McCloud's Woman (26 page)

He didn’t answer immediately, and his silence worried her.
“If he’s guilty of covering up any of those things in those notebooks—”
she began.

“It’s not that simple,” he answered curtly, staring ahead.

“Explain,” she demanded. “It looks to me like you’re covering up evidence. Hand it in and let someone else decide the truth.”

“You’re a fine one to preach about truth.” His fingers
tightened on the steering wheel and the car picked up speed over the
empty causeway.

“When have I ever lied to you?”

“What do you think that hairpiece is? The padded bras? The
nose job and dyed hair and glue-on lashes? You’ve become so fake, I
don’t think you could see the truth if you walked into it.”

Mara reeled with shock at this unanticipated attack from a
man she’d trusted to defend her. “And that makes you perfect, I
suppose?” she retaliated, seeking a means of returning the hurt. “You
were born with looks and brains and money,” she continued in scorn, “so
you never had to pretend or fudge the truth. You just walk away when
things get tough.”

In the back of her mind, a little voice screamed that she
was onto something here, but she wasn’t listening to little voices
through the red rage of anguish.

“Money hasn’t bought you happiness, has it?” TJ said
coldly. “And what does beauty get you? Shallow friends? Or is that what
money buys? All the money and looks in the world mean nothing without
honesty. Where are your so-called friends now?”

“I thought I was sitting next to one.” The pain hurt too
badly for tears, and Mara whispered the reply. “Turn around and take me
back. I’ll sleep in Constantina’s room.” She stared out the window at
the ghostly ocean lapping against the causeway and wished she were dead.

“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for,” TJ admitted hoarsely.
He didn’t turn the car around but eased up on the speed as they reached
the island.

“You have every right to speak what you think.” She
wrapped her arms around her pillow and wouldn’t look at him, although
every pore of her body was aware of him and their destination. This was
Tim
.
He wouldn’t have said those things to her without reason. Was that how
he saw her? As shallow? Had she turned into a female version of her
exes?

“I hate seeing what they do to you,” he growled. “I think you’re too smart and too real to put up with that crap back there.”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” she said, still hurting and
not wanting to think about his accusations. “You’re letting some
trumped-up punk in uniform tell you what to do. Hell, for all I know,
you let Brad’s death break us up and steer your course all these years.
You can’t punish yourself for what either Brad or your damned colonel
did. Accuse me of selfishness for surviving, if you like, but I always
figured I can’t do anyone good if I’m dead.”

She’d chosen to celebrate life, and he’d chosen to study death. Nothing could cement their differences more.

The car jolted onto the sandy lane leading back to Cleo’s
house and the beach. Mara thought he meant to ignore her again, and
burning resentment built inside her, but TJ spoke before she could
formulate the words to express it.

The gentle lap of waves upon the distant beach and the
hoot of an owl were the only other sounds besides TJ’s quiet voice.
“There’s more at stake than the colonel’s career.”

She should have known. “Do I want to hear it?”

“No.”

She was still bleeding from a dozen verbal wounds and
internally hemorrhaging over psychological ones. She wanted to be held
and loved and understood, but that had never happened in her lifetime.
TJ’s curt reply jarred her out of her self-absorption, to recognize what
her instincts had been trying to tell her.

The wretched oaf was driving her away again
.
He was
waiting for her to throw things at him and walk out, to resolve his
need to protect by leaving, so he didn’t have to dump his fears on her.

Lifting her chin, Mara glared at the headlighted lane.
She’d be damned if she’d repeat the performance of that ninny he’d
called an assistant.

He slowed the car at the juncture of Cleo’s drive and the
access road. “I can take you to Cleo, or you can go home with me. Your
choice.”

“Let’s not wake the kid. I can sleep on your couch,” she replied stubbornly.

He shot her a look and eased the car down the bumpy road.
“I’m still working on that image of you following me into the shower. Be
wary.”

Something hungry and desperate in his voice matched the
gaping wounds in her, and Mara relaxed. “Comfort sex,” she said bluntly.
“I’ve done that. I’ve done a whole lot of things the brave and noble
Boy Scout Tim wouldn’t approve of.”

