Carolina Girl

by Patricia Rice

  Brand-new rosebushes bloomed all along the next fence. She was certain that stretch had been burned out as well. With fascination and a growing joy that her home was being restored better than new, she searched for more changes, finding a painted gnome among newly planted petunias in one garden, a new gaudy gold mailbox amid a circle of young azaleas at the bottom of a drive lined with tender willow oak saplings.

  There were still telltale signs of the fire here and there: a scorched tree trunk with branches trimmed back to new leaf shoots, a blackened field just beginning to shoot up sprigs of green, a telephone pole that hadn’t been replaced. The usual beds of rampant flowers and shrubs and eccentric lawn ornaments hadn’t been completely restored, but the half bathtub with its concrete Madonna was freshly painted, and the rosebushes around it would be full of blooms in a week or two.

  Miracles happened. Her heart was pounding harder than her chest could contain it as she climbed out of the car at her front door and handed the driver a tip well beyond the expected. She was afraid to go inside, afraid her bubble would burst once she heard the real reason for all these changes.

  Her father’s concrete statues had been stripped of their burned paint. Someone must have hauled in an entire tank of paint remover and dipped them en masse. She could see stains of color here and there, a little red on a dwarf’s vest, a bit of gold in a fairy’s wings. One of the massive fountains had been given a white base coat, and several of the ducks and turtles already sported new paint jobs.

  Burned shrubs had been ripped from the fence rows, and the ground had been tilled, ready for replanting. At the sound of hammering, she peeked around the corner of the trailer and saw a wood frame going up where the toolshed had been. The frame was far larger than the old shed, big enough to be a garage. She didn’t recognize the carpenter.

  Work trucks littered the drive, but the candy-apple-red extended cab was nowhere to be seen. Maybe nobody was home.

  She was hit with the realization that she had been eagerly anticipating entering a house spilling over with life and laughter. She would never enjoy an empty apartment again, no matter how fashionable. She wanted to share Mandy’s shrieks of triumph when she received her driver’s license and scholarships. She wanted to help Cissy get back on her feet again. She wanted her father’s hugs and earthy advice and bottle caps promising prizes.

  She wasn’t a rebellious child wanting the respect money bought anymore. She’d seen the world and knew what was really important.

  Tears threatening to stream down her cheeks again, Aurora dared the front door. A telephone rang as she entered. A computer announced someone had mail. A sorcerer dressed in robes with moons and stars waved a magic wand on the TV screen. Stacks of paper covered the once pristine carpet, and filing cabinets lined the wall where the knickknack shelf had been. The big green sofa had been shoved aside to make room for a desk and computer table.

  Cissy jumped up from an office chair at Aurora’s entrance—or jumped as best as she could with her healing hip. “You’re back, thank goodness! We were afraid you’d moved up there. Here, you need to talk with the banker. I have no idea what he’s going on about.” She shoved a message slip at her.

  Hugging Cissy, taking the pink piece of paper, Aurora felt something shift into place. Still too overwhelmed by all the changes, she didn’t analyze the feeling as the back door opened and her father stalked in. Behind him trailed Clay.

  His eyes met hers over Jake’s shoulder. Aurora tried to read his blank expression, but Clay had his turtle act down to perfection. He merely threw a file folder on the kitchen table and waited while Jake shouted his welcome and began a spiel about the new mold he’d installed that would make his fortune.

  At Aurora’s congratulations, Jake grabbed a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and wandered out again, satisfied that she’d arrived home safely.

  Clay remained. Unable to make sense of all the changes and still read his mind, Aurora focused on what she could. “Wait a minute, if you’re all here, where’s the truck?” She was terrified they’d tell her someone had wrecked it. Mandy? Mandy wasn’t here.

  As if understanding her panic, Cissy stepped in. “Mandy got her beginner’s permit. She and Erly have gone out to Grandma Iris’s. The Binghams are gathering out there before the zoning meeting, and we promised to give them all our charts and research.”

