Carolina Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

her space by leaning
a little too close. She could feel his breath blowing the loose tendrils on her
nape, smell the beer he’d been drinking, and wanted to turn around and
shove him away for the principle of it. But touching this man would mean
physical confrontation, and she didn’t think she could handle that. Not
when all her hormones begged for it.
    She swung around, nearly clipping his nose with the folder.
“No, thank you. Is that the Mac with the new processor?” Crossing
the room, she hit the space bar, and a warrior leaped out of bloodred shrubbery
to scream pun-laden epithets at the player.
    “I trust you’re paid well to play games,
McCloud.” Glancing down, she discovered the printouts beside the monitor
and lifted a stack. “This is programming language. Are you developing the
park program yourself?”
    Grabbing the papers from her, Clay crossed his arms and
stashed the stack in his armpit. “What can I do for you?” He
changed his sexy leer to an irritated male glare and adopted an intimidating
stance.
    Which Rory ignored. She had more immediate problems than
this Macho Man, and she clung to the hope that those printouts proved he
actually had brains behind the attitude.
    Much as she hated to admit it, she needed his expertise.
“Would you stop acting like a jackass and listen? How close are you to
finding the Bingham heirs?”
    Clay studied her stonily. “I’m generating names
first. Then I’ll have to hunt down and verify addresses. Why?”
    Without asking permission, his uninvited guest removed books
from the sofa and took a seat. “Would you put a shirt on, please? We need
to talk.”
    “You keep telling me that.” Clay resisted the
impulse to strut for her benefit and grabbed a Rams T-shirt. It had ketchup on
one ram horn, but it didn’t stink. Of course, he’d shrunk the shirt
trying to do his own laundry, so he might as well have just painted his chest
black for all the good wearing it did.
    Her pained expression showed she’d noticed. Feeling
decidedly better about that, Clay located his nearly empty beer bottle,
finished it off, then took a seat in the rocker, dangling the empty in his
fingers. “If you’re not after my body, what exactly are you
after?”
    “Your head, probably, if you don’t quit telling
tales in the bar.” She didn’t look ticked, just disturbed as she
opened her file and laid it out for him. He suspected her insults might be her
first line of defense against jerks like him.
    Clay propped his sandals on an assortment of computer
magazines on the driftwood coffee table rather than read the file.
“Tales?”
    “About the state’s intention for the Bingham
property. We need that park, McCloud,” she said with an intensity
that illuminated the violet of her eyes. “Our unemployment rate is among
the highest in the country. The park will preserve the fragile ecology while
providing jobs. Small-business development along the roadway is essential. Free
fishing doesn’t factor into the process.”
    “Never does, does it?” he asked noncommittally.
    “I don’t want the locals up in arms and stopping
progress,” she said with firmness.
    Clay figured she was wound up enough to kick him if he asked
how this concerned him. She wore sturdy pumps and probably packed a wallop in
those lovely long legs. He waited silently, since she seemed intent on doing
all the talking anyway. He enjoyed watching the animated way the Viking
princess gestured with her hands as she built up steam. Could he add that to
the gaming script?
    “What concerns me is how the state will use those
names you’re providing them,” she finally admitted, as if unwilling
to impart dangerous information until she’d gauged her degree of control
over it.
    Clay waited her out.
    Apparently winning some internal battle, she continued:
“I just verified that once the state locates a few Binghams willing to
sell, their attorneys can force an auction of the entire swamp rather than
buying just the