McCloud's Woman (25 page)

Ian shrugged. “Talk to Sid. He’s my boss. I just do what he tells me.”

TJ’s muscles tensed beneath her hand, but she dug her
nails deeper. “Tell Sid I’m the one who got the financing, the investors
are expecting me at the helm, and if I tell them I’m off it, they’ll
pull their backing so fast, Sid’s pockets will explode from the vacuum.”

TJ snorted quietly, but she was too tense to smile. She
had no idea if she could pull off her threat, but money was always a
producer’s Achilles heel.

Ian looked uneasy but determined. “You and Sid fight that
battle. I’ve got a film to do and people coming in and I need the
space.”

“And I’ve already called your Aunt Miriam,” Irving
intruded, sensing victory. “I told her we’d rent a van and drive back.
They’re thrilled to have you.”

Cold pizza curdled in her stomach, and Mara thought she
would spew it up here, on the antique Persian rug in the B&B’s
elegant foyer.

“I’ll call the security office,” TJ intruded with such solemn aplomb that every head in the room swerved in his direction.

Mara stared at him wide-eyed, wondering what the devil he was talking about.

He picked up her box of framed photos and tucked it under
one arm as if it were her pillow. “The chain link will go across the
walkway tomorrow, and I’ll have guards posted on the perimeters. I told
Cleo I’d keep her property clear of trespassers. She doesn’t think of
Mara as a trespasser, but the rest of you...” He shrugged and gathered her
luggage.

He was scaring the shit out of Ian without laying a hand on him.

“We’ve got permission to use that beach,” Ian shouted
frantically, punching numbers into his phone. “You can’t keep us off.
I’ll call the mayor.”

Mara smiled and tucked her favorite lace pillows under her
arm. “TJ has a federal injunction closing the access road, and Cleo
owns all the property around it. Sail the crew in. I’m sure Glynis will
love the adventure. And by the way, I have all the phone numbers in my
cell. You and Sid don’t even know who the investors are. I’ll let them
get a good night’s sleep before I call them.”

In Italian, Mara called up to Constantina, who replied
with a stream of invectives and a reassurance that Glynis would hire
her—once she reamed Ian’s black heart into an anatomically impossible
edifice.

Reassured that her last remaining employee wouldn’t be
stranded, Mara grabbed the handle of her overnight bag and rolled it
toward the door. Only then did she remember she had no car waiting
outside and no chauffeur to pick up the rest of her luggage. And no
place to go.

The bottom of her stomach fell out, but she gritted her teeth and forced the panic down.
One foot in front of the other, get out before anyone sees you shatter
.

“Have a good evening, gentleman,” TJ intoned in a toneless voice. “Tell Aunt Miriam that Tim McCloud sends his regards."

Mara choked on mixed laughter and sobs as he caught up with her, carrying her two heaviest bags along with the photos.

“Aunt Miriam will wet her undies if Irving delivers that
message. You know that, don’t you?” The overnight bag’s wheels bumped
down the stairs.

She’d taken such good care of these damned Vuittons,
making Jim handle them for her, hauling them in the limo instead of
airplanes, and now they were dragging them up a seashell drive while her
life crumbled under her. There was a metaphor in there somewhere.

“I don’t believe I was anything but excessively polite to
all your family,” he said in that same grave voice he’d used all
evening. She had an odd hunch TJ retreated behind politeness when
confronted with turmoil. Excellent survival skill. She ought to try it
sometime.

The big suitcases rattled as they progressed up the drive.
“You’re not only an infidel, but in my aunt’s way of thinking, you’re
the infidel who cost the family Brad’s genius.” Mara regretted the words
the instant they popped from her mouth. “I’m sorry—I should never have
said that.”

“It’s all right. It’s not anything I haven’t thought myself.”

If his voice had been without inflection earlier, it was
sepulchral now. Her panic took a detour. “TJ, you’re a brilliant man.
You know full well Brad did what he did to himself. You were not my
brother’s keeper.”

“I could have prevented it.” Self-disgust welled in his
voice, more terrible for the calm that had preceded it. Although he was
hauling the heavier pieces, he caught up and stalked ahead of her.