  Somewhat shakily, Rory nodded her head. She’d have to remember that having family around would always mean living with fear as well as joy. Her safe, sane—lonely—existence would be transformed into one upheaval after another if she stayed here.

  She couldn’t stay here. Glancing around the littered front room, she knew this wasn’t her home. Just as she’d outgrown childhood dreams, she’d outgrown the trailer as well. Cissy was welcome to it. She didn’t belong. She needed her own space. If she stayed on the island...

  She turned back to the man who possessed the power to keep her here or drive her away. Her heart raced a little faster as she looked for some signal, some sign of hope from him. But he offered none. She supposed he was waiting for an explanation.

  “I’ve been offered a job in Chicago,” she said nervously. Since Clay wasn’t inclined to talk, she had to be the one to get it out in the open. She didn’t know what he wanted from her, if anything, so she had to make him understand where she stood. “If I take it, I’ll help you find someone else to deal with the business end of the company.”

  His flat nose didn’t twitch. She thought she saw fire erupt behind the gray glass of his eyes, but he banked it quickly.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. If you want to go to Chicago, I can buy back your share. Just let me know how you want to handle it.” With those cold words, he walked out the back door. Before Rory could run after him and attempt to explain, a Harley roared into gear.

  Cissy sighed and shook her head. “Damn, Rora, you sure know how to kick them where it hurts.”

  “Where? How? He didn’t even give me time to finish!” Sick to her stomach, she stood there, bewildered, uncertain where she should turn next. She could get back to work; she still held the message slip from their banker, but she thought she’d just been fired. Again.

  Cissy looked at her pityingly. “You may have school smarts, kid, but you’ve got a lot to learn about men. Clay’s turned this place upside down these last few days, trying to prove something to you, I guess. I take back any comparison to Dad I may have made. He’s chewed off chunks of Terry’s ass to get his equipment out here. He’s called every insurance adjuster in the book, pulling them together to move in construction crews. And when he isn’t yelling into the telephone, he’s meeting with the Binghams and the Nature Conservancy and the state and who-knows-all so they’ll have it all together for the zoning commission. He even talked to your banker friend about distributing some other software he’s developed so we can generate cash faster. I think that was akin to laying his life on the line for that man.”

  Clay had exploded from his shell, and let his genius drive him, just as it had when he’d become a teenage millionaire. He was practicing his corporate skills to the max.

  For her?

  Dizzy with the possibility of it, afraid to take the leap of faith it would require to believe that Clay had decided to rejoin the real world for her sake, Rory took a deep breath. “Do you know where he just went?”

  Cissy shrugged. “Could be anywhere, but when he wants to think about things, he takes apart the clock.”

  She knew that. Shedding her fear, regaining her confidence, and with it, her fury that Clay hadn’t waited to hear her out, Rory started for the back door. If they meant to build a future together, the damned man would have to learn that not everyone possessed his intuitive instincts and had the courage to leap blindly into the fray. She needed to logically work things out, one step at a time. “Does Pops still keep his bike keys in the saddlebag?”

  “Far as I know. Wait a minute—”

  But Rory didn’t have a minute. She’d waited
far too long already.

  With determination, she ran for the motorcycle parked under the lean-to at her father’s warehouse.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  June was a lousy time for sitting on roofs. Heat simmered off the old tile. Clay threw off his shirt, took a swig from his water bottle, and returned to unscrewing the hands of the clock. This was the last damned time he would do this. He’d found an antique counterweight on eBay that ought to match the one in here. If that didn’t work, nothing would.

  When he first started this project, he’d had some fantasy of finding the mayor’s lost German gold in the clock and using it to rebuild his software company. Fantasizing had been better than sitting on the beach, feeling sorry for himself.

  It wasn’t gold he sought now.

  His brain was thudding louder than the clock. Tick-tock, tick-tock. He zapped a screw with the electric screwdriver, adding a roar to the thud. Rora was returning to Chicago. He needed a hammer. Reaching into his tool belt, he pulled one out, hit the stubborn screw with a satisfying wham, wham, and didn’t feel any better for the act of frustration.

