Carolina Girl (3 page)

Sitting on the porch of his brother’s beach cottage,
Clay crumpled his empty beer can and pitched it at a seagull trying to steal
his fries. He checked over the top of his Oakley sunglasses to see if Jared had
baked his brain. The redheaded MBA from yesterday had reinforced his conviction
that materialistic princesses made lousy heroine material. “Slipped a
little deeper into fantasyland, have we? Does married life do that?”

Actually, Clay envied the contentment his restless brother
had found in marriage, but he’d embarrass the hell out of both of them if
he said that.

The sun setting behind the cottage caught water droplets in
the surf, illuminating them like tumbling silver coins as a wave lifted and
crashed against the shore beyond the porch. Jared gestured at the wooded marsh
past the beach and rocky promontory on the horizon. “If the state intends
to build a park over there, it’s only a matter of time before someone
buys the swamp and condos shoot up like mushrooms. Cleo wants to plant a
minefield between here and there to hold back the tourists.”

“Cleo has the right idea.” Sitting back in his
canvas deck chair, Clay tried not to care. Life was much simpler if he
didn’t waste energy standing in the way of progress—that was what
he’d told himself when the state had offered him a tidy sum to develop
the genealogy software they needed to track the descendants and pinpoint the
property owners.

He’d figured the easy cash would tide him over while
he decided what to do next with himself. He was counting on the state giving up
on buying the swamp once he’d unraveled the names of the innumerable
descendants of slaves who’d inherited it. Persuading that many strangers
to agree on selling would be impractical, at the very least.

Or so he’d thought until Aurora Jenkins had arrived on
the scene.

He fought a surge of discontent with nonchalance. “I
think I like being a beach bum.”

“Yeah, right.” Jared snorted in disbelief and
tapped the keyboard. “You’ve changed the edit mode,” he
exclaimed. “I can point and drag and the sketch goes just where I want.
Freaking fantastic! I can finish a drawing in the morning and spend the
afternoon kicking back if this works out. You’re a pure wizard,
bro.”

Clay shifted to a more comfortable position in the deck
chair and popped open another beer can. “Sure. Now all I need is a good
fairy to wave her wand and fill my pockets with gold, and we’re
set.”

In the absence of any good fairy, Clay leaned over to poke
his large finger into the cross-eyed view of his infant niece. “Hey,
Midge, how ya doin’, drooler?”

Jared chuckled and with a few strokes of the keyboard and
trackball, created a plump baby fairy struggling to stay upright on tiny wings.
“There she is, your good fairy. Pin her up over your bed at night.”

Clay glanced at the screen, grunted, and returned to
munching the fries that constituted his evening meal. “Cute, real cute.
You’ve got it right. Midge is the only magic fairy I’m letting near
me.”

“Her name is
Megan
,” Jared corrected.
“Meg for short. Why don’t you update ‘Mysterious’? Use
magic fairies instead of Viking princesses this time. Gaming is still a huge
deal these days. You don’t have to create and sell business programs
anymore.”

Now that your dot-com failed
remained politely
unsaid. Clay snorted at this second mention of the sophomoric script that had generated
the popular computer game over ten years ago. “I prefer writing about
dripping dungeons and slime pits these days. Maybe I could drop a Viking
princess or two into them.”

“One woman who returns your ring doesn’t justify
writing off the rest of the gender. Besides, you’re good at gaming.
I’ll help you write a new script. We could use Cleo’s menagerie as
a starting point.”

His sister-in-law’s
human
menagerie would be
far more entertaining than her animal one, Clay reflected, but his brother
wouldn’t appreciate his cynicism. Jared’s wife befriended everyone
from homeless derelicts to rich cartoonists like Jared. Or beach bums like
himself—jilted beach bums whose ex-fiancées
didn’t
return
the ring. Diane had liked that expensive hunk of rock too well.

“You write it, I’ll program it,” Clay
offered laconically, “and we can be the only two people in the world who
ever play it.” Peddling backward to adolescence wasn’t on his
agenda. He’d meet the world on his terms or none at all. The anonymity of
this island hideaway suited his new choice of lifestyle: ex-millionaire hermit.
He’d never played well with others anyway.

