Carolina Girl

by Patricia Rice

  “You have anything valuable in that shack of yours?” Cleo called out as they climbed out.

  “Uh-oh.” Aurora looked to Clay and saw the grim line form over his nose. She hastily knelt to play with Midge rather than watch the explosion. Her stomach twisted in tighter knots. She’d known this was a stupid risk to take. What had gone wrong already?

  “The cottage was empty only one night,” Clay protested. “What happened?”

  “Jared saw lights down there last night and went down to see if you’d come home. The door was open, but we can’t tell if someone was in there or not. The place is a wreck, but then, when isn’t it?”

  “Call the sheriff,” Rory advised, looking up from Midge’s wriggling fingers. She could tell from the way Clay clenched his fingers into fists that he had switched to battle mode. “Don’t disturb anything.”

  “You sound like TJ. I have to check first. Maybe the door just blew open. Stay here.” He jogged off without further ado.

  If it made him happy to play Macho Man, by criminy, this time she’d follow orders. Rory sat on the grass and let him steam off on his own. “Even he couldn’t tell if someone wrecked the place.”

  “Frighteningly enough, I think he can.” Cleo sat down on the other side of the stroller. “Jared already called big brother. If there’s something missing, prepare yourself. Three McClouds in the same state are deadlier than hurricanes, and I’ll bet TJ is already packing his bags.”

  Rory had never been swept off her feet before. She wasn’t entirely certain if it was her or Clay who had gone off the deep end here. “Why would anyone in their right mind break into a trash heap, much less think there was something worth stealing? And why would his brothers care about a minor, everyday kind of break-in?”

  “They tease each other unmercifully, but if something goes wrong, they all mysteriously appear to make it right again.” Cleo caught Meg’s pacifier and returned it to her mouth. “You really should see them in action. It’s like watching one of those wrestling matches on TV, where all the good guys gang up against the bad guys.”

  “Do they wear funny costumes?” Conjuring up images of Clay wearing a purple shield and sword and little else, Rory gave up sensible thought.

  Cleo snickered. “I think they’d like to. They grew up in this ultraconservative household wearing button-down collars and ties, but they think like Marvel comics. Where do you think Jared gets his ideas?”

  “From Looney Tunes?” Grinning at the thought of three big McCloud men dressed in duck costumes, Rory stood and brushed the grass off her good skirt. “Maybe I’ll sashay down and make certain Elmer Fudd doesn’t shoot off his toe.”

  Cleo rolled her eyes. “You’re going to fit right in with the crazies, aren’t you? I think I’ll call TJ’s wife and tell her to come down. She loves crazies.”

  “In that case, tell her to bring her mosquito spray and a comfortable chair. It’s going to be a lo-o-ong program.”

  Cleo laughed. “Lifelong, maybe?”

  Rory’s heartstrings hummed at the implication, but her mind quickly laid the possibility to rest. “Don’t count on that. We’re both hardheaded enough to kill each other first.”

  Striding down the sandy lane toward the beach, Rory tried not to feel too effervescent over this exchange. She liked Cleo and Jared. She more than liked Clay. But she had a career on hold and a high degree of reservation about men in general and risk-taking fast-laners in particular. The future was too hard to see.

  But for a fleeting moment, the vision of a future with Clay and his family in it shimmered like the fantasy of eyelet, turrets, and sea captains.

  The image shattered fast enough when she met Clay storming out of the house, a wad of papers crushed in his fist. Judging by the virtual black smoke billowing from his ears, his privacy had been invaded, all right. Even in a business shirt and pleated trousers, he looked dangerous. She tried to smother a jolt of alarm. “What did they take?”

  “Nothing.” Crushing the papers tighter, he held them out to her. Realizing he’d all but turned them into trash, he loosened his grip. “They didn’t find this list, so they weren’t silverware thieves. They didn’t take the Mac, but they played with it.”

