McCloud's Woman (10 page)

“You asked.” He drank his coffee and didn’t comment further.

Now Mara understood the purpose of Cleo’s egg—the harmless
venting of frustration against this taciturn giant. She’d definitely
make it a point to buy the first egg off the production line. Maybe two
or three. Grabbing the book section and shaking it out, she pulled her
sunglasses down her nose to read.

“I’d better get you some suntan lotion. You’ll burn.” TJ set his paper aside and started to stand up.

Startled, Mara glanced over her sunglasses at the big man
who had disrupted his Sunday morning quiet for Cleo and for her. Okay,
maybe she wouldn’t use a
gooey
egg on him.

She hadn’t had a man stir himself for her sake in a long
time—if ever. She’d prefer it if he offered her the access road and not
lotion, but the thought counted. “Sit down. I’m already wearing lotion.
Can’t afford to look old in this business.” She lifted a bronzed ankle
and waved it idly in the air. “Unless, of course, you simply wish to
apply more, in which case, I accept.”

TJ sat back down, carefully refraining from staring at her bare legs.

Deciding Sunday morning was no time to take out her
frustrations on TJ, Mara read in companionable silence for a while,
sipping coffee, and occasionally jotting notes in her PDA.

But with a double jolt of caffeine chasing through her
arteries , Mara’s attention soon drifted to the fascinating man
sprawling across the bench only a yard away. He’d not worn reading
glasses in high school, but she thought the small dark-tinted spectacles
he wore now an attractive contrast to his macho image.

He had his nose buried in a story about the military and a
Balkan crime cover-up. A pity, wasting all that studiousness on a man
who could make movie stars pale in comparison.

He wore his hair shorter than he used to, but it was still
black and thick with sexy waves just over his temples that he’d
probably tried to disguise with the no-nonsense cut. The sun had added
an attractive bronze hue to his jaw that couldn’t disguise the dark
stubble of his beard.

She remembered TJ as always careful about his appearance,
but the island’s laid-back atmosphere had apparently gotten to him. He
didn’t precisely look relaxed, but far more casual in a short-sleeved
blue shirt and jeans than in his usual white shirt and dress pants.
She’d like to see him in a lot less. Even the shirt’s loose fit couldn’t
disguise the bulge of his biceps or the hard ridge of muscles defining
his chest.

“Let’s swim.”

With no further warning, Mara threw off her blouse, dropped her shorts, kicked off her sandals, and raced for the beach.

TJ froze as the hot pink spandex encasing firm buttocks and high breasts flashed past his nose.

In any normal situation, his reflexes would have reacted
quickly enough for him to have grabbed Mara before she reached the sand.
But libido-inflaming curves weren’t any normal situation to which he
could relate.

Mara hit the beach before his mind jerked back to reality,
and he leapt to his feet. Easily outdistancing her as she raced along
the sand, TJ prayed that was a bikini and not the secrets Victoria ought
to keep to herself.

He grabbed her around her bare waist and hauled her from
the hot sand before she could reach the water. Lithe female flesh
wriggled in his arms, and it took physical as well as mental strength
not to kiss her until they both passed out.

“Jellyfish,” he yelled, wanting to shake the fool woman
but disturbingly aware of a waterfall of curls tumbling over his bare
arms. She quit squirming, and he instantly set her away from him, too
late for his own comfort. He shoved his hands into his pockets to cover
the surge of blood to his groin and glared at her.

Mara crossed her eyes, pursed up her lips, and stuck out her tongue in a mocking fish face.

TJ almost buckled with laughter. He still wanted to kiss
her until both their heads spun, but he grudgingly conceded the battle.
“You win. Go join your sister fishies in the sea.” She’d defused his
instant hard-on, but he ached with the residual effect.

“Show me your dig site, then.” She swiveled on her heel
and headed down the beach, bikini-clad hips swinging in tantalizing
rhythm.

He knew she was doing this on purpose, but if he went back
and grabbed something to cover her up, she’d win. Her comment earlier
that he might have got lucky had he attended her party had simmered in
his imagination for the past hour.