  Chicago! How could she go to Chicago? She had it all here—family, home, sun, sea—and him.

  She had him. Ex-millionaire CEOs ought to know better, but he thought he’d finally found a place where he belonged, and a woman who could keep him there. Aurora didn’t mind when he didn’t want to talk. Maybe others placed more importance on his computer genius than his mechanical abilities, but Aurora understood his need to do both.

  He’d thought he’d found a woman who wouldn’t care if he sat on his porch for days on end while grappling with a new idea, one who wouldn’t waste time looking over his shoulder, nagging him to do something useful. He’d thought she understood.

  Since coming here, he’d learned a lot about living with others. He had been willing to expand his horizons so he could spend more time with Aurora. He’d learned how to cope with Jared’s teasing, Cleo’s panics, and the tumultuous emotions of the Jenkins family. Even baby Midge had taught him to hope.

  He’d gotten involved and done his damnedest to rebuild Aurora’s fairy-tale world so she’d want to stay. Because he wanted to stay. And he wanted her to stay here with him. He’d thought that if he built his company here, she’d be happier staying with her family and running it, fighting social injustice without fear of being fired. Had he asked her what she wanted?

  For a boy genius, he sure had his head on backward. He’d known all along she wanted to return to the city. He should have just waited until she chose a city, then showed up on her doorstep.

  Snorting at his incredible stupidity, he turned on the battery-operated screwdriver, bored another screw out of its hole, and propped up the internal mechanism of the clock so it wouldn’t fly off the roof onto the lawn below. The roar of the motor continued well after he turned the power tool off.

  He had to drag his thoughts back from Chicago—and women who didn’t understand what a man was trying to tell them—before he recognized the roar of a Harley.

  He glanced down, hoping no one had decided to steal his bike. He needed to sell the thing to pay for the expense of shipping out the Jag.

  A golden-red flag of hair waved from beneath the Harley driver’s helmet as the bike thundered down the tree-lined street to the courthouse. Clay’s gut flipped like a pancake.

  Aurora!

  She knew how to drive a Harley!

  She looked like an Amazon warrior roaring to a halt on the sidewalk and glancing up in his direction.

  She was wearing one of those prim black banker’s skirts hiked nearly to her hips. She’d probably left a slew of fender benders in her wake as heads swiveled to follow those wicked thighs. If he had to guess, he’d say she’d traded her suit jacket for her father’s leathers.

  His gut tightened in anticipation of the battle to come. He’d never been much at interacting with others, but he loved sparring with Aurora. Her brainpower matched his. They just ran at things from different directions. He had to admit that opened whole new worlds of exploration.

  Separate worlds—hers in Chicago and his here on the island.

  The wind carried the sound of his name, but Clay saw no reason to listen. If she was willing to walk out on all their hopes and dreams... What hopes and dreams? His? It wasn’t as if he’d mentioned them to her. He shoved down a surge of guilt.

  He’d trusted her with his software. He thought that meant something. It had, to him. Those programs were his life, and he’d committed himself to a future of working with her when he’d handed them over. He’d trusted her. Obviously she hadn’t understood the gesture. Maybe he was too slow at these relationship things. He should have given her a diamond instead.

  She would have thrown it at him, he was pretty sure. So what the hell did she want of him?

  He tried to argue that if she was willing to walk out just because of some damned job offer, she wasn’t the woman he’d thought she was. But she had come uncomfortably close to being the woman he’d always wanted. Damn close. So close she’d walked around inside his heart and made a home there.

  Ignoring her shouts, he diligently removed the ancient weight mechanism and looked for a place to put it. He decided the windowsill of the louvered attic window was safest and leaned over to lay it there.

  He couldn’t hear Aurora anymore. Good. She’d have the whole damned town staring at them if she kept it up. He liked his privacy. Or he thought he had.

