Carolina Girl (24 page)

In the soft light of dawn, Aurora sat splendidly naked at
his feet, absorbed in manipulating the game controller, trying to conquer the
game that he’d created. It was such a glorious sight, he thought he might
lie here forever and just watch. Fantasies of waking up like this every morning
danced through his addled head.

Fantasies that encouraged more physical urges.

He stroked his toe against her bare hip to show he was awake
and willing. She stopped playing to regard him cautiously. That wasn’t
the reaction he wanted, but it was better than some he could name. At least she
hadn’t wrapped herself up in armor again.

“Good morning, my queen.” He propped himself on
his elbow and inquired, “How soon can we expect your father to
arrive?”

She didn’t shriek or run, and hope ran rampant. Maybe
he hadn’t imagined they’d connected on a deeper level than the
physical last night. Maybe she’d simply retreated to the game because she
was shy of the intensity of that connection. It certainly made him nervous, but
he was prepared to take risks. She wasn’t.

To his regret, she apparently decided against extending
their pleasurable interlude. In a fluid movement of breasts and hips and
cascading hair that captured his admiration, she grabbed her denim dress off
the floor.

Feeling a bit exposed, Clay grappled on the rug for his
khakis. She dropped them on his lap before wiggling her dress on.

He wasn’t adept at reading women, but he figured her
continued silence didn’t bode well. Last night hadn’t been enough
for him. He’d thought she felt the same. Maybe she wasn’t a morning
person.

He watched with regret as the denim slid to cover rosy
nipples, supple curves, and finally, the darker red of curls no longer
concealed by panties. His Viking princess radiated the colors of dawn and the
sensuality of an earth goddess. She grounded him in reality, and he wanted to
keep her around longer.

He tugged on his khakis, and wadded his shorts up with the
shirt he’d borrowed. “Coffee?”

He meant to make it for her, but she nodded and pattered off
in bare feet to find the beans and fill the pot. Fearing anything he said would
set her off in the wrong direction, Clay wandered back to her bathroom to make
himself presentable—not an easy task without a razor.

He grimaced at his whisker-stubbled face in the mirror, took
a quick shower, and ran a comb through his hair. Normally, the morning after,
he just wanted the woman he was with to go away so he could get back to work.
Strangely, he had no interest whatsoever in work this morning.

So maybe Diane had been right to leave him. She’d been
good to look at, athletic in bed, but once he’d looked and touched,
he’d wandered off to his own pursuits, and she’d gone after hers.
They’d had no interests in common. Neither of them had been much on lazy
mornings or playful nights.

He was just rediscovering the fun of fantasizing that had
led him into game writing and programming. He wanted to fantasize about Aurora
naked in his bed on a regular basis. She stirred his imagination as much as his
body.

He pulled on the shirt that had looked expensive and
businesslike when he’d dressed for the meeting last night. It currently
resembled a refugee from a trash bin. Last night’s fire had burned holes
in the fabric, and his impromptu laundering had left it hopelessly wrinkled.

Aurora didn’t seem to notice. Looking up from the
coffee she was pouring when he returned to the kitchen, she didn’t smile,
but he thought it he saw appreciation in her eyes when she handed him a mug.

She’d taken time to brush her glorious hair and tie it
into a ribbon. The denim was no worse for wear after a night on the floor. She
still looked like a goddess.

“Good coffee,” was all he said.

o0o

Uncomfortable with the thick cloud of unspoken words between
them, Aurora wrapped her hands around her mug and tried not to admire the man
across from her too blatantly. No man had ever made her feel as Clay had. She
ought to be ashamed of having fallen into bed so easily with a man who had no
intention of hanging around, but she wasn’t. Mornings-after were always a
little strange, but Clay didn’t make her feel uncomfortable with her
sexuality or her looks or anything else.

She just didn’t know where to go from here, and he
offered no clues.

She wandered to the patio doors to look out on last
night’s devastation. The colorful array of flowers and the spring-laden
vegetable garden they had mulched with pine straw had vanished in the fire. The
oaks were charred but still standing, the leaves shriveled by heat. Some of the
blackened pines still smoldered. The smoking ashes of the toolshed served to
remind her of the tragedy that could have been.

