McCloud's Woman (3 page)

With experience gained in this last month, TJ swung his
nephew under his arm. “Hey, soldier. Your mama feeding you pure sugar
again?”

Dealing with children was a new experience, but TJ adapted
well. Pushing past the screen door, he yelled, “I found a stray monkey
in the yard!” into the seemingly empty house. “Should I put him in the
zoo?”

The boy under his arm giggled, naively accepting his world
as an unthreatening place. TJ wished he could recapture that kind of
innocence.

“Nah, Jared thinks he can train him for the circus, but
he’s having a little trouble keeping a lid on him.” Wearing a
grease-stained man’s work shirt, and wiping her hands on a red rag, Cleo
emerged from a back room.

Maybe he should look for a woman like Cleo. She asked for
nothing and expected nothing. She did things in her own way, in her own
time. Other women might greet dinner guests in flour-covered aprons or
high heels and sexy dresses, but Cleo had obviously been working on
another of her mechanical contraptions and had forgotten the time. Jared
had seen past Cleo’s dirt-smudged face and uncombed curls to the gem
beneath. Maybe TJ ought to learn from his little brother and practice
looking beyond the obvious.

Not that he was ever in one place long enough to try. His
contracts with the Defense Department and the United Nations might put
him in the company of the occasional military female for a few weeks,
but he spent the better part of his time digging in graves and the rest
examining bones—not the kind of date most women cherished.

TJ didn’t know why he was thinking along those lines at
all. He had carved out a unique career few men could step into. He had
awards for humanitarian efforts in half a dozen war-torn countries. He
had dedicated his life to truth and justice, and didn’t regret his
footloose lifestyle for a minute.

Or hadn’t, until he’d met the ugly underside of his accomplishment.

“Jared ordering pizza?” TJ asked gravely, handing the wriggling boy to his mother.

“Nope, fixing tacos. I have a whole bottle of ipecac in
the medicine closet, should we need it. Go on back. I’ll clean up and be
with you in a minute.”

Jared looked up from a frying pan of hamburger and onions
when TJ entered. “Hey, old man, you’re looking grimmer than usual. Those
skeletons rattling back?”

“Why? Does Cleo want them dancing in the drive?” TJ picked a tortilla chip from the bowl and stuck it in the guacamole.

Jared grinned. “She’d love that. The first of the movie
people arrived in town today, and she’s already muttering dire
imprecations. The mayor suggested she open a road around your
excavation.”

“Tell her there are federal laws about sand dunes and sea oats. The movie people will have to hire a boat.”

“I don’t know if that hurricane trash pile you’re digging in qualifies as a sand dune, and I don’t remember any sea oats—”

The back door flew open and a short, stocky teenage boy
burst in. “Did you see the limo? Did you? Reckon it had movie stars in
it?”

A tall, wraithlike girl followed Gene at a more leisurely
pace. Eyes darting to ascertain the occupants of the room, Kismet smiled
shyly, then silently drifted past the men to the front room.

After a month of living on this island, TJ had grown
accustomed to the neighbor’s eccentric children. Taking a chair at the
table, he munched on the chips and let Jared field the boy’s eager
questions. Movie stars? He grimaced at the memory of the woman in red.
Definitely movie star material. Wonder how in hell she knew his name.
Surely Jared hadn’t mentioned him in his brief forays into Hollywood
life.

“I don’t think the actors arrive until production starts,”
Jared told the boy. “I imagine you saw the director or producer or
their assistants.”

“Do assistants wear see-through blouses and skirts that
barely cover their rear?” TJ mused aloud, reaching behind him to open
the refrigerator, remembering too late that Cleo didn’t keep beer in the
house.

Both Jared and Gene turned to study him with interest. “See-through?” the teenager prompted eagerly.

Scrubbed free of grease and bereft of figure-disguising
shirt, Cleo caught the refrigerator door and removed a can of Dr Pepper
before TJ could shut it. “See-through?” she repeated innocently,
glancing at her husband as she popped the top.

“Ask big brother, not me.” Jared threw up his hands in self defense. “I don’t do Hollywood these days.”

Kismet followed Cleo into the kitchen as if feeling safe
only in the presence of another female. Quietly, she began setting the
table while Cleo produced chopped vegetables and opened a bottle of
salsa to go with the tacos.

