McCloud's Woman (18 page)

She thought about it, then shook her curls. “Nope. You had
all the power then. You were the one who got to call the shots. It’s my
turn now, and I like having that power. Get used to it.”

“Did Irving have time to appreciate the monster he created
before you crucified him?” he asked in warped fascination with the
woman she’d become.

“Nope, but Sid did. Stupid man thought he’d married a
pussycat. Why in the world would any sane man want to marry a
bubblehead? Explain that to me.”

“Because bubbles only show them their reflection?” He
didn’t know where that came from, but he’d seen it often enough. Jared
had dated women like that for years, but he’d never been serious about
any of them. There was a difference between casual dating and committing
for a lifetime.

She chuckled. “Sid’s so ugly, I can’t imagine why he’d
want to see his reflection, but I see what you mean. Irving married me
for my brains and Sid married me for my looks, and I married both of
them for security, so we all lost. I learned my lesson. I provide my own
security these days. What about you? Where are you going with this
bone-digging stuff?”

“Probably nowhere,” TJ admitted, “but that’s not your
problem. We’re almost at Cleo’s. She doesn’t entertain often, so this is
a big deal for her. I’ll try not to yell at you if you’ll try not to
insult me, okay?”

“I like Cleo, and if she’ll provide me with a supply of
those squishy eggs, I’ll be quite content egging you and Jared all
evening. I shall be the model guest. Are you going to tell me after we
leave why bones aren’t going anywhere?” she asked with interest.

“Probably not.” He braked the car in Cleo’s drive and
turned off the ignition. The sun hadn’t quite set, and TJ could see
Mara’s delicate chin stuck out in a stubborn pose he knew too well. “If
you’re still willing to help, I’m ready to start researching the island.
I have a secretary starting next week, but she won’t be any good at
research.”

The diversion worked as well as he’d hoped. She lit up
like a light bulb—the Christmas-tree kind in sparkly colors. Patsy would
never be so ordinary as to radiate plain white light.

“I
adore
research,” she sighed with satisfaction.
“I about drove the scriptwriter insane by forcing him to stick to the
facts I dug out, but details positively
make
the film. I’ll check when the library opens tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” And he meant it. He also knew the
diversionary tactic would last only long enough to get him through the
evening. The Patsy he knew never let a subject of interest escape her
for long. Before she gave up, she would dissect his evasion into tiny
pieces.

How long before she dissected him? And could they do it in bed—without killing each other first?

Approaching the McCloud’s front porch, Mara admired the
twinkle of a swinging mechanical Tinkerbell—until Jared stepped out,
looking more grim than TJ at his worst. Her stomach plummeted to a place
between her toes.

TJ stiffened but calmly guided her down the shell path to
the house. She didn’t bother arguing with his proprietary support this
time. She’d had enough bad news thrown her way to know when it was time
to dodge and when it was time to run like hell. TJ apparently was of the
old school of taking it like a man.

Jared slipped him a folded packet of paper as they stepped
up on the porch. “Sheriff was by earlier looking for you at the dig.
Needless to say, Cleo wouldn’t have been happy to see him. I made the
intercept. Sorry.”

Mara had been in Hollywood long enough to know legal
papers when she saw them. Sid kept a whole raft of lawyers on retainer
to field just this sort of thing.

Pulling out his reading glasses, TJ glanced at the first
few paragraphs in Tinkerbell’s swinging light, swore, and shoved both
glasses and documents into his inside coat pocket. Without another word,
he swung on his heel and started for the stairs.

The strong silent act might work in some circles, but not
in hers. Mara grabbed his arm as he passed, and jerked hard enough to
either stop him or drag her down with him. “Where do you think you’re
going?”

“To call a lawyer,” he spit out, glaring at her as if she
were a cockroach he meant to crush. “You’re not getting away with this.”

A tiny tendril of panic pushed through one of the multitudinous cracks in her wall. “Get away with what?”

“As if you didn’t know.” TJ tugged his arm free and would have pressed forward, but Jared’s voice halted him.

“Cleo’s been working all day on this dinner. She has the
name of a legal shark, but I’d suggest you stay and eat before you ask
for it.”