She didn’t know what to say. They’d behaved like
a pair of adolescents last night, and it had been fun. A necessary release,
perhaps. The morning recalled the dangers of childishness. At least he’d
had the sense and maturity to remember protection. She wouldn’t have.

Knowing he’d been the responsible one, that he’d
taken care of her when she hadn’t been thinking, lightened the confusion
she’d experienced since waking. The night had been merely a
life-affirming reaction to the earlier horror. It didn’t have to mean
anything serious. Sometimes people had sex just for the fun of it.

She turned and offered him a tentative smile. “I think
gaming could become addictive.” Sex with McCloud certainly could be.

Wearing khakis and a wrinkled dress shirt, he didn’t
look like a biker anymore, despite the beard stubble. Leaning back against the
table, crossing his legs at the ankles, he looked sexy, experienced, and almost
as uncertain as she felt, which seemed odd. A man like Clay McCloud could have
women begging at his feet. Shouldn’t that lead to a measure of arrogance
at times like this?

“Yeah, it probably is, but there are worse
addictions,” he agreed, after sipping his coffee.

The phone rang and, thinking of Cissy, Rory grabbed it.

“Aurora, this is Jeff Spencer.”

Looking up at Clay’s expression of concern, she
narrowed her eyes and shook her head. Why would Jeff be calling her?

Before she could ask, he continued, “Is your sister
there?”

Her eyebrows must have shot to her hairline. Clay closed in,
but she didn’t need his support—yet. “No, she’s not.
May I take a message?”

She heard the hesitation on the other end, and her stomach
did a nervous jig. Cissy had taken an equity loan against the land at
Jeff’s bank to pay for Mandy’s braces, but as far as she was aware,
it was up-to-date.

“Your name is on the note, so I guess it’s okay
to talk to you,” Jeff agreed reluctantly. “We’ve had our
adjusters surveying the damage from the fire. Your place and a couple of others
around there must have taken the brunt of it.”

Still suspicious, Rory tried to figure where this was
leading. She’d worked in a bank. Banks did not send out insurance
adjusters. They expected property owners to do that. “We have a few trees
that need removing. I haven’t gone down the road yet, but the house is
fine.”

He coughed nervously, unlike his usual assured self.
“Manufactured housing doesn’t appreciate. Yours doesn’t have
any value left. We loaned the money on the value of the land. The adjusters say
it’s considerably diminished without the timber. We’ll have to call
in the loan as too risky.”

Were she a violent person, Rory would gladly have reached
through the phone and strangled Jeff. As it was, she was glad Cissy
wasn’t here to listen to this self-serving nonsense. Remembering the
bottle cap, she grinned in glee.

She now had the means to take Jeff’s measly loan and
shove it down his throat. Spitefully, the knowledge tickled her all the way
down to her toes.

“That’s no problem, Jeff,” she said in
tones so dulcet Clay frowned. “I was planning on paying the loan off next
week. Why don’t you pull together a payoff figure as of next
Friday?”

She’d planned on taking the bank interest off against
her taxes, so she hadn’t considered using her bottle cap to pay the
mortgage. But if that was the way the bank wanted to play, she’d work it
out. Mandy’s braces couldn’t have cost anywhere near the hundred
thousand or more the hospital bills had reached to date.

She
loved
having a million dollar pillow to fall back
on. She could really get into scenes like this, jerking the rug out from under
the feet of self-anointed VIPs.

Jeff coughed again, hemmed and hawed a few surprised
pleasantries, then dropped the big one. “I’m showing the equity
account with a balance outstanding of over two hundred thousand. If you need a
little more time, we can take it in increments....”

Dumbfounded, Rory didn’t hear the rest of his speech.
Two hundred thousand? Braces didn’t cost two hundred thousand dollars.
She’d known the equity line on the account when she’d signed the
papers, but she’d never thought Cissy would use it for any more than a
fund for emergencies.

Even if they sold the whole acreage, after the devastation
of the fire they’d be lucky to get two hundred thousand—except from
the bank’s realty company.

Dismissing Jeff, Rory hung up the phone and sank onto a
kitchen stool, trying hard not to fall off while her thoughts whirled.

“What did the bastard want?” Clay demanded.

