Imperfect Rebel (3 page)

"I can afford whatever price Miss Alyssum thinks the property is worth. I'll buy it if she'd rather not lease it. Just pass the message along, will you?" He leaned against his car door and watched her climb into her truck without replying. Well, damn.

Maybe she was a witch, but she had all his incorrigible pheromones humming. He sighed as she cranked the truck to life without looking back. He got the message. He'd better move the Jag or she'd drive over it.

Spinning his tires in the soft sand, he edged out of her way and let her fly off down the lane. He wondered if signs would pop out of the road and witches fly from the trees as she left, or if they were rigged only to greet incoming visitors.

He sure did like the way her mind worked. Wonder if she could rig up some of those spooks for him once he figured out how to obtain the beach house?

Bumping the Jag over a timber barrier, he drove down toward the beach to inspect the house he'd only seen from a distance. The real-estate agents had said there was nothing available out here in the middle of nowhere, but a friend of a friend in L.A. had told him about this island. The film business was a small world.

This place should be ideal. He could feel it in his bones. None of his friends or family would go out of their way to reach this remote spot. Surely, once he cleared his head, he would be able to think again. Surrounded by all this peace and quiet, he'd cruise right past the roadblock in his mind that had prevented his coming up with any fresh ideas lately.

A witchy landlady would be a distraction, but one distraction against the many his places in New York and Miami offered seemed a fair trade. His fingers itched for the computer keys already, just thinking about the sand and the waves and the peace.

Driving with one hand, he idly swatted at something tickling his ankle. He'd have to remember insect repellant. Beaches were notorious for bugs.

The house ought to be just beyond that curve in the road ahead, if he'd calculated correctly. He didn't know the name of the scrub brush blocking his view, but it grew in heavy thickets neither man nor beast would dare enter. He'd have plenty of privacy.

Especially with the witch's mechanical guardians blocking the way.

Before he could grin at the thought, an eerie high-pitched shriek shattered his eardrums, and an object the size of his mother's frozen Thanksgiving turkeys smashed into his windshield, scattering brilliant blue-green plumage across the glass, obstructing his view with an iridescent psychedelic hallucination.

Frantically swiping at the irritating tickle crawling up his leg, cursing the Technicolor windshield, he slammed the brakes. The car's rear end resisted stopping and the tires swerved wildly in the soft sand.

Crawling. Up his leg.

Clinging desperately to the wheel for control, Jared glanced downward.

A shiny black snake's tail whipped his leather moccasins. The head had disappeared up the leg of his khakis.

Clutching the spinning steering wheel while cursing frantically, Jared lost control as the car veered sideways on the soft shoulder.

The low-slung chassis hit the ditch at the side of the road, sailed upward, and landed, roof down, in the wax myrtle thicket.

Chapter 2

"Cleo, you can't stand in the path of progress," Marta exclaimed in exasperation. "Just look at the money a Hollywood film crew could pour into this town."

"And the drugs and alcohol that would flow from that generous pitcher," Cleo scoffed, scribbling up an invoice. "I lived in L.A., remember. Film crews are people, just like everyone else. They bring their problems with them." She ran an adding machine tape on the total and stapled it to the top sheet.

"And their
money
." Marta stalked off toward the storeroom. "And glamor," she threw over her shoulder.

"You've been listening to Katy," Cleo shouted back. "This town was a sand bar, not a pirate hideout!"

Marta didn't answer. Cleo blamed the owner of the local B&B for the pirate hideout theory that had attracted the director of the pirate film. She didn't place much faith in anything coming of his interest. Once these Hollywood types realized the town's claim to fame was one B&B and a Holiday Inn, they'd skedaddle fast enough.

She heard the bell ring over the door but didn't look up. Customers knew where to find her if they needed her.

"Cleo!" a small voice interrupted her thought processes.

"Gene?" Cleo angled her head to see down the aisle between the shelves of hammers and the bins of nails to verify the identity of the whisperer. She recognized the tight brown curls instantly. "Why aren't you in school?"

They'd been around this subject a few times, so Eugene generally didn't put in an appearance during the school day. She'd argued with him and berated him for his truancy, but she wasn't his mother and had no authority to do more. And she had no intention of turning the kid in. He had enough trouble in his life, and she had long since lost respect for officialdom of any sort. Eight months behind bars had solidified her dim view of the tight asses and narrow minds of authority.

Gene eased closer to the counter, keeping a sharp eye on the front door. Short for his thirteen years but sturdy enough to predict muscles for his future, he hid easily behind the hardware store's tall racks. "There's somethin' bad happened."

Cleo's stomach froze. She could think of any of a dozen bad things involving Gene alone. Her own life was such a disaster that she'd quit worrying about any pending catastrophe there as long as Matty was safe. Gene could have no knowledge of her son's problems. "Are you going to tell me what it is or just stand there looking like a whipped dog?"

He scowled at her blunt tone, but he knew better than to come to her for pampering. She provided a listening post and a helping hand, and on the whole, he respected that.

"That Jag was at your house?" he asked diffidently, drawing out the drama while looking for a means of diminishing his involvement.

Cleo leaned her shoulders against the shelves, crossed her arms, and waited.

The boy scuffled a torn tennis shoe. "It turned over out on the beach road."

Uh-oh. Years of disaster had taught her to hide fear well, but Cleo had a bad feeling about this one. Gene wasn't looking at her. The boy was playing truant and didn't want to get caught. He usually hung out down by the deserted beach house...

