Carolina Girl (28 page)

He pulled her open blouse from her skirt, slid it off her
arms, and located the back fastening of her bra without a hitch.

“Given the way you live, that must have taken a while
for them to deduce,” she said with as much equanimity as she could muster
while his knuckles brushed her skin beneath the lacy elastic.

Clay chuckled. “Yeah, well, there is that, until the
last one refused to enter my cubbyhole apartment, and I had to buy something
respectable that she could decorate.”

She heard the dryness in his tone and thought she understood
another of the roots of his cynicism. “Did you lose the money?” she
asked.

“Not exactly, but the woman I thought I was going to
marry disappeared when she found out where it went. Same thing. So, yeah, I
have some experience. Not any of it real good.”

The bra fell away, and he leaned over to kiss the soft place
behind her ear before he filled his hands with her breasts. Her arousal was
instantaneous, and so strong she nearly cried out with it.

She didn’t want to talk anymore, didn’t want to
empathize with a man who’d had all the material things but had never been
offered the emotional ones that mattered.

Turning, she fumbled at Clay’s shirt buttons. He
hadn’t bothered with a tie or jacket to impress the attorney,
hadn’t needed to. His knowledgeable questions and intelligent suggestions
had won the man over within minutes. They’d impressed her, too, but right
now she wanted to be impressed by something a little more physical. It had been
three long, lonely nights.

Clay helped her discard his shirt. Before she could make
further inroads into their attire, he caught her bare waist and lowered his
head for a kiss.

It was as if they had never parted from the last one, except
this time they were naked, chest-to-chest, and he warmed his hands around the
curves of her breasts.

“My God, Aurora, you’re like holding lightning
and rainbows. I don’t think it’s possible to get enough.”

His words melted her as much as his hands.

They had the bedcovers thrown back and were sprawled across
cool sheets before she realized it. She aroused from her giddy daze when Clay
peeled off her skirt and panty hose, and she had to lift her hips to
accommodate the gesture. But only when the pleasure stopped while he pried off
his shoes and stood to remove his trousers did she fully grasp what she was
doing. Again.

The eyelet bed curtains were billowing slightly with the
breeze from the open window, just as in her daydream. Clay stood tall and
strong against the lacy background, the feminine surroundings only emphasizing
his masculinity. For just this moment, he could be the warrior sea captain
returned to his home after a long voyage at sea. And she could be the
well-loved and pampered wife. Just for now.

She welcomed him with open arms, thrilled to his heavy
weight sinking her into the feather bed, and wrapped her thighs around his hips
when he returned to kissing her.

“Later we’ll go slow,” he promised
huskily, accepting her invitation without hesitation.

Aurora cried out as he slid into her. The warbling of a
mockingbird covered the lovers’ sounds that followed.

Lost in the world Clay created, she followed his lead,
releasing all control in exchange for the soaring pleasure of his body melded
to hers.

“May I take the turret with me, please?” The
next morning, Rory took one last, lingering look around the tower of
enchantment before she picked up the manila envelope and walked out. Even with
the breeze off the river, the room held a lingering scent of her perfume and
sex.

“You like living in ivory towers?” Holding open
the door, looking more like a pirate than a CEO since he hadn’t shaved or
changed, Clay waited patiently, wearing an appreciative expression while he
watched her foolish farewell to the tower.

With the freedom granted by the intimacy of a night of
lovemaking, Rory stroked his chest as she passed by him. “Towers are hard
and round and very useful,” she purred.

“I can give you that.” Cocking an eyebrow in a
leer, he placed a hand at the small of her back and provided impetus to get her
moving.

Rummaging in his trouser pocket once he’d closed the
bedroom door, he produced a palm-sized purple figure. “I can’t do
jewelry anymore, but how about something soft and squishy instead of hard and
round as a commemorative?”

Rora laughed, and her foolish heart did a backflip as she
took the purple turtle eraser from his hand. That he carried it at all told her
it meant something to him. She thought maybe Clay related to turtles because
they were loners, but she didn’t think he really wanted to be one. He
just hadn’t learned to be anything different.