Mara could see TJ obviously wavering, torn between family
loyalty and the lethal fury boiling inside him. She swallowed hard,
hating to lose the bridges they’d started to rebuild this evening.

Bracing her backbone with the knowledge that she was
innocent for a change, she steered him in the right direction. “I don’t
know what you think I did, but can it for a few hours. Only ambulance
chasers answer phones at this time of night.” She was rattled by those
papers, but she knew how to put on a show. He could learn to do the
same.

TJ ripped the papers from his pocket and waved them in her face. “Look at these and tell me you don’t know what you did.”

She snatched the document and tried to read it in the bad
light but the printing blurred. Laser surgery had corrected the worst of
her vision problems, but she still needed reading glasses. She never
wore them in public, didn’t even carry them with her. “It’s too dark,”
she said boldly. “Let’s go in.” She started for the door that Jared was
blocking.

TJ tore the papers from her grip and returned them to his
pocket. “It says I have to cease and desist blocking the access road.
Now tell me again that you don’t know what this is about.”

Jared whistled. “Cleo’s not going to like that. She likes our privacy, and they’ll have reporters crawling all over this story.”

Sid
. Mara recognized her ex’s grimy pawprints all
over it. And Ian, no doubt. She’d have to fire her producer—once she
owned the company. Dammit.

You could start filming the night scenes now
, a
wayward voice in the back of her head crowed. They could bring in the
sound equipment and concession trucks so the crew didn’t quit en masse.
And haul in the dressing rooms so Glynis didn’t call her agent and
complain for the umpteenth time this week.

At the cost of losing the friendship of the McClouds
.
And TJ. Double damn. She’d dearly like to know what it was like to have
real friends. Was that asking so much? Maybe asking to have TJ in her
bed again was pushing her luck, but she couldn’t let Sid hurt people who
had done nothing to him.

She had an opportunity to start a fresh life, her own
life, and already she was flubbing it because she wasn’t greedy enough
to choose her career over friendship. Some tycoon she was.

“Are the lot of you going to stand out there gossiping, or
do you prefer your potatoes cold?” Wearing a dark green miniskirt and
matching tank top, Cleo appeared in the screen door like an inquisitive
leprechaun.

Mara had the feeling that Cleo had even more issues than
she did, and that her hostess was capable of slamming the door in their
faces and telling them all to go to hell if they carried their argument
inside. Maybe the way Jared opened the door and chucked his wife under
the chin with a reassuring smile gave her the impression of her
hostess’s vulnerability. Maybe she just liked believing there was one
man in the world who loved his wife enough to protect her from harm, and
she simply imagined Cleo’s insecurities.

Either way, she didn’t want this misunderstanding to
interfere in the first evening she’d had off in what seemed like
decades. These were real people, from her real life, and she wanted to
be herself for a little while, if she could just remember who that self
was.

“TJ says I can’t throw eggs at him,” she told Cleo with her best actress pout. “Is he always such a spoilsport?”

Jared grinned approval and shot his brother a warning
glare. “You have to ask? Big Brother created the law, and we all bow
before it. C’mon, and I’ll see if I can slip you an egg or two before
the evening’s over.”

Eyeing them warily, Cleo didn’t appear fooled, but she
pushed the door open. “It’s always more fun if he doesn’t know when it’s
going to hit him.”

“He plays broody gloom so well, too,” Mara chirped
happily, grabbing TJ’s arm and tugging him toward the door. “If I ever
do a remake of
Jane
Eyre
, will you try out for the part of Rochester?” She flapped her fake lashes at him.

“Only if the self-righteous Jane gets murdered in the end,” he said dryly, hauling her into the house.

The evening worked its way from hostile to surreal in a
matter of minutes. Jared and Cleo evidently thought nothing of
entertaining in the kitchen, and the neighbor’s children apparently
treated their kitchen as home. Mara knew how to handle the teenage boy’s
awe, but doing it with TJ glowering at her was awkward. Matty’s excited
chatter and Jared’s humor eased the conversation, but the girl called
Kismet strained it with her shyness.

Cleo managed the whole milieu without any sign of noticing
her guests’ difficulties. Mara admired the way she nudged Gene when he
grabbed for the chicken without asking, reminding him without words to
use his manners. She’d not spent much time with kids, but she could
remember her father’s scolding. She liked Cleo’s method better.

