Almost Perfect (13 page)

He stalked into the front room, but Cleo didn't follow. She wiped the pizza crumbs from the table with a cloth and listened to the front door slamming. Bone-deep loneliness seeped through her, but she was used to lonely. Anybody who could call the privacy she'd found here a prison had never been in one.

That didn't mean he wasn't right. People like her just couldn't function normally in society. She'd chosen the life that suited her best. Until Jared McCloud had come along, she'd done just fine.

When he left, it would suit her fine again.

Until then, she'd have to live with the memory of that kiss and avoid the bastard at all costs. Her fragile equilibrium couldn't handle a two-month affair, and building a secure environment for Matty was more important to her than sex. For Matty, she could survive loneliness.

“I see your sweet-talking charm didn't get you into the lady's bed.” Sitting in the shadows of the deep, unlighted porch, Tim tipped his chair back, propped his feet on the rail, and took another swig from his beer.

Jared remembered now why he'd run away from home at the first opportunity. Flinging the cardboard pizza box at his brother so TJ had to drop his feet and grab with one hand, he continued up the porch stairs and toward the door. His tongue didn't hurt much anymore,
but his ego would never be the same. The lady in question threw a tough right jab, and she hadn't had to lift a hand to do it.

“She's not your usual sort,” TJ continued casually, balancing the box on his knee and opening it to fish out a slice of pizza.

With a sigh, Jared gave up any hope of going to his room and sulking. Helping himself to another slice and a bottle from the cooler, he settled on the newly installed planks with his back against the rail. He hadn't bothered with much in the way of furniture. After all, once the project was done, he'd be out of here. Cleo could have her snakes and peacocks and mosquitoes. He swatted at one of the bloodthirsty critters.

“Maybe I like a challenge,” he retorted through a mouthful of cheese.

Jared didn't count the number of empty beer bottles his brother had lined up on the railing. A man as large as Tim could swill a case and not feel the effects until he stood up. His serious-minded brother seldom indulged, but when he did, he pulled out all the stops. Jared didn't see any point in interfering. Tim had half a foot and more than a few pounds over him, and he inclined toward cantankerous when sloshed.

“Well, you were never satisfied unless you were butting your head against a wall,” Tim agreed.

“Cleo isn't a wall. Cleo is Alcatraz.” He grimaced and corrected that. “She's like a wounded fox caught in a trap who snaps at anyone who comes close.”

Tim chugged a swallow of beer before replying. “Call the Humane Society.”

Jared popped a beer cap and thought about that. “Maybe someone already has. And maybe they hurt her worse.” He'd never spent much time examining motivations before. Maybe it was time he slowed down and
took a look around, for a change. Cleo compelled him to stop and think.

“Maybe baby brother has the hots for a chick who told him no,” Tim growled.

For all he knew, Tim was right. He didn't have much experience at serious thought. “I think I'll call Susan and have her come down for a few days. Should I have her invite a friend?” That was something he could do without thinking.

Tim snorted. “Not for me. I'm supposed to be in Mexico City on Monday. I don't think I could seduce one of Susan's friends in two days, and I'm not about to spend the weekend staring at her breasts and listening to her chatter about what kind of car her last boyfriend had.”

Jared tried to chuckle, but Tim was hitting too close to home. Susan and her friends did just that. She had a good pair of breasts, though.

They didn't look half as intriguing as Cleo's pert, aroused ones. Cleo had wanted him. That kiss hadn't been fake. And there were much deeper depths to Cleo than to material worshipers like Susan.

He didn't know why the hell he'd suddenly taken a dislike to material worship.

“Cleo has a kid and the father's dead, but the kid apparently doesn't live with her. Wonder if he's with the inlaws?” He'd never even asked if she'd married the kid's father.

“I don't know a hell of a lot about women,” Tim mused, “but even I can tell your landlady hides deep waters with a rough undertow. She's out of your league, lightweight.”

Jared scowled at his bottle. “Cleo and I connect in ways you'll never understand, big brother,” he said with a self-confidence he didn't feel. “It doesn't always have to
be about sex.” Of course, this was probably the first time he'd ever said such an insane thing, but it sounded good.

Tim laughed. “Tell me you took her pizza so you could discuss mechanical witches.”

Disgruntled, Jared threw his pizza bones into the box and stood up. “I'm capable of intellectual relationships. You're the one with a problem in the sex department. Good night, big brother, I've got a strip due for next week.”

He maneuvered this dramatic exit with a little more finesse, slamming the screen door and leaving Tim scowling.

The day's encounters had generated a super idea for the daily comic that his fingers itched to produce. Now if only he had an idea to pull together the film project, he could forget Cleo and Tim and the rest of the world for a while. That's why he'd come here in the first place, wasn't it? Not to salivate over tongue-biting vipers.

He groaned at the image. Now he'd dream all night about Cleo as a snake wrapping around him and licking his face. His libido had careened totally out of control.

Sunday morning, Jared jogged down the eroding beach, kicking at washed-up strands of seaweed and rotten tree limbs, absorbing the roar of the surf. Tim had driven off to the airport, Susan had refused to visit a town without a designer boutique, and even the workmen had taken a construction day of rest. Only the squalls of the seagulls intruded on his solitude. Surely he could get some work done now.

Which was why he was running the beach without pencil in hand or idea one in his head. He wished he knew why he'd agreed to do the film in the first place. Probably because he thought it would look good on his résumé. If he had any character at all, he'd pay back the
advance and give up his delusions of grandeur, but the Jag accident had eaten his cash, and his stocks were margined to the max. He couldn't go that route.

