The idea of being part owner of a corporation was so far beyond her comprehension that she dismissed it. Owner of a truck, now, that she understood.
In the sack from the hardware store was a computer cable. Cleo’s Hardware carried computer parts, since the town was too small for a specialty store. Cissy now knew what cables did and even knew which one to buy to connect Rora’s PC to the scanner Clay had brought over. She even knew what a scanner was and how to operate it. She’d be able to open her own computer store if she kept this up.
The warm fire in her belly at that thought was an unusual sensation. The maxim “With knowledge comes power” had always eluded her. How to find good clothes at the cheapest price and keep a grocery budget was knowledge, but she’d never considered it powerful.
But knowing all about computers could lead to a real future, a secure one, one that would make Mandy proud of her. Clay had been right: It was worth trading the opportunity for easy cash for the knowledge that would build a solid foundation.
A white Cadillac glided to a halt behind her pickup. Cissy glanced at her watch. Rora should be coming out of the bank any minute. They might have time to stop at the school and pick Mandy up so she didn’t have to take that slow school bus. She didn’t want to have to maneuver the truck out of a tight space if someone parked in front of her. She would move the truck and idle in front of the bank until Rora came out.
“Miss Jenkins, how fortuitous that we should run into each other!”
Distracted, Cissy glanced up at the business-suited gentleman climbing out of the Cadillac—Mr. Turner, from Commercial Realty.
Since rich gentlemen driving Cadillacs did not usually acknowledge her existence, Cissy remained on the sidewalk, watching his approach with suspicion. Once upon a time she might have flirted with a man who smiled at her like that. These days she felt older than the hills, but maybe a little wiser.
“How do you do, Mr. Turner,” she acknowledged his greeting politely.
“Have you given any thought to my offer, Miss Jenkins? I was surprised not to hear from you. It’s an excellent offer, and we’re saving that lot for you.”
“I don’t make decisions like that without some thought,” she said stiffly. Even with her newfound confidence, she hated giving up such a tempting offer. Did she really need all that land? Did it matter if her mother’s family had owned it for generations? Rory had asked how important it was to Cissy, but Rory hadn’t indicated that it meant anything to her.
“We’re quite anxious to start moving on this project,” Turner said with bluff good humor. “If you’re not interested, give your neighbors a chance.”
What if Rory and Clay were wrong? What if Turner really meant to build something out there, and he took his money to their neighbors?
It took all the backbone Cissy had grown over the years, and her respect for Aurora’s intelligence, to straighten her shoulders and look three hundred thousand dollars in the eye and kiss it good-bye. “I think you’d better start talking to my neighbors, Mr. Turner. My sister and I have other plans for that land, but thank you very much for your generous offer.”
She walked away from his stunned expression, terror and a floating feeling of freedom carrying her past the truck and down to the bank where she walked up the marble stairs as if she had as much right to be there as all the rich people did.
To Cissy’s pride and dismay, Rory was just leaving Jeff Spencer’s office, and the banker greeted Cissy as if she were a long-lost relative. Everyone in the lobby turned to stare, and she was wearing only her second-best jeans and a tank top.
But she owned a candy-apple-red pickup and had just turned down three hundred thousand dollars. Taking a deep breath, Cissy smiled and shook Jeff Spencer’s hand. She was a millionaire.
Chapter Twenty-two
On the Monday after Aurora’s triumph at the bank, Clay locked the finished copies of his programs in Cleo’s safety-deposit box with a sense of satisfaction. He had nearly worked himself to death this past week putting everything in order. Now he had time to breathe.
And think about Aurora. He glanced up at the courthouse roof, but he had no itch to tinker with the clock. His life had become a more interesting place since Aurora had walked into it.
It would become even more interesting if he could pry her away from her desk and her family and back into his bed again. But privacy and spare time had been in short supply since their trip to Charleston. Unlike the other women who had decorated his life, Aurora seemed to understand when he immersed himself in work. Would she have the same understanding of his need to play now? Could he talk her into running into Charleston with him?
