Carolina Girl

by Patricia Rice

  Back in Aurora’s bedroom he could hear the low murmur of feminine voices and the clanging of pots and pans from the kitchen. His stomach rumbled in appreciation of the scent of hot coffee and frying bacon. If they continued feeding him like this, he’d have to buy their groceries.

  Aurora’s closet and dressers were all closed, concealing any glimpse of female secrets. He could poke around on her computer, but it would look pretty suspicious if she caught him. He’d learned her screen name when he’d been in there last night. He’d have to surprise her with a virtual card.

  He could program a card with laughing Dopeys and dancing rainbows. Would she get a kick out of that?

  Or was she the sort to prefer expensive jewelry?

  He stopped in front of the childish white dresser that matched her bed. A curlicued, gilded porcelain clock was the only ornament. No jewelry box.

  Her neatness compared to his slovenly haven had him shaking his head. Was there even anything in the drawers? He’d bet that if there was, it was all neatly sorted in stacks by color.

  To verify his suspicion, he tugged open a top drawer. The scent of jasmine wafted around him, and a cloud of lace and silk spilled over the edge—underwear!

  Grinning, Clay admired the array of colors and frivolities. Who would have imagined this side of the straitlaced MBA? He couldn’t resist envisioning Aurora’s voluptuous curves framed in—

  “McCloud!”

  Guiltily he slid the drawer closed, shoved his hands in his pockets, and ambled toward the sound of her voice. “Coming.” He wished.

  He grinned to himself at the unintentional pun. Jared was the clown in the family, not him.

  Aurora appeared in the doorway and eyed his casual pose with suspicion. “Admiring your pretty face in the mirror?”

  “Hoping you’d left a rubber band lying around. This thing doesn’t stay in. How do you keep your dresser so neat?” As the youngest of three brothers, he had the innocent pose down to a fine art.

  Standing in front of her, Clay admired the thick swirl she’d tugged her hair into, but he liked it better down. Before she could come up with a sharp retort, he located the clasp, opened it, and brought the whole red-gold heap tumbling to her shoulders.

  Instead of smacking him or backing off, she stayed planted where she was, studying him. “You thought you’d find a rubber band in my hair?”

  He wrapped a long strand of red-gold around his finger and admired it. “It’s prettier down. Softer.”

  He thought the tension between them escalated to stellar proportions. She watched him warily but the magnetic attraction trapped both of them. He’d never seen Aurora nervous, even when she’d been facing him down at his place when she hardly knew him. Now, after sharing those mind-blowing kisses, he was excruciatingly aware of womanly curves he wanted to touch and gorgeous eyes watching him as if he were the big, bad wolf.

  Maybe it was standing in this bedroom with the froufrou bed and sexy underwear that heated his awareness and her nervousness.

  Reluctantly releasing her curl, hoping to appear nonchalant, Clay sauntered past her to the women waiting in the other room.

  o0o

  Aurora hurried to follow Clay. She wasn’t into fooling herself, so she had to admit the annoying man possessed a crude charm that rang her chimes. But she didn’t have to act on that attraction. All she had to do was look around to prove she didn’t need any more problems on her hands.

  Cissy was wearing the closed expression she used to shut people out, which didn’t bode well for the computer lessons. Was her sister having second thoughts about selling out? Please, Lord, lend her strength.

  This morning was not turning out at all like she’d planned.

  “Sit down, have some eggs,” she ordered before Clay could mess with her mind again. “What time were you supposed to meet Kismet?” Aurora took the frying pan from the stove and dished scrambled eggs onto a plate she’d set out for him.

  Clay glanced around for a clock and grimaced. “In about fifteen minutes. Was that Jared’s Jeep we passed? Is he still here?”

  “Nope. We told him you’d been found, and he went back home.” Mandy filled her glass with orange juice and flopped onto the seat beside Clay at the table. “He said he’d tell Kiz you’d be late. You really teaching her computers?”

  “Graphics. She likes drawing. Why, you interested?”

