Carolina Girl Read Online Free PDF

invitation to dinner, but the kids ate early, and he’d
worked through the meal. He glanced around, looking for a clean shirt amid the
debris.
    The Monkey offered good company and decent food. He could go
into town and let his brain cool off.
    Of course, thinking about the bar brought back thoughts of
Aurora Jenkins, and other parts of him heated up in response to his mental
image of sunset hair and a stunning figure that might take a lifetime to
explore.
    All right, now he needed a good run on the beach. Forgetting
the shirt, Clay picked his way across the piles of paper to the doorway. It
would stay light for another hour or so. The Monkey didn’t get lively
until nine anyway.
    Stepping onto the porch and checking the lights at
Jared’s place, he noted a tall figure striding down the wooden walkway
over the dune. Had he sunk so low that he conjured up his fantasies now?
    With the sun sliding behind the trees in the west, he
couldn’t make out the face, but he recognized the shape.
    Aurora.
    Her parents sure knew how to pick a name. Her hair caught
and mirrored the reddish glow of the sunset in the same way the aurora borealis
lit the winter sky.
    He mentally stripped her of her tailored jacket and
knee-length skirt, and redressed her in a flowered sarong and bikini top with
her hair flowing around her shoulders.
    “Mr. McCloud.” Arriving on his doorstep, she
managed to sound both curt and agitated at the same time.
    “Clay,” he corrected. “What can I do for
you, Miss Jenkins?”
    “Call me Rory,” she answered with an impatient
wave, before reaching into her shoulder bag.
    She wore no rings, he duly noted. He had a ring fixation these
days.
    “I’ve brought some proposed budget figures for
software development for your approval.” She pulled a file folder from
the bag. “They should adequately cover R & D and any equipment. I
need to talk with you.”
    He propped his shoulder against the porch post and crossed
his arms over his bare chest, blocking her progress. He didn’t do
business these days. And he definitely didn’t do MBAs. “So
talk.”
    Already disturbed by what she’d learned from Terry,
Rory didn’t have time for McCloud’s schoolboy tactics, even if all
that bronzed, muscled torso belonged on a wall poster. He wasn’t built
like a fireplug, like so many men who worked out. Instead he possessed the
lean, sleek lines and powerful sinews of a thoroughbred.
    She’d learned to curb her desires years ago. To make
herself heard in a male world, she’d learned how to handle ego.
    With mockery, she looked McCloud over as if he were a side
of beef. Instead of backing off, he countered her tactic by flexing his
muscles, and watched her with amusement.
    Heat rose to her cheeks, and she spoke sharply to cover her
blush. “There isn’t enough light out here to go over these figures,
Mr. McCloud. And I really don’t think what I have to say should be
broadcast to the neighbors.” Maybe she ought to rethink her reason for
being here. She was used to handling men in business suits, not half-naked
statues of male virility.
    Proving he wasn’t made of stone, he lifted an eyebrow
in a provocative leer. “Why, by all means, Miss Aurora. Let’s you
and me make ourselves comfortable in my office.”
    He gestured toward the screen door so she could enter first.
Not one to back away from a challenge, she brushed past him to step up on the
porch. Her skin reacted as if he’d stroked it when her shoulder grazed
his chest, and she was pleasantly aware that he topped her by almost a head.
Not many men could match her height, especially when she wore heels.
    The trash heap he called an office distracted her from her
physical response. Books filled the rattan sofa and chair. Papers covered the
worn wooden floor. Only the slatted rocker remained empty, largely because
everything he stacked on it had slid off and lay between its rockers.
    “Shall I get you a beer?”
    In classic bad-boy attitude, he invaded