Carolina Girl (38 page)

Chicago had a fabulous skyline, far better than
Charlotte’s. Her modern chrome-and-glass furniture would fit right into
one of those high-rise apartment complexes across the way. She had several
college buddies here, and she’d been wined and dined since arriving.
She’d spent the last few days in interviews and her spare time finding
trendy little restaurants, nightlife, and art galleries. She could have all
that, if that was what she wanted.

If
that was what she wanted
.

She
wanted
a future with Clay. She would take the
Monkey’s jukebox and Clay over bankers and Chicago’s most sparkling
nightclubs any day of the week. But if Clay didn’t want her... She had to
decide what was best for
her
, not anticipate a future she had no reason
to expect, based on a man who might be in Tahiti tomorrow.

As the CEO’s spiel wound down, Rory offered her hand.
“You’ve made an excellent case for transplanting to Chicago, thank
you. May I get back to you in a few days?”

Rushing for the elevator and the airport limo waiting for
her, she couldn’t believe she’d said that. She could handle
anything that affected her family’s financial future from Chicago,
probably better than at home. She’d have access to more funds, more
people, more everything. She could find loans for the Binghams to develop the
swamp, more distributors for Clay if he continued developing software,
scholarships for Mandy. She’d have sources at her fingertips.

She should have sealed the deal, signed the contracts, and
offered to go to work right there and then. The money and benefits were
fabulous. She could support her whole family without their ever having to earn
another dime. She could build a garage for their new truck. She’d have
all the security she’d ever craved. She could have the fast-paced city
life that had been her dream since childhood.

She was no longer that child.

She argued with herself all the way back to Charleston. She
cried, and hid the tear tracks by staring out the airplane window. She could
have it all, everything money could buy, including the security her
impoverished childhood demanded.

The words to an old song immediately trilled in her mind:
Can’t buy me lo-ove…

But that was what life was about, wasn’t it? Choices.
She could take a risk on the man who offered everything her heart desired, or
she could have the security she craved. She couldn’t have both.

She didn’t bother dissolving into the old protests of
“It isn’t fair.” One made choices and paid the consequences.
Risk everything for happiness, or take the safe road and be satisfied. Cissy
had risked and lost. Rory had learned from her and always chosen the safe road.

Loving Clay enough to throw away her career in hopes that he
might love her back someday was the height of idiocy.

She was still arguing with herself when she boarded the
airport van in Charleston. For her family’s sake she needed to take the
safe road, she reasoned as the car drove away from the airport. She had
invested a lot of years in becoming a woman of the world. She no longer
belonged in the rural town where she grew up.

But her heart belonged there. It wept as she rode toward the
clear blue skies and open marshlands of the coast. She craved a steaming bowl
of crab gumbo, a brisk walk on the wet sand, and the familiar drawl and
welcoming hugs of her neighbors.

She craved the security of love as much as money.

Maybe more. If it had been only her family’s love she
craved, she might work this out. But she’d go crazy longing for the love
of a man she couldn’t have. She didn’t dare take that path while
her emotions scraped her raw. She had to think clearly, and Clay turned her
thoughts into passionate sunsets and moonlit nights. Thinking wasn’t what
she did around him.

She had to take him out of the picture if she wanted to make
a decision based strictly on known factors. Still, she couldn’t tear her
gaze away from the courthouse clock as they drove through town. What had he
done when he found out she’d left? She didn’t see anyone on the
roof.

Watching the crystal blue of the harbor out the car windows,
she tried not to wonder what Clay was doing or thinking now. If she walked
away, she would never have to wonder again.

She blinked back tears as the driver turned the car down the
road toward home. A convoy of trucks carrying balled and burlapped trees and
shrubs blocked half the road. No one bought landscaping out here. People just
dug up what they needed from the fields.

“Looks like the highway department’s been
busy,” the van driver said, gesturing toward a mountain of wood chips.
“That used to be all burned trees last week. They even hauled out the
roots so the land can be replanted. Someone has clout.”

Jeff and Terry? Rory had a hard time believing that, but
they’d promised, and here it was. She smiled at the sight of painters
restoring the bubbled finish on Erly’s fence and more men crawling up
ladders on his neighbor’s house. Perhaps the insurance companies had all
gone together to start repairs at a quantity discount.

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.

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.