Carolina Girl (4 page)

McCloud
told him that? Whose side was McCloud on? The
state was paying him to work for them, wasn’t it? “McCloud needs to
stick to locating Binghams,” she muttered.

“That’s just it!” Jake shouted, waving his
fork at her. “Talk to your friends on that connivin’ tourist
commission. I heard them and the bankers. Soon as they’ve got some
Binghams in their pocket, the frigging vampires got it fixed so all they have
to do is talk one Bingham into selling, and the whole swamp goes on the block,
not just the beach.”

“All of it?” Mandy stared at her grandfather in
horror. “Even Grandma Iris’s?”

“All of it,” Jake agreed in a voice of doom,
“Even Luke’s dock and the Watkinses’ shack.”

A pinprick of uncertainty perforated the fabric of
Rory’s confidence. She knew enough about development to hear a kernel of
truth in her father’s wild accusation. The back of their property ran up
against the Bingham swamp. She didn’t know if Iris and the others living
back there had any claim on the land, but they’d lived there undisturbed
all their lives. They were neighbors and friends. They would have nowhere else
to go if the state was talking major development.

“The state doesn’t have any use for the
swamp,” Rory said with more assurance than she felt. “They’re
just buying the waterfront areas to protect the sea turtles and improve the
beach. There isn’t any reason for them to even know Grandma Iris is out
there.”

Thomas Clayton McCloud and his anarchic propaganda were a
bigger danger to their future. McCloud’s outrageous theories would have
the whole island in an uproar, endangering the chances of the park being built.
State legislators didn’t pay for anything that didn’t buy them
votes.

She wouldn’t let an outsider destroy the first
opportunity her family had of digging their way out of poverty.

First, though, she’d call Terry to sort rumor from
reality. The state park plan she’d seen had called for only much-needed
beach improvement.

She didn’t mind developing the nearly inaccessible
beach down the road, but Disney World in her backyard really would sink the
island.

o0o

Rubbing his eyes, Clay shoved back from the desk he’d
rigged up in the cottage’s front room. Finding misplaced Binghams was
akin to searching the Internet for passwords. They were everywhere. And they
took forever to uncover.

Locating the appropriate stack of data, he added another
pile of printouts to it, looked around at the scattered piles of notes, file
folders, and program changes he’d made, and decided he ought to invest in
a good filing cabinet.

But that would require admitting he was staying here, and he
wasn’t ready for commitment yet. Commitment required some sort of goal,
and he had none. More accurately, he
wanted
none.
Been there, done
that
.

Who knew it was such hard work to be a hermit?

He kicked aside an empty beer bottle, scooped up a sweaty
T-shirt, and cleared a space for the next stack of papers. If he really wanted
to commit, he’d buy a laundry hamper and a trash can.

Among the attic rejects and litter of the room, his flat
screen monitor and high-powered laptop were the only indication of the high-tech
life he’d once lived. Childish sketches drawn by Cleo’s
eight-year-old son, Matty, adorned one wall. Shells and sea oat bouquets left
over from previous occupants replaced the expensive artwork he’d once
collected. He couldn’t say that one lifestyle was any less empty than the
other. This one was just cheaper.

Returning to his seat, he switched the computer to his test
version of “Mysterious II”, took out a couple of rocket ships with
a barrage of blue mushrooms, found the missing princess and her lost laser
arrows, and jotted notes on two dozen ways he could improve the script.

His stomach rumbled, and he rubbed his bare belly. Cleo had
extended an open invitation to dinner, but the kids ate early, and he’d
worked through the meal. He glanced around, looking for a clean shirt amid the
debris.

The Monkey offered good company and decent food. He could go
into town and let his brain cool off.

Of course, thinking about the bar brought back thoughts of
Aurora Jenkins, and other parts of him heated up in response to his mental
image of sunset hair and a stunning figure that might take a lifetime to
explore.

All right, now he needed a good run on the beach. Forgetting
the shirt, Clay picked his way across the piles of paper to the doorway. It
would stay light for another hour or so. The Monkey didn’t get lively
until nine anyway.

