McCloud's Woman (28 page)

“I think I’ll burn those harnesses you call bras,” he said
gravely, caressing her nipples into aching buds of need. “This is what I
want to see when I look at you.”

She’d damned well burn the bras herself if it meant he’d
keep touching her like that. “I can knot my hair, wear a lab coat, and
not wear any underwear,” she whispered wickedly, leaning over to nibble
his lip.

“Promise?” he demanded, arching his hips so she could feel the brush of his erection against her buttocks.

“Oh, yeah.” Fastening her mouth to his, Mara rose up on her knees and adjusted her position.

TJ swallowed her gasp as he caught her hips and thrust deep inside her again.

They’d waited seventeen years for this moment. There was no need to hurry.

***

The ringing of the phone echoed up from both the kitchen and the receiver they’d left outside.

“How long did it take for them to find this number?” Mara murmured sleepily into TJ’s shoulder.

“It’s unlisted, but the colonel found Jared’s.” TJ didn’t
want to think about the colonel or the rest of the world right now. He
was busy having an out-of-body experience. Or maybe an out-of-mind
experience. Whatever, he floated weightlessly on a river of satiation.
“Maybe it’s a wrong number.”

Mara snuggled closer, and the sensation of her aroused nipples stroking his side hit a nerve running straight to his groin.

“It’s either Jared or Clay,” he decided. “They have no respect.”

She pressed a kiss to his nipple that had his hair standing on end again.

“Your stomach’s rumbling,” she murmured. “You’ll have to get up and answer it just so you’ll get fed.”

“I can eat anytime.”

“The corollary being we can’t mate like bunnies anytime?”

TJ chuckled at her warped humor and rolled away from temptation to fish on the floor for his shorts.

And yelped when she nipped at his derriere.

“Bunnies must have teeth for some reason,” she said innocently, rolling from the bed on the other side.

He was losing his head over a crazy woman.

He’d killed his sane, logical career. Why not indulge in insanity for a while?

“This better be good,” TJ growled into the receiver he’d grabbed from the porch and carried to the kitchen.

“Jared said this is my opportunity to watch the Intimidator in action.”

“Clay.” TJ halted Mara’s teasing kisses at the back of his
neck by catching her waist and lifting her to the kitchen counter. He
retreated to the stove with the phone while she stuck out her tongue at
him. Looking at Mara all tousled and wearing nothing but one of his
shirts was not conducive to concentration. “What can I do for you, bro?”

His youngest brother made a rude noise. “Don’t give me
that condescending crap. While you’ve been saving the world, I’ve been
taking care of myself. I’m just bored and looking for some fun and
games.”

TJ ran his hand over the back of his neck while Mara
watched him with eager, expectant eyes. He didn’t know a damned thing
about the film industry, but Clay did. He lived in L.A., worked on
computer film animation, and knew everyone. “What do you know about Sid
Rosenthal?” Mara’s eyes widened but TJ didn’t answer the question in
them.

Clay made another rude noise. “He digs young girls and blows his nose. Why?”

TJ grimaced, wishing he didn’t have to do this with Mara listening. “It’s a long story. How bored are you?”

“Bored enough to fly out there. Jared said he and Cleo are
doing the Disney thing, and I could crash in their place. Will that
help?”

Clay had been more cynical than usual since the dot.com
collapse had taken out his high-tech software business. Maybe he needed
this distraction.

“It might,” he grudgingly admitted. “Weather’s fine. You can keep your tan in shape. Find out what you can on Rosenthal first.”

“Can’t ask for more. See you soon.” Clay hung up with his usual lack of polite farewell.

Take care of Mara’s problem first
, TJ figured. The
vultures wouldn’t start circling his head until Roger had time to sort
through the boxes. Having Clay at his side when the shit hit might not
accomplish anything but family solidarity, but it sounded as if Clay
could use a little of that, too.

“Well?” Mara leaped from the counter, bare legs flashing as TJ hung up the phone.

“He’s bored and coming out to visit.” TJ would worry about his genius brother’s other agendas when he arrived.

“Why?”