He might have got lucky a long time ago if Brad hadn’t died.

That cooled his ardor. It was time to let that adolescent
crush go. Teenage hormones had thrown them into a frenzy that spring,
but it would have been a mistake if they’d actually acted upon them.
They’d been way too young. Brad’s death had proven the transitory nature
of teenage crushes.

Given the uproar in this morning’s paper about Martin and
his team’s release of Balkan prisoners, he’d better concentrate on
current problems and not past ones.

Watching Mara stride toward the dig site, TJ wondered how
she walked barefoot through the shells and pebbles, but they were her
feet, he told himself. Only after she walked on a half-buried pinecone
and yelped did he circle her waist again and haul her up to the platform
on top of the mound.

With a purr of appreciation, she wrapped her arms around his neck.

TJ distracted his screaming libido with the awareness that
she was entirely too light for a woman of her height. When he set her
down, he looked her over more carefully. He was trained in observing
skeletons, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t see flesh. He thought if he
unfastened that tempting little hook holding the bathing suit in place
over her breasts, that she might not be the C-cup size she seemed to be.
That realization did nothing to quench his simmering lust.

She crossed her arms, pushing her breasts higher. “Want to see more?”

“Yeah. Do you ever eat?”

She blinked in surprise, and TJ thought her lashes looked a
little shorter than they had the last time she’d tried vamping him. How
did she do that?

“You said the donuts were stale.” She swung away and gazed
through the chain-link fence to the hole he’d dug. “What’s in those
boxes?”

“Things that aren’t a natural part of the environment. A
lot of it is just garbage people have strewn on the beach over the
years, but some of it might be useful should I ever capture a clear
picture of what I’m looking for.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Evidence of who the bones belong to and what happened to
them. Come on, let’s go back to the house and fix you something to eat.”
The availability of all that golden bare skin taunted him, and TJ was
terrified of what he would do if he touched her again.

To his relief, she only poked around a little more,
apparently reluctant to discover any more buried pine-cones with her
bare toes. Her hair had come loose from her hat and spilled in blond
ringlets over her tanned shoulders, but she seemed oblivious to the
dishevelment while she danced back down the path they’d come. TJ
wondered how those few hanks of curls could equal the enormous stack
she’d been wearing every other time he’d seen her.

He could probably spend a lifetime uncovering the secrets of Mara Simon—damn his fascination with mysteries.

“If you’re not finding historical clues, what difference
does it make who they were?” she called over her shoulder. “They’re long
dead and gone. Why not let them stay that way?”

Because it warred with his need for justice, but TJ didn’t
try to explain that. “There may be families who need to know what
happened, lives built on false hopes or foundations. Aren’t you even
curious?”

She shrugged and kicked at a shell. “If they’re sixty
years old, who would still be alive to care? That’s what, World War II?
Two drunks got in a fight and shot each other before they were supposed
to ship out?”

She was quick, he’d give her that. Just like old times,
her brain not only kept up with him but raced ahead to consider
scenarios his limited imagination couldn’t reach.

“I only have the evidence of one bullet wound, and it
could have been prior to death. I need more artifacts before I can even
begin forming a scenario. All I know is that what I’ve found so far
belongs to two Caucasian males. The storm did so much damage, that I
can’t even determine if the hairs I found on scraps of cloth belonged to
them. I’ll probably have to dig out the whole mound before I’m done.”

“Do you think they were buried on the beach?” She stopped and threw a look over her shoulder, waiting for him to catch up.

He didn’t want to catch up. He liked the view from where he was.

Slapping down his voyeurism, TJ fell into step. “It’s too
hard to tell. From what I’ve learned, the island was pretty much
deserted sixty years ago. The causeway hadn’t been built, and only boats
could get out here. A few farmers built houses and raised cotton and
goats. Cleo’s living in one of those houses. I haven’t found any record
of a family cemetery though.”

She took his arm as casually as if they were in evening dress and promenading through a ballroom. “You researched the site?”

Trying to think while blood boiled his brain, TJ managed a
nod. “Somewhat. But my assistant quit, and I don’t have enough hands to
manage the day-to-day office stuff and the research, as well as the
dig.”

