Imperfect Rebel (7 page)

"I don't think you're supposed to say those words," a girl's whispery voice commented thoughtfully from the depths of shrubbery.

Jared shut up and glanced around. He had a bad habit of not filling his pockets before leaving the house, so he didn't have his penknife on him. He could sever the rotten cords of the net he was caught in if he used some muscle, but he preferred using brain instead of brawn. So far, he hadn't succeeded in untangling the trap, and resentment simmered at being discovered in such a foolish situation.

"Help me out of here, and I won't say them," he promised in a voice gruffer than usual. He'd embarrassed himself plenty of times before, but not in recent memory. He preferred his suave, urbane image to that of class clown these days.

"Gene keeps hoping he'll catch a panther." An awkwardly tall, skinny girl drifted through the shrubbery, eyeing the tangle of cords and ropes hanging from the tree limb. "I can't imagine what he'd do with one if he caught it."

Jared would guess her to be about fourteen or fifteen, although garbed as she was in a loose dress several sizes too large, it was hard to tell. She looked at the tree and rope and anything but him. Her wiry brownish-blond curls fell in her face and stuck out all over her head without any indication that brush or comb had ever touched them. Her dusky complexion and frail features possessed an ethereal quality that—had he been a fanciful man—would have given him pause to wonder if fairies inhabited the island.

He did happen to possess an unfortunate penchant for fantasy, but he preferred superheroes to fairies.

"If you'll just grab that rope over there, I think the whole thing will lift up." Fairies and red-shirted wild animals and witches and skeletons—this island was turning into a real menagerie of cartoon characters. If he couldn't get something out of this, no one could.

She looked doubtfully at the heavy rope but gravitated toward it, giving it a slight pull that produced little effect.

"Tug harder," he urged, searching around his feet for the opening. He saw movement with her next tug and pounced on it. Whoever had rigged this trap hadn't intended it for people, at least. "A little harder, and I think I've got it."

The cords rippled, and he gathered as many as he could, locating the edge of the net and lifting until he had a space large enough to duck under. "Who is this Gene and where do I find him?" he called over his shoulder as he disentangled himself.

No reply.

Free at last, he let the net fall to the ground, and swung around to see what the girl was doing.

She was gone. He hadn't heard a sound.

What in hell kind of rabbit hole had he fallen into?

* * *

Sweat pouring down his back, his cardboard tube battered and torn from swatting flies, mosquitoes, and hanging vines of indeterminate nature, Jared emerged from the thicket path into a clearing littered with makeshift stick cages and wooden crates.

Well, at least he knew he and his landlady weren't entirely alone out here. The paths wandering through swamp and scrub brush were too narrow to have been made by wild horses. He hadn't seen a sign of animal life since setting out, but he
had
seen the girl and a red shirt. He thought.

In the clearing hidden by a thicket of palmettos, a baby bird cheeped from a cardboard box filled with grasses and matchbox feeders. An iguana lay sleepily in a cage beneath a spreading live oak. A variety of colorful lizards scattered into hiding beneath a loosely stacked pile of rocks. And a potbellied pig snorted through rubbish inside a wire fence. Quite an assortment. As a kid, he would have loved this.

With interest, he peered into an elongated crate big enough to hold a refrigerator, and stepped back instantly. Snakes.
Black
ones.

He didn't get angry often. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been angry. But this was the outside of enough, and he'd been pushed as far as his temper would permit. It hadn't been his imagination that had ruined his antique Jag and nearly killed him. It had been a genuine live snake. Just like these.

An unearthly squawk nearly startled him out of his shoes, and Jared swung around in time to confront the beady eyes of a malicious-looking peacock. A snake, and a peacock, then. They'd been real enough. He definitely hadn't been hallucinating.

And they'd been put in or thrown at his car deliberately.

He still couldn't figure out how to blame his landlady for the trick, since she'd been inside the house at the time and had left before him. So it had to be the fairy girl or the red shirt. A woman like Cleo Alyssum might possess a couple of delinquent brats, although she didn't look old enough to have teenagers.

