Inside, Mara stood frozen before a distinguished man with a thick head of dark hair turning gray at the temples. Tall, slightly stoop-shouldered, wearing a New York black sport coat over a black T-shirt, the man had started to speak when TJ barged in.
With her back turned toward the door, Mara didn’t even notice his entrance. “Irving!” she cried in disbelief. “I told Aunt Miriam not to send you!”
TJ barely heard anything beyond “Irving.” He’d been looking for a fight all evening, and the bastard who’d broken Patsy’s nose would do far better than any other opponent he could name. His rage finding a target, TJ grasped Mara’s slender shoulders, set her aside, rolled up his fist, and plowed it into Irving’s prominent proboscis.
The crunch that followed satisfied TJ far more than the spurt of blood.
Mara shrieked. The inn clerk reached for the telephone. And Irving crumpled to his knees with a howl of pain.
Shit. The fight was over before TJ had even begun.
Mara clapped a hand over her mouth, and wide-eyed, turned to stare at TJ. He shoved his bruised fist into his pocket, prepared to apologize, when he recognized the dancing light behind those cat-green eyes. She was laughing. And the admiration he remembered from their youth lit her from within.
Something impossibly light invaded his heart, and he couldn’t prevent the slow smile relaxing his jaw. No other woman had looked at him as if he were her hero, as Mara did. He knew he wasn’t any such thing. He knew he’d behaved like a testosterone-driven jerk. That didn’t prevent his primitive response to her appreciative expression.
“Might as well go to jail for something I enjoyed doing,” he muttered.
“I’ll bail you out,” she murmured, “and give you a halo. Want to be my bodyguard?”
TJ bit back a chuckle. Bashing a wimp wasn’t anything to laugh about. He’d just not realized Irving was a wimp until too late. That’s what came of living outside civilization for too long. “Guarding your body wouldn’t be enough,” he admitted. As long as he was throwing out all restraint, he might as well go all the way. “You’d best tend to your ex. You can tell the sheriff he’ll find me at the dig, disobeying the cease-and-desist orders.”
“Wait, TJ—” She held out her hand to him.
Too wired to listen or even to think, he strode away before he did anything more incredibly stupid, like haul Mara up the stairs and back to the room where she’d shown him heaven. Repeating that night was a fantasy he couldn’t afford. It was easier to write the last time off as a result of the alcohol than to believe it could ever happen again.
Not that the sex wouldn’t be great again, but his cynical mind corrupted anything it came in contact with. If he could still suspect that she used sex as a ploy to wheedle him out of the dig, he didn’t deserve to believe they could have a relationship. And with Patsy, he couldn’t settle for anything less.
TJ left the car at the B&B and walked to let off steam. He’d never been driven by hormones. Well, almost never. He couldn’t believe he’d made such a Neanderthal of himself. Jared would laugh his head off when he heard.
Still, TJ smiled grimly at the memory of crunching cartilage. Now Irving could buy his own nose job.
She’d married a damned movie star! Shit. He’d been picturing some weasly nerd with slimy hands and slavering fat lips who was so weak-kneed that he had to hit on women. Why in hell hadn’t he known better? Patricia Amara Simonetti wasn’t the kind of woman who walked into something like marriage without a good head on her shoulders, no matter how young she’d been.
She’d probably thought she loved the bastard. A shy kid like Patsy would have been desperate for love and attention anywhere she could find it.
Hell. He kicked a clamshell, and it ricocheted off the Blue Monkey’s plate-glass window. The noise and laughter from inside didn’t cease. Maybe he ought to go in and have a few beers before the sheriff came looking for him.
Mara was probably hauling poor, broken Irving up to her room right now, making soothing noises and calling for cold compresses or whatever it was women did when their men were hurt. Not that he had any experience to draw on. Women who talked about cadavers in bed weren’t inclined to be overly sympathetic in other areas.
Stepping into the smoke and noise of the bar, TJ found a seat beside Ed. There was always a seat beside Ed. On both sides. His submarine obsession was notorious.