“How? Locked him in his room?” she shouted after him.

“If I hadn’t been too blinded by hormones, he’d be solving
world hunger today,” he reminded her coldly, slowing his pace so she
didn’t have to shout.

The tears Mara had been holding back poured down her
cheeks. Hands full, she made no attempt to wipe them away. “No, TJ,” she
said insistently. “Brad brimmed with idealism, but he would never have
been strong enough to carry anything to completion.”

“He would have grown stronger.” TJ heard her tears, but he
was wrestling with his own demons and didn’t want them spilling over on
her. “Brad just thought he had to carry the weight of the world alone,
and the burden was too heavy. I should never have let him drive while he
was upset.”

The scene from that night seared TJ’s memory. As a
know-it-all Harvard sophomore on spring break, he’d driven over to the
Simonettis to see Patsy. He wasn’t much of a ladies’ man, but over
Christmas he’d finally recognized the budding woman in the intelligent
little girl he’d known for years. He’d spent hours on the phone with
her, and the hours in between thinking of how they could be together.

In that spring night etched in his memory, she’d stood
there in tight shorts and tailored shirt, her tan bare legs looking like
a college kid’s dream come true. Her solemn green eyes had watched him
come up the walk as if he were not only a man, but the only man in the
world. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her to acknowledge his
best friend standing on the doorstep beside her.

“He won’t listen to me!” Brad cried as TJ walked up the
cracked sidewalk. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m never going to be a
doctor, no matter how hard he pushes.”

TJ had heard the argument before. Brad’s grades at Harvard
had never been as high as he expected, but Brad had always wanted to be
a doctor. TJ figured grades wouldn’t stop Brad from whatever he wanted
once he stopped worrying and applied his mind to his goal. But right
now, TJ wasn’t in a humor for school or studies. He didn’t want to waste
a single precious minute with the girl watching him with shining eyes
and a love that turned everything he believed inside out.

He was afraid if he took her out in the car the way he
felt now, he’d be in her pants before the night ended. She was only
sixteen and didn’t understand the hormones careening through his
besotted veins. He loved her too much to push her too fast. He had to be
the responsible one here.

“Then don’t be a doctor,” TJ said unsympathetically. “Are
you planning on chaperoning us for the evening?” That had been cruel,
but he wanted Patsy to himself. He could listen to Brad’s harangues
anytime.

“Not if you give me your car keys. I’ll go get Ben and Jerry’s.”

That should have signaled Brad’s state of desperation.
Brad not only never wasted money on frivolities, but he was a lousy
driver and rarely drove alone. But Patsy broke into a broad smile, and
the need for her kiss obliterated TJ’s ability to reason. He threw Brad
the keys to his BMW just to get rid of him.

Seconds later, Brad roared off, leaving TJ and Patsy to
stroll the nighttime city streets. TJ didn’t remember his best friend
existed as he pulled Patsy into his embrace in the shadows between the
streetlights. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him
with such soul-piercing joy that his heart rate escalated to explosive.
He’d kissed plenty of girls before, but none had touched the empty
places inside him as Patsy did.

His only fear was of his palms sweating as he slid his
hands beneath her shirt and touched her braless breasts for the first
time. Her muffled moan of surprise and excitement wreaked havoc with his
plans for restraint.

And then the quiet rumble of distant traffic erupted in a
squeal of tires and brakes, followed by the crash that shattered their
universe.

Leaping apart, staring at each other in terror, they
wordlessly broke into a run toward the road Brad would have taken.
Racing into the unlighted intersection, TJ panicked at the sight of the
familiar BMW smashed against the lamppost. Recklessly, he ran across the
road, dodging skidding traffic and slamming brakes.

Before he could reach the opposite corner, a spark from a
downed electric wire caught in the gas spilling from the punctured tank,
and the street exploded in flames. Brad never had a chance.

The anguish of that fatal scene still had the power to twist his heart in knots.

And here TJ was again, walking a dark street with Patsy,
contemplating kisses he didn’t deserve from a woman who felt like his
missing half.

“TJ.”

