McCloud's Woman

by Patricia Rice

  Click—another piece fell into place. Cleo’s Hardware. Jim had bought a bag of batteries with that logo on it. Maybe she’d better not underestimate a woman who could boldly tread on all-male territory by running a hardware store. If this was the crazy lady Ian had told her about, she’d like to be that kind of crazy. Far better than the alternative.

  Not wanting to contemplate varieties of insanity, Mara offered her blinding starlet smile to the trio. “I’m happy to meet you.” The teenager grinned in delight and puffed up his stocky chest. Cleo crossed her arms and waited. Definitely a smart woman.

  “Did Jared tell you I knew him when he was ten and bugged his big brother’s bedroom with walkie-talkies?”

  A hint of a grin curved Cleo’s mouth, and Mara liked her instantly..

  “He didn’t happen to mention that, no,” Cleo admitted. “Actually, he said he knew of you but had never met you.”

  “Well, the name may have fooled him. We were seldom in the same classes, and he probably only knew me as Patsy. I dropped the diminutive from my family name for professional purposes, so I’m a Simon now, not Simonetti. He didn’t put the two together. Besides, I knew TJ better than Jared.”

  Because TJ had the brains and Jared had the charm and the Patsy she’d been had been terrified by charm and could only deal with the male of the species on an intellectual level. Figures she’d end up in an industry that survived on charm and looks. Must be payback time from another reincarnation.

  “TJ didn’t mention that, but then,” Cleo said, “he keeps a lot to himself. Katy says you’ll begin filming soon.”

  Katy. Katy—the overly eager B&B proprietress. Knowing people was everything in this business. Mara brushed a straying curl from her eyes. “Not unless I can find a way through TJ’s roadblock back there. Film crews require a lot of equipment that can’t be hand carried. Got any suggestions on how to persuade him?”

  Mischief twinkled in Cleo’s eyes as she considered the problem, but she answered without a hint of humor. “I don’t think anyone knows TJ well, but I have a suspicion it would take a bulldozer to move him.”

  “I was seriously contemplating that. Do you think the feds would throw me in jail if I plowed up those bones? I mean, if TJ would only declare them pirate bones, I’d not be so ticked, but he’s being nasty about that, too.”

  Cleo shrugged and watched as the boys, bored with the conversation, ran off with the kite. “I’m avoiding confrontation these days. If I were you, though, I’d be careful around TJ. From what I can tell, he’s gnawing on something that doesn’t digest well. All that ill-tempered gas is likely to explode on contact.”

  Before Mara could translate any part of this, Cleo ran off to rescue the plunging kite. Definitely not Miss Congeniality, Mara concluded without rancor, kicking a shell on her way back to the road. It would be nice to know someone who didn’t want or expect anything from her. She ought to get out and meet real people more often.

  Of course, if people got anymore real than TJ, she’d have to carry a gun and start shooting. That would take care of his little “digestion” problem.

  What in hell had Cleo been talking about?

  She’d have a digestion problem of her own if she couldn’t move him out of the path of her trucks. Maybe a little media attention would twist his arm.

  Chapter Five

  “Saw it with my own eyes, right out there off the island where you’re at now. Them German subs had their searchlights on, bold as brass.” Wrapping both hands around the whiskey glass he was nursing, the wiry old man spoke earnestly on his favorite topic.

  TJ popped another fried clam into his mouth. He’d already learned that Ed could talk for hours on the subject. He didn’t have to say a word. A good bar like this one could keep a man entertained for a long time—or at least keep him from thinking too hard.

  “Whales got searchlights?” another old man at the bar taunted. “Remember old Hickock up on Bulls Island thought he saw a U-boat? Had the whole island up in arms, running around like chickens with their heads off, shooting everything that moved. Turned out to be nothing but beached whales.”

  “At least them people up at Bulls patrolled like they was supposed to,” Ed replied indignantly. “We didn’t have nobody hardly out there. Hickock even had a radio he could talk in. What did I have? I tell you—”

  “They rode horses,” another old-timer intruded. “We didn’t have no horses and couldn’t get them out to the island if we did. Wasn’t no roads back in them days.”

