McCloud's Woman (16 page)

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.

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.”

Calorie City. She didn’t think she’d eaten mashed potatoes
since she’d left Brooklyn. She wasn’t entirely certain she’d ever eaten
fried chicken. “No tofu and broccoli casserole?” she asked in seeming
disappointment. Tugging TJ’s chains gave her more thrills than a
roller-coaster ride, and she hid her smile as anger finally flared in
his eyes.

“Are you coming or do I have to tell Cleo you’re in bed with the mayor?” he retaliated, finally reverting to form.