McCloud's Woman (15 page)

Ed snickered, and even the laconic waitress cracked a
smile. As she’d guessed from Cleo’s comment, in this freebooting society
where government in any form was regarded with suspicion, any uniformed
law enforcement served as a target of humor.

Cleo gave her a nod of approval, and broke off a piece of the donut to sample. “Works for me.”

Mara finished her half of the donut and laid a crumpled
ten on the counter. It may have been a long time since she’d waited on
tables, but she’d never lost the habit of tipping well. “Guess I’d
better mosey on back, as they say in the westerns. Good meeting all of
you. Cleo, tell TJ to holler if he needs help cleaning up. I’ve got a
maintenance crew.”

Cleo waved her off. Sucking in her stomach, holding her
shoulders back, Mara navigated the sea of stares as she’d been
taught—with a swagger and a sway. She’d been momentarily off balance,
but habit restored her training.

Until she reached the sidewalk, alone and feeling as if
she straddled two worlds. She needed to leave the reality of hometown
America and return to the synthetic glitz she knew, where she had some
modicum of power and control. With that decision, she strode briskly
toward the B&B—and collided with the familiar solidity of TJ’s broad
chest as he emerged from the inn’s garden gate.

“Damn,” she muttered, digging her fingers into his black
polo shirt and steadying her accelerated pulse. He hadn’t been wearing
that muscle-conforming shirt this morning or she’d never have let him
out of the room. Tim’s big hands clasping her waist to steady her didn’t
help. She’d had some weird idea that last night would have flushed this
need for him out of her system.

“Going somewhere?” he asked in a tone laced with irony.

The tone should have warned her, but Mara glanced up
anyway. It would be much simpler if she could rip out her silly
sentimental core and act the part of heartless mogul, but this was TJ.
He’d held a piece of her heart for so long, she couldn’t disguise it.
“Cleo was worried. What happened?” she demanded. Realizing she was still
clinging to his shirt, she pushed away and attempted to casually brush a
fallen curl from her face.

He scowled and released her. “I’ll call Cleo. I hope
you’re satisfied. You’ve got the kids around here believing I’m the only
thing standing between them and Disneyland.”

“Disneyland?” She honestly didn’t know what he was talking
about. Recognizing his impatient wave of dismissal for what it was, she
smacked his hand—hard. “Don’t patronize me, Timothy John! I’m all grown
up now, and I can hear the truth. What the hell are you talking about?”

Mara propped her hands on her hips, and the action tugged the sleeveless knit tight across her breasts.

TJ all but bit his tongue off. Knowing how those high,
firm curves molded perfectly to his palms made his groin ache. If he
thought about how she’d writhed beneath him, he’d be reduced to a
whimpering idiot. Or if pushed, to a Neanderthal who’d grab her
hairpiece and drag her back to his lair.

“You all but promised to turn this town into Cinderella’s
palace!” he shouted back, letting temper rule. “Do you have any idea
what it’s like for kids who live here in the middle of nowhere, with no
hope of seeing the world outside? To have someone come along and offer
them every fantasy come true? They’re desperate to believe it.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” she cried. “All I promised was a little landscaping. The beach is a wreck.”

He shoved his hand through his hair and tried to get a
grip. “You promised them a damned park! It only takes a small leap of
imagination to conjure Myrtle Beach in the making.”

She looked briefly bewildered, then shook her head. “They
have paradise already. All I wanted to do was help the state preserve
it. And where do you fit into the picture?”

Shit, she’d have him believing her in a minute. Before TJ
could think of a suitable retort, the rotund mayor sallied across the
street, a benign frown upon his cherubic features. “Dr. McCloud, we
don’t shout at ladies down here. Miss Simon, how do you do this lovely
morning?”

TJ rolled his eyes heavenward as the mayor drooled over
Mara, and she simpered back. He’d had just about enough for one day. The
war zones of Eastern Europe were looking inviting in comparison.

Returning his gaze to Mara’s fair cheeks, he noted the
pink forming there. “Wear a hat,” he ordered. “You’ll burn your nose if
you don’t.” He turned stiffly to the mayor, nodded farewell, and walked
away. He didn’t need this hassle.