“Such a smooth talker,” she teased. “I
prefer erasers to jewels. They’re far more useful.” So maybe she
didn’t need romantic references to starry nights. She was very much
afraid she couldn’t learn to live without Clay if he continued causing
this senseless quiver of her easily broken heartstrings.

“I make up in action for what I lack in words.”
Clay held on to her arm all the way down the circular stairs as if to shelter
her from any fall. Or because he didn’t want to break the contact any
more than she did.

“So, then, what is our first action?” Determined
to avoid the dangerous pit of sentimentality, Rory stepped into the humid
morning air and breathed in the scent of magnolias.

She refused to worry about anything until forced. She had a
gorgeous man at her side, seven hundred thousand dollars in the bank—on
paper anyway—a mountain of debts that could wipe out half of it, and the
signatures to begin a spanking-new corporation designed to distribute a video
game with bubbling clowns and pink elephants. What more could she ask for?

A good psychiatrist, maybe? She was investing her entire
future in pink elephants! As a banker, she was the one who persuaded investors
to take risks. She supposed it was poetic justice that she now walked in their
shoes. Rory squeezed her turtle talisman for good luck.

“First we pay your bills.” Clay held open the
truck door for her. “Next we contact venture capitalists so we spread
production risks around. Whatever you have left after paying bills will barely
buy back my game rights.”

Seeing the truck woke her up, and ignoring his pragmatic
list, she demanded, “First we buy a truck! An F150. Candy-apple-red
extended cab, with pinstriping.”

Clay caught her elbow and almost lifted her into the seat.
“Used, in whatever color we find. The company needs to look good on a
balance sheet, and F150s don’t make an impression.”

“Spoilsport.” She crossed her arms and pretended
to glare at him as he climbed in, but he was right. She just dearly wanted to
make her sister as happy as she was. Rory opened the envelope in her lap.
“Find a car dealer, Shylock. Then we need to go home and start making
calls.”

Clay roared Cleo’s pickup into gear, and they trundled
toward the highway, leaving the ivy-covered turret behind.

o0o

“It’s red!” Cissy ran a loving hand over
the shiny exterior of the miniature extended cab Aurora had parked in the
drive.

“It’s not an F150,” Rory said diffidently,
stomach churning as she waited for her sister’s approval. “Clay
said this one had the best engine and would last longer.”

“There’s room for groceries in the
backseat.” Even with her bad hip, Cissy was able to climb up and admire
the like-new interior. “It even
smells
good.” She sighed.
“I’m afraid to drive it. Maybe we should teach Mandy.”

Aurora held out the keys. “For now it’s a
company truck, but you’re the driver. And the secretary. And the
bookkeeper. And errand girl.”

From the backseat, Cissy blinked and looked up into
Aurora’s face as Clay came to stand beside her. “What have the two
of you done?” she demanded.

Aurora heard the sisterly admonition behind the question,
but Clay chose to take out the personal and insert business.

“We’re investing in the future. You are now part
owner of Mysterious Productions, studio for “Mysterious” video
games.”

“And cofounder of Turtles Unlimited, a nonprofit
ecology-based group dedicated to saving the wetlands and promoting local
industry,” Aurora added proudly.

“This is going to give me a headache, isn’t
it?” Diverted from any further personal inquisition, Cissy stepped out of
the backseat and took the front with Clay’s assistance. She stuck the
keys into the ignition and let the engine roar. “What about the
mortgage?” She glanced up from examining the instrument panel.

“I’m ignoring Jeff until the end of the week,
when I’ll go in and either renegotiate the loan, or take it
elsewhere.” Rory would really like to take it elsewhere, but Clay had
convinced her to let business rule and not spite. “We kept enough out of
the corporation to pay the hospital bill. We’ll start looking for health
insurance for employees shortly.”

“What about me?” Cissy asked, letting the engine
idle, her gaze darting back and forth between them. “What do I do?”

