Imperfect Rebel by Patricia Rice Page B

give in, but easily distracted, she glanced up at the shriek of a peacock and the sound of someone trampling the path on the other side of the clearing.
    Cleo uttered a litany of mental curses as Jared navigated the shrubbery. Damn, the man not only had bad timing, he had to look gorgeous while he was at it. With his white linen shirt half unbuttoned to reveal a bronzed chest and a hint of pectorals no nerdy cartoonist should have, his yuppie khaki shorts creased and exposing long, strong legs that would have done a runner proud, he looked the epitome of wealthy manhood. Linda would either run, screaming, in the opposite direction, or suck up big-time.
    Cleo intervened before either could happen. "Linda, this is Jared McCloud. He's living down at the beach for a few months. Jared, the children's mother, Linda Watkins. Kids, why don't you take the cups and pitcher back to the house, okay?" She'd be a real wheeler-dealer one of these days if she managed to keep all these balls rolling in the right direction without colliding.
    "I want you brats home by supper, you hear!" Linda shouted after them as they hastened to obey Cleo. "I don't want you living over here no more."
    "You'll be staying home, then?" Cleo had to ask once the children were out of hearing. She noticed Jared kept his mouth shut, for a change.
    "I'll have welfare out here nosing around if they don't stay where they belong. I don't want them cutting off my money." She eyed Jared skeptically. "What you staring at, city boy?"
    Cleo gritted her teeth and watched an ant crawl across a rock at her feet. It was so much easier not to get involved when she didn't have neighbors.
    "Your children have been quite helpful," Jared said with careful politeness. "I hope you don't mind if they visit once in a while."
    Cleo could just imagine the kinds of things Mr. America would be thinking about Linda—most of them accurate, if she was to be honest. Still, it rubbed the pain of self-knowledge deeper.
    "Just keep your hands off my kids." Swaying only slightly, Linda shoved her way back through the shrubbery in the direction of the shack she called home.
    Cleo listened to Jared's soft curses for a minute before she settled the roiling in her stomach and managed to stand. She didn't want to look at him. Some days, she didn't want to look at herself. She started off after the kids without speaking to him.
    "Are you going to let those kids go back home to her?" he called after her in a tone of incredulity.
    There it was, the challenge she confronted every day of her life. It came in different forms, perhaps, taking a different face each time, but always there. What if someone had said that about Matty and her? What if Maya had given up on her and taken Matty away, or let Social Services take him away? She'd be dead right now.
    She snapped a twig from a wax myrtle and didn't face him. "She's their mother. They need her. She needs them. I'm not God."
    She left him to his shock and disbelief and strode away. Someone from his world would never understand. She didn't expect him to.
    Jared crashed through the bushes after her and grabbed her arm with a strength she couldn't fight. "That's a damned selfish attitude."
    Fighting fury, Cleo looked him full in the eyes. "She's their mother . She's the one who rocked their cradles and changed their diapers and gave them names. Do you think there is anyone on the face of this planet who will care for them any more than she does?"
    "She's incapable of caring for them!" he shouted. "Good grief, woman, can't you see what she is?"
    Cleo jerked her arm away. "Yeah, she's lost. She's the mother of two half-black bastards, ostracized by her family and most of society, a victim of drugs and alcohol and probably abuse and possibly incest and heaven knows what else. Everyone she knows thinks she's worthless. She thinks she's worthless. Hell, for all I know, maybe she is worthless. I'm just not the one to lay that judgment on her. All right? The kids know