“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.
A small hand patted her shoulder, startling Mara from her misery. Glancing up at the sympathetic face of Cleo’s son, she hastily explained that she had to go, she’d call back later, and clicked the phone off. She couldn’t have children on the set. The insurance liability would go through the sky.
“I got some Dr Pepper,” the boy offered, handing her a sweaty bottle of pop.
He looked enormously worried, and Mara couldn’t snap at him. Her entire cast and crew were busily doing their own things, ignoring her misery. Only this small boy had seen and taken the time to offer his small token of aid. Tears formed all over again as she accepted the bottle and took a sip. She nearly gagged on the spicy drink but managed a smile while wiping off her mouth with pretend satisfaction. She’d never been a great actress, but he was only a small boy.
“Thank you, sir,” she said politely, searching her memory. “Matty, isn’t it? You’re a lifesaver.”
“No, I’m not,” he answered seriously. “But I’ve got some Lifesavers at home. Would you like some?”
This time, her smile was genuine. “I might just take you up on that, sport. Where’s your mama?”
“Working, but my dad’s here. He’s over there talking to that fat man.” He pointed to the island of beach umbrellas that served as the refreshment area until they could bring in trailers.
The tall, dark-haired man wearing a garish Tommy Bahamas print shirt, with one hand in the pocket of his camp shorts, and the other gesturing with a script as he talked to her screenwriter could only be Jared. Even after seventeen years, she’d met no one who exuded happy-go-lucky charm like TJ’s brother. All the McCloud brothers had personalities so distinctly different that she wondered how they came from the same gene pool, but there was no mistaking the similarity of their masculine looks.
“Well, let’s go talk to your daddy.” She was fairly certain she’d been told that Matty was Cleo’s kid, and that Jared and Cleo had only recently met and married, but Matty used the term “dad” with such pride, it tickled her fancy.
Kids always tickled her fancy. They were the true innocents of the world, and she wanted to hug them all so she could bask in their freshness and originality. It angered her to see kids mistreated or neglected, but she’d come to uncomfortable terms with the fact that she’d never have kids of her own, and she couldn’t adopt the world.
Matty looked neither mistreated nor neglected, but Jared needed a small reminder of his responsibility. “Lost a kid lately?” she asked with dry sarcasm, poking Jared in the back while gesturing at the chef in charge of concessions to indicate Matty was with her.
Jared looked up with that mischievous gleam she remembered entirely too well from the old days. It meant he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t and was looking for a way to charm someone out of fury.
“Matty, see that man in the white hat over there?” She crouched down to his height and pointed to the chef. “Tell him you want a super ice cream special with candy on top, and see what he has for you.”
The boy’s eyes lit with excitement, but he politely turned to his father first. “Can I, please?”
“Sure thing, short stuff. Just don�
�t tell your mama, or she’ll blame me when you don’t eat your lunch.”
“I’ll eat it, I promise!” Matty shot off toward the smiling chef.
Mara stood and realized she no longer towered over her teenage nemesis. Jared had gained a few inches since she’d last seen him. And a few muscles. “Some things don’t change,” she remarked, to remind him of his place.
Jared beamed broadly, looked her up and down in a manner terribly similar to his brother’s, and didn’t show an inch of shame for his behavior. Most screenwriters would be ingratiating to the owner of a movie studio. Mara knew better than to expect a McCloud to be anything other than assured of his value.
“Man, and some things change for the better!” He cocked his head and blatantly admired her nose. “Can’t call you Olive Oyl anymore, can I?”
Mara appropriated his paper cup of soft drink and deliberately dumped the syrupy liquid over his thick hair. “I’ve always wanted to do that, McCloud. It’s so nice to be in a position to do so now.”
He shouted as ice slid down his neck and the soft drink soaked the collar of his expensive shirt. Laughter broke through Mara’s misery. She’d suffered years of Jared’s torment in grade school. She rather liked having the temerity to retaliate.
