McCloud's Woman

by Patricia Rice

  “Clay? He was there too?” Gee, she’d missed all the excitement.

  “Stole someone’s motorcycle. Guess he got worried when we tore out of town like that. He wanted to fly you to Charleston in his helicopter, but it only has one seat, and Dr. McCloud insisted he could get you to town faster.”

  Thank goodness at least one McCloud brother had sense. If she’d woken up lying on the floor of a vibrating helicopter, she’d probably have leapt out in terror.

  The image of TJ driving recklessly into town while she lay bleeding and unconscious beside him brought more tears to her eyes. She’d put that poor man through hell.

  “You still deserve a bonus,” she asserted. “I told the reporters you were the one who brought the colonel in.” Which helped keep TJ’s part in the drama quiet. The colonel’s family didn’t need to hear the details of that night. “I know this car has some miles on it, but the company doesn’t have enough cash for anything else. I’ll have the title transferred as soon as I can reach the lawyers.”

  Jim slammed the brake, gaped at her in the rearview mirror, shook his head, and eased back to speed again. “I’ve never owned a car like this. I could start my own business with this baby. You’re a crazy woman, for certain, but I thank you.”

  She was a crazy woman. There was that, she supposed. Now that TJ wasn’t tied to her by the baby, maybe he wouldn’t want a mentally ill woman who shouldn’t have kids. She really ought to think these things through better, but she couldn’t. She had to know what TJ felt. She needed it spelled out in clear terms before she could proceed further.

  “Well, if this film doesn’t get made under budget, you may have to use the car to earn a living. I want to make certain everyone lands on their feet if that happens.”

  “You’ll do it, Miss Simon,” Jim said with assurance. “Crazy people get things done.”

  She smiled at that. Maybe it did take a crazy person to do what she had done. What she wanted to do.

  She knew what she wanted to do. For the first time in her life, she had a goal, and it was all hers and no one else’s. Her heart raced excitedly at the endless possibilities. If TJ didn’t want her... She’d figure it out.

  Now that she’d found herself, she would desperately try not to lose sight of who she was again. She didn’t need TJ to tell her what to do. She just needed him in her life. Friends were too precious to throw away.

  When they arrived at the place where the dune had been, they discovered a dozen cars and trucks parked in the sand. The remnants of the giant sand mound lingered in the rough terrain, spilling across bushes and palmettos. A peacock surveyed the company from the branches of a wax myrtle sticking out of the sand, occasionally squawking and spreading his tailfeathers.

  “Wonder what they taste like roasted?” Jim mused, opening the car door for Mara and helping her as if she were a fragile piece of porcelain.

  “I’d only try if I wanted to find out what I tasted like roasted. Cleo doesn’t take lightly to people messing with her pets.”

  Jim snorted and followed her across the rough path trampled in the sand. Beneath the shade of an oak twisted by ocean winds, she shook off his helping hand and gazed into the glare off the water. The tide was out, the sun was behind her at this hour, but the blue sky and waves were dazzling.

  Despite the glare, she could clearly see the crowd on the beach. TJ wasn’t among them. Disappointment flooded through her. Had he left then? As he had before, as he always did?

  She couldn’t bear it if he had. All the confidence she’d been feeling drained away. She’d revealed her innermost secrets, and he’d chosen to reject her. Or the dork had decided she was better off without him. Or...

  Sand flew up out of the hole the crowd stood around.

  She recognized the muscled arms wielding that shovel.

  With determination, and Patty Bear in her arms, Mara slipped and slid down the remains of the dune to greet the crowd turning their attention to her.

  She didn’t even know if they recognized her without her sunglasses, hairpiece, and heels, and she didn’t care.

  TJ was down in that hole, and she wanted him out here where he could see her.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “Company, Tim,” Cleo called softly from above.

  With sweat pouring through the grime covering his bare chest and arms, TJ wiped his forehead and glanced upward, but he couldn’t see anyone. He’d warned people to stand back. He wasn’t having any one else harmed by dangerous excavations.

