Free Channeling Cleopatra by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

either, chum. And
what happened to the surfer boy hair?"
    He tried to run his hand across the bald top
of his head and rise at the same time. This resulted in a lurch of
the table and some of the choice expressions they'd learned, or at
least perfected, aboard the same ship. She hated to admit it, but
there wasn't much but the baldness she could use to retaliate. He
wasn't thick through the middle at all. Still lean and lanky with
the bad boy smile, though sometimes he did seem to have other
expressions as well when he talked to Gabriella or Dad about the
damn dam. Men! Why did only the ones who wanted to spend money and
the rest of their lives with you age badly?
    Duke poked his head down under the table,
too, grinning as if his face would split. "You two already know
each other, I guess. Shoot, I could have spared the
introductions."
    "Daddy, remember me writing to you about
Sneaky Pete?"
    Welsh snorted. "Shall I explain what I
called you to your dad?"
    "As if you'd have to!" Leda snapped
back.
    Her father cleared his throat, no doubt
sensing that the responsibility for this, one of her adult
relationship problems, was about to land in his parental lap even
without the benefit of a daughterly visit to a shrink.
    "Children, children," the old man said,
downright paternally. "Can't you give it a rest? We all have to
work together, after all."
    Too, too true, which unaccountably made
Leda's blood really boil. She turned on him. "Yeah. Daddy, that's
what you always say to your former wife when your new one starts
consulting the lawyers about lowering the child support payments. I
might have known you'd make friends with this turkey! I think I was
only attracted to him because I was young and dumb enough to want a
guy just like the guy that married dear old Mom. I forgot that dear
old Mom was three wives back before I got old enough to date
anybody!"
    "Bitter!" Welsh said. "I knew she'd get
bitter one of these days. She was too sweet to be believed back in
Tasmania."
    "I was sweet then, you asshole!" she
said. "But you cured me of it really fast."
    Gabriella returned with a tray of glasses
and a pitcher. "Is something wrong?" she asked.
    Both men suddenly looked as innocent as if
they had been discussing their favorite Father's Day cards, and
after awhile, the talk turned to the lab. Much to Leda's surprise,
Peter Welsh readily agreed to have his crew assist Duke in erecting
her beluga laboratory.
    "That is very good of you, Dr. Welsh,"
Gabriella said. "I could probably arrange for my cousins and some
of their friends to help, but—"
    "No, no," Pete said with a sharp glance at
Leda. "It isn't related directly to the dam, but Nucore has footed
our bill, however indirectly. It's the least we can do. Besides,
anything to get Punk—Dr. Hubbard here, to earning her keep in her
windowless beluga five miles across the harbor from my dam."
    This was all said with a charming smile, but
as soon as the men had departed, Gabriella poured Leda another cup
of tea and said. "Oh my, it is a truly small world, yes?"
    "You said it," Leda groaned, sliding down in
her chair. "Man, all this stuff with Nucore and past lives . . . I
sure didn't want to catch up with my own. And as far as good ol’
Pete goes, I thought I had switched that channel off for good."
    Gabriella smiled appreciatively in the
direction of the doorway where the men had taken their leave. "I
can see how that one could have been trouble. I honestly hadn't
noticed that he was so attractive before, though, I must say. I
only asked your father to invite him so we could talk him into
helping with your beluga. He's always seemed a bit of a bore
before."
    This remark cheered Leda up enough that she
was able to sleep soundly beneath her mosquito netting despite the
heat. She knew she and Gabriella were going to be really good
buddies.
     
    * * *
     
    Leda left the construction
of the beluga in the capable hands of Duke and his friend and their assorted cronies
and most unprofessionally