“You didn’t ever do Hollywood,” TJ reminded him. “They tried to do you, and you balked.”

“Creative differences.” Jared dropped the frying pan of
sizzling meat onto a trivet in the center of the table. “But I’ve kept
my contacts. I know Sid Rosenthal owns the studio for this film. A
friend of mine worked on the script.”

“I don’t suppose Sid wears see-through red?” Cleo widened
her eyes in feigned innocence and reached for a tortilla. Today, her
T-shirt read: ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MY SELVES.

Jared kissed her nape and slid into the seat beside her.
“No, but Sid’s wife might. She owns half the company. The pirate film is
her idea.”

Rosenthal. Nope, he didn’t know any Rosenthals. Besides,
TJ couldn’t imagine that high-heeled chorus girl as a producer of
anything but seductive smiles. He wished she’d get out of his head. He
had other things far more important to think about. Starting with
replacing Leona.

“I think my assistant quit,” he said by way of taking part in the conversation.

No one seemed surprised by the odd direction of his thoughts.

“You
think
?” Cleo asked.

“Tim’s assistants always quit,” Jared explained, reaching
for the salsa. “He ignores them until they either do something explosive
to prove they exist, or decide they’re invisible, and disappear into
the woodwork.”

“I hire them to work, not become a part of my life,” TJ growled.

“You have no life,” Cleo said bluntly. “Most women just don’t realize you like it that way.”

Exactly, TJ thought in satisfaction. Finally, a woman who
got it, to use Leona’s memorable phrasing. He liked his life the way it
was.

Which was why he was reluctant to ruin it.

***

“Sid, you should have known about this!” Mara shouted into
her cell phone while scanning through her contact files, looking for
the name of local officials. “There’s a damned archeological dig square
in the middle of the road. We’ll never get equipment out there.”

Locating the mayor’s name, she handed the computerized
address book to Ian, accepted the drink he offered her, and glanced at
the scenery passing outside the limo’s window.

“No, I haven’t talked to the site foreman yet.” She
grimaced at her ex-husband’s annoying habit of treating her like an
idiot. But what else could she expect? She’d disguised her brains for
too long. “I didn’t even know the dig existed until two minutes ago.
There has to be another entrance to that beach.”

Using his own cell phone, Ian left a message on the
mayor’s machine and began scanning her file for other numbers. Mara took
a sip of her martini while Sid ranted, then set the drink back in the
limo bar and reached for her notes. She should have followed her
instincts and left Sid out of this, but she was terrified she’d wreck
everything on her own. She’d made a career of wrecking things.

“Sid, those scenes require a boom. We can’t get it in
there without taking a bulldozer to that dune. Someone should have
checked the location after the hurricane.” She rifled through her notes
until she found the map again. A rock jetty blocked the east end of the
beach. The crazy lady’s swamp blocked the west end. No access anywhere.

Visions of the whole production imploding danced across
the film screen of her mind. They’d already spent a quarter million.
Glynis Everett would only be available for the next six months, and they
needed three of those months at this location. Without the star, the
film was dead in the water. A quarter million down the drain—along with
her dreams of owning her own studio. She’d be under her family’s thumb
for the rest of her life.

They’d crush her into the lowly frog she’d once been. She couldn’t let that happen. She’d go as crazy as her mother.

Now there was a topic best avoided. Tapping her gold pen
against her notes, Mara half listened to Sid’s curses and threats while
she formulated another plan in the back of her mind.

She knew Tim, or had, once upon a lifetime ago. He’d
probably been the only shy athlete in the history of their exclusive
Long Island private school. He’d even had time for the lonely four-eyed
sister of his best friend. She’d suffered a bad case of hero worship
until the day he’d turned traitor and walked out on her when she needed
him most. He owed her for that.

He wouldn’t see it that way.

No matter. They were on level playing ground now. She was
no longer the humble scholarship student, and he wasn’t the wealthy
golden-boy athlete. This time, he could work with her, or she’d rip his
throat out.

Remembering the dangerous light in TJ’s eyes when he’d
ordered her out of his lab, Mara thought she’d prefer working with him
than against him, but the choice would have to be his.