  Aurora watched as Clay drank his coffee, swallowed breakfast whole, and answered Mandy’s questions at the same time. Her cheek still felt warm from where he’d brushed it with his hand when he’d— Oh, sugar. She’d left her hair down. No wonder Cissy was looking at them as if they were space aliens.

  “Yeah, why don’t you come over and keep Kiz company? I think she’d feel better if there was another female there, and Cleo doesn’t have time to sit with us. Maybe you’d learn something.” Clay finished off his coffee and glanced up at the wall clock again.

  His gaze caught Aurora’s, and he winked. She fought back a blush. Damn, but she hadn’t felt bubbly inside like this since high school. How did he do that?

  As Mandy leaped up to change her clothes or fix her hair or whatever it was teenagers did when going somewhere, Clay turned his devastating attentiveness on Cissy.

  “Is there a good time for us to start your lessons? It’s probably not wise for you to track through the sand to my place. I can bring my laptop over here, but if we need to print anything, we’ll have to borrow Aurora’s printer.”

  He glanced at Aurora for approval, and she tingled all the way to her toes. Incapable of coherent thought, she nodded.

  “I don’t want to start something you can’t finish,” Cissy said with unbecoming surliness. “I don’t need charity.”

  Broad-shouldered, unshaven, and all male, Clay appeared taken aback by her sister’s rude declaration. “It’s not charity,” he said cautiously. “It’s keeping developers away from my brother’s land until we have a better plan. I’m not a quitter. Are you?”

  Rory held her breath, uncertain what had happened with Cissy between last night and now but praying she wouldn’t back out. Another time she might marvel that Clay hadn’t taken offense, as most men would. Right now it was Cissy who held her attention.

  Her sister looked torn. She glanced at the bill basket, glanced back to the end of the house where she and Mandy lived, then met Rory’s eyes. With a shrug, she picked up her coffee cup. “I keep my word if others keep theirs. You just let me know when you have time, and I’ll be here.”

  “At four.” He rose from the table.

  Trying not to choke on her relief, Rory followed Clay to the door. “Thanks,” she murmured so her sister couldn’t hear. “There for a minute, I thought she’d changed her mind.”

  “She’s entitled. That’s a heck of a lot of money they’re waving around.” He held the door for her so she could follow him outside.

  It was early yet, and heat hadn’t taken hold of the air. Rory breathed deeply, trying not to let her awareness of Clay disturb her thought processes. Even through the layer of her perfumed soap she could detect the all-male scent of him. She didn’t think it safe to look too closely at how the soft cotton of his shirt hugged his chest.

  “I really can pay her bills, one way or another.” She crossed her fingers behind her back and said a little prayer of hope. She would demand a signing bonus with her next job.

  “All right. I thought maybe I could come back here this afternoon, and after I work with your sister, you and I could go someplace for dinner and talk about this zoning thing.” He brushed a strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear.

  She recognized the expectant look in his eyes. He wanted more than talk. She probably did, too, but she wouldn’t give in to hormones. She’d learned how to diet at an early age. Food and sex weren’t all that different—stick to the kind that was good for you and avoid the tempting but worthless sorts.

  “If you come over around four,” she heard herself saying, and hoped she di
dn’t sound as breathless as she feared, “I can fix dinner while you and Cissy work. Pops likes to eat early. We can feed both of you. Maybe Cissy will feel more charitable if she thinks we’re contributing something.”

  He looked as if he’d like to argue, but Rory held her ground, doing her best to appear complacent and beyond argument. It apparently worked. A corner of his mouth crooked up in a half smile, and though he didn’t kiss her, he made her feel as if he had.

  Her heart picked up speed—she wanted him to kiss her, even if they were being watched from the windows.

  “I’ll bring steaks. I don’t know how to grocery shop, so if you need anything else, tell me.”

  “We don’t need steaks. I have a garden full of greens and a freezer full of fish.” They’d learned to can and freeze as kids or they’d have starved.

  “Steaks,” Clay insisted. “And maybe some big fat potatoes.”

