Cynthia Thomason - An Unlikely Father

He started to dial, but paused and said, “Maybe you ought to get your insurance information. And I suppose we have to report this to the police.”

Oh, great. Just what she needed. It’d probably be Billy Muldoone who’d swoop down upon the scene with his siren blaring and his features cemented into a condescending sneer. He’d write her up faster than the women of Heron Point turned him down for dances at the Lionheart Pub. In the pit of her stomach, Helen sensed a tingling of panic—the second time today. She didn’t like the feeling, though she figured she’d experience it again while she waited for the pregnancy-test results. But right now she needed to calm down so she could plan a course of action for this current disaster.

“Ah, sure,” she said. “I’ll get my insurance card from the truck.” She walked to the Suburban and lifted the hood to make sure none of its parts had been crippled. Thank goodness the steam had cleared and the engine hiccuped with its usual congestive rattle, telling her its internal workings were A-okay.

“Any damage to your vehicle?” the new guy called to her.

She looked over at him. “A busted headlight.” Then she flashed him a little smile, hoping to distract him from following accident protocol to the letter. “Guess you’d better get your insurance information, too. Last time I replaced a headlight in this beast it cost me twenty-five bucks.”

He held up a card between his thumb and index finger. Naturally, he already had his card ready even though he’d probably determined he was the injured party.

Helen scribbled a phone number on a scrap of paper and walked back to him. Ignoring a persistent niggling of guilt, she said, “I forgot my wallet. Here’s my number. How can I reach you?”

He pulled a business card from his shirt pocket and held it out to her. “I’m staying at the Heron Point Hotel temporarily,” he said. “You can leave a message if I’m not in.”

She stepped closer to him and reached for the card. When she took it, he wrinkled his nose and jerked his hand back. “What’s that smell?”

Well, great. Barely an hour ago she’d been cleaning the bait well on the Finn Catcher, getting the boat ready for its next charter trip on Friday morning. She hadn’t bothered to change clothes before running into town for a quick visit to the doctor, and now she noticed a few glistening fish scales still stuck to her cargo shorts. Fishy smells didn’t bother her. She’d grown up with them, but that obviously wasn’t the case with this pressed and polished out-of-towner.

She slipped the business card into her waistband. “It’s fish.”

“Fish?” He said the word as if he needed a zoology textbook to figure out what she was talking about.

“This is an island,” she said. “We are surrounded by the little creatures.”

He stared at his hand but at least had the decency to chuckle a little in a self-deprecating way. “Of course.” Then he abruptly changed the subject to one she definitely wasn’t interested in. “I guess I’ll call the police now.”

She pointed a finger at him. “You do that. I’ll wait in my truck.”

She walked away from him, got behind the wheel of the Suburban and backed out of the palm thatch. Then, without so much as a backward glance, she peeled down the road. It was the coward’s way out. Helen knew that just as she knew she wasn’t getting away with anything. Maybe he’d call that number she gave him and have a nice little chat with the old guy who repaired fishing rods in town, but the decoy wasn’t going to get her out of trouble. Everyone in town, and especially the police, knew who drove a rusty old Suburban.

So, it was only a matter of time until she had to face up to what had happened here. Helen frowned at the package on the passenger seat. But first she had to face something a whole lot more important.

APPARENTLY FINISHED WITH his inspection of the damages, the muscle-bound cop leaned against the Town Car and rested his elbow near the retractable sunroof. “So, what did the driver of the other car look like, Mr. Anderson?”

Ethan stared at the police officer who had arrived a few minutes ago heralded by earsplitting sirens and flashing lights. Ethan had considered the entrance a somewhat over-the-top reaction to what he’d called a “minor traffic accident” when he’d phoned in the report. Pad in hand, and his eyes narrowed in that officious scowl police officers seemed to perfect, the cop had sauntered all around Ethan’s car, and its missing door fifty yards away.

“What did she look like?” Ethan repeated.

Officer Muldoone removed his arm from the top of the car and prepared to write. “It was a female, then?”

“Right, yes,” Ethan answered. He held his hand just under his chin. “She was about this tall.”

“About five feet, five inches?”

“Give or take. She was skinny. No, thin. Not too skinny.” Now that Ethan thought about the daredevil driver, he decided she was actually quite pleasantly proportioned. She was slim all over, though her breasts were certainly full enough to satisfy any man’s standards. And ignoring this woman’s better features under that ribbed tank top had been impossible.

“Anything else you remember?” the officer asked. “Hair? Eyes?”

Funny. Ethan remembered both quite well. “She had light blond hair.” He wiggled his fingers around his own head. “Strands of it stuck out every which way, some short over her 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.