  Carting a bucket of artifacts, he crawled up the ladder he’d laid on the gradual slope carved from the blast area. There had damned well better not be any more reporters hanging around, or he was likely to stuff them down the hole and bury them.

  The instant he stood on the beach, TJ saw Mara, and his heart performed a leap that would have done credit to an Olympic ski jumper.

  She wore a wide-brimmed, swooping hat to shade her face, but he could still see the bruise on her cheek from the fall she’d taken. She hadn’t covered it with makeup. Her hair fell in a long braid down her back. A gauzy, ankle-length dress floated around her legs and clung to her curves, and he would have thought her an angel except for the red and blue bear in her arms. She hugged it as if she would never let it go.

  She was more beautiful than any woman he knew, and a dangerous combination of fragility and strength he didn’t know how to cope with. He stood there gaping like a horse’s ass, aware of his filth and stink and wishing he could run straight into the ocean before greeting her.

  “Hercules instead of the Hulk?” she suggested, sauntering closer, blatantly appraising his bare chest.

  A corner of TJ’s mouth cocked as he returned her stare. “Anne of Green Gables? Or Scarlett O’Hara?”

  She laughed, a melodious laugh that struck him in so many places, he couldn’t think straight. Reckless urges swept through him, but he didn’t dare act on any of them. Nothing had been settled between them, might never be settled, and he damned well wouldn’t try in front of an audience. Still, he couldn’t resist brushing his grimy finger under her hat brim and lifting it to see her better. The look in her eyes knocked the breath out of him.

  “I honestly don’t know,” she admitted, sounding as breathless as he felt. “I’m trying it on for size, looking for what fits. Do you like it?”

  “You don’t want to hear my reply in front of company. I thought you were supposed to be resting.”

  She beamed up at him, understanding his growl better than he did. “Chasing me off, McCloud? I won’t go. What are you doing here?”

  Patsy Amara Simonetti had the staying power of a snapping turtle when she applied her mind to it. A thrill shot straight to his groin, but TJ covered it with practicalities. “Digging up the remains of two German soldiers.” Clasping her hand firmly in his, he led her away from the excavation.

  Surprise and alarm crossed her expressive features as she glanced back to the contents of the canvas spread across the sand. “Have you called the mayor yet?”

  “The mayor?” Cleo eased closer now that they’d left personal topics for one of interest to her.

  TJ watched Mara glance uneasily at the crowd closing in. “You found something at the courthouse,” he said for her, drawing her closer so he could feel the life pulsing through her and know she was safe and sound.

  She nodded. “Sort of. I had a bit of a tiff with the mayor outside the courthouse, and went back in to dig around some more. I think you’d better call him.” She rummaged through her purse and produced her cell phone, handing it to TJ.

  He glanced at Cleo and Jared. Jared had given up trying to help and sat on the beach, shirt off, barefooted, sketching a design in the wet sand—a design remarkably like a U-boat. His artistic brother might not be much of a history buff, but he listened when people talked. He knew what was happening here.

  Cleo stood near him, watching everything and everyone, poised like a deer to flee at the slightest danger. Both of them watched TJ with expec
tation.

  “I can’t hide it, Cleo,” he apologized in advance. “No matter who they were or what they represented, there are two men down there. Their families deserve to know what happened, and they deserve a proper burial. I can’t judge their politics or beliefs, just their remains.”

  “It’s the living I worry about,” Cleo replied, “but you’re right, it does no good to cover up the truth. Call him.”

  A buzz murmured through the crowd of townsfolk and movie crew. Word had spread rapidly that morning after Ed had poked into the hole blown loose by the grenade. The bones sticking out of the edge of the crater had sent Ed scurrying to Jared and Cleo.

  After he’d called all his bar cronies, the news had spread by osmosis. Realizing the grenade had uncovered the remainder of the skeletons he’d been searching for in the dune, TJ had set up the excavation. One of Mara’s cameramen was recording the event, even though he had no idea what was going on.

  “Don’t bother about the call, TJ,” Mara said softly, glancing in the direction of the demolished dune. “The mayor’s here, with his mother.”