  “The new potatoes are ready to dig,” she protested.

  “Big fat potatoes,” he replied, as if she hadn’t said anything. “With sour cream and butter. And all those other little things they throw on. I’m not in L.A. anymore and don’t have to eat nouveau cuisine.”

  She wasn’t entirely certain of the relevance, but the pleased look on his face was that of a child in a candy store, and she quit arguing. Hadn’t he said he usually never tasted food?

  Maybe he’d regained his appetite.

  As he walked away with that long, jaunty stride of his, Rory tried to ignore her own newly aroused appetite, but by the time Clay McCloud had mounted his Harley and rode off, she was planning the evening meal and praying she wasn’t on the menu.

  Chapter Twelve

  With Kismet’s lesson done for the day and time on his hands before he could reasonably visit Aurora again, Clay settled down to finish the task of locating Bingham heirs. He didn’t know what he would do with the information once he was finished, but the state had paid him a nice chunk of change. He couldn’t completely disregard his job, although the temptation was there.

  While the printer spewed a long list of names and addresses, Clay opened up his e-mail program and typed in Aurora’s screen name. To balance out the evil emerging from his printer, he typed, You remind me of starry, starry nights. Come play on my planet anytime. He hesitated before sending off that nonsense, but she didn’t know his screen name and couldn’t prove it came from him.

  Opening the door to involvement was akin to opening Pandora’s box. Sexual involvement he could handle, especially with Aurora. But he wasn’t so self-absorbed as to not realize women like her wanted more than sex.

  So sending anonymous romantic e-mail was akin to pulling petals off daisies. If she understood the message and knew it was from him, she was a winner and worth the effort of whatever complications ensued. If she thought the e-mail was spam and tossed it, she wasn’t his kind. Daisy-petal picking made as much sense as anything else in his life these days.

  He’d gambled on less before. This time he just wasn’t certain which alternative was the prize.

  Catching the last piece of paper spitting from the machine, he switched off the printer, glanced over the list of names, and shuddered. If just one person on this list knew he was an heir, he could sell out all the others. He might as well be holding a two-ton bomb that could explode the whole island into a developer’s paradise.

  He could still sell the information. Get a check from the state, another from some developer, sell the genealogy program to the Mormons or libraries, and head back home to New York or L.A. Or set off for Tahiti. Cleo and Jared could live anywhere. Aurora didn’t have a hope in hell of saving the island from development. She and her sister ought to take the money and run.

  But they wouldn’t, so he wouldn’t. Stupid of him, but there it was. He didn’t need the money. He didn’t need New York or L.A. Tahiti now—

  The phone rang, dousing his fantasy of setting up shop in the South Pacific. Tripping over a stack of file folders, he glowered at the organized chaos that was his front room. If he was staying, he’d have to do something about the mess.

  If he wanted to bring Aurora here, away from the prying eyes of her family, he’d better do a hell of a lot of somethings.

  Stepping over a box of reference material, he grabbed the phone before it leaped off the wall and came after him. “Clay here.” Gazing around, he looked for somewhere to stash his potentially explosive printouts.

  “Thank goodness!” Urgency rushed Cleo’s usual clipped tones. “Can you come sit with Meg for a while? Matty fell off some playground equipment at a friend’s house, and I don’t think it’s serious but—”

  Clay cut in before Cleo passed out from lack of breath. “I’ll be there in a minute. Hop in the car and go.”

  “Thanks!” She slammed down the phone before he could realize the ludicrousness of his offer. He wasn’t his brother. He didn’t know a damn thing about babies.

  How long could it take for Cleo to hie into town, pick up Matt, and run back here? One little baby shouldn’t be that hard. Glancing down at the valuable papers in his hand, he shrugged and shoved them into the first open drawer he found.

  That done, he jogged over the sand and boardwalk and up the hill to his brother’s home. Heaven only knew where Jared had gone. His brother could arrive home before Cleo had time to reach town.