“The Boy Scout is a figment of your overactive
imagination—always was.” He braked the car at the foot of the
excavation. “I hope you have what you need in the overnight bag. I’m not
carting those packing boxes you call suitcases over the dune.”

Mara pondered the inferences of his not being a Boy Scout
as they trudged through the sand carrying her overnight case and
pillows. Did that mean he wanted to sleep with her? Expected to sleep
with her? Would jump her bones the instant they walked through the door?

That idea shivered
her
bones nicely, but what did
bones know? He’d just insulted everything about her for reasons known
only to his inscrutable mind. Sleeping with an explosive powder keg like
TJ wouldn’t be conducive to logical forethought or action. It would
simply be reaction to the day’s disasters. She didn’t do things like
that.

She’d done it with him a little over a week ago.

He flipped on a light switch as they entered, illuminating
the Spartan interior of futon and wicker chairs without a personal item
in sight. Switching on a lamp, Mara decorated the futon with her lace
pillows and felt better.

“I’ve always thought you were beautiful.”

Mara swung around to find TJ’s broad shoulders still
blocking the doorway. Suitcase in hand, he didn’t appear drunk, didn’t
give her a steamy look or use a sexy voice. He simply looked at her as
she was, in all her rumpled, tearstained mess, stated a truth, and
shattered her fractured heart into ten million pieces.

“And now?” She hoped she kept the quiver from her voice.

“I prefer full-grown women to teenagers,” he answered
gravely. “You can have the room upstairs. I’ll take this up.” Without
waiting for reply, he hauled her bag up the stairs.

Damn the man
. That was probably as close to flattery as she’d ever pry from him.

She didn’t need flattery. She needed honesty. TJ was never
less than honest. He’d thought skinny, plain, four-eyed Patsy was
beautiful.

Of course, that didn’t say he liked her better now. He just liked
women
better.

The man would drive her insane.

She was Patricia Amara Simonetti, and she knew how to make
his clock tick. She was perfectly capable of discovering why TJ McCloud
had taken to driving women out of his life. Then she could return the
favor and drive
him
insane.

“Your couch will do,” she called after him. “I don’t need
to disturb your privacy.” Clutching one pillow under her arm, she tucked
trailing strands of hair behind her ear, and rubbed beneath her eyes to
remove any smeared mascara.

“There’s a cot the kids use in the spare bedroom.” He turned right into the first doorway. “I’ll be fine.”

Mara followed him into the bedroom and fell in love.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the ocean, letting in ocean breezes
and lifting the gauzy draperies. “I could live in here,” she murmured,
drifting to the cushioned window seat, impervious to the tension
vibrating between them. “The view is spectacular. How could you ever
leave?”

“I’ve seen spectacular views,” he answered gravely from behind her. “None of them had anything to hold me until now.”

The eternal flicker of hope grew brighter as she stared
over the moonlit sea and let his words seep in. She had no reason to
believe he meant she gave him reason to linger after he’d just done his
best to drive her off. She wouldn’t demand an explanation. She’d just
let hope smooth its way through the many and varied hurts of the day to
start the healing process.

“Could we lay Brad to rest and start all over?” she asked wistfully.

“I think you’ve got two too many husbands on the scene right now,” he said bluntly. “Let’s lay them to rest first.”

A wry smile tugged at her lips at the image of whacking
both Irving and Sid with a shovel and burying them in that big pit on
the dune. “Is that a promise?”

A peacock shrieked through the resulting silence. She thought he wouldn’t answer, but TJ set her suitcase down with a thump.

“I’m not in a position to promise anything, but I figure I
can lay a few ghosts to rest. Get some sleep, and we’ll talk it over in
the morning.”

Clinging to the windowsill, Mara let him walk away. She wanted to be strong. She wanted to handle things herself.

But she had an inkling of suspicion that she and TJ
working together might be far more effective than either of them alone,
and he might need her aid as much as she did his. That’s what friends
were for, right?

