the water cocks.
“Here, let me,” he said, sliding up beside her. It did not help to realize that cold wet clothes between two warm bodies was surprisingly sensual. He gritted his teeth and reached in for the cocks. Moments later he had shut them.
Lying side by side on the floor, looking into the cabinet, neither of them moved or spoke.
Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Who is Delphine?”
He might as well have touched her with an electric prod. She stiffened, jerked away and glared at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Trying to be helpful. I heard you scream.”
“You think I can’t turn off the water by myself?”
Lying there, soaking wet, with his privates throbbing in pain, he wondered if he had lost his mind. Surely his help shouldn’t have elicited that kind of response.
“Of course I think you can turn off the water by yourself. I was just trying to be helpful.”
“You and Delphine both!” She pushed herself farther away. “I can live without this kind of help.”
“Who’s Delphine?” he asked. “I heard you yelling at her.”
“My aunt!” She sat up, looking thoroughly and utterly disgusted. Sitting up, however, gave him a wonderful view of her bobbing breasts. He closed his eyes.
“Your aunt is visiting you?”
“No.”
His eyes popped open and he sat up. “Just passing through?”
She scowled at him. “Quit giving me the third degree.”
“Well, you were threatening to kill her.”
Her jaw dropped, then a moment later snapped shut. “She’s not here.”
What was going on? There was suddenly something furtive in her eyes, as if she were hiding something. All of a sudden Jack had a truly uneasy feeling about this woman. Was she crazy? Was she hiding this Delphine somewhere in the house and planning to kill her?
The last idea he immediately batted away like a gnat as being highly unlikely. Crazy seemed more in the ballpark, especially on this island. Only slightly crazed people lived here and moved here. Himself, for example. He could have served in some nice wealthy church, driving a nice expensive car, eating at restaurants and all those other glorious things you got to do if you landed among well-to-do congregants. Instead he’d chosen to come here and live like a beach bum where at last he could be himself.
Most everyone here was a little bent. Why not the schoolteacher? On the other hand, she was charged with looking after the children….
Deciding he needed to keep an eye on her, he pushed himself to his feet. “Let me help you clean this up. I’m good at swabbing decks. Did it for four years in the navy before divinity school.”
“No. No!” Looking horrified, she jumped to her feet. “I’ll do it. You’ve got better things to do.”
He ignored her and bent down to look at the copper tubing. “I’ve never seen a pipe split that way. Look at that tear. It’s like someone slashed it.”
She started to bend to take a look, but at that instant appeared to realize her state. Looking down at herself, she turned bright red. “Get out of here,” she said hoarsely. “Now!” Then she turned and fled, slipping a bit on the wet floor.
Jack hesitated, unsure whether to laugh, swab the deck or just flee before he got sucked any further into this woman’s life. Then he realized he really had no choice; he’d been told to leave.
Turning, he marched out of her kitchen, ignoring the way water slopped over his feet and sandals. The woman was an oddball, he thought. She talked to herself, threatened to kill a woman who wasn’t even there just because she was frustrated with a burst pipe and then refused help with the cleanup.
That latter, he thought, was downright unneighborly. The least you could do is accept freely offered help when you had a bit of a catastrophe. Even if you were a woman, half-naked and exposed in a now-transparent T-shirt and panties. Heck, especially then!
He shook away the thought as stepped out the door and found himself face-to-face with Buster.
“Why aren’t you in your wallow?” Jack asked.
The alligator opened his mouth just enough to show all those huge, gleaming teeth and moved toward Jack.
Instinctively, Jack backed up. “I’m not your dinner.”
Buster groaned and shook his head, still showing his teeth.
“This is ridiculous,” Jack said. “You’ve never eaten anyone on this island.”
Buster appeared unimpressed, as if to say, there’s always a first time.
Jack moved to step around him, but Buster, moving with that always amazing reptilian speed, blocked the way.
“What is going on here?” Jack demanded. He stepped the other way and again was blocked.
“You devil,” he said to the great beast with the huge gleaming teeth. “You don’t want me to leave.”
“Mmmmhmmmmmm,” came the response.
Well darn, Jack thought. Here he was, stuck on a cement stoop, caught between the house from which he’d just been evicted and an alligator that appeared to have every intent of biting him if he moved in the wrong direction.
The choice between the slightly crazy virago inside and the slightly crazy alligator outside was hardly a choice. How long was he going to have to stand here?
For a moment he thought of trying to dart past Buster—after all, the alligator had never harmed a soul in recent memory—but he was intelligent enough to realize that if he moved fast, he might well evoke a predatorial instinct that not even Buster could control.
So what now, genius? he asked himself.
Buster settled the issue by opening his mouth to a gaping maw and darting toward him again.
Jack jumped back through the screen door and let it slam shut between them. “Now what?” he asked the empty kitchen as Buster grinned at him.
GRIPING BENEATH HER breath, both horrified and embarrassed beyond words, Lynn threw her soggy clothes into the bathtub and toweled herself dry.
“You’re gonna get it, Delphine,” she muttered. “I don’t know how, but you’re gonna get it. I’ve got enough problems without you bursting my pipes.”
“Whatever makes you think I did that?” All of a sudden, Delphine was sitting on the edge of the tub.
“Because I know you,” Lynn said. “There is nothing beneath you when you want something.”
Delphine arched a brow. “Really?”
“Really,” Lynn answered, even though Delphine’s response had been more one of disapproval than question.
“Well, dear,” her aunt said, “I’m a woman on a mission from above. Sorry. I can’t leave. But I really don’t understand what makes you think I’d flood your kitchen. Did I ever treat you so abysmally in life?” Delphine patted her hair, which somewhere between her last appearance and this had gone from gray to bright red. Cherry red.
Lynn felt a pang of conscience. “No.”
“See? What makes you think I’d do it now that I’m an angel?”
Lynn frankly gaped at her, clutching the towel, forgetting about the terry robe on the back of the door that she’d been about to reach for. “An angel? You?”
Delphine sniffed. “I succeeded at life.”
“In your own extraordinary way,” Lynn agreed sarcastically.