  Without consciously thinking about it, Rory wrapped her arms around Clay’s waist and rested her head against his shoulder. “Kids, then. Calm down. It’s going to be fine.”

  He accepted her offer and held her close, but he didn’t visibly relax. “Kids would have taken the video games. This one tried to get past my security system, and when he couldn’t, he rifled all my hard-copy files.”

  “I refuse to let you frighten me. Did they find anything valuable, can you tell?”

  “They screwed up my files.” He kissed her quickly before she could give her opinion of his filing system. “I can tell. Take my word, okay? Just because I don’t have file drawers doesn’t mean I don’t have a system.”

  “All right, I’ll take your word for it. Just tell me how bad it is. Should we call the sheriff?”

  “What’s he going to do? Dust for fingerprints? Career criminals don’t mess with paper files. I think someone took advantage of my absence to see what I’ve been doing. If they were after the list, it was too buried for them to find.”

  “If they were after the list, they’ll be back,” she whispered, glad to have his arms around her as she considered the ramifications of that wild assertion.

  Maybe it wasn’t so wild. Her sister had been driven off the road, her house had nearly burned to the ground, and now someone was searching Clay’s home. She tried to stick to reality—she and Clay weren’t important enough for these incidents to be more than coincidental. But fear won over logic, hands down.

  “If they come back, it will be too late,” Clay said with confidence. “Let’s get the Bingham letters out and see how much property we can buy with a few hundred thousand and prospects.”

  And prospects. He was gambling that they would find investors to produce his software. And that the software would make enough money to cover all their expenses now and in the future. Gulping over how such a tiny word could cover such a huge gamble, Rory stepped away, straightened her shoulders, and marched back toward the main house.

  She had telephone calls to make. And miles to go before she slept...should she ever sleep again.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Sunshine, lollipops, and Auroras are a few of my favorite things. Won’t you come make beautiful music with me?

  Rory smiled at the silly message on her computer screen. Remembering the song from the Blue Monkey’s jukebox, she typed in, My idea of beautiful music is a bridge over troubled water. Do you wanna dance?

  So it made no sense. Neither did his message. She simply wanted to connect with Clay, let him know she was thinking about him as she sat in her lonely bedroom, working up tomorrow’s to-do list while Cissy took Jake into town and Rory stayed with Mandy. If she had a car, she might have given in to her longing and driven over to his place. Good thing temptation had been taken out of her hands.

  She no longer had a hard time imagining Clay as the author of silly love notes. After watching him in action, she fully believed he could turn the moon blue and ask which shade she preferred if she requested it.

  She was in very grave danger here, and it wasn’t her future finances she was thinking about. Could she survive without a heart if it were stolen by a taciturn, unpredictable computer mogul?

  o0o

  Clay grinned at the instant message crossing his screen. He hadn’t slept last night while working a marathon session to fine-tune his script. His head ached, his eyes blurred, and he probably hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours. But Aurora’s note had him grinning like a fool.

  He’d known she was clever. She’d started the classic- rock theme, so he hoped that meant she was connecting the messages with him and not daydreaming of some anonymous romantic hero.

  He respected her insistence on staying in her own place to provide a good role model f
or her niece. He had to stay here and safeguard his files from any more break-ins. But he really needed Aurora tonight. On his own, he paid no heed to time or basics like food and sleep. He wasn’t a teenager anymore. He needed her here to drag him from the computer, tempt him with good-smelling meals, and seduce him into bed.

  He needed a hell of a lot more than that, but he was scared to analyze his expectations.

  He sent off an e-mail resigning his position with the state and offering to return their advance or the partially completed program he’d created with their funds. That should give a few people apoplexy and engender a few weeks’ worth of meetings before anyone acted on it.

  He didn’t like taking their money when he’d used the list it generated for his own purposes. The program was complete enough to do what the state needed it to do; he just didn’t intend to show them how. Of course, if he and Aurora succeeded in obtaining the Bingham property for the nonprofit trust, they would sell the state the part it wanted for a nominal sum, so the state would come out ahead.