“You don’t have to keep the rights to every
damned thing you create,” Jared protested. “There are trustworthy
distribution companies out there.”

“Yeah, like the one that’s ripping off
‘Mysterious’ as we speak. Or the MBAs who let my company go down
the hole.”
Or the redheaded one determined to turn paradise into
parking lots.

He suspected he would have some difficulty keeping that one
from hunting down property owners even if he found a million Binghams. He knew
the type. Aurora Jenkins was on a mission from Mammon.

“No, thanks. I’m keeping my fantasies to myself
these days.” Brushing off his brother’s suggestion, Clay hunkered
down and chugged his beer.

He might be skeptical about the benefits of corporate life,
but he occasionally fantasized about having a real life like the ones his
brothers had found in marriage. He was dead tired of living inside his head.
He’d even gone so far as to find a woman and make a commitment, until the
engagement had fallen apart with his company.

He should have known better than to think he could lead a
normal life. He didn’t possess a normal mind, as he’d been reminded
once too often. He offered diamonds and companionship, and women wanted
companies. Who knew?

Clay eyed the infant in the cradle just to be certain Midge
hadn’t gone anywhere. Cleo had dressed her daughter in a tie-dyed
nightshirt, and curled-up pink toes stuck out from beneath the hem. He thought
Midge was pretty incredible and probably the most real thing he knew, but he
kept his opinion to himself.

“I don’t know why you’re so down on
women.” Jared added a few touches to the drawing, stuck a wand in the
baby fairy’s hand, and saved the finished product to the hard drive.
“They’re one of life’s joys and wonders. Abstinence makes you
cranky as well as cynical.”

“Yup, that’s me, disbeliever in life’s
little mysteries. Women have only one purpose, to mess with a man’s
mind.” Clay withdrew his finger from Midge’s determined grip.

Jared hooted. “Maybe that’s your
problem—you think your brains are in your jeans.” He handed the
laptop back to Clay, then bent over to adjust the blanket shading his daughter
from the sun. “When are you going to release that 3-D program?”

“I haven’t found the right backing yet.”
Hadn’t looked for it, actually. Rather than turn years of hard work over
to another thief, he’d let the program rot.

Like him. Over the past few years he’d owned Jags and
Malibu property. Women wearing diamond rings and designer bodies had adorned
his life and bed. Where did a man go after that?

Finishing off his bottle of water, Jared stood up and
stretched. “I know the program works. So what’s wrong?”

“I’m keeping risks to myself these days.”
Clay sipped his beer and glared at the laptop screen Jared had returned to him.

“Cleo’s designed a tin devil with a scowl just
like yours. If you’re not careful, she’ll have it popping up in the
driveway as a warning sign.”

“Tell Cleo I’ll pose for her devil if she thinks
it will keep intruders out.”

“If they build that park next door, we’ll not
know privacy again,” Jared said gloomily. “I’m thinking
we’ll have to sell.”

Clay clenched his teeth and didn’t immediately reply.
Despite his doubts about halting progress, he had been doing what little he
could to discourage the state from buying the beach adjoining Cleo’s
property. For a while he’d almost convinced them that the genealogy of
ownership was too complex to be unraveled—until the lawyers had stepped
in and insisted he continue the search. He didn’t trust lawyers any more
than MBAs.

He was a big boy now. If the park forced Cleo and Jared to
sell, it shouldn’t matter to him. There was a whole wide world out there.
Except that without family or career or home, he had no anchor and no
destination.

Men weren’t allowed to admit weakness, so he
maintained his insouciance. “You’re set back from the road. I
don’t think park traffic will be a problem.” Clay opened the
document listing the owners that he’d located so far. There had to be
some weakness he could use to derail the state’s plans.
“You’ve got years to think about moving.”

Shrugging, Jared lifted the infant carrier. “I hope
so. Cleo will freak if she has to leave that house she’s worked on so
hard.”

