Carolina Girl (19 page)

Starting the car engine, Cissy chuckled. “He’s
got you nailed, Rora. Admit it. You’re standing there wondering if pot
would solve world peace.”

Rory hated being judged and categorized and hated it worse
when they were right. “I may be a dreamer, but you two are
certifiable.”

“Yeah, but we’re cute,” Clay insisted.
“Never underestimate the power of cute.”

Rory swallowed a laugh. He was impossible enough without
encouraging him. “I can’t do cute, so I’ll stick with smart,
thank you.”

He stared at her in incredulity. “You’re well
above cute already. Let your hair down and wear something sexy, and you can do
glamorous.” Without giving her time for a reply, Clay opened the pickup
door and all but shoved her inside.

As Cissy took off down the sandy drive, Aurora hid her flush
in the growing dusk of the cab. Beyond cute? Glamorous! Was that how he saw
her? She might be sturdy and practical and not half-bad to look at, but
sexy
or
glamorous
wasn’t within the realm of possibility. The man lied
through his teeth. He must be desperate for sex.

Watching Clay saunter around to the driver’s seat,
sun-bleached hair now impeccably styled, bronzed features studying her warily
through the windshield, she knew darned well a man that good-looking
wasn’t desperate.

“I don’t want to do glamorous,” she
informed him the instant he took his seat. “My career is in banking, not
Hollywood. I want men to admire my mind, not my body.”

He set his mouth as he turned on the ignition. “Look,
let’s not argue over this. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.”

“Right.” She crossed her arms over her chest
before it sank in that he’d actually backed off. Sort of. Now his words
nettled, and she wanted to pursue them further.

“Men don’t take me seriously if I wear frilly
clothes,” she offered in the growing silence as the truck followed
Cissy’s dust to the main road.

“Then they’re fools, and you may as well play
them for such, but it’s your choice, not mine. I like you fine in frills
or suits. You don’t have to be glamorous for my sake.”

“Right, because you’re a genius, not a
fool.” She was nervous and making an idiot of herself, but she thought he
really meant what he said. He looked at her with admiration no matter what she
wore. She just had a hard time seeing herself as he did.

He snorted. “I’m no genius when it comes to
women. I can take a computer or a motorcycle apart and put them back together
better than ever, but women I’ll never figure out. I think they morph
from one creature to another in between one sentence and the next.”

Both Cissy and Clay turned right on the highway toward town,
but half a mile down the road Cissy turned the BMW down the dirt lane leading
back to the swamp and quickly disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Rory tried not to worry about the BMW or Cissy or the man
sitting beside her. She had a million-dollar bottle cap in her underwear
drawer, and her life seemed to be spinning out of control. She needed to get a
grip on the reins again.

“Women think in terms of survival,” she
answered. “We may each have a different idea of what it takes to survive,
but the instinct to protect ourselves and our families is basic. Grasp that,
and you’re halfway there.”

In the shadow of the cab, Clay nodded his newly barbered
head. “Excellent justification for theft, murder, and downright
orneriness. Got it.”

“Nah, we only need men to justify that. Survival is
much more complicated.” Relaxing at the foolishness—or because he
wasn’t staring at her as if she were the last piece of cake on earth—Rory
leaned back and began to plot the evening’s course.

o0o

Rory gulped when they entered city hall and instantly had an
audience of well-wishers clapping them on the back. Others stood crowded in
corners, pointing at her and Clay and whispering. These were her neighbors,
people she hadn’t seen in years and barely knew. But they all knew her
and were counting on her to save their little pieces of heaven from the vast
corporate world that had eaten most of the islands up and down the coast.

Like Don Quixote, she’d battled a lot of windmills
without much success. She’d done it safely from within her secure
corporate world without risking anything but her time. And her job, but she
hadn’t realized it then.

If she lost now, the realty company would rescind the offer
for Cissy’s share of the land, and their little acreage would be
surrounded by condos within a few years. If she lost, most of these people
would lose their livelihoods and their homes. What good would a million dollars
do her then?

