McCloud's Woman Read Online Free

and didn’t regret his
footloose lifestyle for a minute.
    Or hadn’t, until he’d met the ugly underside of his accomplishment.
    “Jared ordering pizza?” TJ asked gravely, handing the wriggling boy to his mother.
    “Nope, fixing tacos. I have a whole bottle of ipecac in
the medicine closet, should we need it. Go on back. I’ll clean up and be
with you in a minute.”
    Jared looked up from a frying pan of hamburger and onions
when TJ entered. “Hey, old man, you’re looking grimmer than usual. Those
skeletons rattling back?”
    “Why? Does Cleo want them dancing in the drive?” TJ picked a tortilla chip from the bowl and stuck it in the guacamole.
    Jared grinned. “She’d love that. The first of the movie
people arrived in town today, and she’s already muttering dire
imprecations. The mayor suggested she open a road around your
excavation.”
    “Tell her there are federal laws about sand dunes and sea oats. The movie people will have to hire a boat.”
    “I don’t know if that hurricane trash pile you’re digging in qualifies as a sand dune, and I don’t remember any sea oats—”
    The back door flew open and a short, stocky teenage boy
burst in. “Did you see the limo? Did you? Reckon it had movie stars in
it?”
    A tall, wraithlike girl followed Gene at a more leisurely
pace. Eyes darting to ascertain the occupants of the room, Kismet smiled
shyly, then silently drifted past the men to the front room.
    After a month of living on this island, TJ had grown
accustomed to the neighbor’s eccentric children. Taking a chair at the
table, he munched on the chips and let Jared field the boy’s eager
questions. Movie stars? He grimaced at the memory of the woman in red.
Definitely movie star material. Wonder how in hell she knew his name.
Surely Jared hadn’t mentioned him in his brief forays into Hollywood
life.
    “I don’t think the actors arrive until production starts,”
Jared told the boy. “I imagine you saw the director or producer or
their assistants.”
    “Do assistants wear see-through blouses and skirts that
barely cover their rear?” TJ mused aloud, reaching behind him to open
the refrigerator, remembering too late that Cleo didn’t keep beer in the
house.
    Both Jared and Gene turned to study him with interest. “See-through?” the teenager prompted eagerly.
    Scrubbed free of grease and bereft of figure-disguising
shirt, Cleo caught the refrigerator door and removed a can of Dr Pepper
before TJ could shut it. “See-through?” she repeated innocently,
glancing at her husband as she popped the top.
    “Ask big brother, not me.” Jared threw up his hands in self defense. “I don’t do Hollywood these days.”
    Kismet followed Cleo into the kitchen as if feeling safe
only in the presence of another female. Quietly, she began setting the
table while Cleo produced chopped vegetables and opened a bottle of
salsa to go with the tacos.
    “You didn’t ever do Hollywood,” TJ reminded him. “They tried to do you, and you balked.”
    “Creative differences.” Jared dropped the frying pan of
sizzling meat onto a trivet in the center of the table. “But I’ve kept
my contacts. I know Sid Rosenthal owns the studio for this film. A
friend of mine worked on the script.”
    “I don’t suppose Sid wears see-through red?” Cleo widened
her eyes in feigned innocence and reached for a tortilla. Today, her
T-shirt read: ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MY SELVES.
    Jared kissed her nape and slid into the seat beside her.
“No, but Sid’s wife might. She owns half the company. The pirate film is
her idea.”
    Rosenthal. Nope, he didn’t know any Rosenthals. Besides,
TJ couldn’t imagine that high-heeled chorus girl as a producer of
anything but seductive smiles. He wished she’d get out of his head. He
had other things far more important to think about. Starting with
replacing Leona.
    “I think my assistant quit,” he said by way of taking part in the