He bumped into Mara before he realized she’d forged ahead
of him and quit walking. She set down her pillows and touched a hand to
his chest, forcing him to halt or plow over her. He didn’t want to halt.
He wanted to keep on walking, march right on out of here, head for
Mexico and never look back.

“TJ,
nothing
you could have done would have saved him.”

He wanted to believe that, wanted to forget that night and
every other by burying himself in her welcoming arms and making the
world go away. He couldn’t tell if the exotic scent filling the night
was from her or the magnolias, but it wrapped him in temptation.

“He’s gone and I’m here,” he answered doggedly, if
illogically. He never talked about this, didn’t want to talk about it
now, not on top of everything else. A dam inside him strained on the
edge of breaking, and talk would only unleash the flood. “It’s too late
to do anything now. Come on, let’s get moving.”

“TJ.”

She dropped her suitcase handle and the bag rolled off the
walk and tumbled over. She didn’t notice but put both her hands on his
chest, where they burned through his shirt.

“He left a note, TJ.” Tears still choked her voice, but
she spoke firmly. “Before you came over, he’d told my dad that he wasn’t
good enough to be a doctor, that he hated Harvard, that he wanted to
teach.”

TJ tried to push her aside, but his muscles wouldn’t work.
Her quiet words were forcing the cracks in his hard shell wider. Brad
had always wanted to be a doctor, for as long as TJ had known him.
Throughout high school, that had been all Brad had ever talked about,
the reason he’d studied constantly, the reason he could never fail,
because he wanted to save the world. Something had changed in college,
but TJ had been too busy with sports and studies and girls to listen.

“He would have made a fine teacher,” he growled in defense of his friend.

“Yes, he would have been a great teacher,” she said softly, “but my father wanted him to be a
doctor
.
Brad tried to tell him he couldn’t take the stress of Harvard, that
he’d never handle medical school. They’d skirmished over this before.
That night, Dad told Brad he wouldn’t pay his tuition unless he agreed
to study medicine. Brad was panicking as he always did when they fought.
I was tired of the arguments and wanted you to make the world go away
for a little while. So I let him go, just the same as you did.”

Her sadness dropped like a pall over TJ. He’d known Brad
was agitated, but he’d brushed it aside without thinking beyond the
nuisance his friend was making of himself. He certainly hadn’t imagined
the tragic results.

Not knowing what else to do, TJ stood there, suitcases in
hand, staring down at his teenage dream, who was trying to unlock the
chains of guilt that shackled him by taking them on herself.

“Brad wrote a note before you arrived, TJ, although I
didn’t know that until later. He would have died that night whether
you’d been there or not.”

Suicide
. TJ let that horrifying revelation sink in. Deliberate suicide and not just a tragic accident.

Closing his eyes against the stab of agony, TJ wrestled
with a fear he’d known all along but had refused to accept. His best
friend had killed himself, believing TJ had deserted him.

Relentlessly, Mara continued. “TJ, it’s not your fault.
Brad was distraught that night. If you loved him as much I did, then you
have to believe Brad didn’t know the hell he condemned us to when he
drove so recklessly.”

She stroked his cheek while she caught her breath, and TJ shuddered beneath the tenderness of that touch he didn’t deserve.

“I try to remember him as the loving brother who taught me
the joy of books,” she finished softly, “and who did what he could to
look after me when our parents fell down on the job. But in no way can
you ever share the blame in what he chose to do.”

With a sigh that ripped his heart out, TJ hefted the
suitcases and started walking again. “Stand forewarned, Patsy. I’m a
lousy friend.”

They walked to TJ’s car in silence. He heaved one suitcase
in the trunk of the Taurus with the evidence box and the other in the
back seat, tucking her boxes and pillows around them. Mara didn’t know
where he was taking her and didn’t want to know. She just wanted to
subside into misery and wallow for a little while.

But TJ was just as miserable, and that ancient part of her
that had once adored him couldn’t let him suffer any more than he
already had. She wasn’t much of a caretaker or nurturer, but TJ was a
part of her she didn’t want harmed.

“What will you do about the colonel?” she asked quietly as
the car rolled smoothly through dark streets in the direction of the
causeway.