TJ ordered a beer and listened with half an ear to Ed expounding upon his theories. The old guy had obviously done his research on U-boat activity on the East Coast, not that the subject mattered in the age of satellites.
Given current events, TJ could understand the fascination with terrorists, but even the most fanatical wouldn’t blow up a nearly deserted island. Pity Ed hadn’t applied his time and effort to something more productive, like having a life.
TJ winced. Nothing like the pot calling the kettle black.
“Dr. McCloud?” A suave young man in GQ casual tapped TJ on the shoulder. In pressed slacks and designer campshirt, he looked like a swan in a duck pond in this bar filled with drunken seamen in crumpled shorts and T-shirts.
TJ dismissed the intruder with a glance and returned to his beer. He was waiting for the sheriff, not one of Mara’s Hollywood leeches.
“I’m Paul Harris from People magazine. Is it true that you and Mara Simon are an item?”
TJ’s insides froze at the mention of the magazine, but he didn’t let that hold him back. “Afghanistan has been bombed into a hole in the ground,” he said to his beer bottle. “Israel is on the brink of exploding. The population of much of the Third World is starving. And you write for a magazine that reveres shallow punks who do drugs because they’re bored. Ask me another.”
Beside him, Ed cackled with glee. One of Ed’s World War II cronies leaned closer to catch the joke.
“When was the last time you read the magazine?” the reporter asked dryly.
“The last time you did a story on my kid brother. Cute story. Missed the whole point.” TJ drained his bottle and wondered if he ought to walk out now or drink himself into a stupor.
“The locals claim you and Miss Simon are an item, but my sources claim you’re at loggerheads over the film location. Would you care to comment?”
“Loggerheads,” TJ mused. “Interesting choice of word. Did you know a loggerhead is a subtropical carnivorous turtle? Which one of us do you think they mean is carnivorous?”
Ed and a few more members of his pack roared and smacked the bar in appreciation of his wit. Nothing beat an audience who had been drinking since sundown.
“Hey, TJ,” one of the pack shouted, “You found any more of them pirate bones?”
“They’re not pirates,” Ed shouted back. “He done tole you that. It’s Germans, dollars to donuts.”
Uh oh. With a sigh, TJ stood up and placed his money on the bar. He’d sat through plenty of the barroom brawls that ensued when hostilities arose this late in a crowd of drunks, but the topic of this argument would only incite the reporter’s imagination. Time to depart.
“I read the newspapers, McCloud,” the reporter called after him. “I looked your name up in our files. Your work in the Balkans gives you an international reputation. You might prefer talking to me instead of the rabble that will be down here once I send in this story.”
Yeah, right, like telling People magazine he and Mara were an item would happen any time in his universe. TJ stalked out into the humid August night and kept on walking as the noise in the bar escalated.
He might as well be a carrier of a violence virus, trailing havoc in his wake. Maybe he belonged in war zones, where violence was normal. Maybe he’d lived in war zones so long, he accepted violence as a normal way of life. Who the hell knew?
He just knew he was tired of it.
That was a realization it had taken a long time to reach. Shoving his hands into his pockets, TJ wandered the empty streets to the inn parking lot. He was tired of war. He was tired of living alone. He was tire
d of drifting homeless.
Damned good thing, he thought cynically, because he could be going to jail along with the colonel unless those boxes proved Martin’s innocence. So far, they hadn’t. If anything, they made it a virtual certainty that some of the criminals he’d fingered had never come to trial.
Since TJ had worked with Martin, he could be accused of covering up the crimes as well, not to mention protecting Martin while he was at it. Concealing evidence was a crime in most states, but if he turned the boxes over to the authorities, he might be writing his own warrant. Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. So much for truth and justice.
The People reporter knew he’d worked with Martin. All hell could break loose soon.
Might as well begin saving what he could from the dig. Between the restraining order and nosy reporters, he wouldn’t work on the site much longer anyway. He’d really wanted to solve the mystery of the bones, too. Shit.