“I have a list of Binghams back at my place,”
Clay said. “You’ll start with writing letters to all the people on
the list and keeping a file of their responses. We want to organize a
counterproposal.”

Before Clay could outline the discussion they’d pursued
since their visit to the lawyer, Jake limped down the drive. His skeptical
expression gave his opinion of the candy-apple-red truck, but Aurora had bought
this one for her sister. Jake was his own boss and could find his own
transportation. She loved her father enough to know he’d prefer it that
way.

“This is what a million dollars buys?” he asked
with a chuckle, sticking his head in the passenger-door window to check out the
interior. “Price has gone up some since I bought one.”

“We want to buy the Bingham land, Pops.” Even as
she said it, Rory knew it sounded insane, but Clay had convinced her it was
feasible. She’d always dreamed of justice for all, but she would never
have dreamed this big on her own. It took someone with a brain—and a
soul—as big as Clay’s.

“Do you now?” Jake leaned his arm against the
truck hood and looked them both over. “I don’t have no fancy
college degree, but even I can see a million dollars don’t buy
that.” He looked Clay straight in the eye. “I didn’t figure
you the type to mess with my girls. You walk out with their money, and
I’ll come after you and skin you alive.”

Aurora blushed and huffed at the same time, but Clay
intervened before she could let off steam.

“The lawyer has it all tied up tight. Either one of us
can pull out with everything we put in and nothing more. But we’ll need
your help to make this wetlands thing work.”

“You want a concrete monument to stupidity?”

“No, we want you to get together everyone you know out
here who might have an interest in the property or in selling their wares to
tourists,” Clay explained. “If we buy the land, and that’s a
big ‘if,’ we need some way of making it self-supporting.”

He actually made it sound feasible. To Rory’s ears, he
spoke with knowledge and authority, as if he really were CEO of a
multimillion-dollar company. Maybe this was one way actions spoke louder than
words—he accomplished what she only dreamed.

Jake’s expression brightened. “Grandma Iris
could sell her baskets here instead of paying someone in Charleston? And Garnet
could sell his whistles?” He began to look enthusiastic as the idea
gripped him. “Erly could supply concessions. There’s some others
who do real good paintings. And that church the girls go to, they sell recipe
books.”

“We have to own the land, first, Pops. And to do any
of this, we have to raise more money. Don’t get too excited until we work
a few more things out. We both have to start making calls. It could still all
go down the drain.”

“This is where I leave you to work it out,”
Cissy declared. “I have to buy groceries. Fetch that Bingham list, and
when I come back, someone can teach me how to type letters on that fancy
computer. I can learn and earn my keep at the same time.”

She backed around Cleo’s pickup and drove off in her
red truck.

Leaning on a crutch as if his leg ached, Jake shook his
finger under Clay’s nose. “Remember what I said. You don’t
mess with my girls. I’ll go talk to Iris and the others.”

He limped off to the shed where he kept his motorcycle,
leaving Aurora standing alone with the baffling man who had turned her view of
the world around. She’d never deliberately stood on a cliff’s edge
before. She’d been pushed there more than once and had resolved never to
come that close again. But here she was, on the edge, looking down, and the
crevasse below looked paralyzingly rocky.

“Tell me again how this is going to work,” she
whispered.

“You have to risk something to win something,”
Clay answered prosaically. “We’re gambling that the majority of the
Binghams will side with us and accept our offer rather than let it go to the
court and developers.”

She knew that. She just needed to hear him say it. Clay made
it sound more like a possibility than a fantasy, but they were gambling his
future profits on his software as well. She had to trust him.

“Come on, let’s retrieve that list from my
silverware drawer. It’s making me itchy just thinking about it.”

A lot of things made her itchy just thinking about them. The
Bingham heirs were way down on the bottom of the list, long after wondering
what Clay expected of her after last night.

“I don’t do things like this,” she
muttered a while later as the truck rolled down the road to his place. “I
encourage
other
people to risk their money.”

“You’re a wimp,” he scoffed. “You
like the safety net of employment with benefits and retirement and corner
offices. This will be a lot more fun.”