“Well, if you know the skeletons are roughly sixty years
old, couldn’t you just skim newspaper files? Maybe they would make note
of anyone of the right age and height who disappeared back then. Or if
they’d died and been buried here, they’d have that, too.”

“The local rag is a weekly. Some of it is stored on
microfiche at the library, but I haven’t had time to go through all of
it. The machine isn’t in the best of repair. I decided to look for more
specific evidence before trying to pinpoint newspaper articles.”

“I could do that,” she offered abruptly.

“Why would you want to?” Reeling with just the possibility
of Mara’s formidable mind being applied to his project, TJ reacted
defensively.

“Because you might move out faster if I found the answers for you.”

“I thought you had a film to produce.” TJ tried to keep
his tone noncommittal. He was having a hard enough time equating little
Patsy Simonetti with this blond seductress on his arm. Picturing her as a
Hollywood film producer boggled the mind. Having her work with him far
exceeded his fantasies.

She shot him a sly glance. “What’s the matter, TJ? Don’t think I can do it?”

He shook his head in denial. “Even as a sixteen-year old,
you could do anything you put your mind to. I’m not arguing the point. I
just thought film producers stayed too busy for things like research.”

She shrugged and stopped to examine a shell that caught
her eye. “I own half the company. That doesn’t make me a producer. The
company pays the real guys who can round up the money men. My job is to
persuade the tight-fisted to part with their cash.”

TJ didn’t have to ask how she did that. Pour her into gold
lamé and add sultry perfume, and every man in her vicinity would be
peeling banknotes off rolls to please her. A basic instinct inside him
roared objection at this exploitation of a brilliant woman who had far
more to offer than looks.

“You’ll not find many moneylenders out here.” He tried not to sound angry, but from her expression, he figured he’d failed.

“I dated a set designer before I met Sid,” she answered,
as if that related. “I like camouflaging flaws and creating magic out of
nothing. I’ve got a really tight budget on this film, and the director
would haul in seventy-five royal palms and landscape the whole jetty if I
let him loose on his own. With a little film magic and some cheap
plastic palms, I can do the same thing and save a lot of money.”

Even though there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky, TJ’s day
brightened. “Brains and creativity, too. I always knew you’d be a
dangerous woman.”

She beamed at him. “So, can I do your research?”

He narrowed his eyes at her in return. “I just said I know
you’re a dangerous woman. Why should I let you anywhere near my
project?”

She shrugged and skipped off down the sand again. “Because you also know I’m an honest one.”

He knew she
used
to be an honest one. But he didn’t
know this woman with the dyed hair and bobbed nose. He’d learned the
hard way to suspect everyone and everything. If it looked too good to be
true, it usually was.

But damn, he’d love to have her brilliance on his side.

***

Mara felt TJ stiffen beside her as they approached the
beach cottage. She eyed the visitor lounging on the steps. He was tall
and out of shape, with male-pattern baldness badly concealed by a crew
cut. Not bad looking in a nondescript sort of fashion. She smelled
reporter a mile away.

A reporter TJ obviously knew and didn’t want around. Her vivid imagination kicked into gear.

“Roger,” TJ acknowledged. “What brings you to these parts?”

Mara tugged her shirt over her bathing suit when the man’s
gaze turned to her. She liked the media noticing her only when she
wanted something from them.

“A story,” the reporter responded laconically, returning
his gaze to TJ, “although I may have been steered wrong, from the looks
of things.”

“Mara, this is Roger Curtis, special correspondent for the
Post
. We met on assignment in the Balkans a few years ago. Roger, Mara Simon.”

She waited to see if the reporter recognized her name, but
apparently he didn’t. Amused, she played her dumb- blonde role, batted
her lashes, and smiled. The reporter raised his eyebrows and nodded, but
it was obvious she wasn’t the focus of his interest. Very odd.

“Guess I caught you at a bad time. I couldn’t find a room
around here so I thought I’d just stop by.” Roger reluctantly unfurled
from the steps. “Maybe I can give you a call later, after I check in
over at Charleston.”