She shook her head, frantically tabulating debts and taxes
and plans for the future against the prize in her drawer. What if the prize
wasn’t real?

As the immensity of the debt sank in, she shivered. Panic
doused her earlier glee. They couldn’t possibly owe that much. They lived
like paupers. This couldn’t be happening.

She needed to talk to Cissy.

Cissy was in the hospital. She could have been badly injured
last night. Her sister’s overworked conscience would be devastated over
the loss of the car. Rory couldn’t explode all over her.

But two hundred thousand?

Taking a deep breath, Rory tried to remain calm, but her
hand trembled as she reached for her coffee. Last night’s terror had
undermined her confidence. Clay’s lovemaking had torn open her shields.
She needed time to pull herself together.

Coffee slipped over the rim of the mug and burned her hand.
She set the cup down too hard, and more sloshed on the counter. Before she knew
it, tears were sliding down her cheeks.

She wrapped her arms around herself and rose to escape, but
Clay caught her. Just the strength of his grip preventing her from running
broke her last remaining thread of control. She buried her face against his
shoulder and wept.

She shook with the force of her sobs, knowing the
ridiculousness of it, knowing she should stand up and strike back, but simply
not finding it within her right now.

“Is your family all right?” he demanded,
stroking her hair. “I can go into the city, find a good doctor....”

She shook her head, choking back tears, desperately striving
for her usual control. “Fine. They’re fine.”

“Okay, then it’s the banker. I can have him hung
out high and dry. Just tell me what he did. I know people. I can make a few
calls.”

She gulped on a watery chuckle. She needed to pull away, to
pull herself together, but it felt so
good
to have someone to lean on
right now. She’d step away in a minute. She’d just like a moment to
absorb and cherish this new experience. If she thought about it, she knew Clay
wasn’t really John Wayne, and he couldn’t come riding to her
rescue, but pretending helped. And his tough guy assurances tickled her back to
reality.

“You have an Uncle Guido I can hire?” she asked
with a hint of her usual humor, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Maybe we could just pepper Jeff’s ankles with gunshot and make him
dance.”

“You’re dangerous, you know that?” Instead
of backing away, Clay leaned against the counter and tucked her under his arm.

She thought maybe the gaze he bestowed on her was
affectionate, sort of like the kind she’d give to an amusing puppy. She
didn’t want to disillusion him just yet.

“I try. What would you like for breakfast?” Now
that she was returning to some semblance of control, she tried to pull away.

Clay was having none of it. He clamped both arms firmly
around her waist so she couldn’t escape. “Fix anything you like,
but first you have to tell me why I’m calling in Uncle Guido.”

“I haven’t worked it all out yet. It’s too
early in the morning. I need sustenance first. Let me go.”

He reached over to a bowl of fruit, grabbed a banana, and,
holding it at her waist, began peeling it. “Sustenance.” He offered
it to her.

“If you turn into one of those controlling gorillas
after a little sex, I’m outta here,” she warned, snatching the
banana and biting into it.

“I’m not the one eating the banana,” he
pointed out. “I’ll slip back into turtle mode, if you like, but
I’m not watching a stuffed-shirt banker reduce you to tears without
striking back. So you might as well tell me what’s happening.”

“It’s none of your business,” she replied
defiantly.

“Is so, too.” He removed the banana, took a
bite, and handed it back. “I’m not a dumbass bum who can’t
add two and two. Bankers... mortgages... land... fire... disaster. Am I getting
close?”

She sagged against him. “Yeah, close. Let me go.
I’ll fix some eggs. Fried or scrambled?”

“Sunny-side up.” He released her to sip his
coffee and watch her move about the kitchen. “If he’s working with
whoever is surveying the Bingham property, he may be pressured into forcing you
to sell. Is that what’s happening?”

“Maybe. The amount caught me by surprise.
Cissy’s been borrowing behind my back. It’s no wonder she was
willing to sell Mama’s land. She knew she could never pay her way
out.”

Clay regretted the millions he’d siphoned from his own
funds to pay his company’s investors, but she probably wouldn’t
take loans from friends anyway. She had that stubborn look about her.
“You told him you were planning on paying it off next week. Do you have
insurance money coming in from your father’s accident?”