  TJ forked the last clam, wiped his fingers on a bar napkin, and reached for his wallet. He rather enjoyed the muted argument over old wars instead of the rabid hostility over current depredations, but he’d heard this one a few times already. “My knowledge is limited to bones, gentleman. I’ll leave World War Two with you. I’ll keep an eye out for whales, though. These days, they might come knocking on my front door.”

  Laughter followed him out. They’d already hit him with every form of joke about sea creatures on his doorstep. Apparently the last hurricane had washed away his beach house’s front yard. Jared and Cleo spent a lot of time pondering how to save it, but no solution had occurred as yet. It would be a shame to lose that piece of the past, but he didn’t know how to save houses either.

  If he thought about it, his occupation was singularly useless. Once people were dead, did it really matter how they died? Justice wouldn’t miraculously return them to life. He should have been something more constructive, like a doctor. Brad would have been saving thousands of lives by now, discovering a cure for AIDS or the like.

  But Brad was dead, and it was TJ’s fault.

  He knew better than to go down that crooked path again, only the warm summer night with ocean breezes rippling through the leaves raised specters of the past. Walking under old oaks and catching the sweet perfume of a late magnolia blossom, he could almost imagine ghosts drifting from some of these old mansions.

  Passing the gardenia bush of the B&B, he heard laughter and music pouring from the lighted front rooms and wide porch, and he shoved his hands into his pockets and picked up speed. Patsy was having a party tonight. No, not Patsy, but Mara. She was definitely a Mara these days.

  He’d stopped thinking of her as Brad’s little sister a long time ago, but she was the reason he was wandering the melancholy alleys of his mind now.

  He’d started college as a jock with no profession but basketball in mind. Sports had provided an acceptable outlet for the bubbling cauldron of testosterone and untapped emotion he’d been back then. His best friend had dedicated his life to becoming a doctor. Brad had been Keeper of the Flame, the shining light of genius who would rescue the once-proud Simonettis from obscurity and save the world.

  Brad’s death had destroyed the Simonettis as completely as it had destroyed the car Brad had been driving. TJ’s car. He might as well have handed Brad a loaded gun when he’d handed him the keys. If he’d been paying attention... but he hadn’t.

  TJ walked down to the waterfront and watched the yachts and fishing boats bobbing in the water. Some days, he’d simply like to hop aboard one and sail away.

  Other days, his damned ingrained sense of responsibility demanded he get off his ass and do what had to be done.

  Except doing what had to be done meant betraying still another friend, destroying him as finally as Brad had destroyed himself, and quite possibly taking down the colonel’s family in the same way Brad’s death had destroyed the Simonettis.

  He’d lost one good friend tragically. He wouldn’t give up on this one yet. He would finish reading through the notebooks, and talk with the colonel. There could have been national security reasons involved that he didn’t understand. Martin was the army insider. McCloud Enterprises just had government contracts. TJ didn’t know anything about how the war crime cases were handled after he turned over the evidence. He simply appeared at the trials when called upon.

  He hadn’t been called upon in the Balkan trials as often as he’d e
xpected. Thousands of people had been murdered in that war, executed, women and children included. Their lives demanded justice.

  TJ turned his back on the harbor and headed for his car.

  He had to walk past the B&B again to get there. The thick night air carried Mara’s laughter clearly, and he couldn’t resist glancing toward the old converted mansion.

  A tall, slender figure in flowing white adorned the wide veranda, accompanied by a pair of business-suited men. She was gesticulating gracefully in the manner that for one brief spring had held TJ enthralled, so he knew the effect on her companions. She’d always possessed enthusiasm and a joie de vivre that no other person of his acquaintance could equal once she got past her shyness.

  “Oh, People magazine, definitely.” Her voice carried as he passed the drive. “The town will be flocked with tourists. Are you certain you’re prepared?”

  The thick hedge obscured any reply as TJ walked on. His teeth clenched at the mention of the press. Damn it, he didn’t need journalists here poking around. He could hope the entertainment press wouldn’t recognize his name.