  He didn’t mind everyone staring when Aurora walked beside him. He’d felt like a movie star, a conquering hero, and the Magic Man she’d called him when he’d walked into the Monkey with her on his arm.

  She made him feel as if he might be human after all. That he could love and be loved. He’d tried to show her that he could build a life outside his computer screen. In his head, everything he’d done had shouted commitment. He just hadn’t said it out loud. He’d talked about sex and going steady when she’d wanted to hear kids and marriage. A fine time to learn caution.

  “Thomas Clayton McCloud, I’m talking to you!”

  She’d climbed the stairs again. He tried to scowl at the sound of her voice through the louvered window, but he loved the flaming orange tone of it. He’d never realized sound had color until Aurora walked into his life.

  “Talk away,” he shot back. So he’d never been much at snappy repartee.

  “I’ll be damned if I’ll shout it from the rooftops. If you intend to hide up here every time we need to talk, I’ll install a telephone.”

  “I’m not hiding. I’m right out here where you can find me.” Where he’d hoped she’d find him, he had to admit.

  He supposed it was about time he admitted to something.

  “If you’re mad because I wouldn’t have sex with you, then I don’t want to talk with you anyway. If it’s the job, then we need to talk. Want me to climb out there with you?”

  The image of Aurora tumbling off the roof scared him so much Clay nearly dropped his favorite screwdriver. “Don’t you dare!” he yelled back.

  “Why? You’re out there. Why can’t I risk my neck if you’re risking yours? Isn’t that what this is all about? Who takes the first risk?”

  Maybe. Probably. But the minute she rattled the louvers to climb through that window, he had heart failure. “Get down out of there this instant,” he ordered.

  “You’re not my boss, McCloud. If I want to climb out there, I will. Or you can come down and talk to me.”

  He heard her banging on the warped shutters, trying to pry them open. His heart in his throat, Clay gathered up his tools and started for the rope ladder he’d secured to the clock tower. “Aurora, don’t! I’m coming down. Meet me—”

  The shutter slammed open. The clock’s old counterweight flew off the ledge where he’d left it, bounced against the roof with a firecracker bang, and rattled over the tiles to the ground two stories below.

  Stricken, they both gazed down.

  “I don’t think anyone’s
down there,” she murmured guiltily.

  “If they are, you planted time in their brain,” he muttered, confirming her observation while trying not to stare at the wondrous dawn that was his Aurora.

  His. Every cell of his body screamed it. The prim banker he’d first seen had metamorphosed into a blazing sun goddess. The ride here had blown her hair into a halo of red-gold. She’d doffed her father’s leathers in the attic heat, revealing a flimsy silken gold thing that sparkled like sun drops over her magnificent curves, revealing more cleavage from this vantage point than she probably realized. He liked that she didn’t flaunt her curves for all to see, but he also liked seeing them. In broad daylight, he could see the scattering of freckles between her breasts. He suffered a sudden throbbing in his groin that nearly crippled him.

  In his eyes she was the dawn of his future. She offered fireworks to light his life, surprises and laughter to provoke him, understanding and trust to keep him moving forward. She offered the love he craved more than the food she cooked or the air he breathed. He wanted Aurora lighting his nights and challenging his days. He wanted to give her sunshine and rainbows in return. And maybe someday, if things worked out between them, kids.

  Without her, he would have no life at all. How in hell did he tell her that?

  “Get out of there, Aurora,” he growled. “Now.”

  She shot him a look that ought to kill, but he was in too much pain to notice. His entire future rested on these next few moments, and he was suffering heatstroke and couldn’t think.

  Bystanders had already begun to gather on the courthouse lawn as Clay climbed down. He wasn’t a public person and disliked making a spectacle of himself.

  He was a private person who loved a woman so striking her very presence lit up the whole damned lawn when she emerged from the courthouse.

  They met in the middle of the grassy yard.

  “I didn’t say I’d taken the job!” she shouted at him without regard to their audience.