The Life Of Reilly. Sue Civil-Brown

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      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.”