Читать книгу The Life Of Reilly - Sue Civil-Brown - Страница 9

LYNN BEGAN TO FEEL she was making genuine inroads into her new life and new job. She had learned each student’s name and was settling into something of a comfortable and even normal routine, if such could be said to exist on Treasure Island.

Then, of course, Delphine returned. The timing was just too perfect. In another world, she might have thought it an accident. But the way things were going lately….

Coming down the short hallway in the white panties and men’s T-shirt she slept in, she entered the kitchen with no thought except coffee. She hadn’t even waited to put her contacts in, and she’d lost her glasses in the move, a mistake because without them she needed to make the coffee by touch, since the world was utterly out-of-focus.

Not that she had a chance to practice, because just as she stepped toward the sink with the coffee carafe in her hand, the under-sink cupboard doors blew open and water spewed forth with all the ferocity of a fire hose.

Lynn shrieked. “Delphine!”

But Delphine apparently had decided to remain invisible this morning, even though it was totally obvious to Lynn that nothing short of diabolical intervention could have sprung that leak exactly at that instant.

Slipping on the suddenly flooded floor in her bare feet, trying not to drop the glass carafe, she continued her way to the sink and counter. But despite her best efforts she fell.

“Delphine!” she cried again as she hit the floor on one side, cradling the carafe to her breast as if it were a baby. “I’m going to kill you, do you hear me? You’ll be deader than dead!”

Rising to her knees, she began crawling toward the counter, getting sprayed now directly in her face. She wondered if it was possible to hit a deceased aunt with a pipe wrench. If she could even find one.

JACK MARKS HEARD the shriek as he was watering the herb garden he tended on the side of his house. He wasn’t especially domestic, but he loved to cook, and he loved truly flavorful food, which here on Treasure Island meant growing your own herbs or impoverishing yourself to have them flown in.

Fresh was better anyway, he thought, humming as he watered. From time to time he turned the hose to hit Buster, who had for the time being taken up permanent residence in the wallow in front of Jack’s house. The neighbors were even beginning to remark on it. Jack, of course, knew the secret: water. He was the only one who cooled Buster off.

“Delphine!”

Who was Delphine? And why did Lynn sound so distressed? Jack felt the urge to go help, the white knight in him coming to the fore, then reminded himself to mind his own business. He sprayed Buster again, then bent over to shut off the water.

Another shriek and a thud. Jack straightened and looked toward Lynn’s house. The screen door to her kitchen might as well have been made of wood for all he could see.

“I’ll kill you, do you hear!” she shouted. “You’ll be deader than dead!”

O-o-o-kay, he thought. A life hung in the balance. Time not to mind his own business. He dropped the hose onto the ground, wiped his wet hands on his shorts and strode toward Lynn’s door.

As he came closer, he heard a rushing sound and Lynn’s voice erupting in language blue enough to dye the entire Caribbean. He winced, then felt an unwilling grin tug at his mouth. He didn’t know many people who could swear like that.

He reached the door and cupped his hands around his eyes so he could see past the screen into the dim kitchen. “Lynn?”

“Go away!”

Was she talking to him? Or to the Delphine she’d been shouting at earlier? Either way, she sounded stressed to the point of breaking, so he opened the door and stepped into the kitchen.

The flood wasn’t the first thing that caught his attention. Oh, no. He might be a preacher, but in that instant he was all man. With water spraying everywhere, Lynn was scrambling to get under her sink, tossing bottles and cans in every direction. She was also an extremely tempting sight in a white T-shirt that was nearly transparent from the water, clinging to her every curve like a caress. And that cute little rump, cased in white bikini panties, up in the air….

“Ooof!” Shock and pain hit him at exactly the same moment as a can of white enamel spray paint, flung across the room, hit him in the family jewels. For an instant, fiery pinwheels blinded his vision. He doubled over and lost his balance, falling face-first into the flood.

Shock retrieved him from pain long enough to turn him once again into a man of the cloth, one with a white horse and a lance. Another can flew, but he dodged it and crawled forward through the water.

“Damn it!” she said, twisting her face to one side as she tried to feel for 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. She draped the damp towel over the bar and reached for the thick terry robe the weather was seldom cool enough to wear. Right now, however, she felt unpleasantly chilled.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Delphine, but I have a kitchen to mop.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. There’s a nice young man doing it for you.”

Lynn gaped. “I told him to leave!”

“He tried to.”

Lynn’s hands settled on her hips and she frowned at the apparition sitting on the edge of her tub. “What have you done now?”

Delphine assumed a look of utter innocence. “I,” she said firmly, “haven’t done a thing. But some of the local fauna seems to have…reached a decision.”

“And you had nothing to do with that.”

“Not a thing. I’m quite sure of that.”

Lynn wasn’t so sure about that, but then she remembered that, while Delphine had mastered the art of misleading through misdirection or omission when necessary, she had never out-and-out lied about anything.

Which made this even more perplexing.

“Do go out and help the lad,” Delphine said. “He shouldn’t have to clean the mess all by himself.”

“I was going to clean it by myself. I didn’t ask for help.”

“But he was feeling so bad about not being able to give it!”

“I’m capable of taking care of myself!”