Which the guy in the Jag wanted to rent. "How bad?" she asked gruffly. She wasn't responsible for Gene or the yuppie in the Jag, but that was her property out there. Visions of liability suits rose right along with specters of smashed aviator glasses and blood marring a long nose. That's how her life usually happened.

"It turned upside down." Gene grimaced and used the flapping toe of his shoe to scratch his ankle. "He's out cold. I had to use your phone to call 911."

Cleo uttered a few mental curse words. She was trying to break the habit of saying them aloud for Matty's sake. How the devil had the jerk managed to flip a car on a road where the highest possible speed was fifteen miles per hour?

"Where'd they take him? The clinic?" Should she call and see if he was all right? Or would that be acknowledging responsibility? For all that mattered— "How did you get back here? Hitch a ride?"

Gene shrugged off the last question. She'd warned him enough times not to take rides with strangers, but the beach was a long bike ride from town. "He's over to the clinic. I heard the sheriff gripin' 'cause he warn't carryin' no ID. And the plates were out of state."

"
At
the clinic.
Wasn't
carrying any ID," she corrected absently. She had the stranger's card in her pocket. She hadn't even looked at it. Why would he not carry ID or a car registration? Because he was a lamebrained yuppie who thought he was above the rules.

"He's still out cold," Gene said worriedly. "Reckon he'll die?"

She narrowed her eyes and pinned him in place. "What did you do to him?"

Gene shrugged nervously. His T-shirt had a tear in the armhole seam where he'd stretched too far and burst open the worn threads. "I didn' do
nothin'
," he said belligerently.

"Eugene Watkins, there's no sense lying to me because I'll find out anyway." She had Gene and his sister half convinced she
was
a witch, but only because she knew how to find out things and their mother had too many problems to try.

"Well, Blackie mighta got into the car with him." He hung his head. "And the peacocks, well, they got kinda stirred."

Blackie, the black snake—one of Gene's and Matty's many exotic pets. Cleo rolled her eyes and tried not to imagine what the friendly snake would have done in a Jag. There weren't many places a snake could wrap around in a car. And the peacocks! She winced and nailed Gene with a glare. "If you hurt those birds, I'll pull every kinky curl out of your head, do you understand?"

"Yes'm. But they ain't hurt. Just riled a little."

Shoot fire, heck, and darn. She'd taken anger management classes. She knew better than to take the boy's head off. She even understood why the brat had done what he had done—had she been thirteen, she would have protected her privacy the same way.

"The guy's unconscious and the sheriff doesn't know who he is?" she asked to distract herself from Gene's depredations. How would anyone notify the yuppie's next of kin? What if he needed surgery? A man driving a Jag was bound to have anxious, wealthy family somewhere.
Damn
.

"Yes'm. I'm real sorry, Cleo. I won't do it again. I didn't mean for nothin' bad to happen. I was just playin'."

"I know, kid, but you're getting too old to play those kinds of games. You know better. He would have gone away and left us alone when he got bored. Go get Marta out of the back. I'd better go over to the clinic."

She sure the heck wasn't going to the sheriff, but the clinic, she might handle. As Gene took his guilty expression to the storeroom to fetch her clerk, Cleo removed her carpenter's apron and stashed it beneath the counter. She hated getting involved. Maybe the guy had regained consciousness by now and could tell them who he was. Or the sheriff had traced his license tag.

Her visitor had been an arrogant jerk, but he hadn't deserved Gene's dirty trick. The counselor had said she had to learn to accept responsibility. The counselor was a dipshit, but she knew he was right about this one.

Cleo checked her pocket to make certain the card was still there, told Marta where she was going, and headed down the bucolic town street shaded from the September sun by live oaks and Spanish moss.

Glancing up at the antique four-sided clock in the courthouse steeple, she saw she'd missed lunch again. The clock chimes hadn't rung since World War II, from all reports. The town citizens weren't particularly concerned, but the clock's gradual slowing of time had caused a number of jokes.

Maybe now that the weather was cooler, she and Ed could climb back up there and take another look, provided he wasn't down at the bar talking about the German U-boat he'd seen from the tower during the war. Ed had a little drinking problem.

She adored this town. It was as far from the filthy city apartments of her adolescence as she could get. L.A. to rural South Carolina, quite a leap, but the right one for her. She was comfortable here.

All she had to do was stay clean and responsible, keep the feds off her case until her parole expired, and she would become a model citizen. Sort of.

For Matty to grow up here, she had to fit in, and that wouldn't happen if anyone learned of her background. Keeping a low profile and avoiding gossip was a tough act to maintain in a small town. She didn't go near the Chamber of Commerce's chatty little get-togethers, but she dealt with customers, paid her dues, contributed to charity, and did whatever else money could do. She figured that ought to be enough to encourage a business that had no competition.

What if the stranger wanted to file a complaint? How would she keep him away from Gene? The thought of taking the blame on herself caused a brief spurt of panic. The sheriff would trace her prior record, call the feds, and before she knew what hit her, Social Services would be carting Matty off, and everyone would shun the store in horror, and she'd be out on the street again. No way.

There had to be a more reasonable method of settling this, although trying to imagine settling a wrecked antique Jag was a large hurdle to handle. And if the yuppie moron really was seriously injured... She wouldn't consider that. Maybe she could bribe him with the rental of the beach house.