Doing a little dance to jiggle the cold cubes from his back before they slid down his shorts, he shot her an abashed grin and pulled his shirttails out. “Okay, score one for Olive Oyl. You still have a way to go before you can tie me.”
“Why on earth hasn’t Cleo killed you by now?” she asked with interest. Cleo had seemed like a sensible person who wouldn’t tolerate his nonsense.
“Because I’m sexy?” he suggested, hugging her waist and kissing her cheek.
She considered smacking him for old times’ sake, until she saw Matty running up with his ice cream treat in hand, a worried expression twisting his gap-toothed smile. With the concern of a loving father, Jared had been reassuring his son with that hug. That didn’t mean she had to let him manhandle her.
Pinching the sensitive skin beneath Jared’s arm through his shirt, Mara beamed at the boy and slipped away before Jared could do more than yelp. That ought to teach him she wasn’t shy little Patsy any longer, and he couldn’t intimidate her with his tactics.
“Is it good?” she asked Matty. “Want to get me and your daddy some more soda? You can put your dish there on the table. We won’t let anyone take it.”
“Not Dr Pepper,” Jared yelled after the boy, before turning to Mara and making a comical face. “I can’t believe you stock that stuff.”
“I can’t believe I do either.” Taking a seat at the table with Matty’s ice cream, she nibbled a chocolate candy from the top. “Blame it on the local supplier. It’s a southern thing.”
Accepting that as close to a truce as she’d offer, Jared took the seat across from her. “You look as if you needed a break. Got any problems Uncle Jared can solve?”
Mara laughed out loud. The idea of bratty Jared McCloud doing anything other than cause trouble appealed to her. “Okay, I can see Cleo’s problem. She couldn’t get rid of you, right?”
Matty returned with a soft drink and the bottle of water Mara’s concessionaire knew she preferred. Taking the drinks and placing them on the table, Jared lifted the boy onto his lap, and beamed at her recognition of his peculiar talents. “That’s about the sum of it. You ought to come over and spend some time with her. She has this brilliantly creative mind no one ever took the time to recognize. She’s absolutely amazing. If you need to solve any kind of mechanical problem on the set, call on Cleo. She’d lend a hand just for the fun of it.”
Jared’s obvious pride in his wife awed and overwhelmed her. She’d had two husbands, and they’d done nothing but gripe and criticize from the get-go. She’d bent over backward trying to please them until ultimately one had broken her and the other had made her hopping mad enough to haul him into court. Why couldn’t she find men who actually liked her? Or was she that unlikable?
She pretty much guessed the latter. Her many faults had been delineated in explicit detail by most of the people in her life. She’d learned to live with herself. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.” She wouldn’t, but it was nice of him to offer. Maybe Jared had grown up a little since she’d known him. She’d been told that some men did. “You adding comedy to my script while you’re at it?” She nodded in the direction of the scriptwriter he’d been talking to.
“Nah, pirates and romance don’t need comedy. Just catching up on old times. I might steal your writers away someday, never know.”
She recognized the impish grin and narrowed her eyes. “And you know what I’ll cut off if you try, don’t you?”
He whistled in appreciation. “Man, you and TJ would make a pair. Do you have any idea how many times he’s threatened the same? What’s with you people, anyway? Life’s for enjoying. The two of you make it look like work.”
“Said the grasshopper to the ant,” she scoffed. “Some people have to earn a living. They weren’t born with a silver comic in their mouths.”
Jared shrugged off this reference to the comic strip that had provided him fame and fortune before he’d graduated college. “Yeah, but you could find work that you like, and not a job that makes you grumpy. So, what was making you miserable back there? Anything any of us can do? Old friends ought to stick together.”
“We were never friends, McCloud,” she reminded him. She could see where Jared’s thoughtfulness might win over some women, but charm didn’t work with her. “You put a frog in my backpack the first day of freshman term, if I remember. The whole class rolled on the floor when it burped.”