  Figuring he’d better go to bed if he wanted to think at all in the morning, he typed, I can dance; love me do, hit send, and turned off the machine.

  Stupid to mention love anywhere around a female, but he was tired, and Aurora would know the messages were for fun. He hoped he knew that.

  The phone rang and he winced. Surely no one was working in the state department at this hour. Grimacing, he wandered into the kitchen to grab the phone before the answering machine kicked in. If he was really, really good, maybe it would be Aurora willing to whisper sweet nothings in his ear.

  “It’s me,” TJ said without preamble. “Mara and I have some time off and we’re coming down. Want us to bring some real coffee?”

  “Normal people aren’t up at this hour of the night,” Clay answered wearily, rubbing his forehead. His brother’s casual announcement didn’t fool him. TJ smelled trouble and was following his nose. Growing up in a family like theirs, they’d learned to communicate in cryptic asides rather than directly, as TJ’s response proved.

  “Yeah, I know, but you never were normal. We’ll be staying at the B-and-B in town. Mara’s attached to the place. They haven’t built a Starbucks there since we’ve been down, have they?”

  “I have no clue.” He never went looking for coffee shops. He drank coffee whenever someone handed it to him. He wished someone would hand him some now. “I’m in the middle of something big here, so I won’t have time to entertain.” He really didn’t think he was involved in anything important enough to drag TJ away from his new job. TJ was a forensic anthropologist and they hadn’t uncovered any dead bodies yet.

  Hearing another receiver click, Clay pictured TJ gesturing at his movie-producer wife to grab the line. Babealicious Mara was quiet Cleo’s complete opposite, but then, so were Jared and TJ opposites. That was okay by him, but he really didn’t want his brothers involved right now. He needed to work things out with Aurora without his interfering family breathing down his neck, offering advice and messing with his head.

  “Oh, I imagine you’re very entertaining without even trying,” Mara breathed into the line. “Maybe we should fly down so you can work on the plane engine?”

  “I’m flying Harleys these days. Look, don’t come down for my sake, all right? Everything’s totally under control.” Or would be once he had the software under his belt and had time to go into town and knock a few heads together. He wanted to be there when Terry Talbert found out he wouldn’t be doing the programming. Maybe he could tell the turkey that a committee that didn’t have the sense to want Aurora didn’t need him.

  Or would Aurora have a fit if he said something like that? Probably.

  Mara took the conversational ball out of his hands and ran with it. “But interfering is what families do best! Look, if we don’t come down there, we’ll have to visit our mothers, and my inclination is to ship them to you instead. So try being gracious and smile when we show up.”

  Clay smiled at the idea of shipping their problematic mothers anywhere. “All right, but you stand forewarned. No one sits around and does nothing here. We have a major project going down.”

  “No skeletons,” Mara demanded. “This is a vacation.”

  “I like skeletons,” TJ reminded her from the other phone.

  “I don’t want any skeletons on our vacation,” Mara warned.

  Laughing as he pictured the two of them sending smoldering looks across the room, each with phone in hand while arguing long distance, Clay hung up the receiver. They wouldn’t even notice he’d gone.

  He wanted to have a relationship like that when he grew up.

  Given his lifestyle and working habits, he had a fat chance of growing up, much less developing a relationship, but at least he knew a woman who liked him. The relationship element was where it fell apart. He’d have all he could do managing anything more than the business one—especially with his brothers and her family peering over their shoulders.

  He thought being a turtle might have its advantages.

  o0o

  Composing herself, pretending she was simply walking into a meeting at her office where she would present loan proposals for a new business for someone else, Rory walked up the marble steps of the bank. She’d scheduled the meeting with Jeff for a Friday afternoon, when he’d be eager to escape for a round of golf. She wanted this short and sweet.

