Free Carolina Girl by Patricia Rice Page B

across from her before she could decide if she even
wanted coffee, much less whether she wanted to share it with him.
    Staring at Clay’s bronzed, nearly bare chest, she had
to admit she didn’t mind sitting here, admiring the view. He didn’t
have a spare ounce of fat anywhere she could see. She’d certainly never
had opportunities like this at the bank. Men in suits were interchangeable
obstacles to overcome, but Clay’s lean abs stirred thoughts she
hadn’t had in a long, long time.
    Except the family bad luck with the opposite sex had made a
large impression on her psyche. She didn’t do casual sex. It was a
committed relationship or nothing for her, and she and McCloud had no basis for
even basic friendship. The man was not only not her type, but he was obnoxious
about proving it.
    “You had something you wanted to say?” she
taunted, since he said nothing. She was used to men who grabbed the
conversation and ran, as if it were their goal to keep the conversational ball
in their court. Clay’s silences made an interesting change of pace. She scratched
idly at the vendor’s contest ticket that declared she could be an instant
winner and uncovered the inevitable Try again .
    “I thought you might like to tell me about those
petitions.” He sipped his coffee and watched her through narrowed eyes.
“I thought you wanted development out there.”
    A gull squalled from the sandy playground behind them. The
outboard motor of a sailboat chugged sluggishly as it backed out of a docking
station. People strolled the boardwalk along the harbor and sat at tables on the
restaurant patios above. In this idyllic setting, she had no reason to fear the
tall man sitting across from her. She supposed she ought to, since he’d
just hauled her down here like a dog on a leash.
    Only she’d learned from her father not to judge people
by their appearances. It would be a lot easier if she could label Clay McCloud
a biker or beach bum, sniff, and not give him the time of day. He certainly
worked at maintaining the look: sun-bleached, uncut hair, three-day-old beard
shading his angular jaw, denim vest, cutoff jeans, and sandals.
    But she’d seen his high-tech computer and the
programming language and his reluctant fascination with the turtles. She
suspected there was more to this man than readily met the eye.
    Or she could be fooling herself. She’d done that
before.
    “I talked to some of the commissioners,” she
finally answered when he sat there without saying another word. “They
weren’t interested in hearing about environmental planning or limited
zoning or anything else unless it’s backed by money. I figured they might
listen if we were more than a few voices screaming into a vacuum.”
    Clay nodded and sipped his steaming coffee. “From what
your friend said, you may get signatures, but you’re not likely to have
many voters on that petition.”
    “It’s not a legal document. A petition
can’t change zoning. It just gives us a little popularity edge.”
    “It also gives the bank and other interested parties
fair warning that trouble lies ahead.” He sipped his coffee and waited.
    Rory winced. She hadn’t thought of that. She studied
the problem from all angles, then shook her head. “I can’t see how
it will matter unless someone wants to bribe us not to interfere. People on the
island would take the money and still sign the petition.”
    His mouth quirked upward in one corner. “Okay,
I’ll buy that. But a petition won’t convince the commissioners if
they’re thinking of condos and property tax bases. Short of locating the
town’s missing World War Two cache, you can’t change things.”
    She didn’t believe those old bar stories any more than
she believed fairy tales. Even if the town had lost some stolen German spy
hoard, no one could find it.
    Setting the coffee aside, Rory rubbed her forehead.
She’d love to see a small grocery store on the island. It was a ten-mile
drive just to pick up food