Besides, his agent would pitch a fit if he tried to back out. Films meant lucrative spin-offs and commercial franchises and could up the ante for books and who-the-hell-knew what all. If he could just pull together a decent draft, he would be in Hollywood by the first of the year, proving he was more than a bad artist with a warped sense of humor. He was sitting on a gold mine, if he could just dig down to it.

He'd never had to dig before. It had all rolled from his fingertips, and he wanted that creative energy back. Even his cash cow of a comic strip was losing momentum, probably because he was losing interest. That's the reason he'd jumped at the TV opportunity that flopped.

He had a nasty feeling he needed to be an angst-ridden teen again to re-create his earlier successes. He was getting old, and the passion wasn't there anymore.

What in hell would he do with his life if he couldn't draw?

Breathing hard, he stopped to do a few push-ups to unwind. He was only thirty-two. He couldn't quit now. He just needed to get his teeth into something and shake it around a bit, something that really turned him on.

Cleo really turned him on, but he didn't think digging his teeth into her a good idea. Or maybe it was, but it wouldn't be productive. She'd apparently packed up and taken off for the weekend after their little contretemps on Friday night. She hadn't even bothered activating her trespasser alert system.

Returning upright and jamming his hands into his pockets, Jared gazed around to orient himself. He couldn't see the beach house behind him. He figured the condo resort at the end of the island was just beyond the bend
ahead. The wide sandy path into the jungle at the beach's edge beckoned. He ought to know better than to take any more paths, but they had a certain amount of entertainment value. Maybe he'd discover more imps and fairies.

He jogged into the dappled shade of tall, nearly branchless pines cutting off the intensity of the Carolina blue sky and sunshine. He hadn't realized what a fog Miami and New York lived under until he came here.

Maybe he could do something with that—go into some issue-oriented fairy tale that intellectuals would eat up while their children thought it was all just good fun. Who the hell watched cartoons anyway? Teenagers? Like they'd be real interested in issues.

Maybe he needed to define his market. He could give Georgie a call …

He stopped at the edge of a clearing leading to a crumbling clapboard shack with bits of logs visible where the boards had rotted off. A log cabin. Well, this was one of the reasons people lived in New York and Miami instead of in rural decrepitude.

A scraggly vine bearing occasional splotches of yellow flowers crawled up the chimney, and wisteria had taken root in the corner of the porch he could see from this angle. The thick woody vine had already torn through the porch roof and probably supported it more than the column it wrapped around.

The jungle reclaiming its own, he figured—another angle he might use. How would that apply to teenagers?

He ambled closer, wondering if the place was safe for exploration. Someone must have once lived and farmed out here in rural isolation and poverty. What did one raise on an island? Pigs? Goats?

The flutter of a piece of cloth to his left distracted him. He was wary of any movement around here. Gene might
not intentionally mean to kill him, but a kid who raised snakes and scared peacocks into windshields could cause all manner of agony.

On the far side of a lean-to he assumed had once been the privy, a frail scarf blew in a bit of breeze. He'd always thought oceans windy places until he'd come here. Apparently the island sheltered them from the wind and the result was intense humidity. The scarf fluttered flat again.

The stench of the privy almost prevented him from investigating, but curiosity propelled him past the shed. Had this place been abandoned, a scarf would have weathered and worn into threads. This one looked new.

Just past the privy, sheltered from the house by a thicket of shrubs, he traced the source of the scarf to Kismet's slender throat. She stood backed against a pine, her face turned away from him, her baggy dress open to the waist. A white man twice Jared's size stood in front of her, blocking Jared's view.

Shock froze him in place. It didn't take much imagination to figure out what the man's hands were doing.

Kismet didn't utter a sound. For all Jared knew, she welcomed her molester's attentions. He ought to politely back out of here and amble away. This wasn't any of his business. He didn't belong here, didn't know the locals, had no idea of what was really happening. Hell, that could be the kid's husband. This was the South. They did things differently here.

The kid was fifteen years old and not quite right in the head. Jared's stomach churned and bile rose in his throat. He'd never been forced to face the facts of life in this manner before.

He took a step backward, trying to rationalize the situation, until the man started hiking Kismet's skirt up and reached for his zipper.

Rage snapped in Jared's head. Shoving away from the
bushes, he stalked toward the couple. He wasn't in the pervert's heavyweight league and didn't have much chance of bringing him down with fists if it came to that. But he couldn't let the kid do this to herself, or let the creep do it to her. Stupid of him. Obviously, he'd admired one too many comic book heroes in his youth.

“Hey, Kismet, your teacher is out here looking for you. Didn't Cleo say you have some drawings you wanted to show her?” Maybe he wasn't much with his fists, but he still had a few wits about him. Unless this pervert was the girl's husband, any mention of school officialdom should send him scampering into the woods.

The man dropped his hands and swung around. Mean brute, Jared assessed rapidly, not bright but randy. A good kick in the right place would cripple him. He yearned for an excuse to kick. Grinning at the perv, Jared dared to intervene. “She's kinda young for you, isn't she?”

Kismet darted away from the tree, away from the house, away from both of them. Bushes crackled as she disappeared into the swampy jungle, leaving Jared to face an angry behemoth.

Well, hell, maybe a good brawl would give him something to write about.

Jared staggered through the wax myrtle hedge just as Cleo pulled her pickup into the drive. Her first thought
was that he was drunk or high, but he hadn't struck her as the type for either.

He stopped in his tracks at the sight of her, and swayed slightly while she parked the truck. His aviator sunglasses hung broken and useless from one hand. He wore jogging shorts and no shirt. She would have gasped at the vast expanse of nicely molded chest revealed, except it appeared to be splattered in blood. Panic mode nearly stopped her heart, but she got a grip and steadied herself. He wasn't anything to her. She would just take a neighborly interest in the situation.