He needed Patricia Amara Simonetti in his bed beneath
him—or on top of him or anyway he could have her. One night hadn’t
provided the closure he needed to an episode in his life he’d never
forget.

Swearing at that realization, TJ walked faster, almost
mowing down Matty before stumbling to a halt. The boy joyfully threw
himself at his knees, and TJ stooped to catch him up, watching for the
man who seldom let the boy out of his sight. He located Jared pushing
off the brick wall of his office front.

“Cleo send out a posse?” TJ asked, shifting Matty to one
arm. The kid trusted too readily, as if the whole world was a charmed
place protected by family, but TJ knew Cleo’s history and the fears
hidden behind Matty’s wide, bright eyes. He’d worried them. He wasn’t
used to people worrying over him. If they’d had any clue how many
bullets he’d dodged in his career, they wouldn’t concern themselves over
this little incident.

“Cleo has a thing about cops.” Jared verified TJ’s
thoughts. With a jerk of his thumb, he indicated the police tape. “What
happened?”

One of Cleo’s bad decisions had landed her in jail and
separated her from her son. TJ should have known she’d panic. He just
had a hard time remembering that his brother’s idyllic world could be
disturbed by something he considered annoying but not earth-shattering.
He tickled Matty’s tummy to keep the kid from thinking this was serious
adult stuff.

“Some spoiled brat needed a new playpen,” TJ answered casually. “I get a little ticked when people play with my things.”

Matty nodded solemnly. “Alexa broke my crayons and I got mad.”

Matty spoke of his baby cousin, TJ knew, and he nodded
sympathetically. “Yeah, we probably shouldn’t get mad because babies
don’t know better, but it’s hard.” He handed Matty over to Jared, who
still watched him with suspicion. “I gave the cops some suggestions,” TJ
continued, “but they’re not real interested in chasing vandals.”

Especially after he’d told them one of the vandals was
overweight and gray-haired. They’d practically hooted him out of the
office at the thought of fat old men running rampant through the streets
like delinquent teenagers.

“Need some clean up help?”

The husky feminine voice came from behind him—Cleo. Just
what he needed, more overconcerned citizens. How had he lived his life
before this?

TJ waited to answer until Cleo stood beside Jared, arms
crossed, waiting impatiently. “Thanks for the offer, but what I need
most is an assistant. Unless you know someone experienced in forensic
anthropology, there’s nothing you can do to help. They tore up my
address book, and it will take me a while to piece it together again.”

“We can handle that.” Blithely ripping the police tape
from the doorway, Cleo shoved open his office door and entered. TJ heard
her swear. He exchanged looks with Jared, and shrugging, joined her in
the destroyed front room.

“I can’t believe anyone here would do this,” Cleo exclaimed in an unusual display of anger.

TJ couldn’t either, but the only other persons coming to
mind ought to be in Washington D.C., and the lone box he’d kept out of
the storage unit had been dumped across the floor in the same disregard
as the site material.

“Someone doesn’t want you here, bro,” Jared commented idly, poking an overturned chair with his toe.

Mara.

TJ didn’t want to consider that. The Patsy he’d known all
those years ago was as adamant about truth and justice. He wouldn’t
believe her guilty of this kind of senseless rampage.

But the world she moved in now didn’t necessarily have the
same values. He’d have to take a closer look at her production crew.
Did any of them have gray hair?

“I’ve ordered sand-colored canvas, and the netting will
hold sea oat plugs. With a few fake palmettos, the background will look
just like the foreground,” Mara argued, pointing at the sketch she’d
made while balancing her cell phone on her shoulder, waiting for her set
designer to take her off hold.

This past week of rehearsal had driven everyone to the
edge of desperation. Tempers should be a real bitch after a month of
roughing it like this, but she had no intention of letting TJ halt her
film. They’d work around him until it came time to move in the heavy
equipment. Glynis had a contract specifying a limo, dressing rooms, and
catering. Mara figured she could hire a yacht and convince Glynis it was
an upgrade.

“Impossible!” her director argued. “The camera tells all. We must have trees or leave it as rocks.”