  It had been only two days since the letters had gone out to the Binghams. The offer to set up the land in a nonprofit trust the family could control might already be stirring up talk among the local property owners. Soon they would have distant relatives talking to each other for the first time in their lives. Better that it was out in the open so the Binghams knew what was happening, and the bank and development companies couldn’t steal the land out from under them for lack of knowledge.

  Now, if only she could talk the bank into leaving her equity loan open, they’d have a few hundred thousand more to invest in Clay’s software and, ultimately, an income for life, if “Mysterious” produced the astonishing profit Clay promised.

  “Hello, Aurora! You’re looking fantastic.” Standing beside his secretary’s desk as if he’d been waiting for her, Jeff Spencer greeted her with the enthusiasm he saved for his wealthier customers.

  He was as handsome as ever, still single, and rich enough to build his own house in one of the town’s McMansion neighborhoods. Rory figured any house Jeff built would have all blond-wood floors and white walls. Jeff never had possessed much imagination or color. As an insecure teenager, she’d seen that as steadiness. As a more secure adult, she recognized how boring that was—purple knights were much more challenging.

  Boring Jeff could very well be behind the Commercial Realty ploy to buy out Cissy. She would have to play this one close.

  “Thank you, Jeff,” she said with just the right amount of frost while sweeping past him into his office. She couldn’t believe that less than a month ago she’d stepped out of his way rather than rock the boat, and here she was now, ready to turn the boat over and shoot holes in it.

  “I have the payoff calculated, as you requested.” He sat down at his desk and opened a file folder on his otherwise immaculate desk. “But you needn’t be hasty about this, you know. If you can show substantial assets outside of the land—”

  “We’ve had an offer of ten thousand an acre, and with thirty acres, that’s more than sufficient to cover the current balance,” she interrupted in the crisp tones she’d learned to use in the banking world. “I’m prepared to write a check for the entire balance.”

  No, she wasn’t. The lawyer had collected the prize winnings and deposited them this morning, so the money was technically there. She just needed as much of it as she could hold on to. Experience had taught her that meant she must speak from a position of strength. “I would prefer working with the local bank, of course, since I see no reason to tie up liquid assets, but if you are uncomfortable with the loan, then I have no difficulty taking our
interest elsewhere. What is the payoff balance?”

  Jeff looked uneasy as she produced her checkbook and a pen and waited expectantly. “Now, Rora, let’s not be so hasty. You know that ten thousand an acre is unlikely, and if you’ve really been offered that, you should grab it. We can come to some compromise—”

  “No, I don’t think so. Our land is on prime property along the access road to the new state park. Since you’re so interested in developing a property tax base out there and the zoning commission won’t be interested in anything less, then I see no reason why we shouldn’t benefit from the ecological disaster that will result. That property will be worth ten times as much in ten years. I’m willing to take the risk. The payoff, please.”

  He managed to shutter a brief expression of alarm, but his blatant self-interest couldn’t be as easily disguised. “Then you’ll quit fighting the zoning?”

  Gifting him with her most dazzling smile and hiding the wolf grin behind it, Aurora put down her checkbook. “Why, Jeffy, if that’s been your concern all along, you should have said so. I’m about to move a multimillion-dollar corporation in there. One-bank shopping makes sense to me. Are you interested?”

  He fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Rory decided she should have cut line and fished in deeper waters long ago.

  She hadn’t said she’d quit fighting zoning, now, had she?

  o0o

  Limping down the cracked sidewalk from Cleo’s store, Cissy tingled with pride at the sight of her candy-apple-red pickup. She didn’t care if it wasn’t brand new. Buying vehicles new was a waste of money. But this one was as close to new as she’d ever owned, with hardly a dent or scratch on it. She had a working CD player and room in the narrow backseat to transport Mandy and her friends. She wanted to take it out on the highway and test the acceleration, but she hadn’t had an excuse to do so yet.

  Sure, it was registered in the name of the corporation and not her name, and she hadn’t paid for it. But Rora had showed her the corporate papers with her name on them, and part of the million dollars was hers, so if she carried the keys, she figured that truck was bought and paid for.