Carolina Girl (16 page)

He hated the idea that she might give up her fight to
preserve the wetlands and the turtles. How would he ever get to know her then?

Did he really want to know a warrior princess who leaped into
the fray as surely as he avoided it?

Oh yeah, he really did. There wasn’t any way this side
of heaven that he was letting Aurora walk out of his life without knowing more
about her. He wanted to get inside her head and see what made her tick. So much
for daisy-petal picking.

If he called her and told her about the surveyors, would she
come over to see the stakes for herself?

He wondered if she knew anything about babies. Maybe she
could figure out how to pry the kid out of this harness and into bed without a
screaming fit. And then they’d have a little time alone....

One step at a time, McCloud
.
Slow and easy.

o0o

Opening the refrigerator door to discover a selection of
soft drinks of a kind she didn’t drink cluttering her shelves, Aurora
swore under her breath and began unloading them onto the counter. Each bright
red label announced,
Grand prize—one million dollars. You could be a
winner!

If she were a winner, she would be in Chicago, with a
six-figure income and a condo overlooking the skyline. She’d be in charge
of her life instead of facing bankruptcy and losing the only real home
she’d ever known.

If she were a winner—dreaming up another spectacular
fantasy, Aurora opened one of the bottles, poured the drink into a glass of
ice, and added a lemon to dilute the sugary taste—if she were a winner,
she’d buy Cissy a new house. One with a guest cottage for her father.

She’d invest in a gas station and minimart in the
front yard so Cissy wouldn’t have to go into town to work....

Oh, what the heck
. Instead of flinging the cap into
the trash where it belonged, Aurora checked under it.

Grand Prize Winner!
appeared before her disbelieving
eyes.

The phone rang, saving her from fainting. Clutching the
bottle cap in one hand, she grabbed the phone receiver with the other, waiting
for it to pour forth maniacal laughter and a voice crowing, “April
fool!” Her father’s cronies had weird senses of humor.

At the sound of Clay’s voice, she almost passed out
again from sheer relief at the quick trip back to reality. His curt report of
surveyors in the marsh snapped her back to the disastrous world with which she
was all too familiar. Someone had bought the Bingham tract? How?

Telling Clay she’d be over shortly, Rory hung up and
looked at the cap in her hand with disbelief. She felt like an idiot for
believing for even a second that she could solve all her family’s
problems with a plastic bottle cap. She’d probably won a carton of soft
drinks.

Not inclined to take chances, she flipped on a fluorescent
cabinet light to peer under the cap again. Her fantasies had probably
short-circuited her brain. Surely no one ever won a million dollars in these
contests.

The cap’s message hadn’t changed.

So—that didn’t mean anything. She could still
have just won a Nintendo or a Barbie doll.

Finding the kitchen scissors, she carefully peeled back the
bottle label. She scanned the fine print, locating the 800 number to verify
winnings. Did she really want to play the fool and call that number?

Lifting the instructions to the light, she read the details,
but her hands started shaking and she had to reread the label several times.
The directions for claiming free drinks were intricate and involved caps saying
Free six-pack.

The details on claiming the grand prize simply said to call
with the number inside the cap.

She had nothing but pride to lose in trying. She could
sacrifice pride for a chance at a million dollars. Suspending disbelief,
attempting to achieve an air of insouciance, she picked up the phone as if she
were calling for carryout pizza and dialed the 800 number.

First ring.

While waiting for someone to pick up on the other end, Rory
idly played with lists of things she could do with a million dollars.

The hospital bills were only a hundred thousand or so. No
problem.

Second ring.

Heck, she could buy trucks for both Cissy and Pops with less
than forty thousand.

Third ring.

Taxes would probably be four hundred thousand, dang the IRS.

Fourth ring.

Should they set aside the remainder for Mandy’s
education or invest in a gas station and hope it would pay tuition?