Her mouth tasted sour as Clay steered a path through the
crowd to a seat up front. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Terry Talbert
signal her. He didn’t look happy, but no one in here did. Skirting around
the grim-faced officials in suits gathering at the front of the room, she let
Clay claim their seats while she spoke with Terry.

“Rora, you can’t fight zoning on the
island,” he whispered as soon as she came close.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the
park,” she explained. “We just want some planning before we turn
into another Hilton Head.”

“Golf courses make money!” he protested.
“We
want
the park to draw in tourists and developers. That’s
the whole
point
. I can’t believe you’re fighting against
everything the tourist commission stands for.”

“I asked to be placed on the agenda as a property
owner, not as a representative of the tourist commission,” she said
patiently. “I want tourists as much as you do. I’m not the evil
force against development. I just want some planning first.”

“We don’t have
time
for planning. The
state will acquire the property and auction off what they don’t want to
cover costs. Who will buy the land if they can’t get zoning?”

Feeling vaguely sick to hear her fears laid out so plainly,
Rory shook her head. “The state has a budget to buy the beach. They
don’t need more.”

“If you go up there and delay the zoning, you’re
off the tourist commission, Rora. You’re working against us and not with
us.”

Fired again for opening her big mouth. The sour taste turned
bitter, but this time she figured all it cost her was a friend, and he
couldn’t be much of a friend if he wouldn’t listen.

“Sorry, Terry, no can do. I’ll send you my files
in the morning.” Turning her back on him, Rory walked toward Clay, who
stood waiting for her to join him. Clay might not fully grasp her need to make
things right, but he supported her desire to do so. He was the first damn man
outside of her father to ever support her, even if all he wanted was to be in
her bed. She’d give him half a brownie point for that.

o0o

Clay watched in admiration as Rory flipped open the last
colorful chart succinctly conveying the impact of development without planning
on the island. She summarized her report in a few powerful sentences, then
returned to her seat to a round of applause. She should have been a lawyer. Her
cautious, controlling nature concealed the power of her passion.

The commissioners looked more stunned than prepared to
argue. Aurora had steamrollered them into their own swamp.

She took the seat beside him and Clay clasped her hand,
feeling the acceleration of her pulse. “You spun their heads so
forcefully, you didn’t leave them any grounds to disagree on,” he
whispered.

She nodded but focused on Jeff Spencer, who stood to espouse
the dry cause of tax bases and increased business. She didn’t withdraw
her hand but squeezed harder when Jeff finished up with a politician’s
smooth promise of a chicken in every pot, or the contemporary equivalent.

Clay had the urge to rearrange the banker’s smug
expression. People who thought that what they wanted was best for everyone had
solidified his cynicism at an early age.

Aurora wasn’t like that. She would give up her hopes
of hot-dog stands if convinced they weren’t good for everyone.

Shaken by that insight, Clay examined it while half
listening to the commissioners argue among themselves. Aurora was here to
espouse her cause, just like Jeff. She had a bee in her bonnet about condos,
but she still wanted gas stations or peach stands on natural wetlands. So where
the hell did he think she was different?

Because she wasn’t thinking of herself so much as her
neighbors and family.

She and Cissy could have taken the developer’s money
and run. Or they could hold out for a higher price. Or she could have gone his
route, demanded total preservation of the wetlands, and had people kicked out
of their homes and livelihoods.

Instead she was defending the property of people who
didn’t have the education or money to fight city hall.

Maybe—just maybe—he ought to start considering
her side of things a little more seriously.

What would that entail? It wasn’t as if he had much
ready cash to help her fight. All he had was his software, and he wasn’t
letting any of his programs out of his control for love or money this time
around. He wasn’t fool enough to be burned a third time.

“All in favor of withholding a zoning change until
after a planning study can be made, say aye.”

Clay felt Rory hold her breath as each “aye” was
recorded. Seven out of twelve. Did the majority win? Or did they need
two-thirds? He watched Rory close her eyes and sit back with a smile of relief.

