To hell with riding in the back. TJ took the front passenger side and snapped his seat belt in place. “Move it.”
The powerful car surged forward, taking the turn out of the drive with a squeal. It wasn’t exactly the fastest vehicle on the road, but the Lincoln had been built for power as well as luxury. It flew right over potholes.
“I’m supposed to be her bodyguard, but she said she didn’t need me,” Jim complained. “Is she in trouble?”
“Mara’s always in trouble. It’s knowing when she needs help that’s the problem.” TJ hated sitting still. He needed his foot on the gas and his hands on the wheel. His pent-up frustration threatened to explode as the car glided onto the causeway and the beam from the lighthouse struck through the open sky ahead. Night had arrived, and Mara was out there alone with a man who killed for a living.
That was unfair. Martin had been in the Balkans on a peacekeeping mission. Martin would never harm Mara.
But then, TJ reflected, it was conceivable that Martin had profited from the crimes of others. Maybe he didn’t really know the colonel as well as he believed he did.
“I thought she knew the guy,” Jim intruded, as if reading TJ’s mind.
“If she trusted him, she would have let him drive instead of taking my only transportation.” Give her credit for some sense, TJ told himself. Mara wasn’t a fool.
“He dangerous?” the driver asked warily.
“Yeah, but it’s me he wants. He has no argument with Mara.” Martin didn’t even know what Mara was to him. She should be fine. He was worrying needlessly.
But he knew that wasn’t true. Martin wouldn’t have traveled to a Podunk town at a time like this if he wasn’t desperate.
The limo slid around the curve from the main highway into Cleo’s sandy lane. The long rear of the car didn’t respond well to the lack of traction and fish-tailed half way down the drive.
TJ spotted a strange vehicle in front of Cleo’s garage and ordered Jim to halt.
“That’s his car,” Jim verified.
“Go in, tell them you’re security, verify his identity. If it’s Colonel Martin, tell him I’ll be with him in a minute. I’m going to check the beach in case Mara went there.”
This time, Jim responded to orders. TJ breathed a sigh of relief, let himself out, and slipped into the shrubbery leading toward the dune.
He should have brought a flashlight. He’d had a lantern at the dig, but he’d packed his gear and hauled it to Cleo’s garage. The well-worn path beneath his feet crunched with dead branches and old clamshells. He couldn’t arrive quietly if he tried.
He wasn’t trying. The colonel was back at the house, and TJ was racing after Mara, worrying—as he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do.
The mayor had said she was upset. How upset? Had she reconsidered since they’d talked this morning? He’d never believed she would harm a child, but then he’d never believed Brad would kill himself. He was lousy at predicting what people he loved would do.
People he loved. He should have told Mara how he felt. What was the matter with him? Why couldn’t his damned intellectual brain grasp that women needed words? If he’d just given her the right words—
“That you, TJ?”
The unexpected sound of a male voice ringing from the direction of the dune stopped TJ in his tracks. The colonel was supposed to be back at the house waiting for him. Where was Mara? Fear blossomed into panic, but TJ clenched his teeth and quelled it, groping for an adequate response.
“I just want to talk, McCloud. You never gave me a chance to explain. Why didn’t you call and ask before you threw me to the wolves?”
Oh hell. Feeling as if Martin had shredded his soul with that plea, TJ walked out of the bushes to the bottom of the hill.
He could see the glowing tip of the colonel’s cigarette at the top of the dune, where Martin was apparently examining the abandoned excavation. TJ had removed the fence and ripped off the board supports in preparation for the bulldozer’s arrival. It wasn’t the most stable place to stand, but that was a minor argument next to the major one.
“I didn’t want to be judge and jury,” he called, letting Martin know where he was.
He remembered cold winter nights with the colonel standing much as he was now, cigarette in hand, staring into the distance as some Balkan city in the countryside echoed with artillery fire. They’d talked of politics and peace, holidays and home.
Now that he might be a father, TJ truly understood how much those nights had meant to him. The colonel had filled the place of father that TJ’s own parent had vacated. Should he have a son, he wanted to be there for the boy as the colonel had been there for him.