He glanced up at the inn as he climbed into the Taurus, but the place wasn’t swarming with police or ambulances. Instinct told him to find Mara, to be certain she was all right, but his people instincts were lousy. More likely, he wanted to console himself. Mara had already proved she was strong and didn’t need him.
Drained and empty, he drove back to the island, filling his head with the proper procedures for securing the site rather than examine the loneliness gnawing at him.
How had it come about that a man of near-genius IQ, with halfway decent looks—if not charm—from a perfectly normal, well-to-do family, had no life? He really ought to sit down and figure out where he’d gone wrong, but if he hadn’t seen it when he’d done it, he’d not recognize his error now. He knew how to investigate a crime site, examine evidence, analyze details, and solve a decades-old murder, but he couldn’t apply the same intelligence to his own damned life.
It was a little late for working it out now. With the refrain of Doo-wah-diddy-diddy humming through his head, he turned down the sandy lane leading to Cleo’s. TJ passed her house and drove as far as the lane took him.
A movement in the shadows of the dune below the dig site caught in his headlights. TJ’s already simmering adrenaline boiled over.
Slamming on the brakes, hitting the ignition, TJ leapt from the car. With the ease of experience, he dodged through the wax myrtles to the nearest path up the hill. The mood he was in tonight, he’d single-handedly take out any fool mucking with his project. He didn’t need any weapons but bare fists and fury.
He understood action far better than analyzing his life.
He heard rustling in the bushes on the far side of the hill. Without hesitation, he clattered across the board platform supporting his excavation, slid down the sandy path on the beach side, and tore off after the dark figure racing toward the ocean.
TJ had long legs and temper to carry him, but the intruder had supernatural powers—he disappeared into the shadows of the rock jetty.
Cursing, TJ stalked up and down the canvas-covered rock pile of Mara’s movie set, looking for some sign of the culprit. Nothing. Had it been daylight, he might have examined footprints, but he had no flashlight, nothing but the moon’s fading glow to guide him.
A motor roared to life just on the other side of the rocks. Tearing across the artificial turf, TJ scrambled to the top in time to see a headlight beaming out to sea. What in hell was going on here?
Scrambling down the rocks, he jogged back to check the dig site. He’d fenced in the excavation and locked it more to prevent curious teenagers from hurting themselves than to keep out thieves. A good hacksaw would take out the lock or the chain link.
Sure enough, the lock was off and the gate open.
TJ entered cautiously, not wanting to disturb more evidence than necessary but needing to know what the intruder had wanted. He had a flashlight in his tool box, and he dug it out now. Normal thieves would have stolen the equipment he kept in the box. Flipping on the light, he thought the tools were more jumbled than he’d left them, but they all seemed to be there.
He widened the light’s beam and scanned it over the sand and boards where he’d worked this past month.
The boxes of artifacts had been dumped and scattered across the sand. He couldn’t easily tell if any were missing. All human remains had been taken to his office in town, and a bolt of fury tore through him. Had they torn the office apart again?
They hadn’t stolen anything last time.
What the devil was the thief looking for?
With a sigh of exasperation, TJ pulled his cheap plastic lounge chair across the gate and prepared to spend the night guarding the site.
At least this time, he knew it wasn’t Mara or her crew messing with his head. Now that they had legal permission, they’d be in first thing in the morning with bulldozers.
Unless he stopped them.
He’d let Mara spin his head backward tonight. The vandals had done him a favor and spun it back. Why should he go down without a fight?
Grimly, TJ pulled out his cell phone and the business card Cleo had given him for her legal shark and punched in the office number. He’d have a message waiting when the office doors opened.
Let People decide if slapping a federal court order on Mara’s film company constituted being at loggerheads.
Chapter Sixteen
“Sid, I am not taking bulldozers out there, and that’s final,” Mara screamed into her cell phone as she paced the B&B’s breakfast room. “That’s a rat-fink thing to do. This is my film, and I’ll handle it my way!”