  Cleo was looking frantic as she paced the porch, torn between her daughter sleeping inside and her son, hurt, in town. At Clay’s approach, she dashed down the stairs, truck keys in hand. “She should sleep another hour. There’s a bottle in the refrigerator, but she just ate a couple of hours ago. Jared’s in Charleston on a video call with some movie producer. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

  Clay grabbed the door of her truck and held it open so she could climb in. “They’ll both be fine. Just be careful and give me a call to let me know how Matt is.” He hadn’t the heart to worry her with his incompetence. Cleo never panicked except when it came to the kids.

  “I hate doing this to you....”

  He shut the door while she fastened her seat belt. “I know how to call for help if I’m in over my head. Midge is in good hands.”

  “Meg. Megan.” She threw the truck in gear and roared down the drive.

  “Midge,” Clay insisted to the cloud of dust she left behind.

  If Jared could handle a baby, surely he could. She was a cute little thing.

  The cute little thing was wailing her heart out as he entered the house.

  Okay, don’t panic. How hard could it be?

  The nursery was whimsically decorated in bright blue walls, with a cloud-painted ceiling dangling swinging butterflies and dragons. Entering, Clay prayed Midge would quiet down before he reached the crib.

  She didn’t. In fact, her little face wrinkled into lines of rage and turned red as she reached a particularly demanding note.

  He needed a checklist. When machines froze up, he worked through a series of corrections until he had them working again. He simply needed to figure out what made Midge tick.

  He offered his finger. She batted it blindly and squalled louder. Strike one. Seeing the key in the carousel thing hanging over the crib, he turned it until the musical notes of “Pop Goes the Weasel” wrecked his eardrums. She didn’t buy that either. He didn’t blame her. He’d try her on a little Billy Joel next time.

  Babies liked movement, like cradles and cars. Tightening his jaw, Clay studied the situation. She was down in that crib pretty far, and she was wriggling and flailing like a beached turtle, but she was a bitty thing. All he had to do was slip his hands under her and lift and hope she didn’t wriggle so hard she tumbled out of his grip.

  He worked one hand under her padded bottom, got a good whiff, and winced. “Midge, don’t do this to me!”

  At the sound of his voice, she quieted and stared up at him.

  Excellent. Talking worked. Pity he couldn’t talk her into changing her own diaper. Or find Kismet and Mandy to help, but they’d taken off
for the beach hours ago.

  Well, if he could clean and change an oily engine, surely he could figure out Midge’s chassis.

  For the first minute or two, Midge was apparently so bemused by his awkwardness that she forgot to cry. But he apparently took too long figuring out the best means of removing the soggy mess around her bottom, and her wails returned with renewed vigor.

  “Give me a break here, Midge,” he muttered, ripping at tapes and trying to hold on to her while she kicked furiously. “I’ve never needed an instruction manual, but I sure could use a Help file right now.”

  She wailed louder.

  “I only like bikes that roar,” he warned as she continued caterwauling after he’d rigged a dry diaper around her, leaving the messy one for Cleo to clean up.

  Cleo had said she’d just eaten. Did that mean she couldn’t eat again? Until when? Hell, he hadn’t thought to ask.

  Midge’s wails were too pitiful to tolerate. Feeding usually shut kids up. It wouldn’t hurt for her to eat early.

  o0o

  “All right, I think I’ve got this now, kid. Hang on.” Burped milk down his front and a wide awake Midge waiting to see what he would do next, Clay slipped the straps of the baby carrier over his head and let her hang down his back like a backpack. “Let’s go for a walk. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll take you out on the Harley and teach you to ride.”

  He’d almost dropped her when Cleo had called to report she had to take Matty into Charleston to have his swollen finger X-rayed. She’d given him a hurried list of instructions he couldn’t write down because Midge was pulling his hair, and he couldn’t disentangle her fingers or find a pen. Most of the instructions had made sense at the time. He wished he could remember what they were now.

  Figuring Jared easily owed him a month’s free rent—had he been paying rent—Clay jogged out the front door, hoping the fresh air would relieve the stench of baby puke.