“Rocks aren’t natural out here.” Impatiently, she threw
down the sketch book and grabbed up the cell phone when a real human
finally spoke through it. “Lenny?” she shouted over the crashing of
breakers on the beach. “Where is that canvas? We’ll be filming in a few
days, and I need it here now!”

Her director stalked off, fuming. Over the phone, Lenny
made excuses. On the set, Glynis was throwing a tantrum because no one
had thought to clear the beach of real live crabs. Ignoring the
commotion on the set, two assistants and a photographer waited
impatiently in line for their turn to bend her ear. Mara wondered what
it would be like to become a hermit and live in a cave.

Shutting up Lenny with a curt order for an overnight
package, she clicked off his call and took the script change from the
first assistant. Maybe Sid had the right idea—stay in an air-conditioned
office in Hollywood and give orders over the phone. Perspiration pooled
between her breasts, and she hated the push-up harness constricting
them. August in South Carolina was a mean bugger. Maybe she could stand
in the surf and give orders.

Had she retained any of her earlier illusion that the
movie industry was glamorous, today would have scrubbed the glitter
right off. The actors had taken to screaming their lines at each other
while the sound man tried to filter out the screech of gulls and
crashing breakers. Surf was up due to a storm farther out at sea.

She’d checked the weather station and no hurricanes
hovered on the horizon. Still, she’d have to find some way of reworking
this scene from inside the ship. Then it could be done on the set back
in L.A. Lesson learned—use beach sparingly, for action only, especially
if they couldn’t get the equipment trucks in here.

She still needed to get the boom in for night shots, and
trucks were rumbling across the state right now carrying loads of
make-believe pirate ship parts for the fight scene. If she couldn’t have
road access ...

Her cell phone rang again. Scribbling her initials on the
script change, she hit the call button and gestured for the next
assistant. The ability to do three things at once provided a definite
advantage in this business.

“Aunt Miriam?” Mara cringed at the familiar nasal whine on
the other end of the line, and waved away the line of people waiting on
her. Her aunt never called unless it was something dire, and usually
something Mara couldn’t do a thing about from this distance. Her
relatives thought she could wave a magic wand and produce
miracles—probably because she was the only one in the family who took
action instead of complaining. Stupid of her. Maybe she should try
whining back.

As her aunt outlined her mother’s latest episode, Mara
felt the familiar pall of helplessness creep over her. “What do you want
me to do?” she exclaimed into the phone. “I can’t be both there and
here. I thought we hired nurses to watch her.”

She rubbed her forehead and let her aunt ramble on.
Intellectually, she knew her aunt just needed an ear to bend, but
emotionally, she was reduced to a teenage child watching her frail
mother break down into hysterical torrents of tears in the middle of the
grocery store because her favorite peanut butter wasn’t on the shelf.
Every nerve in Mara’s body quivered, tears formed in the corners of her
eyes, and she would shatter if someone so much as touched her.

She’d built a tough carapace to hide that quivering child,
but seeing TJ again after all these years had cracked it. Stupidly, she
wanted his calming strength here, holding her, while her aunt described
her mother’s latest psychotic episode.

The day after Brad’s funeral, Mara’s father had walked
out, and her mother had plummeted from smiling saint to broken woman in a
matter of months. She loved her mother, she truly did. She just didn’t
know how to deal with her bewildering breakdowns.

Or the terror that the same thing would happen to her.

“Okay, Aunt Miriam, I’ll come up, I promise, just as soon
as we have a break in the schedule. Call the agency, tell them I’ll pay
more if that’s what it takes to hire a more competent nurse.”

Mara dug her fingers into her hair and scrunched her eyes
closed as Miriam whined about the agency, the lack of good nurses, and
her mother’s manipulative ability to elude them. They both knew the
alternative—an institution. Mara fought against placing her timid mother
in such a cold, inhospitable environment, but her aunt’s argument was
valid—Mara wasn’t the one who had to live with her.

“Could we talk about it when I get there?” she pleaded.
“No, Aunt Miriam, don’t send Irving! I’ll get there when I can. There
has to be something else we can do—”

Aunt Miriam obviously didn’t agree. Sinking down on the
sand, burying her face against her raised knees, Mara let the nasal
whine drone on. She couldn’t cut her aunt off as if she were one of her
employees.