“With Clay, it’s hard to say. He doesn’t like your ex,
though.” TJ watched her carefully. Intimacy didn’t give him the ability
to read her mind. She’d done a lot of living since he’d known her last.
He had difficulty imagining the Patsy he’d known hooked up with
mean-spirited assholes like her exes.

Mara shrugged and began filling the coffeemaker. “Sid has a
brilliant mind. He’s just snorted it down the drain. One of his films
bombed a few years back and rather than learning from the experience, he
crashed and burned. Stupid me, I thought I could save him. That was
before his baby starlet phase.”

He heard the betrayal and disappointment in her voice.
TJ’s instant reflex was to smash Sid’s face in, but he was learning that
he wasn’t the sole arbiter of justice in the world. “I’ve got to go
into town and find out what’s happening with my office. Want to come
with me? Or stay here and call your money men?”

She eyed him with a speculation that made him aware she
was wearing his shirt, and he wasn’t. Damn, but he’d never had a woman
affect him like this one.

“I’ll do some more research on the island and hope I can
solve your mystery. I want to be able to move in my trucks as soon as I
settle this fight with Sid.”

“It’s still a gravesite,” he warned, glad to be back on familiar grounds.

“No, it’s not. It’s a bunch of bones washed up by a
hurricane,” she countered, filling her cup and dancing off while he
filled his. “I’m moving in my trucks, McCloud,” she sang as she raced
for the stairs.

Damn, but he just might let her if she kept that up.

***

“Search the office,” TJ offered blandly to the government
lackey waiting for him in town. “Can’t imagine what you think you’ll
find aside from old bones, but I have nothing to hide.” He tried not to
think of the box still in his trunk. He needed to get that to Roger when
he had a chance. If the Defense Department was sending spooks down to
collect material, things were looking far darker than he’d expected.

He didn’t want to spend half his life in jail for
concealing evidence or for aiding and abetting criminals. Career suicide
was one thing, but with Mara in his life now, he was damned well ready
to fight for his freedom. With a possible enemy in sight, adrenaline
shot through his bloodstream. He wouldn’t let the colonel or anyone else
take him down with them if he could help it.

“It’s just routine,” the man in the brown suit claimed as
he shoved past the office door and scanned the dismal interior. “The
colonel said he’d given you some national-security material to destroy,
but we don’t have a record that it went through normal channels.”

“I left it with military staff, as instructed.” TJ scanned
the office rapidly, praying Mara hadn’t left any notebooks lying about.
“I’ve been in Africa and several other places since then. I’m certainly
not sitting on anything.”
Anymore
, he amended silently.

“McCloud!”

TJ turned to intercept the suave
People
reporter
while Brown Suit poked through his boxes of reference material. Today,
Paul Harris wore Tommy Hilfiger shorts and a Hawaiian print shirt.

“Any comment on your relationship with Mara Simon?”

“She’s an old friend,” TJ answered solemnly, crossing his arms and guarding the doorway.

“I heard Sid fired her from the film because of you.” The
reporter scribbled in a notebook and flipped a page for his list of
questions.

“You heard wrong.” TJ wasn’t loquacious on his best days. He could be downright contrary on his worst.

“The production crew said she left with you. Where is she now?”

“Do you know where your significant other is right now?”

Harris grinned. “Tanning at poolside. Want to try again?”

“Nope. If you’ll excuse me, I have company.” TJ closed the
door in the reporter’s smirking face and followed Brown Suit back to
the inner office.

“I trust you didn’t frighten off my secretary.” TJ scanned the floor, not finding anything out of order.

“I told her you’d call when you want her to come back in.”

“She’s a kid and not the world’s most efficient
receptionist, but I’m sure she can tell you that there’s nothing in here
but the work from my dig site.” Knock on wood that Brown Suit wasn’t
interested in digging deep enough to know the kid had just started. If
the spook started talking to Leona, he was in deep shit.

He was already in deep shit. He’d just be deeper.

“Yeah, well, you know the routine. Sorry to bother you.
That the skeleton you dug up?” He pointed to the skeleton hanging in the
corner, one of its fingers raised.

“This is what I’m working on.” TJ showed him the
deteriorating gray bones in his work box. “In the ground for maybe sixty
years, male, mid-twenties, Caucasian. Sound like anyone you know?”