Reminded that he might never have the chance to know his child, TJ tried to find some sign of Mara, to verify she was all right, but it was dark. She was supposed to be at the set, taking night shots.
“You played judge and jury when you didn’t destroy the boxes as I asked,” Martin pointed out with inexorable logic.
Guilt froze TJ’s tongue. He hadn’t listened to the colonel, as he hadn’t listened to Brad. He could have cost the colonel his career, as he’d cost Brad his life. He’d chosen to do things his own way, instead of doing as his friend had expected him to do—as his friend had needed him to do. Had he been acting as judge and jury by handing the boxes to an objective third party?
“Your incompetent staff disobeyed TJ’s order to destroy the boxes.”
Mara. TJ cursed and ran his hand through his hair in disbelief at her angry defense.
“Your staff shipped the boxes back with TJ’s gear. He knew nothing about it until he returned from Africa.”
TJ didn’t know whether to wring her neck, shout at her to get out of here, or throw himself between her and a man on the brink of self-destruction. He didn’t know what the colonel was doing here, but he knew his arrival wasn’t the decision of the rational man he knew and admired. “Mara, Jim’s back at Cleo’s. Go find him, why don’t you?”
“The tabloids call you two an item,” the colonel said casually, flinging down the cigarette and rubbing it out with his foot. “How do you like sleeping with a traitor, Miss Simon? I trusted McCloud with my life, and he shot me in the back.”
“He did no such thing!” The indignation in Mara’s voice would have made a more timid man wince. “I told him to turn those papers over. They were tearing him apart. He hoped they would prove your innocence. But you’re not so innocent, are you?”
Oh, shit, TJ thought. Now all hell would break loose. The colonel despised having his authority challenged.
Quietly, TJ edged through the bushes at the bottom of the dune to the beach side, hoping to put himself between Mara and a dangerous man behaving erratically. “Why are you here, Colonel?” he called, letting Martin know he was close and available, hoping to distract him from Mara.
“You were like the son I never had, TJ.” Martin’s voice changed from belligerent to weary. “I love my daughters, but they don’t understand. I thought you did.”
The gaping wound inside TJ tore wider at this admission. He should have made more effort to listen when the colonel talked, to understand what made him tick. Maybe Martin had had some problem that they could talked out and resolved. Maybe the reason he didn’t have relationships was because he was incapable of communicating with anyone but dead people. He’d lived inside his head for so long, he didn’t know how to listen to others.
“I didn’t read most of the material, Martin,” TJ called, making a last-ditch effort to understand. “I’m not a military expert, so I gave it to a man I trusted, hoping the truth wouldn’t be buried in government red tape.”
He could hear Mara breathing in the shrubbery at the base of the hill, and a trickle of fear slithered down his gullet. He was torn between grabbing her and running, and staying to hear what the colonel obviously needed to say.
As if hearing his unspoken fear, Mara whispered, “I have a black belt in karate, but I didn’t know whether to
take him out or not.”
TJ hugged her pragmatism close to his heart. She knew how to take care of herself—and the baby. “Just don’t get between us until I work this out, okay?”
He waited for her whispered agreement before he would act.
“I’m safe here. Just take care of yourself, all right?”
Accepting this as her way of agreeing, TJ challenged Martin. “I’d hoped that the evidence in those boxes would clear your name, Colonel.”
“You should have given me a chance to explain.” The man on the hill sounded sad and disapproving. “I had my reasons. You should have known that.”
Fighting off the adrenaline that demanded he protect Mara first, TJ positioned himself between her and Martin, shielding her with his bulk. Right now, his major concern was the colonel. The man never talked about his feelings. Something was definitely off-kilter.
But TJ wasn’t listening to logic. He was listening to random sounds, hoping Mara was moving away.
“I did know that, Colonel. That’s why I gave the boxes to Roger.” Instinct screamed warnings, but TJ couldn’t see any obvious threats. Martin didn’t appear to be armed.
He couldn’t take any chances. Keeping to the bushes, he crept further up the dune.