  “You want to tell me what this is all about before I say something I shouldn’t?” he muttered for her ears alone.

  “I can only guess, and my imagination may be more vivid than reality.” She stepped closer, so they could talk softly. “I’d heard the mayor’s father was German and that he’d bought a lot of land in town. I checked some of the deeds to property the mayor’s family owns, and much of it was purchased in the early days of the war in the name of Schmidt. Then I checked the records office. The mayor’s father changed his name from Schmidt to his wife’s maiden name of Bridgeton during the war. The mayor’s mother is the one with the old local origins.”

  Hastily pulling on the shirt he’d doffed earlier but not taking time to button it, TJ regarded the frail elderly woman in summer white heels, flowered dress, and blue-white hair approaching, and didn’t want to be here for this. “Couldn’t we just slip down the beach and let this play out without us?”

  Mara dug her fingers into his filthy arm. “I’m going to teach you to hang around instead of running off, Timothy John. This has the makings of a wonderful story. I hope there’s a romance in it. I’ve got this idea for a screenplay...”

  TJ rolled his eyes and remained planted where she held him. Having an anchor keeping him on an even keel was a new and not entirely unpleasant sensation.

  The mayor and his mother gazed in dismay at the skeletons carefully laid out on tarps from TJ’s gear. He’d boxed the bits of buttons and shoes and other grisly remnants that made the skeletons come alive, but his curiosity hadn’t allowed him to hide the bones. He’d wanted to know that he had them all. The intellectual challenge had overcome his grasp of human nature, as usual. He’d been working this damned job too long.

  The mayor shot TJ and Mara a weary, angry look. “You couldn’t leave it alone, could you? What good does it do to dig up a sixty-year old story?”

  “Are you the one who trashed my office and the dig and left those messages?” TJ asked in incredulity, remembering the cut fences and the vandal running for a motorboat on the other side of the jetty. Surely the mayor was too old for those antics.

  “I left the messages,” Mrs. Bridgeton said defiantly. “You had no right to unearth the dead or harm my family with something of no concern to you.”

  “It was a U-boat, just like I told you,” Ed shouted jubilantly. “I’m not crazy. They landed right here, got themselves killed. Your daddy wasn’t a half-bad sort for all his highfalutin’ ways. He knew they was coming, didn’t he? I knew he came out here for more than hunting. He’s a war hero!”

  The mayor blinked in disbelief at this take on things, but the murmurs of excitement rumbling through the crowd caused him to look around and take stock before speaking.

  “I vote we go back to the house and break out the cold drinks,” Jared shouted, jumping to his feet and catching Cleo’s arm. “It’s not every day we get to toast a hero.”

  TJ gave his brother credit for knowing how to woo an audience without even trying. The crowd cheered at the promise of free drinks—even the nonalcoholic kind. Less apt to engage in unwarranted enthusiasm, Clay hung back, helping TJ cover the remains while the others traipsed to the house, chattering excitedly.

  “Come along, Mayor, Mrs. Bridgeton.” Mara took their arms and led them toward the boardwalk rather than the shortcut through the demolished dune that the others were taking. “Tell me the story, and I’ll get my people to put the right spin on it.”

  With the skeletons protected against tide and scavengers, Clay fell into step beside TJ, dragging up the rear behind Mara and her captives. “You said those guys were shot,” he whispered. “Did the lady do it?”

  “I wouldn’t put anything past women,” TJ grumbled, “but I don’t imagine this one did. My money is on the mayor’s daddy.”

  “So, why keep it a secret all these years? He’s a hero, saving the country from Germans during wartime. I didn’t even know Germans landed in this country.”

  “According to the books Ed gave me, the Germans trained crews of kids who’d been raised or schooled in the U.S. but were loyal to the German cause. If you want to believe those books, the Germans manned some of their U-boats with guns and money and English-speaking crews. They dropped operatives loose up and down the coast. They hoped to blend with the crowds and blow up centers of transportation like Grand Central Station, causing chaos—except some got caught by observant citizens and ratted on the others.”

  Clay whistled. “So if those are Nazi bones back there, they could have been terrorists. What the devil would they blow up out here?”