Of course, she was juggling phone calls from Binghams and inquiries from investors. He couldn’t expect her to drop everything just because he was ready to play.
And TJ had arrived last night. It might be easier to park himself at Aurora’s place and deal with sexual frustration than submit to his brother’s questioning.
At least at her place he’d have the fun of listening to her deal with family and friends and Binghams and whatever else crossed her path. Every time he stopped by, Aurora was bubbling with energy, obviously in her element juggling half a dozen problems at once. She laughed away Cissy’s timidity with the computer, teased Mandy into acting as receptionist, hugged her father when he blundered into the table, dumping off her worksheets.
Clay was the only one she walked softly around, and he figured that was because they set off enough electricity to light New York every time they got within three feet of each other. He’d stolen a few kisses behind the refrigerator door, but the trailer was way too crowded for anything else.
Thinking of those kisses, he dragged his gaze from the courthouse clock and its secrets to the florist shop next to the café. He used to send Diane huge bouquets of red roses when he’d spent the weekend working late. Would roses impress Aurora? Persuade her away from the telephone and the trailer and into somewhere private?
Or would she just swat him with them for wasting money? That was a new and not entirely comfortable question to puzzle out. The old Clay would have just spent money and called the problem solved. He hadn’t quite decided what his new laid-back persona should do.
Spotting a small, balding man walking in his direction, Clay grinned. Yeah, he thought he knew what this Clay ought to do.
He stepped up on the curb in front of Terry Talbert, nearly causing the tourist commissioner to walk into him. “Had any free MBAs walk into your office lately?”
Talbert glared up at him, swiping a flyaway hair back from his frowning forehead. “You’re pond scum, you know that? You promised us that program! And now look what you’ve done—every Bingham in the county thinks he’s a millionaire.”
“Every Bingham in the country, more likely.” Clay shrugged off the accusation. “They’re not dumb. They’ll figure it out now that they have the information to work with. You should have kept Aurora. She’s handling the heirs beautifully.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Terry shouted, too furious for coherence, much less Clay’s logic.
“Yeah,” Clay said with great pleasure. “I have the smartest person in town working on my side because you threw her away. A word of advice—next time you choose sides, choose the honest one, not the rich one.”
He left Talbert standing there, digesting that, as he strode off in the direction of the grocery store. He’d take the money he could have spent on roses and buy a tomato plant to put in the Jenkinses’ ravaged garden, plus a lobster or two for Aurora to play with. And chocolate. She did the most amazing things with food. He might even learn to eat for the sheer pleasure of watching her cook.
o0o
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” Aurora ran screaming into the front room they’d converted into an office, waving a piece of paper at her audience of two. She and Cissy had spent a frantic weekend fielding phone calls from Binghams. Friday night Clay had started appearing for meals, sacks of groceries
in hand. This morning he’d arrived with tomato plants and lobsters. She’d never understand the man, but she adored his thoughtfulness. Cissy had been ecstatic over the plants.
At Rory’s triumphant cry, Clay glanced up from the laptop he’d brought over, and Cissy stopped frowning at the big computer they’d set on a television stand. They both waited expectantly, if somewhat warily, since Aurora tended to run in with excited messages several times a day.
“An angel! I have an angel.”
Cissy snorted inelegantly and returned to frowning at the monitor and laboriously arguing with the word- processing program.
Understanding Aurora’s cryptic cry, Clay raised both eyebrows in surprise, set the laptop aside, and grabbed for the paper in her hand. “Who’s offering? Satan? The company who stole the first program? China?” “Angels” with money to invest were few and far between these days.
She danced away, holding the letter out of his reach, laughing. “Cynic! You didn’t think I could do it, did you? You just like my cooking and wanted to keep me around to feed you.”
He caught her by the waist and hauled her from her feet so he could snatch the paper. His strength always took her by surprise. She could get used to it quickly if the man overcoming her was Clay.
