Moonshell Beach: A Shelter Bay Novel by Joann Ross Page A

of ever wearing those blues again.
    “My late husband always said there’s no such thing as a former Marine,” the mayor, who appeared to have never met a silence she didn’t feel the need to fill, said.
    J.T. privately agreed with that one, but he damn well had no intention of expanding this conversation into his time in the corps. First of all, given that the actress lived in Hollywood, she was probably one of those wine and cheese liberals who, unless they thought there was an audience for war movies, had never seemed real fond of the military men and women who allowed them to sleep safe and secure on their gazillion-thread Egyptian cotton sheets every night.
    There was also the fact that he hadn’t talked about the last eighteen months with anyone, and if he
were
to open up about it, it’d be with his brothers. Or his Marine dad, who’d done a tour in the final year of the Vietnam War and had been involved in the evacuation during the Fall of Saigon. Or maybe even his grandfather, who’d seen a lot of bad stuff during his time in Korea. But he didn’t want to share. Especially not with some actress whose only views of military life—and death—probably came from movies.
    He just wanted to be left alone. Was that too damn much to ask?
    “
Night of the Living Dead
was originally written as a horror comedy.” Mary Joyce returned the conversation to its original track, even as he felt her gaze drift back toward him. As grateful as he was to her for getting the focus off him, he kept his eyes on the road straight ahead. “It was titled
Monster Flick
, and was about a group of teenage aliens who visit Earth and become friends with human teenagers.”
    “I’ve never heard that,” Clark said. The theater professor’s tone was thick with skepticism. When they’d first met that morning, it was clear the guy didn’t like J.T.
    J.T. considered the feeling mutual.
    “It’s true. Maybe it’s because my brother-in-law’s a horror novelist, or due to his books always being around our house because my older brother devoured them like sweets, but I took a class on American fifties and sixties horror films at UCD. University College Dublin,” she clarified her credentials. “The second version had a young man running awayfrom home and discovering rotting corpses the aliens used for food scattered over a meadow.”
    “Yuck,” said the mayor.
    “You won’t be getting any argument with me there. The film was widely criticized for being too graphic, but it’s definitely become a cult classic. In fact, over a hundred artists from around the world created a reenactment, using everything from manga to Claymation, to puppets. It’s foolishly grand fun.”
    Damn. This time the warm female laugh caused an unwelcome little sexual sizzle. As reassuring as J.T. might have found it under any other circumstances, with any other woman, he tamped it down. He’d kept his distance from women during his casualty-notification days, because dealing with that mission had proved so emotionally grinding, he didn’t have anything left to give to a relationship.
    Since returning home, feeling as if he’d been hollowed out with a rusty machete, he’d kept to himself.
    And how’s that been working for you?
a nagging voice in the back of his mind asked as the others enthusiastically discussed zombies and ghouls and other things that went bump in the night.
    Just fine,
he answered back.
    Which was a flat-out lie. He was a long way from fine. Which was another reason not to even let himself think about this woman whose voice carried the lilt of the auld sod and who smelled like a green Irish meadow.

7
    At least Mary Joyce’s fans had added some color to the town, Kara considered, as she skirted around a woman wearing a sequined green skirt with a mermaid-tail train and matching bra. Since she’d seen bikini tops a lot skimpier, she decided that the outfit was a long way from breaking any decency laws. The woman was talking to a