  TJ shrugged. “Parris Island? It’s a huge training camp today, and I suppose it might have been one back then, too. But if that’s what they are, I don’t know how they figured to blend in here in a rural area where everyone knows everyone.”

  They reached the benched lookout area of the boardwalk where Mara assisted Mrs. Bridgeton in taking a seat. TJ admired the way she handled the obviously nervous mayor and his mother, smoothing the way with words and smiles and promises. He couldn’t do that in a million years.

  He didn’t think the shy teenager he’d once known could have either. Mara had come a long way since those days. She didn’t need him anymore. He couldn’t imagine how he could ask her to stay. What could he offer that she could possibly want?

  “Clay, fetch some drinks from the house and let Mrs. Bridgeton catch her breath,” Mara ordered. “Tell the others we’ll be right up.”

  Clay cocked an eyebrow at the command, but with an insouciant swagger, he strode up the boardwalk toward the main house.

  “I could never get Clay to do anything I told him,” TJ commented, wiping his face with a handkerchief and wishing he’d thrown himself in the ocean while he had the chance. His shirt was sticking to his back.

  “That’s because you never expected him to listen,” Mara whispered back.

  “My husband did what he thought right.” Mrs. Bridgeton intruded with the bluntness of the old and privileged.

  “Now, Mama, you don’t have to say anything. This isn’t a courtroom, and everyone concerned is long dead.” The rotund mayor pulled out his handkerchief and nervously mopped his neck.

  TJ leaned against the railing, crossed his arms, and watched a pelican circling the cottage. “He knew the U-boat was landing, so he must have known someone on it,” he concluded aloud.

  “His cousin,” Mrs. Bridgeton declared stoutly. “Frederich wanted no part of it, but his cousin came anyway. They’d gone to school together. They were a close family. But Frederich married me and didn’t want to go back to Germany.”

  Mara curled her cool fingers around TJ’s grimy arm, and he realized how tense he was. He relaxed and inhaled her fresh jasmine scent.

  “So the boat landed, unloaded two spies, one of them the cousin, and your husband met them.” The Germans would have been executed had they been caught, as most o
f the other U-boat commandos had been. Some had just spent a great deal of time in prison though, their lives spared by incompetence or family connections or for giving evidence against their comrades. These men weren’t offered the opportunity.

  “He shot them,” Mrs. Bridgeton whispered. “His cousin wanted him to bring them into town, introduce them as part of the family, take them to the military base to show them around. Frederich couldn’t do it.”

  TJ didn’t comment but looked at the mayor, waiting for the rest of the story. There had been a great deal of money in the hands of the other terrorists arrested. They hadn’t planned on starving while on these expeditions.

  The mayor loosened his tie. “I was just a kid. I thought my daddy was a hero, and I wanted to help him fight Germans. I heard him arguing with Mama, and I sneaked out to follow him. I was big enough to row out here on my own.”

  Clay clattered back over the boardwalk bearing buckets of ice and cold drinks. “Water, soft drink, or lemonade?”

  “Water will be fine, dear. Thank you very much. Dear Cleo is fortunate to have such a wonderful family.” Mrs. Bridgeton, aka Schmidt, didn’t look at TJ as she said that.

  “Am I supposed to go to my room now and let the adults talk?” Clay asked when the silence lengthened.

  “That would be nice,” TJ agreed solemnly. Clay would be easing up on thirty by now, so TJ supposed he’d have to stop thinking of him as his baby brother, but the urge to harass didn’t go away.

  Mara swatted TJ with her hat, then pointed at a bench in the corner. Clay dropped to the seat and swigged his soft drink, leaning his elbows back on the rail and watching as if they were a TV show.

  “Did you arrive in time?” TJ asked the mayor, keeping an eye on the crowd milling in Jared’s yard, knowing the curious wouldn’t stay away much longer.

  “He was digging the grave by the time I got there. The island was larger then. That area was covered in oaks. The beach has moved over the years, and hurricanes have swept away the trees. I couldn’t have found the place again had I wanted.”