Hell, what did he know about women and kids anyway? His comic strip was more about himself than real teenagers.

Grabbing an abandoned box and snatching one of the smaller snakes from its wooden pit, Jared set off down still another path.

The guard peacock strutted after him, screeching its fool head off.

Watching warily for any more traps, Jared stalked through the underbrush until he heard the sounds of shouting. Well, she was definitely at home then. It was time he had a little confrontation with one Cleo Alyssum.

* * *

"You can't keep skipping school, Eugene Watkins! You'll have the truant officer out here hunting you down. If I remember rightly, they lock kids up for not going to school around here." Dressed for work, truck keys in hand, Cleo had spotted the splash of red behind the palmettos and tracked him down before leaving. She held him by the back of the shirt now and wished she could shake him until his teeth rattled.

"They ain't never gonna find me!" Gene shouted defiantly. "They don' care if I'm there or not. They can't teach me nothin' I don' know already."

"I don't care if you never learn anything, but you have to have that piece of paper saying you're educated, or you'll not get anywhere in this world! Otherwise people will think you're a lazy bum and they'll never hire you." Cleo supposed that wasn't the most effective argument, but she couldn't think of any other right offhand. She knew whereof she spoke though. If only kids could be inoculated with experience along with their vaccine shots.

"I don' need nobody—" Gene's eyes widened as he looked past her shoulder.

The back of her neck prickled. The screeching peacock should have warned her. Dropping Gene's collar, Cleo swung around, and her insides did a little kick dance she hadn't experienced in a long time.

Her nuisance of a tenant emerged from the wax myrtle bearing a cardboard box and a battered tube. Disregarding the cardboard, she gazed in wonder at the sweat-dripping, scratched, and furious man smashing his way through the shrubs. Dirt, leaves, and perspiration coated his tanned face.

If he'd ever buttoned his shirt, he'd lost the buttons, because it hung open now to reveal a vastly appealing bronzed, sculpted chest. If she didn't drag her gaze away, she'd be drooling any minute. Who'd have thought the comic hero would look like that?

"Is this the brat responsible for these?" He shoved the box in Cleo's direction.

She gazed dispassionately at one of Blackie's relatives and snatched Gene's collar again before he could flee. "I never tried to figure if snakes laid eggs or not," she answered thoughtfully, "but I'm fairly certain kids don't lay snakes."

Frozen in fear, Gene didn't laugh at her little joke, but she thought the comic hero quirked his lip upward for a fraction of a second. So, it wasn't a good joke. She hadn't much practice.

"Your snake?" he asked, shoving the box under Gene's nose.

"A man admits it when he's done wrong," Cleo said quietly. "Only kids lie and pretend they can get away with it."

Gene's shoulders sagged, and Cleo released his collar, putting her arm around him instead. He'd angered his hero, and probably lost any chance at an autograph to impress the bullies at school. She understood. But she'd had to learn the hard way to accept responsibility for her actions. She'd teach Gene the right way.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I didn't mean to hurt nothing."

"I could have killed the snake," Jared admonished. "And what happened to the damned peacock?"

"He got riled and lost some feathers, but he ain't hurt," Gene said defensively. "He wasn't supposed to be roosting that time of day, no how."

Jared quirked a questioning eyebrow at Cleo. "He yours?"

She should punch him for that, just for the age factor, but she supposed lots of people still had kids at sixteen or seventeen. She'd at least had the smarts to avoid that pitfall. She dug her fingers into Gene's knotty brown hair and tugged. Maybe she ought to claim him. It would save a lot of grief.

Gene settled the matter before she could. "Nah, she's a mean old witch who don't like strangers bothering her. I take care of her zoo."

"Shouldn't he be in school?" Jared asked in suspicion.