  Mara was promising the town council the moon, probably with no chance of delivering. Tapping down his irritation, he made a mental note to expect a deputation of city fathers in the morning, complaining that the dig site interfered with tourism.

  He hadn’t visited the excavation all day. He’d best go out and pull his records into order. The scraps of evidence he had extricated from the gravesite so far wouldn’t interest the local police any more than archeological. He had a feeling that by the time he was done, the police would definitely be interested.

  That hadn’t been his original intention when he’d obtained the grant. Cleo would kill him.

  With a wry grin, TJ concluded that would certainly solve a few problems.

  ***

  “Offering to haul in new trees and shrubs was a stroke of genius.” Ian returned the folded newspaper to the breakfast table the next morning. The headline, HOLLYWOOD PRODUCER PROMISES PARK, landed face up.

  “A park won’t happen unless the state comes up with the funds to buy the adjoining land.” Mara buttered her toast and glanced out the bay window to the lush lawn and gardens of the B&B. “I have a feeling it isn’t TJ who will come gunning after me, though. His sister-in-law struck me as the type to dice me into little bits without a qualm if I invade her island hideaway against her wishes.”

  Still watching the window, Mara smiled as one of the subjects in question stormed past the gardenia and down the drive, brandishing a fresh newspaper in his fist. TJ. His expression was so grim, she fully expected steam would pour from his ears shortly.

  Uneasiness raised its ugly head, but she blithely added jam to her toast while Ian checked the view to see what she was smiling at. He whistled and hurriedly stood up.

  “He’s all yours, babe. I have better things to do than be flattened before the day begins.”

  “Cluck, cluck,” Mara mocked softly before taking a bite of her toast. She was a pro at confrontation, but she preferred not to engage in hostilities on an empty stomach.

  TJ disappeared behind the enormous ferns on the wide veranda. The bell tinkling over the front door followed. Here he comes... she sang mentally, until she remembered the rest of the verse mentioned nervous breakdowns.

  Her mother did those. Mara Simon wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Not until she could afford to pay the consequences.

  Ian slithered out the back way as TJ stormed in the front. Since Mara was the only other one of her company up at this hour, TJ found her easily. She sighed in admiration at the way he filled out the short-sleeved black polo and jeans. All that muscle wasted on an egghead—pity. Must have been dig day instead of lab day, she surmised—no starched white shirt.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” TJ shouted, slamming the folded newspaper with the headline about the state park on the table. The scar over his nose twitched furiously.

  “Eating breakfast?” she inquired, flapping her artful lashes at him while taking another bite of toast. She really did enjoy throwing TJ McCloud for a loop every time she flaunted one of her new assets.

  He recovered quickly though, she noticed in disappointment. Other men melted when she played innocent. TJ froze up colder than an iceberg in Antarctica.

  “You come out here for a few months, turn people’s lives and an entire town upside-down with grandiose plans that can’t possibly be accomplished, and plan on walking away as soon as all-out war ensues, don’t you?”

  “Want to add: ‘That isn’t the Patsy I used to know’ while you’sre at it?” she asked sweetly, reaching for her coffee. Once, she might have burst into tears at his scorn. Now, she girded her loins, so to speak, and prepared for the showdown.

  “Oh, I can do better than that.” He toned down his voice, but it still dripped more scorn than her toast dripped butter. “Brad always put others first, but baby sister takes the opposite tack, doesn’t she? What you want counts most, and to hell with everyone else.”

  “Brad put himself first that last time, though, didn’t he?” she countered flatly.

  He looked startled at that observation. Good. She’d had to live with the results of Brad’s death for seventeen damned years. Slapping TJ with reality held a measure of satisfaction.

  “Is that your excuse? You can ruin people’s lives because of what happened to Brad? Grow up.” He clenched his fists as if to keep from reaching for her. “We’ll fight you, tooth and nail. Cleo and Jared are building something good out there. You have no intention of carrying through on these lies.” He pointed at the newspaper article about the park she was promoting.

