McCloud's Woman (43 page)

“Yeah, you said they were pests who would follow you
everywhere.” Mara cupped her hands and face against the window, trying
to see what was happening up there.

“Every time I escaped them, they conspired to find ways of
annoying the devil out of me when I returned.” TJ opened the door to
the porch, and leaned over the rail for the water hose on the side of
the house.

Mara stood safely in the doorway, listening to the
helicopter overhead, eyes widening as TJ turned on the faucet. Normal
people would use it to clear the egg dripping down the window. There was
nothing normal about a McCloud. “TJ, you really shouldn’t—”

He did. Turning the knob on full force, pulling the
trigger of the hose nozzle, he shot a steady blast of water at the
occupants of the small helicopter as it passed near the porch.

Mara heard the shouts, closed her eyes, and listened for
the helicopter’s crash. Instead, it ducked and dodged and sped out of
range.

Laughter bubbled up from deep inside her. “That’s insane, TJ,” she cried. “You could have killed them.”

“Nah, Clay has excellent reflexes.” He shut off the nozzle
and looking both professional and satisfied, turned to admire her
standing in the doorway. “They’d only have landed to see if I was still
alive if I hadn’t come out. I saved their hides and an expensive
machine. There’s not enough beach for a safe landing.”

“What were they throwing at the roof?” Mara could barely
keep from diving into TJ’s arms again. He stood there looking so
fearless and confident with his hands shoved into his pockets and love
smiling from his eyes. From the looks of the stream of visitors heading
this way, she didn’t think they’d have time for kisses. Maybe later. At
the thought of a lifetime of laters, she beamed with joy.

That rocked his expression a little, but returning her
smile with a heartwarming one of his own, TJ shrugged. “Cleo’s rubber
eggs, apparently with the latest addition of a whistle. And when there
wasn’t enough of those, they resorted to the real thing.” He indicated
the slime sliding down the porch rail.

“Your brothers might be more problem than my mother,” she said solemnly as the helicopter hovered over a distant landing field.

“My
mother
will be more of a problem than yours,”
he asserted. “My brothers are just icing on the cake. Before Cleo gets
down here and starts ribbing me, are you going to marry me and be the
boring wife of a forensics anthropologist?”

“I’ll never be boring, but I’ll be your wife,” Mara
agreed, loving the way his grin twisted wryly at her correction. “But I
sure hope you take that New York job and not one down here. I need my
espresso.”

“I think that can be arranged,” he said with complete
gravity, before leaning over to retrieve one of the rubber eggs from
beneath a wicker chair, swinging around unexpectedly, and flinging it
with the strength of a seasoned baseball pitcher at the familiar
reporter leading the procession.

Roger Curtis ducked, and the rubber egg splatted the beaming mayor.

“Works for me.” Tugging Mara from the porch, TJ ventured
out to meet the townsfolk in his newly acquired status of a man engaged
to the most beautiful woman in the world.

“Saying farewell to your Hollywood days?” TJ asked,
propping his tuxedo-clad shoulder against a corner of the balcony
overlooking the wedding reception in the B&B’s lobby. With all the
help available, it had only taken two weeks to plan the wedding and
reception.

Below, in the lobby atrium, Mara’s film crew mingled with family and townspeople to the rousing notes of a local band.

He kept his expression deliberately impassive as he
watched Mara instead of the party. Leaning on the rail beside him, she
wore some kind of frothy, sheer gold fabric over a figure-hugging gold
silk sheath. TJ definitely noticed what she wore these days because he
never knew what she had on underneath. This outfit had a perfectly
respectable heart-shaped neckline, but he had glimpsed bare skin in that
keyhole opening between her breasts.

“I won’t miss Hollywood.” Turning to lean against the
rail and study him through too-perceptive cat eyes, she raised an
eyebrow in a fashion remarkably similar to his own. “No more playing
the starlet and flapping eyelashes to pry money out of deep pockets.
Unless you have other ideas?”

She was taunting him, TJ knew. She knew he wasn’t like her
other husbands and wouldn’t use her that way. It might take a little
time until he could unbend and tease her back, but her laughing look
reminded him that she understood and accepted his caution.

It was a matter of trust, he decided. He trusted Mara
not to walk out if he said the wrong thing or if he got wrapped up in
his world and forgot to be human occasionally. “People will think you’re
crazy for giving up Hollywood for a snow-covered burg in New York," he
said.

Mara laughed. Crossing her arms under her breasts, she
drew his gaze to a part of her anatomy he’d refrained from touching
until she’d fully healed. He was afraid he’d start drooling if he
looked too hard.

“Can’t see yourself wielding a shovel in a postage- stamp-sized yard, McCloud?”

TJ grinned at the obnoxious little-girl tone she adopted
for old times’ sake. He never wanted her to cry again, and he was a
little anxious about his ability to make her happy, but Mara would
always be Mara, and he loved her that way. “Albany has a Starbucks and a
newsstand. If that’s all you require, I can handle snow. It’s no
heavier than sand.”