Starting to laugh at herself over the dilemma of riches,
ready to hang up since no one seemed prepared to answer, Rory shut up the
instant a recorded message began to play. As she repeated the number into the
automated system and the message talked on, she slowly slid down the wall,
harboring the bottle cap in a fist against her chest. She might have to hold
her heart inside her chest if it pounded any faster.

She’d won a million dollars!

She owned a bottle cap worth
a million dollars.

Cold shivers shot down her spine every time she tried to
grasp it. She let the message replay a second time.

She was a millionaire.

She was shaking. Things like this didn’t happen to
her. She didn’t even know how to
feel.

Tears filled her eyes and laughter filled her lungs and she
could hardly hold herself still.

Clicking the cordless off, she tried to think through the
haze of euphoria. She was the family financial expert. If the prize was really,
really real, she had to make the decisions, and she couldn’t afford any
errors.

She had to consider Mandy’s education, her
father’s retirement, the mounting medical bills, the day-to-day expenses
that were never quite covered by Cissy’s minimum wage job, the pickup
truck they no longer had.... The list could go on into eternity. Her need for
cash to move back to the city and finance a new apartment hovered right about
at the bottom—after she contributed ten percent to charity.

It was an overwhelming responsibility, one that could make
her weep in frustration. She’d never had any idea how difficult being
rich could be.

She laughed out loud at that—probably with
hysteria—and turned on the phone again, a rush of adrenaline shooting
straight to her head.

She wanted the bottle cap in a safety-deposit box before her
luck changed. Then she needed to find a lawyer to help her consider all the tax
ramifications and set up a trust fund before she cashed in her prize. If she
had a prize. She wouldn’t believe it until she had it in hand. She wished
Cissy were here instead of at Iris’s. She needed a reality check.

Calling a college friend, she obtained the name of a good
tax attorney in Charleston.

Talking to the lawyer popped the first of her fantasy
bubbles. He was even more skeptical than she at the likelihood of collecting a
million dollars from a bottle cap.

Setting up a date to bring it in, she called the bank about
a safety-deposit box. All the local boxes were full.

She needed to take the cap to Charleston, but the city was
over an hour away, and she’d promised Clay she’d come over.
Actually, picking up a phone and calling her was so inconsistent with his
uncommunicative nature that she really had ignored his urgency for far too
long.

She had to continue as normal. Even a million
dollars—or half, after taxes—couldn’t buy the Bingham tract.
She couldn’t let riches go to her head.

After frantically searching for a safe hiding place, she
stuffed the cap in her underwear drawer and dashed out to the car. She needed
Clay’s pragmatism to bring her back to earth. She’d take flight otherwise.

Driving down the highway with the Beamer’s top down,
and the Carolina blue sky for her ceiling, Rory couldn’t believe she was
hiding a million-dollar bottle cap in her underwear drawer—and driving up
McCloud’s lane as if his sensible patience were the answer to her
prayers.

Or maybe she was here because some yahoo calling himself a
Purple Knight had sent her a love note, and she really wanted to believe the
enigmatic man who had spent the night on the beach watching turtles would talk
to her about starry, starry nights. She longed for a man with a touch of
romance in his soul, instead of the ones she’d known who had stock
certificates in their blood.

She ought to have learned by now. A sweet-talking Purple
Knight was about as trustworthy as million-dollar bottle caps. For all she
knew, the message was spam from a con man selling real estate on the
moon—

Rory hit her brake and stared out the windshield as she
turned into Cleo’s drive. What the dickens did McCloud have on his back?
A baby? The sight was almost enough to drive all thought of the bottle cap out
of her head. Almost.

The infant carrier was little more than a knapsack against
Clay’s broad shoulders. An awkward knapsack given that it was on
backward, but who cared with all that broad expanse of muscled chest exposed by
a T-shirt pulled taut by the weight?

“Cute albatross,” she commented, swinging her
legs out of the car as Clay opened the door for her.

“Humor, har, har.” Offering his hand, he
assisted her from the low-slung sports car. “I think the albatross is
supposed to hang in front.”

“So’s the baby carrier.”