The idea of trusting the reins of her life to someone
else’s hands terrified her almost as much as risking her heart to the
man who’d already broken it once.

***

“
That old black magic that you do so well
...” drifted
up the stairs, belted out in a husky voice that raised every hair on
his body and shot pure testosterone straight to TJ’s morning arousal.

He groaned, tried to turn on his side, and almost fell out
of the narrow cot. Floundering awake, he collapsed on his back, staring
at the early morning light on the ceiling, nursing a straining
erection, while he tried to stir his bloodless brain.

Mara
. If his thoughts weren’t so dislocated to the
wrong part of his anatomy, he’d smile at the ancient lyrics pouring from
his normally silent kitchen. He’d forgotten that about her—she had a
lovely voice, even if the notes tended to miss more often than not. He
could remember her tagging behind him and Brad, singing advertising
jingles to make them laugh.

Remembering the good times eased some of last night’s
agony. Maybe if he listened to Mara long enough, the good memories would
override the horrible ones. He’d like to believe that.

He wondered what the devil the woman was doing in his
kitchen at this hour. Once the question took root, his curiosity grew.
With Mara, anything was possible.

With Mara, every day could be a new puzzle to solve.

Grunting at that anarchic thought, TJ rolled out of bed
and staggered for the shower. Life got too confusing when half of him
wanted to explore the intricacies of a woman’s mind and the other half
hungered for mindless rutting.

Showered, shaved, and with a clearer vision of the day
ahead, TJ followed the aroma of coffee and bacon down the stairs—and out
the front door.

Figuring that made about as much sense as anything else in his life these days, he shoved open the screen to investigate.

Her natural curls springing exuberantly in a halo around
her face, Mara looked up from her coffee with a blinding smile that
would have knocked his socks off had he worn any.

“Got any more of that?” Feeling as if he’d been on a
two-day binge, TJ collapsed in the wicker chair he could have sworn had
been in the front room last night, and for the second time that morning,
he tried to orient himself.

Mara filled a second cup from his Mr. Coffee carafe. “I have a plan,” she announced in satisfaction.

Sipping cautiously, eyeing the colorful tablecloth he
hadn’t known he possessed draped over a table he couldn’t identify, TJ
listened. The lapping of the waves against the shore a few yards away
and the beautiful woman amazingly occupying his breakfast table lulled
him into believing domesticity was worth considering.

“I’ll start by calling the film backers here on the East
Coast. I’ll tell them Sid is destroying a delicate ecosystem in a manner
that would give the film really bad PR, that I’m working with the
locals to prevent harm, and they need to twist Sid’s arm to do the right
thing.”

She was so pleased with herself that TJ couldn’t point out
all the obvious flaws in her plan. Patsy never had grasped the venality
of human nature. Match ecosystems against money, and nature lost every
time. Her investors would follow the money and figure any publicity was
good publicity.

Sipping his coffee, TJ realized he didn’t want her sunny
openness to change, even if he could cheerfully throttle her when she
applied it to her blood-sucking ex-husbands.

“That’s a start,” he agreed noncommittally.

She crunched a piece of bacon and poked at her PDA with
the handle of her spoon. “While I’m doing that, you need to call up one
of those reporters hanging around and tell him to pick up that box of
military stuff.”

He sat up straight, nearly spewing his coffee through his nose. “
Reporters
? You want me to hand a ticking bomb to reporters?”

She looked up with interest. “What kind of bomb?”

TJ ran his hand over his face and reached for his coffee.
“A bomb that could explode the career of a good man and take down all
his associates with him.”

“That’s not for you to decide,” she said calmly, buttering her biscuit.

“It’s for
reporters
to decide?”

“One of the balances of power in our country is freedom of
the press. Why have you been stalling over giving that box to the
authorities?”

Because Martin
was
the authority. Mara beamed at him as if she’d read his mind.

“I don’t trust the Defense Department,” he admitted grumpily.

“And you can’t hand the evidence to the colonel if he’s guilty. But if he’s
not
guilty, maybe the press can uncover that faster than we can. We certainly won’t have to worry about them covering it up.”