McCloud's Woman by Patricia Rice

newspaper. She could even find them in freaking L.A., where you needed a
car to travel from coffee shop to newsstand. Some days, she actually
missed New York. In a town this small, she should be able to walk—
    From one end to the other. She stared in consternation at
the tidy line of antebellum brick residences lining the rest of the
shore road, then glanced at her watch. It had taken all of fifteen
minutes, with no sign of civilization. What in hell did people do here
on Sunday mornings? There wasn’t a soul on the street.
    In answer to her question, half a dozen church bells tolled the ten o’clock hour.
    She wondered if churches served espresso with their donuts. But her mixed ethnic background didn’t include white-bread Baptist.
    Maybe the mini-mart would have newspapers.
    Sailboats bobbed on the gently lapping water, a gull
screamed overhead, and Mara tried to pretend she was on a beach vacation
at the Jersey shore. But dammit, they had a Starbucks there.
    The guy with Nascar tattoos and a chew of tobacco in his
cheek manning the counter of the minimart didn’t faze her, but the lack
of anything resembling a newsstand did. Racks of car and beauty
magazines filled the one shelf allotted to reading material. Bubble gum,
plastic junk food, and toiletries dominated the rest. Not an espresso
machine in sight, although one counter boasted every soft drink and
juice known to mankind, plus a Mr. Coffee. Not quite what she had in
mind.
    Krispy Kremes! She grabbed a box of the sticky doughnuts, unburied a week-old People magazine, and flung them on the counter.
    “They’re two days old,” a male voice said behind her. TJ.
    She whipped around at the crackle of fresh newsprint as
much as at the sound of his voice. She enviously eyed the thick, crisp
bundle under his arm. She could almost smell the Times . “Where did you get that?”
    TJ shrugged and set his cup of steaming coffee down on the
counter. “Bookstore around the corner orders it for me. They leave it
in the box so I can pick it up if the store isn’t open.”
    She must have eyed it so hungrily that even an obtuse male like TJ could read her expression.
    Warily, he offered a peek at the front page. “Want to share?”
    “I don’t suppose you have an espresso machine?” she almost
whimpered, ignoring the headlines and gazing longingly at the middle
section of the paper with the books and entertainment news.
    “Jared has one,” he answered hesitantly.
    Mara didn’t know whether to beg like a puppy or do her
starlet flirt to persuade him. She didn’t feel like a starlet this
morning. She felt like a curmudgeonly New Yorker deprived of her
caffeine-and-newspaper fix.
    She lifted a hopeful gaze to the full impact of TJ’s smoky
one and nearly forgot what it was she wanted from him. Gad, it was a
miracle the man didn’t explode from all the fire smoldering behind those
thick lashes. The restraint excited her as much as the hidden emotions
behind it. What would it take to unlock his chains?
    Even thinking of undoing TJ McCloud was living dangerously.
    He picked up the Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee and
handed it to her. “Here, take the edge off while I pick up some milk and
eggs for Cleo.”
    He’d understood! Coffee and newspapers—that’s what she wanted. All she wanted.
    Well, maybe she’d also like to have a man who understood
her, but she wasn’t in the market for a man right now. She had enough of
them interfering in her life already.
    She paid for her purchases and gratefully sipped the hot
brew while TJ completed his errand. Her adolescent fantasies had always
pictured her high school champion in jungles, battling boa constrictors
in the jungle or standing like a stalwart knight against her enemies.
She’d never pictured him in a domestic scene with eggs and a
sister-in-law. It was almost sexy watching an oversize, dangerous male
prowling the shelves of a giant refrigerator.
    Maybe she ought to be producing