Sex in a Sidecar by Phyllis Smallman Page B

development that finally brought them to their knees and took away their land. The cancer of expansion spread inland and ate into their holdings, taxing and zoning them out of business.
    And so they’d sold out, but Clay’s family didn’t get real wealthy. Oh no, they just moved farther inland and started again with a smaller spread while the developers and their agents got rich. Seeing the developers make millions off a golf course or a gated community plus strip malls and plazas where his family’s long-horned cattle had grazed inspired Clay never to come out on the short end of a deal again and after college he’d set out to win at this new game. The very grit that made his family hang on beyond endurance made him rich.
    I met Clay at the Sunset soon after I’d started there, at the height of the Jimmy wars, when I was at the depths of my battered soul. He started coming in every night ’bout four for a couple of hours. I liked his black eyes watching me. He never made a pass or said a thing to tell me he was interested, he just watched.
    Clay, Peter and Brian, the three guys who came in every night and shared jokes, troubles and just plain living with me, became part of a running commentary on life that lasted hours, and then days, before it grew into years. We knew pretty much everything a bout one another, or thought we did, and I’d come to count on these guys for a reality check. But mostly it was Clay I waited for every day. When Jimmy took away my sense of self, Clay gave it back to me, and slowly my feelings for him changed.
    I told myself he wasn’t my type. Judging by Jimmy Travis, my type was drunked up, drugged out and totally beyond control, while Clay was all about control and taking care of business. Where’s the fun in that? Definitely not my kind but Mr. Cool turned out to be Mr. Hot as Hell and I couldn’t get enough of him. Who knew? When ice melts it can be a whole lot of fun.
    But I often wondered if we really had anything in common besides sex. While the honest part of my brain always yelled, “Who the shit cares?” the sensible part said there had to be more if we we re going to have a future together. Oh, where’s the fun in sensible? And since when did I start doing sensible?
    â€œLet’s go north for a little holiday,” Clay suggested.
    I lay in his arms, stroking his lovely smooth skin in the rose glow of the neon light through the thin curtains. “I haven’t any clothes.” I settled on his shoulder.
    â€œWe can stop in Tampa and pick some up.” His left hand came up to stroke my hair back from my forehead. “Buy some suitcases and just fill them up with whatever pleases you. Shop ’til we drop. It’ll be fun. We’ve never gone on holiday together.” He pressed his lips into my hair.
    I pulled away from him. “How can you think of a holiday before we know everything is okay in Jac?”
    His jaw hardened. “Fine, we don’t need to go on holiday. Let’s just go out to the ranch.”
    It sounded like just one more attempt to get me out of Jacaranda. He’d been suggesting for months that we move up to Sarasota or out to Independence and his five-hundred-acre ranch. I wasn’t sure if he just wanted to get me away from my past and my friends or hide me away where his friends couldn’t see me because he was ashamed of me. He wanted us to be anywhere but Jacaranda but it just wasn’t for me. There was nothing that could induce me to leave my island.
    Come morning, Clay and I started back in fighting big-time. “Let’s just go home,” I said at one point, thinking I was changing the subject and smoothing things out. “I want to talk to Styles about Gina and I want to go see the Sunset, make sure it’s okay.”
    â€œAnd what about our place, don’t you care if it’s been wiped out?”

Chapter 28
    This took our fight onto a whole new