Mara snuggled closer, compelling TJ to wrap his arm around
her. He’d been celibate these last two weeks while they planned the
wedding. Touching the softness of her bare shoulder, inhaling the
flowery aroma of her perfume, was testing his limits now. Even his
limited imagination could envision the night ahead in Technicolor
detail.

A familiar heaviness settled in his groin, and he adjusted
his tux discreetly. Making love with Mara was something to look forward
to, but in these last weeks, he’d learned just having her within reach
to hug and laugh with was special. The bond between them was so strong
that he could almost hear her thinking.

“I’ll choose snow over Hollywood any day,” she said without hesitation. “Will you curl up in front of the fire with me?”

“Every night.” He gripped her tighter, knowing with this
woman by his side, he gave up nothing but gained a dream. “I’ll come
home and you can read to me what you’ve written that day and I’ll
applaud heartily.”

Mara laughed. “No, you won’t. You’ll tell me it’s
melodramatic garbage, but that’s okay. I can live with criticism. I’m
glad the lawyer suggested I form a consortium to buy out Sid. It will
be nice having a real life again.”

“Not to mention an automatic buyer for your scripts,” he added gravely.

She stuck her tongue out at him. “The scripts have to be good or the films won’t sell.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Did I say I doubted you?”

She kissed his cheek and loosened his tie. “No, but you just want to get in my bed and will say anything to get there.”

“You have a problem with that?” As the music below
changed to a slow tune, TJ wrapped his arms around Mara and led her into
a dance step.

Her smile of delight at his impromptu action was so
devastating, he almost swept her into his arms and carried her off right
then and there. He’d never understood that a simple thing like dancing
could delight a woman. He needed to invest some time in learning what
else made Mara happy. Teddy bears and dancing. Maybe flowers? Moonlight.
He bet she’d like moonlight. He’d dance with her in the moonlight
tonight.

Swaying easily in his arms, Mara chuckled at the memory of
an earlier incident. “I can’t believe your mother tracked down the
colonel and scolded him. She’s probably scared him into writing his
memoirs and nominating you for sainthood for saving his life. I think
she’s terrorized half the journalists in the crowd into believing you’re
a hero.”

“I
am
her favorite,” he replied solemnly, although a smile tugged the corner of his mouth.

Glancing over the railing as they swung past, she lifted
her eyebrows questioningly. “Which is why Clay and Jared are over there
in the corner with their heads together?”

“Who needs kids when I have brothers?” TJ asked, halting
their dance to check over the rail again. Grimacing at the sight below,
he reached down to pick up a shield he’d unwired from the suit of armor
in Katy’s collection of antiques. He set it in place just as the first
rubber egg whistled upward, splatting nicely against the tarnished
metal.

Mara looked startled, then glowered. “Why those little brats—”

TJ lifted a basket he’d hidden behind the post before she
could rush down the stairs and scalp his brothers. “Fresh off the
production line. Knowing Jared, I expected this. Introducing Cleo’s toy
at our reception is no doubt his idea of good advertising. I’d aim for
the punch bowl next to Clay, if I were you.”

Mara’s whole face lit with such delight that paralysis nearly set in. TJ caught the next whistling egg just in time.

She’d never had a real childhood. It made him happy to offer her one.

Grabbing a handful of the spongy eggs TJ held out to her,
Mara barraged the group below, hitting the punch bowl, the leftover
wedding cake, Ian’s cell phone, and her Aunt Miriam’s tiara.

Without further ado, TJ dropped the shield, grabbed Mara’s
wicked right arm, and tugged her toward the back stairs. “Now!” he
shouted.

Under cover of screams of laughter from below, TJ and Mara
raced for the safety of the yacht waiting in the harbor, ready to set
sail for the first night of the rest of their lives.

With several million books in print and
New York Times
and
USA Today’s
bestseller lists under her belt, former CPA Patricia Rice is one of
romance’ss hottest authors. Her emotionally-charged contemporary and
historical romances have won numerous awards, including the
RT Book Reviews
Reviewers
Choice and Career Achievement Awards. Her books have been honored as
Romance Writers of America RITA® finalists in the historical, regency
and contemporary categories.

A firm believer in happily-ever-after, Patricia Rice is
married to her high school sweetheart and has two children. A native of
Kentucky and New York, a past resident of North Carolina, she currently
resides in St. Louis, Missouri, and now does accounting only for
herself. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Authors
Guild, and Novelists, Inc.

For further information, visit Patricia’s network:

www.patriciarice.com

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Book View Café Bookshelf

McCloud’s Woman

The Carolina Series Book Two

Patricia Rice

Book View Café edition January 2012

ISBN: 978-1-61138-132-0

Copyright © 2003 Patricia Rice

All the characters in this
book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no
relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are
not inspired by any person known or unknown to the author, and all
incidents are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form.

First published: Ivy Books, The Ballantine Publishing Group, 2003

The Carolina Series

Impossible Dreams
Almost Perfect
McCloud’s Woman
Carolina Girl