Stepping onto the porch and checking the lights at
Jared’s place, he noted a tall figure striding down the wooden walkway
over the dune. Had he sunk so low that he conjured up his fantasies now?

With the sun sliding behind the trees in the west, he
couldn’t make out the face, but he recognized the shape.

Aurora.

Her parents sure knew how to pick a name. Her hair caught
and mirrored the reddish glow of the sunset in the same way the aurora borealis
lit the winter sky.

He mentally stripped her of her tailored jacket and
knee-length skirt, and redressed her in a flowered sarong and bikini top with
her hair flowing around her shoulders.

“Mr. McCloud.” Arriving on his doorstep, she
managed to sound both curt and agitated at the same time.

“Clay,” he corrected. “What can I do for
you, Miss Jenkins?”

“Call me Rory,” she answered with an impatient
wave, before reaching into her shoulder bag.

She wore no rings, he duly noted. He had a ring fixation these
days.

“I’ve brought some proposed budget figures for
software development for your approval.” She pulled a file folder from
the bag. “They should adequately cover R & D and any equipment. I
need to talk with you.”

He propped his shoulder against the porch post and crossed
his arms over his bare chest, blocking her progress. He didn’t do
business these days. And he definitely didn’t do MBAs. “So
talk.”

Already disturbed by what she’d learned from Terry,
Rory didn’t have time for McCloud’s schoolboy tactics, even if all
that bronzed, muscled torso belonged on a wall poster. He wasn’t built
like a fireplug, like so many men who worked out. Instead he possessed the
lean, sleek lines and powerful sinews of a thoroughbred.

She’d learned to curb her desires years ago. To make
herself heard in a male world, she’d learned how to handle ego.

With mockery, she looked McCloud over as if he were a side
of beef. Instead of backing off, he countered her tactic by flexing his
muscles, and watched her with amusement.

Heat rose to her cheeks, and she spoke sharply to cover her
blush. “There isn’t enough light out here to go over these figures,
Mr. McCloud. And I really don’t think what I have to say should be
broadcast to the neighbors.” Maybe she ought to rethink her reason for
being here. She was used to handling men in business suits, not half-naked
statues of male virility.

Proving he wasn’t made of stone, he lifted an eyebrow
in a provocative leer. “Why, by all means, Miss Aurora. Let’s you
and me make ourselves comfortable in my office.”

He gestured toward the screen door so she could enter first.
Not one to back away from a challenge, she brushed past him to step up on the
porch. Her skin reacted as if he’d stroked it when her shoulder grazed
his chest, and she was pleasantly aware that he topped her by almost a head.
Not many men could match her height, especially when she wore heels.

The trash heap he called an office distracted her from her
physical response. Books filled the rattan sofa and chair. Papers covered the
worn wooden floor. Only the slatted rocker remained empty, largely because
everything he stacked on it had slid off and lay between its rockers.

“Shall I get you a beer?”

In classic bad-boy attitude, he invaded her space by leaning
a little too close. She could feel his breath blowing the loose tendrils on her
nape, smell the beer he’d been drinking, and wanted to turn around and
shove him away for the principle of it. But touching this man would mean
physical confrontation, and she didn’t think she could handle that. Not
when all her hormones begged for it.

She swung around, nearly clipping his nose with the folder.
“No, thank you. Is that the Mac with the new processor?” Crossing
the room, she hit the space bar, and a warrior leaped out of bloodred shrubbery
to scream pun-laden epithets at the player.

“I trust you’re paid well to play games,
McCloud.” Glancing down, she discovered the printouts beside the monitor
and lifted a stack. “This is programming language. Are you developing the
park program yourself?”

Grabbing the papers from her, Clay crossed his arms and
stashed the stack in his armpit. “What can I do for you?” He
changed his sexy leer to an irritated male glare and adopted an intimidating
stance.

Which Rory ignored. She had more immediate problems than
this Macho Man, and she clung to the hope that those printouts proved he
actually had brains behind the attitude.

Much as she hated to admit it, she needed his expertise.
“Would you stop acting like a jackass and listen? How close are you to
finding the Bingham heirs?”

