McCloud's Woman (45 page)

Flinging the
Sorry, try again
cap to the bar, she
turned to study the jukebox. The playlist hadn’t changed since Elvis had
checked out. She punched in a Simon and Garfunkel song from the seventies and
took her glass and bottle to the first booth.

“Bridge over Troubled Water” hit its last
wailing note as Thomas Clayton McCloud sauntered in. He’d apparently
taken time to scrub off in a rest room, wetting his long, sun-streaked hair. He
wore the ash brown length tied back with a leather thong against his bronzed
nape. He’d donned a plaid cotton shirt to cover his bare chest, but with
the sleeves ripped off, it didn’t do much to disguise his sculpted
biceps.

Rory had to bite her tongue to prevent drooling as he slid
into the booth across from her, exuding male pheromones. Brains won over brawn
any day in her book, but that didn’t stop her from appreciating the view
when he crossed his sinewy arms on the table.
This
was the town’s
computer expert?

He lifted his sunglasses, sliding them into his overlong
hair. Up close, Rory could see that it had an unruly curl to the ends. The
sunglasses had partially concealed a broad nose with a slight downward slope
instead of the classically handsome one she’d expected. He wasn’t
Hollywood pretty, but his long-lashed gray eyes could ring her chimes any day.

“There’d better be a good reason for dragging me
down here this early in the day.” With a gesture at the bartender, he
ordered a beer. The boy knew his brand of choice without asking and carried the
bottle over still sweating from the cooler.

Sipping the beer, Clay admired the glory of the fullfigured
redhead across from him—his fantasy Viking princess sprung to life in
Technicolor. She’d twisted strands of her strawberry-blond mane into a
knot at the back of her head, but it was too heavy to stay in the pins. One
escaped lock curved in a delicate line along her throat, just brushing her red
silk shirt. The stiff-collared, no-nonsense shirt didn’t bother him, but
the gray business suit she wore with it warned he really didn’t want to
hear what she had to say. He didn’t listen to suits these days.

Leaning back against the wooden bench, he took a good chug
of beer and waited for her to get past his rudeness. No sense in encouraging
whatever maggot had stuck in her craw. Instead, he engaged his mind in admiring
the way her luscious lips tightened into a disapproving line.

“I’m Aurora Jenkins,” she said with only a
hint of the soft drawl of the island inhabitants. “Terry Talbert has put
me in charge of developing a budget for the park grant. I have an MBA in
finance and grew up here, so I volunteered to help him out for a while.”

Raising an eyebrow, Clay continued sipping his beer, waiting
for her to come around to what she really wanted.

In the dim light of the bar, her eyes appeared almost
violet. They narrowed at his nonresponse.

“I’m developing a budget for the land-planning
grant,” she continued without voicing an iota of frustration at his
stonewalling. “I understand you’re overseeing the software
development of a program capable of identifying and locating the Bingham heirs.
If you haven’t pulled your cost figures together yet, I can help you with
them.”

Clay nearly snorted beer out of his nose. Wiping the smirk
off his face with the back of his hand, he leaned forward, bringing them
face-to-face across the narrow table. “I do software. I don’t do
numbers.”

“The state requires numbers, Mr. McCloud.”

“The state can go screw itself. I’m working for
next to nothing and nothing is what they’ll get if they don’t leave
me alone.”

“With that attitude, maybe
nothing
is all you
have and all you ever will have, Mr. McCloud. Perhaps I should suggest that the
state find a different person to locate the heirs?”

“In my experience, you may suggest to them that the
moon is blue, and they’ll appoint a committee to study the matter and
make a decision sometime in the next century. Don’t let me stop
you.” Flinging a bill on the table, Clay slid out of the booth.

It was a damned shame that great body was wasted on a
narrow-minded number cruncher, but he was sticking to simple minds and simple
tastes these days—even if Aurora Jenkins’ curves could tempt Satan.

“The park is imperative to our future, Mr. McCloud. We
need a budget to get the state grant. I’ll present you with a suggested
budget for your division next week,” she called after him.

He almost laughed out loud at that. He should have known any
woman willing to tackle that spider-infested tower wouldn’t give up
easily. Turning, he winked at her in his best obnoxious manner.
“You’d be better off hunting for the late mayor’s missing
fortune than to trust the state.”

He walked out, letting the door slam behind him.

Missing fortune, her foot and eye. If she could find a
fortune, she’d be out of here so fast, his head would spin.

Cursing, Rory fumbled in her purse for some change so she
could pay up and leave.

Where the hell did he get that my-way-or-the-highway attitude?
Was he born with it? Did someone teach it to him?

Could she hit him over the head with a two-by-four and bash
it out of him? There was a reason she preferred the pinstripe-suit crowd these
days. She could control her temper better in the secure environment of
intelligent people who shared rational goals.

“Clay took care of it,” the bartender said,
sweeping the bill off the table before she found her change purse.

“Put the money against his tab.” Refusing to
take anything from the bastard, Rory threw a couple of ones on the table.

She’d have to investigate Thomas Clayton McCloud more
thoroughly before she approached him next time. Did he have any business
background at all? Did he even have an education? How much did he actually know
about programming? It was a real stretch to believe he could find the on switch
of a PC.

She bet he found the on switch of every woman who crossed
his path. Fanning herself with a file folder as she left the bar, Rory tried to
ignore all the hormones exploding like little bombshells in less noble parts of
her.

McCloud exuded sex appeal like bees secreted honey. She
didn’t have the time or the patience to play little boy games. He could
go exude on some other hapless female.