She glared at Irving who sat at a table, prodding cautiously at his bandaged nose. She smacked his hand away in passing. He returned to sipping his coffee without a word—passive aggressive to the bone.
“Don’t give me that guff, Rosenthal. I’ll have my lawyer on the phone so fast, your lawyer’s head will spin. It’s my film and my career on the line. If it sinks, I lose, so keep your damned shysters to yourself.”
Constantina offered her a biscuit in passing—bagels weren’t on the B&B’s menu. Mara shook her head and continued pacing. Her stomach wouldn’t accept food right now. She had frigging Irving down here, and Sid and his lawyers were giving her hives. Who could eat?
“You have no idea who you’re messing with here, Sid, and I do. Lay off, or you’ll ruin the deal. Capisce?” She slammed the phone off, folded it, and slid it into her shorts pocket. Now she had to find TJ and make certain he didn’t draw and quarter her and hang her out to dry.
She still got a hot thrill reliving TJ’s vengeful punch at Irving’s nose. She suspected half his fury had been at her, but once his temper exploded, it had morphed rapidly into a different kind of heat. He’d looked at her as if she were the moon and stars and they both belonged in heaven together. For that look, she’d work a little harder to find a compromise over the access road.
“Constantina, did you find those headbands?” she demanded, still pacing. If she could control the small things in life, maybe the big ones would fall in place.
“Gave them to Jim to take out to the island,” her hairdresser agreed. “They don’t work on you anyway.”
Nothing worked on her, but that was beside the point. She didn’t want Kismet thinking she’d been forgotten. Maybe one good deed balanced the sin of enjoying Irving’s bashed nose.
“You belong at home, taking care of your mother,” Irving said disapprovingly. “Let Sid fight with the lawyers and do his job.”
She didn’t have to hear this. She wasn’t married to the whining sexist anymore. Ignoring the roll of Constantina’s eyes, Mara propped her palms on the table and put her face up to his. “I’m only saying this once, Irving, old friend. I have a life. You don’t. You stay out of my life, and I won’t disturb your nonlife. Mess with me, and I’ll cut off your cojones. And you can tell Aunt Miriam I told you so.”
With the adrenaline high of pure fury, Mara slammed out of the dining room. She couldn’t believe Aunt Miriam would send the stinking, lying, whoring bastard down here after her.
Did her aunt think she’d forgive the creep, go home, and settle down like a nice Jewish-Italian girl in the old neighborhood?
Of course she did.
What was even more appalling was that Irving seemed to think the same thing. And wouldn’t that be a feather in his cap—movie star and producer for wife, showing off his lingerie inventory in high society? Delusional. Positively delusional.
Storming outside, Mara scowled at the heavy clouds overhead. They wouldn’t get any filming done today. She would have to concentrate on completing the camouflage job on the jetty. It wouldn’t show up as more than a small angle shot in the ship scenes, but she wanted the authenticity. Big hulking gray rocks weren’t authentic.
She was almost afraid to have Jim drive her out to the beach after last night. TJ’s red-hot streak wouldn’t have had time to cool off. She glanced at her watch—nearly noon. She’d wasted the entire morning waiting for a decent hour to call Sid in California. She should have roused him from bed. Actually, she had.
She rubbed her forehead, but that didn’t stimulate any ideas on how to pacify TJ. She’d just have to crawl and tell him she wouldn’t enforce the cease-and-desist order.
She wanted to enforce it.
Her future depended on pulling this film in under budget. With Glynis’s name on it, they had major sales locked in. She could buy Sid out, turn the company around, buy her own house to replace the half of Sid’s she’d traded, and provide her mother a place of her own. She wouldn’t have to look to any man to support her ever again—unless she’d inherited her mother’s psychosis. Worrying about that now would definitely make her crazy.
Were TJ’s old bones really worth losing her home and her career and any hope of independence?
Research! She’d promised TJ she would research the project. Maybe she could prove the bones belonged to some long-ago drowning victim and weren’t worth his time and effort.
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