Now Delphine frowned. “That may be so. But take it as a little whisper from heaven—allowing others to help you from time to time is merely polite.”

Then, in an eye blink, Delphine vanished, leaving Lynn alone in her bathroom. Which, when she thought about it, was one place she ought to be able to be alone.

Grabbing her robe off the hook, she slipped it on and belted it tightly. Then she went out to find out what kind of chaos was now occurring in her kitchen.

She stopped at the doorway as she saw Jack Marks mopping steadily away at her floor. He seemed to sense her, for he looked up, then paused.

“Don’t blame me,” he said. “I know you threw me out. But Buster wouldn’t let me leave.”

Being reminded that she’d thrown him out embarrassed her, but curiosity about what he said grabbed her even more. “Buster?”

“Take a look out your door.”

Jack had already managed to clear a large swath of floor enough that she could cross it without sloshing. “I doubt,” she said by way of apology, “that this floor has ever been this clean.”

He actually grinned. “I guess there’s a silver lining in every flood.”

She couldn’t help smiling back. Then she looked out her door and saw Buster sitting at the very edge of her stoop, grinning with all his alligator teeth. “He stopped you?”

“Quite forcibly.”

Her heart skipped. “Do you think he’s suddenly gotten dangerous?”

Jack came to stand beside her. “Somehow I doubt it. But frankly, I wasn’t going to try and test him.”

“I wouldn’t either. My gosh, look at all those teeth!”

“The better to eat you,” he replied wryly.

It should have been impossible, but Buster managed to look wounded around the edges of his gaping maw.

“Awww,” Jack said sarcastically. “You were the one who kept threatening me when I tried to leave, and now you want me to believe you’re innocent?”

Lynn decided that seeing Delphine might not be as totally weird as she had initially thought. After all, she had talked to an alligator, and now Jack was too, and darned if the gator didn’t look as if he understood.

She spoke. “This could get us committed anywhere else in the world.”

He looked at her. “That’s what I love about this place. So, since I can’t leave, can I finish the floor?”

She decided not to mention the front door as her cheeks reddened. “I’m sorry about the way I acted before. I was rude when you were trying to help.”

“You were upset. But someday you have to tell me about Delphine.”

Lynn’s flush deepened. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

He nodded, wrung out the mop into the sink and went back to work. Lynn couldn’t figure out anything else to do except grab handfuls of old towels to wipe up the dampness and suck water out of crevices.

“Nothing on this island ever really gets dry,” Jack remarked as he swept the mop around. “The heat will evaporate the excess, but the humidity will remain.”

“That’s one of the first things I noticed here, the humidity. It’s odd though because even though it’s there, it’s not real troublesome.”

“Unless it turns really hot. Most of the time, though, it just seems to soften the air.”

“Well, I haven’t needed any moisturizer since coming here.”

He flashed a smile. “One of our many money-saving benefits.”

“Does the island have a plumber?”

“We sure do. I already put in a call to him.”

“Any idea when he’ll get here?”

Jack leaned on the mop handle and grinned. “Well…he said as soon as he could.”

“And that means?”

Jack shrugged. “I guess it depends on whatever else he needs to do.”

“Oh, great.”

“Relax. All things come in their own time on this island.”

Harv Cullinan’s time proved to be about a half-hour. “Caught me just before I left for a day of fishing,” he told Jack as he stepped into Lynn’s kitchen. “There I was, dreaming of a big ’un. All set to go, me tackle box beside me, waiting for Geordie to pick me up.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.

“Me too,” Lynn said a trifle sarcastically. “Next time I’ll make the pipe wait.”

Harv looked at her. A short, bulky man with a balding head, he might have been a miniature Hulk. “Now, now, teacher, nice of you to worry about me, but there’s always another day to fish.”

Lynn nearly gaped at his response. She’d been churlish and he’d taken it as a kindness. There must be something in the air here. Worse, his response made her aware of how peevish and unpleasant she was being. “Sorry. I’m sorry you missed your fishing.”

“Like I said, always another day.”

Slowly, as if his every joint ached with monstrous pain, he lowered his bulk to look into the open cabinet beneath the sink.

“My, my,” he said, his voice sounding hollow as he put his head inside the cabinet. “That’s a beaut.”

“We thought so,” Jack agreed.

Slowly Harv eased back and sat on his heels. “It’s not gonna be easy.”

“Why not?” Lynn asked.

“Because pipes don’t split like this. Not copper ones, unless somebody’s done something to them.” He eyed her suspiciously from beneath bushy brows.

Lynn felt as if she stood accused before a jury. “I swear I didn’t do anything to it.”

“Someone did,” he said darkly.

Lynn had a pretty good idea who, but she hadn’t gone far enough over the edge to say so out loud. “Can you fix it?”

“Oh, aye. I’ll need me helper and some other tools. Back shortly.”

She hoped shortly was shortly.

“He’ll take good care of you,” Jack said. “I’ve gotta run. I’m meeting a couple planning a wedding. I’ll check back later.”

Buster let him pass this time and slowly returned to the wallow where he settled in with contentment.

As she changed into more suitable clothes, Lynn wondered if she’d come to this island to teach for real, or if she was in some mental hospital totally lost in delusion.

What happened next would only increase her questions.