Carolina Girl (29 page)

“This is
insane.
” She stared out the
windshield rather than look at him. Everything seemed feasible when she looked
at Clay McCloud. “I’m gambling against the bank and rich developers.
I ought to take their money and run instead.”

He slowed when they turned into the lane to the cottage and
saw Cleo standing in her yard, waving them down. “You’re gambling
justice will prevail and the Viking princess wins,” he said, turning up Cleo’s
drive.

“Yeah, like life is a video game.” Seeing Midge
in her stroller, Rory was more than willing to climb out of the truck and do
something sensible, like coo at a baby, rather than start contacting an
ephemeral list of Binghams to offer them pipe dreams.

“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.

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 for 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.