Hitting the phone’s end button and shutting Sid out in
mid-rant, she retrieved her address book from the PDA and pointed out a
list of names to Ian. “Call all the city council members. They want this
film, they’ll have to earn it.”

“Hire a secretary,” he growled, refusing the device.

“Hire one for me,” she countered. That’s what she had
enjoyed most about being Sid’s wife—other people always did what she
couldn’t, or what she was afraid to try. All she’d ever had to do was
look good.

Those days were over. Mara dropped the palm-sized computer
in Ian’s lap. “The council or a temp agency,” she ordered, returning
her attention to the maps and notes in her lap.

She’d mourned her thirty-third birthday months ago. Time
was passing. If she couldn’t stand on her own two feet now, she never
would. She had to reverse a lifetime of habits in the next six months if
she wanted to survive.

***

Having been humiliated the day before, Mara carefully
chose her clothing the next morning. TJ had nearly dropped his teeth
when he’d seen her yesterday. She wanted his attention today, but she
preferred he focus it on their discussion and not her boobs. That caused
something of a dilemma. She didn’t have much else in the way of
attention-getting assets.

She glanced down at the cleavage exposed by her padded
lace Wonderbra, wrinkled her nose, and debated. Her life had taken a
180-degree turn the day she’d shed her dowdy chrysalis and emerged as a
glamorous butterfly.

She’d worked on her image ever since. As Sid’s wife, she’d
had a personal trainer, a make-up consultant, a hairdresser, and a
wardrobe designer. After the divorce, she’d had to let all of them go
but Constantina, the hairdresser the company paid. She’d had her own gym
in Sid’s mansion, until she gambled her share of the house in exchange
for half his shares of the studio. Beauty equated with power in her
world.

She examined the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and
wondered if she ought to consider a face-lift. Shrugging, she reached
for an electric blue silk shirt from the closet. With all her money tied
up in the film, she was lucky to afford a hangnail clipper. She was too
old for the ingenue parts she had taken when she’d first arrived in
Hollywood. Her fledgling career had died an early death when she’d
married Sid. Everyone made their fair share of mistakes. Why did hers
have to be of such catastrophic quality?

“Not the blue!” her hairdresser wailed, entering without knocking. “You’ll look like Dolly Parton.”

“I should be so lucky,” Mara muttered, defiantly buttoning
the shirt. She grabbed a pair of tailored jeans from the shelf. Once
upon a time, she’d lived in jeans. Maybe TJ would recognize her if she
reverted to form.

“You’re too old to wear those,” Constantina declared
ominously. “You might as well part your hair in the middle and let it
hang down your back like a teenager.”

Just what she didn’t need to hear with the upcoming
meeting with TJ fraying her nerves. Mara narrowed her eyes at the
reflection of her plump Italian hairdresser in the full-length mirror.
“Tell me I’m old one more time, and you’re outta here. I ditched a rich
husband for that.” A rich husband who had taught her to take the
offensive when challenged.

“You ditched Sid because you caught him humping starlets
again,” Constantina said dismissively, accustomed to arguing with her
Hollywood clientele. “It’s not your fault if he’s a few years short of a
pedophile. But it is your fault if you go around looking like a
derelict.”

“Derelicts don’t wear three-hundred-dollar jeans.” Mara
wriggled the denim over her long legs. This wasn’t Hollywood. She didn’t
have to impress anyone—except TJ.

She liked his new nickname. It suited that seething cauldron he disguised behind his mild-mannered Clark Kent routine.

Constantina sniffed. “I thought you had a meeting with the mayor. Believe me, the town council’s wives don’t wear jeans.”

“That’s because they’re fat and I’m not.”

“That’s because you’re the next best thing to anorexic.”

“I eat like a horse,” Mara shouted, tired of hearing about her faults. “I’m naturally thin. It goes with the height.”

“That’s why you’re supposed to wear skirts.” Constantina
gestured angrily. “You make men nervous when you tower over them and
wear pants. They hide your femininity.”

“Spoken like a short person.” Political correctness be
damned. She didn’t even know the wives of the town council, and she
hated them already. Shoving her bare feet into a pair of high-heeled
snakeskin mules, Mara grabbed her portfolio off the dresser and headed
for the door. She’d spent over half her life worrying about her looks.
She was damned well tired of it.