a variety of dun, which is a coat color of horses. Grulla is a Spanish word for crane and grullo means gray horse. Rowan says horse people use grulla for a mare and grullo for a stallion.”
“That’s interesting. They’re lovely.” She held out her hand. “Will they come to me?”
He reached into his pocket and brought out some sugar cubes. “Try this.”
She took the cubes and held out her hand palm up. “Do you always carry treats in your pocket?”
“Only when I’m trying to earn points with the ladies.”
“I see.” She shook her head and smiled as the horses came to her slowly. “I don’t think you need sugar cubes to attract a woman.”
“I didn’t exactly have a lot of luck with you.”
“You had more luck than you realized.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond before she returned to the topic of the horses. “These were rescues?”
“Yes They are both racetrack rejects, saved from the glue factory.”
“Wow. I can’t believe that. How horrible.” She smiled when she felt Sun’s velvet nose tickle her palm as he accepted the sugar. “Give me more, they’re still hungry.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He pulled out three more cubes for Moon.
Once the sweet tooths of the horses were pacified, Clint touched her shoulder. “Come on. One more stop.”
“Okay. It can’t be any better than the horses.”
“We’ll see.”
Together they moved across the yard. He pointed out a few things along the way. “The log cabin is a rustic little guest house. The large metal building is my gym and behind it is an Olympic size pool, a hot tub, and a sauna.”
“Wow. You’ve got your own resort here, Wilder.” Jensen hugged herself as they walked. The breeze was a little cool but not unbearable. She wished they’d just get the serious talk over with. The suspense was nearly killing her.
“Over here.”
Jensen slowed her steps as he did. They were on a path toward a small log cabin and several other outbuildings. “This property is extraordinary.” She noticed something in the distance. “Is that the old schoolhouse you told me about?”
“It is.” The white clapboard building glowed eerily in the moonlight. “I ride over there sometimes at night. Once, the door was open and I went in. I sat down, closed my eyes, and I swear I could almost hear voices of the little children who used those old-fashioned desks.”
“You’re a little on the spooky side, Clint.”
This amused him. “No, not really. Not like Beau. He and Harley have a resident ghost in their old plantation house.” He pointed toward his workshop. “Let me show you something.”
“All right.” She followed him up to the door.
Leading her inside, he flipped on the light. “I’ve been working on this off and on since college. This is my fifth prototype and the most successful one, I might add.” Moving to the center of the room, he stood next to something that stood as tall as Jensen and was covered with a sheet of plastic.
“This is what you wrote about in your book.” Her voice was full of wonder.
“Yes, this is my own invention, a compact wind turbine.” He pulled off the plastic. “Strong enough to withstand the winds of a Category 5 hurricane.”
“This doesn’t look like any wind turbine I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s not. The material it’s made of is stronger, the components are made of a thicker type of steel, and instead of vulnerable exposed blades, the design is a unique egg-beater style, with vertical blades sandwiched between these upper and lower platforms.”
“Wow. How would this be used?” She reached out to touch the turbine, running her fingers over the smooth steel.
“My idea is to create wind farms off the coast of vulnerable cities. They would not only offer a round-the-clock electric generating system that could withstand a hurricane strike, but they could also utilize the power of the storm itself. More importantly, the turbines would disrupt the hurricane enough to reduce peak wind speeds by a 100 mph and decrease the storm surge by up to 80 percent.”
“That sounds amazing. Too good to be true, frankly.”
“There’s a Japanese firm interested in the design. We’re working on an idea for floating foundations for the turbines. If that concept works, the turbines could be portable and be moved to the best point to intercept the storm.”
“How did you come up with this?”
Clint shrugged. “I took engineering courses and I’ve always loved to tinker with machinery.”
“This is way beyond tinkering.” She gave him a hard look. “Why are you wasting your talent