An Unlikely Father. Cynthia Thomason

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СКАЧАТЬ forehead, some longer, reaching her shoulders.” He felt his skin flush when he realized he must sound like a Manhattan hairdresser. “That’s not important,” he said. “She’s a blonde.”

      Muldoone wrote.

      “And she had blue eyes,” Ethan added. “I remember that distinctly.”

      “Sounds like Helen Sweeney,” the officer said. “Was she driving a noisy old Suburban with rust spots?”

      Ethan nodded, experiencing a totally unexpected attack of guilt. The ID had been too easy for the cop. But why should Ethan feel guilty? The car rental agency had specifically informed him that he’d need a police report when they sent a tow for the Lincoln. Heck, he was only doing what he had to do. Besides, the kooky lady could be here defending herself if she hadn’t shot down the road, leaving him in her dust.

      “And it was a hit-and-run, you say?” Muldoone asked. “That would be Helen’s MO. She ran down a mailbox last month, and we didn’t know who to blame until a new box showed up at the victim’s house two weeks later with a note of apology. Signed H. S.”

      Helen’s MO? The cop was behaving as if this woman had a rap sheet. Ethan scrubbed his hand down his face. “To be completely honest, officer, it wasn’t truly a hit-and-run. Helen, or whoever did this…”

      The cop let loose with a sputter of laughter. “Oh, it was Helen.”

      “Anyway, Helen did hit my car, but she didn’t immediately run. She stayed quite a while, actually. She made certain I wasn’t hurt.” When he remembered Helen’s initial reaction upon finding him flat on his back in the car, Ethan tried to make her seem more sympathetic to the officer. “In fact, she offered to call an ambulance.”

      “Big of her.” Muldoone chose not to write that information down.

      “What are you going to do?” Ethan asked.

      “I’m going out to the Sweeney place when I leave here. Helen just lives a mile up this road. I’ll issue her a ticket for reckless driving, and she’ll have to face a county judge. He may take her license, this time.”

      Wonderful. Here he was, his first day in a new town. He was here to get the residents’ cooperation and to get them to accept that Anderson Enterprises was coming in and would most definitely make an impression. And what had happened? Before he’d been here an hour he’d had a literal run-in with a local and stood to make an enemy of her if she lost her license. Not a very auspicious beginning.

      “To be perfectly honest, Officer,” he said, “maybe I shouldn’t have been parked where I was. The car is half on, half off the road.”

      Muldoone smiled and flipped the cover over his notebook. “Don’t let her get to you, Mr. Anderson,” he said. “You can be sure Helen will give the judge that little detail. If I were you, I’d stick to your story. If not, you could end up losing your license. Helen has a way of turning the tables.”

      The officer headed toward his patrol car. Before he got in, he turned back to Ethan and said, “What are you going to do now, Mr. Anderson? You want me to call headquarters? I’ve got the only patrol car, but I can have my partner come out on the golf cart, pick you up and take you back into town.”

      Oh, right. Ethan remembered the head of security for Anderson Enterprises telling him that Heron Point cops rode around on golf carts. As much as he wanted to see that, and as much as he wanted to get out of the heat, Ethan declined the offer. “I’ve got to wait for the tow,” he said. “I could be here as long as two hours. You’re kind of remote on this island.”

      “Suit yourself. I’ll probably see you when I’m coming back from the Sweeney place.”

      Officer Muldoone got in his car and drove away. Ethan swatted at an aggressive dragonfly, got in the Town Car and turned on the air-conditioning. Most of the cool breeze went out the gaping hole where the door had been, but Ethan didn’t care. He didn’t suppose Diamond Rental was going to say much about the car returning without a full tank of gas.

      WHEN SHE HEARD the knock on her door, Helen looked out the front window and swore. “Oh, hell.”

      Her father silenced the Sweeney’s fifteen-year-old yellow Lab and wheeled around in his chair. “Who is it, Helen?”

      “It’s Muldoone,” she said.

      “What in the world does he want?”

      “I clipped somebody on Gulfview Road today,” she said. Seeing the worried look on her father’s face, she added, “It was no big thing, Pop. The other guy’s fine. Our truck just got a scratch.”

      “And you didn’t tell me this?” Finn asked.

      The pounding on the door increased, and Helen turned the knob. “I knew there’d be time enough.” She opened the door. “Hi, Billy. Nice day, isn’t it?”

      “Not for you, Helen.” He handed her a ticket. “Reckless driving. Again. You’ll have to make a court appearance on this one. About six weeks from now.”

      She took the ticket. “I’m probably busy that day, but I’ll try to squeeze it in. By the way, how’s that guy, the one who got in my way?”

      Muldoone sent her a strange look, one that hinted he was amused by her question. “You don’t know who you hit, do you?”

      “No.” She hadn’t bothered to look at the business card, which right now sat on the bathroom counter. “Who is he?”

      “Ethan Anderson,” Billy said smugly. “Does the name ring a bell?”

      It did. Almost as if the bell were clanging against the side of her head with the intention of deafening her. “The guy from Anderson Enterprises.”

      “Oh, yeah. And you sure taught him a lesson about Heron Point hospitality. If he doesn’t hightail it back to New York on the next plane, he’ll at least avoid you from now on.”

      Could this day get any worse? Now she’d hit the one man people in Heron Point were looking to as a financial savior.

      Sticking his head inside the front door, Billy said, “How’s it going, Finn?”

      “It’d be better, Billy, if you hadn’t given us that ticket—and that news.”

      Helen closed the door a couple of inches. She had to get rid of Billy. She had to go down to the edge of the water and scream as loud as she could where no one would hear her. “Okay, then, boys,” she said. “Enough chitchat.”

      Billy stubbornly leaned his two-hundred-pound frame against the jamb, preventing her from shutting him out. “Hey, Helen, you still going out with that folksinger?”

      “Sure am. We’re as cozy as a pair of fleas on a dog’s ear.”

      He moved a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “You let me know when you break up. You still owe me a date.”

      Helen couldn’t remember the debt, but even if it were true, there was no way Billy Muldoone was going to collect. “Right. You’ll be the first person I tell.” She shut the door and collapsed against it.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