jungle.

Wistfully, she glanced up the road in the direction from which Matty should be arriving—except he wouldn't be here this weekend. Maya and Axell had promised the kids a trip to the zoo in Columbia, and Matty had wanted to go with them. They'd invited Cleo. She probably should have gone. It wasn't as if Maya and her upright pillar-of
-the-community husband would lead her astray. She just hadn't been up to watching a happy family at play, knowing she was deficient in whatever it took to create that same ambience for Matty.

She probably ought to go down and write something revealing in her journal right now, like: “I know I'm good and getting better, but I'm still a work in progress.” Yeah, like that was real helpful.

From this viewpoint, she could see Kismet sitting on a log in the menagerie, scribbling in her sketchbook. Gene had the pig out, playing with it. Normal people had cats and dogs. She had pigs and iguanas. If the counselor wanted proof of her weirdness, he'd find it right there. People didn't give her unwanted cats and dogs. They gave her unwanted
creatures
. That was bound to say something about her personality.

Wiping her forehead with the back of her wrist, Cleo decided it was time for a break. She'd take the kids some lemonade. Their mother had lost her job last week and disappeared into the city. Again. She didn't have the heart to tell them that one of these days, their mother might not come home at all. She'd hate to see those kids lost in the vast wilderness of an underpaid, overworked Social Services department. She knew firsthand how children got lost in the system.

Maybe she'd talk to Linda again, when and if she returned. The AA program in town wasn't much help for crack addicts, but it was better than nothing. She could take her to one of the meetings, maybe make her feel comfortable by introducing her to a few of the others. As if she'd ever made anyone feel comfortable in her life.