Matty looked at his stepfather wide-eyed, but his mouth was full of ice cream, and he couldn’t talk. Jared grinned and rubbed his son’s hair. “Let that be a lesson to you, Matt. Girls think frogs burp.”
Mara giggled at Matty’s look of awe and Jared’s idiotic way of looking at things. Life was too senseless to hold grudges. “Your father burps and he’s a frog,” she told the kid. “So don’t believe everything he tells you.”
Jared watched her with approval. “Come to dinner tomorrow night. Tinseltown can be tiresome after a while. You need a few real people occasionally.”
She needed a shrink, a keeper, and a lover, probably in that order, but she didn’t classify any of them as real people. She shrugged. “I’ve got to make some script and set changes before I can spare the time. Thanks anyway.”
“I’ll tell TJ to pick you up at seven,” he said as if she hadn’t just told him no. “Bring the script, we’ll brainstorm. I’ll tell Cleo you’re coming, so if you don’t show, she’ll probably sic her peacocks on you. I don’t advise making Cleo mad.”
Jared scooped up Matty and his ice cream dish and walked away before Mara could argue.
As maddening as ever, Jared McCloud should have been locked up for his own good years ago.
It had been nearly a week since she’d seen TJ. Talk about your one-night stand, without even a loving phone call promising more.
Did she really want more? They’d only end up arguing.
Maybe not. Pieces of her were ready to agree to anything he said just so they could get to the good part.
Maybe Cleo and Jared could referee. Or Cleo could lend her one of her squishable, splattable eggs to heave at both aggravating McClouds. As Jared had said, amusement was where one found it.
Chapter Thirteen
Dithering in front of her closet, still uncertain what to wear to a dinner at Cleo’s, Mara ignored the knocking at her door. She’d turned off her cell phone, let the inn answering service take the room phone, and threatened to behead Constantina if she suggested the rhinestone T-shirt one more time.
This wasn’t a public appearance. She’d sent Constantina away half an hour ago, but hadn’t made any inroads on a decision yet.
The pounding on the door became more demanding, intruding on her concentration. The Ralph Lauren chambray work shirt was too informal for a
dinner, even one at Cleo’s. The Versace silk was too revealing for a house with a little kid around. But TJ would be there and she wanted...
Dangit! she thought furious as the door practically rattled from the force of the blows. “Go away, will ya? I’m busy,” she shouted, reaching for a cotton shirt with a high collar in back, long sleeves, and tails that tied in front—a white dress shirt that revealed her navel.
“I can open it myself, but I thought I’d be polite,” a gravelly voice answered with equanimity.
TJ! Just the sound of his voice shivered her timbers. Swearing beneath her breath, Mara jerked the shirt on over her padded Wonderbra, tied the shirttails, and opened the door. She refused to chase after an obstinate man, but she wouldn’t turn one down if he knocked on her door—not when that man was TJ.
TJ stood stiffly on the other side, his taupe sports jacket now covering a ribbed charcoal knit shirt that accented his flat abdomen and would reveal every muscle if he moved. He wasn’t obliging her yet, but from the look in his eye, Mara figured it would only be a matter of moments before he burst into flames or motion.
She would have copped a siren stance but she hadn’t fastened the buttons over her breasts, and she wasn’t prepared for an instant replay of last week.
The sex had been so great, it had terrified her. From the sizzling look in his dark eyes, he hadn’t entirely worked off all his steam.
From the response of her hormones, neither had she.
“I apologize,” he said resolutely when she didn’t invite him in. “If I promise to behave better, will you accept Cleo’s invitation? She’s actually cooking tonight.”
Mara wasn’t entirely certain which of his many insults he apologized for, but a man who knew how to grovel was a fascinating new experience. She tilted her head and studied the irritated tic in his jaw. “What’s she cooking?” she demanded rudely, testing his limits.
TJ’s eyes narrowed and his mouth thinned into a grim line, but he still stood there like an automaton. “Fried chicken and mashed potatoes.”
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