They’d won.

He liked winning, but this wasn’t his home, and his
triumph had far more to do with the woman beside him blazing with exultation
than in anything he had accomplished. Her joy shot through him like an
aphrodisiac—as if he needed any excuse to be turned on in her company.

“Celebration time,” he whispered in her ear.
“Champagne?”

“Chocolate malt,” she whispered back.

“They still serve that stuff here?” With the
meeting adjourned, he caught her arm and all but hauled her out of the room
before she could get into another public argument with the red-faced, furious
banker, or the sulking tourist commissioner. “Wasn’t it declared a
national health hazard and banned along with soda fountains?”

He saw Cleo and Jared heading their way through the crowd.
With dexterity, he steered her out a side entrance of city hall. He had
romantic fireworks on the agenda this evening, not the hotheaded kind that Cleo
and Aurora could ignite in a room full of people. Although he wasn’t
entirely certain Aurora recognized her power to incite riots.

She laughed and sailed down the steps ahead of him,
obviously knowing her territory and where she was headed. “Malt is banned
only in California,” she asserted, “where they eat snails and call
it protein. Here, we know what’s good for you.”

“Hamburger slathered in grease.” Since he had no
idea where she was going, Clay didn’t attempt to steer her, but followed
along, all his senses zinging with anticipation. She was on a high, and they
weren’t fighting. Those had to be good signs.

“What did Timid Talbert have to say to you before the
meeting?” That had been bothering him since he’d watched
Aurora’s expression go stone cold after that little discussion.
She’d refused to tell him earlier under the excuse that she’d
wanted to listen to the meeting. Maybe now that she’d won, she’d be
a little less closemouthed.

“
Timid
Talbert?” she inquired with a lift
of her eyebrows, diverting the question.

“All I have to do is growl, and he backs away as if
I’m about to eat him alive. He made you angry. Why?”

Rory wasn’t certain she was comfortable with Clay
recognizing her anger, or in his feeling familiar enough to question her about
it. But she was on a roll tonight, and he was part of the reason. Maybe she
should experiment with being less controlling. “He fired me,” she
said with insouciance, stopping at the café.

Clay guided her inside with a proprietary hand at the small
of her back. She decided she liked that old-fashioned side of him. Much too aware
of heads turning, watching her with this striking man, Rory tried to look
unselfconscious taking a place at the counter of her old high school haunt.
Once upon a time she’d thought it the most important thing in the world
to be sitting here with a hunk like Clay. Or Jeff. Surely she’d advanced
a few stages of maturity since then.

“How could Talbert fire you?” he demanded.
“You weren’t being paid.”

She shrugged and nodded at the approaching waitress.
“Not now,” she whispered. “We’re celebrating our victory,”
she reminded him in a louder voice. “Your statistics were fabulous. Now,
if we could find the mayor’s fabled U-boat treasure, we could give the
city their funds and never worry again.”

“Don’t tell me you believe that story.”
Stella slapped the menus down in front of them. “Maybe the mayor’s
daddy shot those German spies like they say, but he spent every penny they
carried buying up half the town.”

“Not according to Brother Tim,” Clay objected.
“He thinks the late mayor died before he spent it all.”

“And the town’s sitting on gold?” Stella
snorted inelegantly.

“Maybe he buried it in the swamp and Jeff thinks he
can dig it up,” Rory suggested.

“That’s more like it. How did the petition
go?” Stella switched the subject. “Are they paving the path to hell
or not?”

“Not yet. Chocolate malt, please.” Realizing
they were attracting attention, Rory tried not to gloat, but she figured she
was beaming from ear to ear.

“Delaying the zoning isn’t the same as stopping
it,” Clay warned after ordering coffee. “Short of striking gold, we
have no chance of convincing them to keep wetlands.”

“Spoilsport.” She pouted, and thrilled a little
at the way Clay’s gaze immediately diverted to her mouth. She was playing
with fire here, but that was what celebrating was about, wasn’t it?
Dancing around a big old bonfire?