Cleo caught Gene's hair tighter before he could make a break for it. "We were in the process of discussing that." She didn't hold out a lot of hope that a snooty Yankee would help with a kid who'd ruined his car, but she wasn't shy about asking. "You want to explain to him the value of a good education?"

Jared narrowed his eyes as his gaze swept over the boy's dirty T-shirt, baggy pants, and ripped athletic shoes. "I don't remember talk being relevant at his age. Nikes mattered." He scrutinized the boy a little closer. "Beating up bullies mattered, so size was a factor. He could always go back to school after he grows into his shoulders."

"Fat help you are." She shoved Gene in the direction of her truck. "C'mon. I'll take you in."

Gene's hangdog look tugged at her heart, but she didn't have experience in these things. She just knew the kid needed an education, and he couldn't get it playing truant.

"If they're a pair, there's another one floating around out there." Jared nodded his head in the direction of the woods.

Cleo bit back a curse and glared at Gene. "Kismet? You have your sister skipping now?"

"I don't tell her what to do," Gene protested. "We got up late, is all. Don't make a federal case of it, all right?"

"Do you have a gym coach?" Jared asked unexpectedly.

"Yeah, they got one. What of it?"

"What teams are you on?"

Gene's expression puckered into discontent. "I'm too short for any teams."

"For the wrestling team?"

"Ain't got no wrestling team." Scorn laced with bitterness in a combination only a thirteen-year old could produce.

Cleo didn't know where Jared was going with this. The schools here didn't have a lot of money, and sports of any sort cost money. She knew Gene's mother couldn't afford athletic shoes, much less fees.

"I was on a wrestling team." Jared said. "Kids your age need a physical outlet. Besides, a good coach could beat some sense into you."

Jared turned purposeful brown eyes in Cleo's direction, eyes that warmed parts of her she hadn't realized had gone cold. "Can you round up the other one while I get the Jeep? I want to talk to the principal, and I'd rather not squeeze all of us into your truck."

Somehow, she'd lost track of the scene. She glanced at his sweat-soaked, open shirt and cursing her unimaginative hormones, raised a skeptical eyebrow. "If you're planning on going in there and arguing with the establishment like that, I'll hide in the woods with Kismet."

He shrugged. "I'll clean up. C'mon kid. I've got a pair of Nikes that will probably fit you. If I'm gonna knock your block off, you ought to be properly equipped for the coffin." He reached for Gene, remembered the box in his hand, and handed it to Cleo, along with the tube. "Merry Christmas."

Cleo gaped in astonishment as the two of them ambled off, Gene chattering excitedly as if they were long-lost friends. She was losing her freaking mind. How had
The
Jared McCloud turned from fury to pal over a wrestling coach? If she was the type who cared, she'd surmise he'd been in trouble with his teachers once too often and knew the solution from experience. That was
his
problem.
She
wasn't getting involved.

She set the snake box on a stump for later removal to the zoo and examined the cardboard tube with curiosity. With her luck, it would contain another snake.

Gently, she eased out the paper rolled inside, unfurled it, and studied the hastily penned cartoon. The man could say a lot with few strokes of his pen. No wonder he was famous. She wished her drafting work could be as accomplished.

He'd drawn two skeleton figures. The male one was politely bowing, hat in hand, cigar clamped between his teeth. The female one—although how he'd succeeded in denoting sex in a skeleton she couldn't ascertain—wielded a knife in one hand and a snake in the other. She couldn't tell whether the knife was meant for the man or the snake, but she assumed this was his idea of their introduction. Very apt, if she said so herself, even if there were days she felt less female than this curvy skeleton.

She didn't want to feel gratitude toward the man invading her privacy and complicating her relationship with the kids. She resented the intrusion of dozens of work trucks roaring up and down her road all day, along with the constant pound of hammers and buzz of saws. She didn't want to look out her window and see Jared McCloud standing there with a snake in hand. Or a cartoon. Or whatever. She wanted to be left alone to put her life together again, to find some sense of security in her surroundings.