TJ didn’t look at her as he complimented Cleo on the
chicken. She couldn’t believe the bastard thought she was capable of
Sid’s kind of treachery. What in hell made him think she cared so
little? Hadn’t they just discussed the result of their earlier lack of
communication?

She wouldn’t be ignored or forgotten this time.

“Rubber eggs should have rubber chickens,” Mara murmured thoughtfully, fingering the toy Cleo had sneaked into her hand.

TJ lowered his V-shaped scar into a scowl but didn’t otherwise acknowledge her senseless remark.

“The Three Stooges had a rubber chicken,” Gene suggested eagerly. “They’re funny.”

“Spoken like a true man,” Cleo acknowledged with a knowing grin.

Ignoring the by-play, Mara squeezed her weapon. It went
splat,
and she almost checked her hand to scrape off the non-existent goo.
Jared and Gene snickered. Kismet watched her with interest.
Eight-year-old Matty grinned.

TJ reached for the mashed potato bowl.

Splat
.

Fluffy white spots riddled TJ’s forehead and jacket
sleeve. One particularly fine glob slithered into his crooked eyebrow.
It was his own fault for not believing her.

Mara recognized the dangerous gleam in his eye as he set
the bowl down. When she’d been very young, she’d run from that look. In
later years, she’d learned how to work it to suit her purposes. TJ had
been her very first male role model, and all other men in her life had
failed to live up to his standards. Had she fantasized the man she
remembered?

“Oops.” She smiled coyly and batted her lashes. “The rubber chicken must have laid a rubber egg.”

All conversation stopped as TJ swirled the egg in the
potato bowl with deadly calm. Mara propped her elbow on the table and
set her chin in her palm while she admired his intimidating maneuver.
“Uncool, McCloud. Gentlemen don’t strike ladies. Whatever would your
mama say?”

“That you’re not a lady?” he suggested, fishing the potato-covered egg from the bowl.

“That people don’t play with their food?” came from the
surprising quarter of Kismet, whose brown eyes had widened with both
interest and trepidation.

“Tim, if you throw that thing, I’ll dump the bowl over
your head,” Cleo intruded firmly. “How am I supposed to teach the kids
manners?”

Mara stuck her tongue out at TJ’s black glare, knowing
perfectly well the childish phrase he longed to unleash. “Say it, I dare
you,” she goaded him.

Splat
.

Mara’s golden hairpiece caught the blow, tilting
precariously over one ear while a gob of mashed potato slowly rolled
down her forehead.

“She started it,” TJ said in a childish falsetto.

The table erupted in roars of laughter. Even Cleo was
wiping her eyes and laughing too hard to carry out her threat as Mara
carefully plucked the comb of the hairpiece from her matted curls.

Gravely, she laid the once-lovely curls across the remains of TJ’s fried chicken and string beans. “You win.”

She turned to the wide-eyed, giggling children. “Let this be a lesson to you. Uncle Tim doesn’t get mad, he gets even.”

“Maybe Baby Patsy ought to take heed of her own advice,” TJ responded, a warning hidden behind his gibe.

Wiping her forehead with her napkin and running her
fingers through her natural curls to check for damage, Mara savored the
triumph of jarring a reaction from his cold demeanor. She didn’t know
why she needed evidence that the Tim she knew still existed, but even
with egg all over her face—or potato, to be perfectly
correct—satisfaction licked deep inside her. “I’m not Sugar Dave. I
don’t back down.”

Jared chuckled at her reference. When all eyes turned to
him for explanation, Jared shrugged. “Dave was on the basketball team of
our high school’s biggest rival. He was the only guard large enough to
block TJ on the court. He made the very bad mistake of calling our
cheerleaders a rude name.”

“Okay, I’ll bite.” Cleo handed Mara a clean wash rag.
“What did our favorite Scorpio do?” She tugged the back of TJ’s jacket
until he stood up and took it off so she could clean the potatoes off of
it.

TJ calmly dumped Mara’s two-hundred dollar hairpiece into
the trash and found a clean plate, obviously pretending the tale had
nothing to do with him.