She wiggled against him and heard him growl, but Cissy was glaring at them again. They really would have to act on this attraction once things settled down. In the meantime, Rory nibbled Clay’s ear, then shoved away when he held the note out of her reach to read it.
“One of the bigwigs at the bank where I used to work retired,” she explained for her sister’s benefit, “and he’s looking for investments. He was one of the first people I sent a packet to last week. After I read his reply I called him, and he’s definitely interested. He’s already involved with another software firm, and they think this might work into their business plan.”
“We keep controlling interest,” Clay admonished, backing off as he read the name on the letter. “‘Mysterious’ isn’t leaving my hands now that I’ve bought the rights back.”
“He understands that. He has grandkids, and he was impressed that they were enthusiastic about the game. I don’t think he takes it very seriously. He’s doing it because his grandkids told him to.”
Cissy looked from one of them to the other. “Okay, I may sound stupid, but what are we talking about?”
“Money, lots and lots of money!” To the tune of “We Will Rock You” pouring from her computer’s sound system, Aurora beat her fists in the air and danced across the room to the kitchen.
Clay caught her hand, spun her around, and bent her backward over his arm. “Turtles and sweetgrass,” he reminded her.
Caught off guard as well as off balance, Rory squeaked in surprise when his mouth closed over hers. Sinking deep into the bliss of his kiss and the heady effect of his support, she flung her arms around his neck and let the moment happen. This was the way it should be, sharing happiness along with the burdens. She was bursting with joy in so many ways that kissing Clay was the only sensible way to express it.
“Take it to the bedroom,” Cissy called.
“Whoops.” Clay pretended to drop her, then pulled her upright again, brushing a kiss against her ear where Cissy couldn’t see it. “Any chance of taking it to the bedroom?” he whispered into her hair.
“Not a chance.” Still dizzy but conscious of her sister, Rory opened the refrigerator door and let the cold air blow away the steam that kiss had engendered. She didn’t think her heart would ever be the same again.
She needed to think about turtles and sweetgrass and money and not sexy partners who blew her mind out her ears. Sexy partners who leaned over her shoulder and examined the refrigerator with her.
“Do you have any more of that banana pie?” he asked, reaching around her to push bowls out of the way.
“Banana pie isn’t for celebrating. Chocolate is. With raspberries on top. And whipped cream. Should we start stocking champagne?”
“Lobster. Much better than champagne. And the pie will hold me until you’ve finished cooking up more calories.” Finding the pie, he removed it to the counter with the air of a well-satisfied man.
“Company coming,” Cissy called from the front room. “Know anyone in a white SUV?”
Rory watched with curiosity as Clay studied the banana cream pie with a glint in his eye that she’d learned to be wary of.
“Yeah, big brother is in town,” he answered, setting the pie down and carving out a large piece. “His wife tried to talk him into renting something a little flashier than a Taurus, and he came up with that. TJ is not high on imagination.”
Clay carefully placed his slice of pie on a dish he retrieved from the cabinet, but he didn’t return the remainder to the refrigerator, Rory noted. Remembering Cleo’s warning about the McCloud brothers, she decided to stay out of hurricanes. She emptied a cup of flour into her mixing bowl and waited for the doorbell to ring.
“Hi, my name is TJ McCloud,” a gravelly bass voice announced as Cissy opened the door. “Jared said we might be able to purchase a fountain here.”
Confused, Cissy glanced over her shoulder at Clay, who gestured with his head toward the back of the house. Shrugging, she turned back to the visitor. “If you’d go around to the rear, I’ll send my father out to help you.”
They’d had enough tourists wander to the wrong door to know the routine. That was why they’d lined the walk back to the factory with lawn ornaments. But why on earth was Clay sending his brother out back? Better yet, why was his brother asking about fountains instead of Clay?
Rory glanced surreptitiously at Clay’s deadpan expression and decided this must be a McCloud thing. She cracked an egg into the bowl of flour as Clay carried the half-empty pie pan to the patio door.