Whistling, swinging Midge, he walked off down the sandy path
and boardwalk to the island farmhouse where his wife and kids waited. Clay
grimaced and studied the waves rather than watch him go. It was all well and
fine for his older brother to live in a nest of childish laughter and uproar.
His older brother was a cartoonist and had never needed to grow up.

Despite the difference in their ages, Clay had been older
than Jared since birth.

There for a while, maybe he’d forgotten himself and
indulged in adolescent fantasies of fortune, fame, and everlasting love. After
all, he’d achieved two out of three before he was thirty. But he’d
learned the fallacy of thinking he could have all three.

Sipping his beer with his feet propped on the porch rail,
Clay figured this was as good as it got. It didn’t take half a wit to
earn enough to keep him in beer and fries for the rest of his life. He had a
roof over his head and a Harley in the drive. Maybe he’d find a new
career in fixing old clocks like the one on the courthouse. He liked tinkering.

Maybe a little later he’d wander down to the Monkey
and see what kind of hell he could raise.

For now, he switched his computer program to
“Mysterious” and began battling villains for the life of the Viking
princess.

On a whim, he changed her hair color from blond to red.

“Yes, I know it’s five years old, but it has
only sixty thousand miles on it. BMWs are good for three hundred.” Rory
rolled her eyes at the inquisition of the car buyer on the other end of the
telephone line.

Sitting on the dinette table, Mandy swung her long legs,
giggled, and unscrewed the top on the last of the soft drinks her grandfather
had purchased because the label said they could be winners. She automatically
checked under the cap, then flung it into the trash with a shrug. Like her Aunt
Rory, she had fiery sunset hair. Unlike her aunt, she wore it cropped short,
tousled, and bleached. Three studs adorned one ear, and her navel-revealing
T-shirt rode high over a slim, tanned belly.

“Look, it’s not as if I need the money,”
Rory lied arrogantly into the telephone. “If you want to steal a car, go
steal someone else’s.”

Even if she wasn’t impressing the guy on the phone
with her negotiating skills, she was impressing the hell out of Mandy, who
watched her through eyes widened in fascination.

“Well, call me back if you change your mind.”
She hung up and put a kettle on to boil for iced tea.

“Guess you’re stuck keeping the Beamer a little
longer. Pity.” Mandy leaned over to reach the peanut butter jar on the
kitchen counter.

“Smart-ass.” Rory handed her the jar before she
fell off the table.

The screen door slammed open and Jake limped in, using his
crutch more to manipulate objects in his way than as a means of locomotion. Her
father was a big man with a full head of sandy hair that had faded over time.
He maneuvered his bulk through the crowded laundry room, hooked a chair leg,
and pulled the chair out so he could lower his weight without bending his
injured leg. “I’m hungry.”

“Want some of that lasagna I made last night?”
Rory opened the refrigerator without waiting for an answer. “Have you
thought about that bookkeeping program I told you about? If you open a checking
account, you could control your money better.” Probably not enough to buy
the insurance he needed, though. One more accident like the last, and
bankruptcy, here they came.

“Now, Rora, don’t get off on that kick again. I
ain’t makin’ enough for the IRS to mess with, and the people
’round here like cash. No fancy books are gonna make us any
richer.”

She could argue with that. Writing checks would force her
father to see where his money went. If he realized how much he handed out to
his drinking buddies and sometime workers, he might be a little more careful.
He wasn’t twenty anymore. He needed to think about his health and
retirement.

Right, that was like telling Peter Pan he had to grow up.

Giving up on the topic, she asked, “How’s the
leg, Pops?”

“I’ll be fishing in no time, providin’
there’s anywheres left to fish. How you doin’ with the town
council? Found any way of keeping the state out yet?”

“I’m learning,” she answered
noncommittally, cutting a slice of lasagna to heat. The state park could
generate enough tourism to keep her father’s company in cash for years. A
service station and minimart would be even better, if she could find funds to
build one. She had no intention of keeping out the state just because her
father thought fishing should be free. He thought she was sabotaging the park
with her volunteer work. What Pops didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

“Well, you’d better learn faster,” he
grumbled. “McCloud told me the state’s talking of docks and cabins
and parking lots down there. We’ll have to pay for the privilege of
boating in our own damned waters.”