She wasn’t a small woman, but Clay pulled her upright
with ease, while wielding a backpack full of baby. She squinted at the sleeping
infant, trying to piece together the conflicting images of bad-boy biker in
long hair and tight shirt with the innocence of the babe on his back.

She wasn’t ready to raise her hopes any more than they
already were by sharing her news, if it really was news. Babies and Clay
McCloud were an excellent distraction.

“She’s supposed to cuddle up against your
chest.” She wanted to reach over and lift the sleeping infant from her
awkward position, but she knew nothing about babies. She was mightily impressed
that McCloud did. And that he looked quite comfortable in this interesting new
role.

“Is that why I can’t lift her out of there? How
in hell is it supposed to go on?” He strained his neck attempting to look
over his shoulder. “She’s still there, isn’t she? She’s
mighty quiet.”

Laughing inwardly, somehow relieved that he wasn’t as
adept as he appeared, Rory studied the situation. “She’s sleeping.
Here, let me unstrap this thing. The poor little mite is practically falling
out.”

Taking a deep breath, Rory stepped close enough to unbuckle
the main harness cutting into Clay’s muscular shoulder. The opportunity
to hold the baby while touching Clay excited her in more visceral ways than a
prize that might not be real.

“And you don’t think it’s a terribly
uncomfortable position for me?” he asked in aggrieved tones.

She knew better than to listen. He was looking down her
blouse and wrapping her hair around his finger again. She was already tingling
enough without his encouragement.

“I saw a utility truck out on the highway as I drove
by.” She tried sticking to business as she unfastened the buckle.

She and Clay both caught the strap to prevent it from
falling. His rough hand covered hers, and she felt the contact all the way to
her toes. “There wasn’t any name on it.”

“It’s probably not local. The bank
wouldn’t want gossip starting.” He swung the carrier off his
shoulder. While she held it upright, he removed the sleeping baby and cuddled
her across his shoulder.

In awe at his seeming expertise, Aurora followed him up the
shell sidewalk. “I can’t believe Cleo trusts you with her kid when
you can’t even put a carrier on right.”

“Cleo knows I’m not totally helpless,” he
asserted in protest, opening the door for her. He ruined his plea by
continuing, “Besides, she had to run Matty to the doctor and thought
Jared would be home soon.”

“I never saw you as the family sort.” She
supposed she might have, had she taken time to think about it. He was living
near his brother, helping her because his sister-in-law loved it here. Inside
the hard-ass image he liked to project was a man who might be worth knowing, if
she dared.

She wasn’t real good at risk-taking.

Now that she was here, she wasn’t at all certain why.
She couldn’t do anything about the surveyors. She couldn’t tell
Clay about the bottle cap before she told her family. What had prompted her to
come at his call?

Following him back to the bedroom, she saw that he
didn’t need her help with the kid. He arranged Midge in her crib as if he
knew exactly what he was doing.

Admiring the colorful collection of butterflies and dragons
hanging over the bed, Rory wasn’t prepared when Clay straightened, caught
her waist, and hauled her against him. Breathless, she gazed up at the bronzed
planes of his face and tried to read his expression, but he was an unfathomable
man.

“I’m not the family sort. I was just handy.
Don’t get any ideas.”

He didn’t give her time to question. He opened his
mouth over hers, and the world went away. She didn’t care about bottle
caps, surveyors, sleeping infants, or relatives who might walk in at any
minute. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she wanted only the soul-stirringly
deep intimacy of Clay’s mouth taming hers. His arms enfolded her waist as
if he would never let go, and his body pressed along the length of hers so she
understood how it would be if he laid her on his bed and covered her with his
weight.

Realizing how much she wanted to know how that would feel,
and how wrong it would be if she did, Rory whipped her head to the side so his
lips merely grazed her ear, settling there to nibble. She pushed back but he
didn’t release her. “Let go,” she murmured.

Clay released the pressure of his embrace to rest his hands
on her hips. His kisses caressed her cheek. “Don’t want to,”
he muttered. “You smell good. You
feel
good.”