  “The entire town will be up in arms against Cleo and Jared if they oppose a fantasy that’s never going to happen,” he growled. “I won’t have you destroying their happiness for your own selfish purposes.”

  “Open the gate to the road, and it will all die down,” she purred. Always purr, no matter how badly rattled, she’d learned.

  “Those gates will protect a murder investigation shortly,” he growled back. “You might want to start considering which of your newfound friends might have an interest in seeing a state park covering up the evidence.”

  He didn’t hang around to see how she would take that, but strode off, completely unaware of Mara’s admiring interest in his tight posterior. She figured the crack about a murder investigation was simply one of TJ’s better attempts to unsettle her and dismissed it. TJ’s rear end, however, was definitely a point to ponder. If she still wore glasses, steam would be obscuring her view about now.

  Just entering the dining room, Constantina swiveled her head to follow TJ’s progress.

  “My, my,” she said with a sigh of pleasure, plopping down in the chair Ian had vacated. “I don’t suppose I can hope that’s your new director, can I?”

  Mara snickered at the thought. “Not unless you favor the Red Queen school of directing. ‘Off with her head!’ doesn’t work well in Hollywood these days.”

  “Oh, well, it was a nice thought,” Constantina said. “Men with hot tempers are equally hot in bed, you know.”

  She’d sworn off men after Sid. Shrugging, Mara watched TJ stride up the driveway to the street. If Brad hadn’t died, she might have discovered what it was like to have a hot man in her bed. Her libido did a shiver of ecstasy at just the image of TJ naked. But that bird had flown. She had more important things to worry about.

  The gardenia bush blocked her view of TJ reaching the street, so she turned back to her table companion. “It’s more important to make a lot of people happy than a few, isn’t it?”

  “In my experience, you can’t make anybody happy, so don’t bother trying.” Constantina signaled the waitress for coffee, effectively ending useless speculation.

  A park would make lots and lots of people happy, Mara concluded, choosing to ignore her friend’s advice. The stuck-up wealthy McClouds didn’t deserve their own private island.

  Chapter Six

/>   “Talk to Mara Simon? Are you out of your mind?” Jared asked in alarm as he flipped an antiquated rubber jar seal over the bony uplifted middle finger of the skeleton in the corner.

  TJ hit the delete button on his answering machine, erasing the host of messages from VIPs demanding he return their calls. Colonel Martin wasn’t among them, and he had a suspicion most of the others had to do with Mara’s state park idea and his refusal to cooperate. He had half the Defense Department down his back asking for his Balkan notes. He didn’t know if they realized he had the other boxes or not, and he didn’t care. He was a private contractor and his notes belonged to him. If the feds couldn’t intimidate him, the local chamber of commerce didn’t have a chance.

  The call from the Charleston newspaper was reason for fear, though. He calculated no one read the local rag, but the big city papers were picked up by the national press. The national media hadn’t caught on to his name yet, but if the colonel’s story grew any bigger, one of them would recall his connection to the colonel. Time was running out.

  “Cleo would have my scalp if I got near the woman,” Jared continued. “Besides, if Mara rescues Sid’s company, I could someday be working with her. Hollywood’s a small town.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll send back the grant money, pack my things, and take that job in Mexico,” TJ responded absently to Jared’s complaint. “You can explain to Cleo why bulldozers are plowing the dune and land developers are knocking on your door. Little Patsy wins by a forfeit.”

  Jared emitted a rude sound. His throw missed the skeleton, bouncing off the wall behind it. “Little Patsy was a holy terror even in middle school. She always ruined the grade curve, and tattled to the teacher if we got even.”

  “That was two decades ago,” TJ shouted in frustration. “And you probably set fire to her schoolbooks, if I remember your tactics correctly. I told her to tell the teacher.”

  Jared grinned, unconcerned about details. “Good thing they pushed her into advanced classes. The two of you had a lot in common back then. Wine her, dine her, woo her into our way of thinking, big brother. She used to think you walked on water. I’m just the pest who shot her with a water pistol.”