Clay studied her stonily. “I’m generating names
first. Then I’ll have to hunt down and verify addresses. Why?”

Without asking permission, his uninvited guest removed books
from the sofa and took a seat. “Would you put a shirt on, please? We need
to talk.”

“You keep telling me that.” Clay resisted the
impulse to strut for her benefit and grabbed a Rams T-shirt. It had ketchup on
one ram horn, but it didn’t stink. Of course, he’d shrunk the shirt
trying to do his own laundry, so he might as well have just painted his chest
black for all the good wearing it did.

Her pained expression showed she’d noticed. Feeling
decidedly better about that, Clay located his nearly empty beer bottle,
finished it off, then took a seat in the rocker, dangling the empty in his
fingers. “If you’re not after my body, what exactly are you
after?”

“Your head, probably, if you don’t quit telling
tales in the bar.” She didn’t look ticked, just disturbed as she
opened her file and laid it out for him. He suspected her insults might be her
first line of defense against jerks like him.

Clay propped his sandals on an assortment of computer
magazines on the driftwood coffee table rather than read the file.
“Tales?”

“About the state’s intention for the Bingham
property. We
need
that park, McCloud,” she said with an intensity
that illuminated the violet of her eyes. “Our unemployment rate is among
the highest in the country. The park will preserve the fragile ecology while
providing jobs. Small-business development along the roadway is essential. Free
fishing doesn’t factor into the process.”

“Never does, does it?” he asked noncommittally.

“I don’t want the locals up in arms and stopping
progress,” she said with firmness.

Clay figured she was wound up enough to kick him if he asked
how this concerned him. She wore sturdy pumps and probably packed a wallop in
those lovely long legs. He waited silently, since she seemed intent on doing
all the talking anyway. He enjoyed watching the animated way the Viking
princess gestured with her hands as she built up steam. Could he add that to
the gaming script?

“What concerns me is how the state will use those
names you’re providing them,” she finally admitted, as if unwilling
to impart dangerous information until she’d gauged her degree of control
over it.

Clay waited her out.

Apparently winning some internal battle, she continued:
“I just verified that once the state locates a few Binghams willing to
sell, their attorneys can force an auction of the entire swamp rather than
buying just the land along the beach.”

Shit
. Clay maintained his careless pose, idly
swinging his bottle back and forth. Mentally he calculated means of checking
out that bombshell for himself. He’d hoped to divert the beach sale and
hadn’t seriously considered his brother’s concern that the whole
parcel would go on the market. Cleo and Jared might live with a park, but if
the entire swamp went up for sale...

Appalling images of high-rise hotels adorned with plastic
lawn chairs and beach towels dripping from balconies rose in his mind’s
eye. Good-bye herons gleaming in the morning sun and owls hooting in the dark.
Hello blaring rap music and raucous pool parties. For the first time in a long
time, the nausea of anger gripped his gut—proof that he hadn’t
entirely succeeded in separating himself from the real world.

Lacking any reaction from him, Aurora clarified: “The
Bingham property is a huge acreage. The state needs only a small portion of
it.”

“I don’t believe it’s possible to tell the
state which part of the property belongs to which Bingham,” he finally
answered, hoping to pry her out of here so he could make a few calls. “If
you’re so concerned, then you’re better off telling the state to
take a hike.” That was his preference, anyway. Leave the island the way
it was, the way it belonged.

His careless words finally lit her wick. If she were a
firecracker, Clay figured she’d explode all over him right now.
Amazingly, he enjoyed the way ire flared behind her uptight facade. He
hadn’t been so entertained since he’d written “Mysterious.”

“We can’t afford to lose that park,” she
insisted—contradictorily, in his opinion. “What I want to see is
the state keeping
all
the Bingham land, much of it in its natural state,
and limiting development to small businesses.”

“Oh, right, like that’s gonna happen.” He
snorted at the idea of any government spending money to preserve swampland.

“If the state doesn’t limit access to the
Bingham land,” she continued with determination, “then they can
sell the remaining acreage to developers who could turn the island into condo
strips and malls. How do you think that will affect you, your brother, and his
family?”