“Hey, Colonel Martin,” Mara shouted, covering the rustle of TJ’s movement. “I’ve got wine back at the inn. I’ll introduce you to Glynis Everett and my PR people. We’ll tell your story to the press, let the world hear your side.”
The colonel snorted and lit another cigarette. “Interesting female you’ve hooked up with, McCloud. A little fantasy to hide the reality?”
No doubt about it—the colonel was a menace to himself and to others. Still hidden, TJ searched Martin’s silhouette for signs of firearms. “Mara’s my reality, sir. She’s right. If you have a story to tell, she’s in the best position to do it.”
“My story won’t play well in the press,” the colonel said in resignation. “I didn’t do it for profit. I’m not guilty of all the crimes they’d like to pin on me, but I am guilty. Do a job well and unrewarded for thirty years, slip up once, and I’m a condemned man.”
Warning sirens clamored in TJ’s head. Lowering himself to all fours, he crawled upward, out of the cover of shrubbery. Sand shifted and crumbled beneath his fingers. “I’m sure you did what you thought best at the time.” TJ even believed what he was saying. The colonel he knew was an honorable man.
The man at the top of the hill wasn’t the colonel he knew.
“I just wanted you to know the truth.”
From where he was positioned, TJ could see the colonel bouncing a ball between his hands, and he froze as he recognized the grenade. Mara! Get Mara out of here.
“Milo Turkosevic is my mother’s uncle,” the colonel announced without warning.
Oh shit. TJ tried not to slide back down the hill. Milo Turkosevic—the war criminal who’d ordered untold hundreds of women and children raped and killed because they were a different religion from his. He really hadn’t wanted to hear that.
“I suppose he said he was fighting for his country?” TJ couldn’t resist asking. Stupid thing to say to a man with a grenade in his hands, but this was the kind of heated discussion he and the colonel used to share, and he needed time to think. Could he run back down the hill, grab Mara, and haul her to safety? Or should he stop the colonel?
“In war, you do what you have to do. I did it in ’Nam. War is about principles and strategy, not about people.”
“War is about rich people getting richer and powerful people holding on to power,” TJ replied with scorn. “We were there as peacekeepers.”
Mara, get out of here, his mind screamed. The colonel could only harm himself—if she would run.
“I know. I regret what I did, and I’ll pay the price,” Martin said, as if they were discussing world news over a beer. “I just wanted you to know why I did it. I knew about the protection scam, the graft that freed prisoners for a price. I’d gathered the evidence to put them out of business—until Milo got arrested. He swore he was innocent, swore he would leave the country, and instead of arresting the profiteers, I used them to free Milo. He was family, and I believed him. You’ve got to believe in something.”
TJ heard Martin’s desperation and couldn’t answer it. He’d protected the colonel for weeks because he believed he was a friend. He didn’t know what he would have done if Martin had been one of his family.
The colonel took his silence as condemnation. “I thought you’d understand, even if no one else would. Better get out of here, McCloud, take your movie star with you. I won’t dishonor my family any longer.”
“TJ!”
He heard Mara’s cry of alarm, knew she understood as well as he did. He couldn’t let the colonel do it. He’d spent seventeen years in hell at his failure to prevent Brad’s death. His life wouldn’t be worth living if he couldn’t at least attempt to stop another friend from becoming a grisly statistic.
“You aren’t dishonoring anyone,” TJ shouted back. Somehow, he had to find the words that always failed him. He had to talk Martin out of this.
Scrambling to his feet, he advanced up the hill. “You’ll devastate your family if you pull that pin. Have you ever known anyone who committed suicide? Do you have any idea what havoc suicide wreaks on the people left behind? You’ll destroy your daughters, your wife, rob them of their happiness for the rest of their lives. They’ll go to their graves wondering if there was anything they could have done to stop you. The burden of guilt will cripple them more than the dishonor you fear.”
“They’ll be glad to see the last of me,” the colonel countered. “The press hounds them night and day. They’re afraid to step out the door. Get back from here, McCloud. I’ve made up my mind and you won’t change it. I don’t mind taking you out with me, if I have to.” The colonel hefted the grenade in the light of the pale moon.