“Do I call Dad?” Cissy inquired with equal curiosity. “Does he really want to buy a fountain?”
“No, he really wants to see what I’m doing. Since I locked him out of the cottage, he’s come to snoop here. He needs a little reminding that snooping isn’t polite.” The glint in Clay’s eye belied his impassive tone.
Siblings had issues. Rory knew that well enough. Maybe she ought to help him with his. “You know, I could just go out and meet them,” she offered, hearing two voices coming around the trailer. “That’s the adult, rational thing to do.”
“What, and disappoint them? Nope. They came all this way because Jared told them I’m rotting away down here, not living up to my potential, and now I’m acting peculiar. So they’ll get peculiar.” He lifted an eyebrow in amusement as the voices came closer. “Not that peculiar is anything new in our family.”
Rory tried to stifle a laugh but didn’t succeed. She grinned the instant Clay slid open the patio door, and his brother’s bass voice shouted “Duck!”
The pie flew from Clay’s hand, probably with deadly accuracy.
Yelping and shouting ensued, but Clay merely folded his impressive biceps over his black T-shirt and leaned against the door frame. “Looking for someone?” he called.
“Thomas Clayton, I swear, you’ll pay for this! This hairpiece set me back a hundred bucks, I’ll have you know.”
Rory couldn’t resist. Leaning over the sink, she looked out the kitchen window to see a woman as tall as she was, but probably thirty pounds lighter. Their visitor picked an atrocious, banana-cream-smeared hairpiece off her head to shake it out. Beside her stood a bemused man more SUV-sized compared to Clay’s race-car leanness.
Obviously torn between helping his laughing wife and maiming his brother, TJ rolled his eyes in frustration, and Rory cracked up. Neither of the pair seemed in the least startled by Clay’s behavior. “Is this what Cleo calls a ‘McCloud thing’?” she inquired through her chuckles.
Distracted, Clay lifted a cool eyebrow at her but didn’t blink until the ruined wig hit him in the face. He jumped in surprise, causing Rory to laugh harder. Yummy banana cream added to the appeal of impassive genius.
Wipin
g the worst of it off with the back of his arm, he bent to retrieve the hairpiece from the back step. “Sorry about that, Mara,” he called. “I was aiming for Tim. You really should duck when big brother tells you, but you look too good to wear this ugly thing. I’ll buy you a better one.”
Watching from the window, Rory noted that once reassured his wife was unharmed, TJ greeted his youngest brother with the hint of a smile. “There are more civilized ways of saying hello,” he intoned gravely, flicking at a speck of pie on Mara’s shirtsleeve.
“Whoops, must have mixed my messages,” Clay said in the same expressionless voice as TJ. “I thought I was saying, ‘Get out of here.’ My apologies. Want me to show you the water fountains? There’s a really Byzantine one just past the magnolia. For you, I’ll cut a deal.” He tossed the hairpiece in the direction of the trash can.
Cissy wandered to the dining room window to watch. She eyed Clay with skepticism and started for the door, prepared to show their visitors fountains.
Deciding that if Clay’s greeting was Yankee hospitality, she’d better show him a superior form, Rory shook her head at her sister. “Don’t encourage them,” she murmured as she brushed past. “McClouds are apparently not totally civilized in each other’s company.”
Tucking a proprietary hand beneath Clay’s muscled biceps, wiping banana cream from his bristly cheek and licking her finger, Rory leaned through the doorway to smile at their visitors. “Hi, should I throw him out or are you coming in?”
Clay’s arm tightened to hold her hand captive. She inched closer, brushing her breast against his side. Trying to carry on an affair beneath the eyes of family, especially her impressionable niece, had been impossible, but her body instantly responded to his touch. Not that she had to act on it, of course. They had visitors, after all.
The steam rising in Clay’s eyes as they met hers warned that he considered visitors no deterrent.
Carolina Girl Page 23