“You tell all that from those bits of bone?” Impressed,
Brown Suit shrugged and walked away. “Guess you got more to do than play
cops and robbers with old files. Sorry about the inconvenience.”

TJ had been itching for a confrontation, but he supposed
keeping things quiet would be preferable—for a while. They’d be down on
him like a ton of bricks once the story broke. What the hell monster had
he let loose by trusting Roger with those boxes?

“No problem. Give my regards to the colonel.” Letting the
spook out, TJ breathed a sigh of relief. Alone now, he could plan his
battle with Sid unhampered.

***

It took TJ the better part of the day to call Clay back
and put his scheme in motion, but he’d done what he could by the time
Mara returned to the office with a file of notes she’d taken at the
library and excitement laughing in her eyes. She must have found
something in her research.

He figured he must have looked grim when she entered
because she wrinkled her upturned nose at him, made her fish face, and
kissed his cheek. She dodged when he reached for more.

“There are reporters with television cameras out there,
and I’m not appearing in the street looking as if I’ve just got out of
bed,” she said in explanation when TJ raised his eyebrow at her.

She’d pulled her curls into a thick swirl at the back of
her head, covered them with a wide-brimmed floppy hat, and donned a pair
of overlarge sunglasses in classic movie-star-in-disguise manner. TJ
contemplated pouty lips bereft of her usual red lipstick and lost the
path of his thoughts. “You look as if you just got off the plane from
Hollywood.”

“I won’t for long if I let you kiss me,” she replied with impudence. “Breakfast is the only meal I cook. Where shall we eat?”

Under the stars, with no one else around.
Realizing
he was staring at her as if famished, TJ pulled back. The pulse in his
temple accelerated, and his mouth dried. He was a man of few words, and
all of them fled beneath her laughing gaze. How the devil did she do
that?

Apparently reading the hunger in his eyes, she sidled
closer and ran her fingers down his shirt. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,
too,” she murmured teasingly, translating his thoughts without need of
his saying them aloud. “But we’re still on public display. Let’s try to
pretend we’re not cats in heat for a little while. It will be a
challenge.”

Just getting her out of the building without digging his
hands into her hair and kissing her until their heads spun would be a
challenge. “Hands to yourself,” he ordered, clasping her wrists and
removing her marauding fingers from his shirtfront. “Tell me what you
uncovered at the library today that has you dancing with mischief, and I
may survive this.”

“Blackbeard used the island,” she informed him with satisfaction, “just like I told you.”

“Those aren’t Blackbeard’s bones.” Grasping her elbow, TJ
steered her out of the office, flipping off lights and locking doors as
he went.

A gaggle of reporters snapped pictures as they exited, but his head was already on overload, so he ignored them.

“Maybe other pirates used it,” Mara continued as if a TV
camera wasn’t rolling down the road in front of her. “The island wasn’t
accessible by road until the sixties. Mostly, it was for hunting. Cleo’s
house is probably some rich nabob’s hunting lodge.”

She wasn’t even wearing perfume—now it was her damned jasmine-scented shampoo
turning him on. Much more time in Mara’s company, and he’d be a basket case.

Did he mean to spend more time in her company? How much more?

TJ stepped into the street in front of the town’s one
traffic light just before it changed, leaving the camera crew and their
unwieldy equipment trapped on the corner.

“Any rich nabobs go missing back then?” he asked. The way
stories were passed down around here, TJ figured he would have heard of
missing nabobs by now, but he needed to concentrate on something besides
Mara’s scent.

“Not that I’ve been able to tell so far,” Mara continued
complacently. “Place was pretty poor back then, if the local weekly is
any gauge. I started with the thirties. This was all farm country with
some sea traffic at the harbor. I read tobacco prices and local wedding
announcements until my eyes crossed.”

“Here comes the mayor. Cross your eyes at him.”

She shot him an amused look. “Ticks you off, does he?
According to my research, his father was mayor back in the fifties. Good
old Southern family. Play nice.”

“Miss Simon, Dr. McCloud. Pleasure to see you out and
about,” the mayor called jovially. “I understand you’ve resolved your
differences and the film is fully under way.”