“TJ, don’t!” Mara screamed from the safety of Cleo’s side of the dune. TJ prayed she was going for help.
This time, he was mature enough to listen and see the danger and act on it. Without another thought, TJ vaulted toward the colonel.
Martin crumpled beneath TJ’s tackle. TJ’s shirt seams ripped as he wrestled with the older man, straining to grasp the grenade. TJ knew he was larger, but Martin was trained in hand-to-hand combat. The colonel locked him in an arm-hold that toppled TJ to the sand. Grappling for a stronger position, TJ twisted, but the colonel held him in a vise-like grip. They rolled down the hill—toward the beach and away from Mara. Her screams of terror echoed in his ears.
Punching TJ in the throat with his elbow, the colonel freed his hand and pulled the pin from the grenade.
Three seconds to live.
TJ fought as he’d never had before. He wasn’t a fighter by nature, but he wanted to live. He wouldn’t leave Mara with the vision of his bloody body sprayed in pieces across the sand. And he wouldn’t let the damned colonel die either.
Two seconds.
Pinning the colonel’s arm against the sand, TJ grasped the hand holding the grenade. Martin struggled, but TJ was stronger. With determination, he peeled the colonel’s fingers off the weapon. Bones cracked, and in a cry of pain, the colonel released his hold on the deadly ball.
One second.
TJ flung the grenade as far and as hard as he could in the direction of the deserted beach. The explosion spewed sand across the night sky and the weakened dune rumbled.
Beneath him, Martin continued struggling, and TJ was forced to return his attention to the colonel by applying pressure across his windpipe.
“Dammit, Colonel!” he shouted, still shaken by the nearness of death. “Do you have any idea what that could have done to Sandy? To your kids? Have you ever lived with the suicide of someone you loved?”
The colonel quit struggling to gasp for air.
“Death ends it all! You’d never have another chance to explain what you did or why you did it. Think about Nicole and Michelle,
spending the rest of their lives believing their father didn’t love them enough to live for them.”
Breathing heavily, Martin lay still. The night of Brad’s death flamed across TJ’s memory as strongly as if it had been yesterday. Shaking, he released the colonel’s throat. “I didn’t think you the kind of man to take the coward’s way out.”
Beneath him, the big man he’d thought of as father let out a choking sob. The colonel shook his head, unable to reply.
“Do you have any idea what it would have done to me if you’d died like this?” TJ asked, his voice cracking as grief and terror spilled through his reserve. “You’re the father I’ve never really had. I’d carry the guilt of your death forever. All you had to do was confess you made the wrong decision, give up your commission, and retire, and your family would have loved you and respected you. And you chose to ruin all of us instead? Are you out of your mind?”
“Maybe.” The colonel’s voice was raw and raspy. “I couldn’t bear the shame.”
“Bear it,” TJ said gruffly. “Pay the price of your wrong decision. Just don’t make others pay it for you.”
“I hate it when you’re right,” Martin whispered.
Sagging with relief, TJ rolled over, listening to the sound of Mara scrambling toward them. He needed her in his arms right now, needed to feel life again after this close brush with death.
The sand shifted as he started to stand.
With a slow rumble of thunder and a cloud of dust, the excavation above them collapsed in on itself. A surprised scream drowned out the crashing tide.
Mara!
Panic instantly replaced triumph. Leaving the colonel nursing his crippled hand, TJ raced up the cascading dune, a litany of prayers escaping his lips—Please Lord, save Mara. I’ll give up my job and go to Hollywood and be her houseboy and bodyguard. I’ll keep the baby by myself. I’ll do anything you like. Just make her safe.
Mara’s moan whispered from beneath an avalanche of loosened sand.
No! Please, not Mara!
Heart rate escalating, TJ tripped and slid headfirst into the shrubbery. Sand covered the waist-high wax myrtles. Scrambling for footholds, he half crawled, half tumbled through the debris, screaming Mara’s name.
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