In McGillivray's Bed (7 page)

“No! I said, no!” Her voice was agitated.

Hurriedly Hugh pawed through the stack of shirts, grabbed one, got a pair of shorts and boxers out of the drawer below, started to shut them, then pulled out clothes for her, as well. Then, without looking back, he left the room.

“No!” Her voice followed him. He yanked on his clothes, trying to ignore her. But Hugh had always been a sucker for damsels in distress. He raked a hand through his hair, cracked his knuckles and headed for the door. Belle met him there, cocking her head to look at him worriedly.

“Not our business,” Hugh told her firmly. It wasn't. And not their problem, either. “C'mon, Belle.”

From the bedroom he heard, “Stop it! No, I won't! I won't!”

And there was a loud bang.

“Oh, God! Now what?” He hurried back to the bedroom expecting to find her on the floor.

She wasn't. Instead she'd twisted around and punched the wall so hard there was a crumbling hole in the plaster.

“For crying out loud.” Hugh crossed the room as she rolled back over. Her eyes opened and she saw him looming next to the bed.

“Get away!” she shouted and took a roundhouse swing that caught him in the eye.

“Ow! Bloody hell!”

“Ohmigod!” She stared at him, dazed and astonished. Her breaths came in quick gasps as she rubbed her hand vaguely and finally seemed to realize where she was. Then her shoulders slumped, her eyelids shuttered.

“Oh,” she said, “it's you.”

“Yeah,” he said dryly. “It's me.” Carefully, tentatively, he touched his eye. And winced.

“Sorry,” she muttered, wincing, too. “I didn't mean…I was…dreaming.”

“Nothing personal, then?” Hugh said lightly, steeling himself against feeling sorry for her, against reaching out and hauling her into his arms as his instincts wanted to. Fortunately his sense of self-preservation was stronger.

Damn but she packed a wallop.

“Sorry,” she muttered again. “I thought you were…”

“Roland?”

She nodded, shaking, wrapping her arms across her chest, then rubbed her bruised knuckles against her lips and grimaced.

“You all right? Maybe you need a doctor.”

“I don't need a doctor.” Her eyes flashed. Her chin lifted. “I'm fine.”

“Right. Sure you are. You're probably having a delayed reaction. Shock.”

She started to deny it, then shrugged. She turned to look at the hole she'd put in the wall. “Did I do that?”

“Unless it was a snake,” Hugh said.

Her eyes snapped back to meet his, wide as dinner plates, then they looked wildly around the room.

“Kidding,” Hugh said.

Sydney shuddered. “Not funny.”

“Probably not.” But a whole lot safer than reaching for her and comforting her. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “You're tense. How about a little something to make you relax?”

“What?” She raised a brow. “You mean like a beer?”

“If you want,” he said offhandedly. “But I was thinking of something else. My aunt Esme swore by it. Used to give it to us all the time. Whenever we were twitchy.”

“Twitchy?”

“Upset. Couldn't sleep.”

“Oh. Your aunt Esme did that?” She looked at him suspiciously as if he were making her up.

He nodded. “My father's aunt, really. Esme had a cure for everything. She always knew best.” He shook his head ruefully at all his memories of bossy, domineering Aunt Esme. “I'll fix you some.” Anything to get out of standing there watching her breasts move beneath the cotton of her borrowed T-shirt. Hastily he headed for the kitchen.

Bare feet slapped on the floor following him. “What is it? What are you making?”

“Never mind. You can't watch. If you do, it won't work. Go back to bed. I'll bring it in.”

For a minute he thought she would refuse. She eyed him warily. “Why won't it work?”

“I don't know. That's what she always said. My dad said it was because she put eye of newt in it.”

“Eye of newt?” Syd looked appalled.

Hugh grinned. “My dad's a doctor. He thinks Esme's a quack.”

“And that's why you're fixing me her cure-all?”

“I'm fixing it so you can sleep. Go back to bed. No eye of newt,” he promised.

The corners of her mouth tipped up. Then she sighed and shrugged. “All right.” She gave another shudder. “I just hope it works.”

Hugh hoped she'd be asleep by the time he heated it and brought it in to her.

Of course she wasn't. When he returned she was back in bed with the small bedside lamp on. He handed her a mug. She sniffed it suspiciously.

“Smells like eye of newt.”

“Nope. It's lizard. Drink up.”

Sydney choked. She looked at him, aghast, then heaved a sigh. “You are so juvenile.” Gripping the mug, she brought it to her lips and took a cautious sip. “It's hot.” She touched her tongue to her lips. “It's just milk,” she decided, then tasted again. “And something else.”

“Lizard,” Hugh repeated. “And a few spiders.”

“Right. And snakes, I'm sure.”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “Aunt Esme was afraid of snakes.”

“I don't believe you even have an aunt Esme. You put rum in this,” she said accusingly.

He shrugged. “Figured you were old enough to drink.”

Sydney nodded and took another, deeper swallow, then settled back against the pillows. “It's good.” She smiled up at him. “Thank you.”

The smile had him stepping back away from the bed. He nodded quickly. “Glad you like it. Drink it all up, then shut out the light and go back to sleep. I'll see you tomorrow—well, today, really—afternoon.”

“Afternoon?”

“I'm gonna head over to the shop.”

“Now?” She stared at him.

He shrugged and swallowed a yawn. “Why not? Not getting any sleep here.” He arched his aching back. “Hammock's not all it's cracked up to be.”

She winced. “I'm sorry. When I angled to sleep in your bed, I didn't realize you were a working man who really needed your sleep.” She actually sounded slightly abashed. “I'll take the hammock.”

“Don't worry about it. I can catch a few winks on the couch in the office.” He turned to go.

“What about your eye?” she demanded. “You should have ice for your eye.”

“I don't need ice.”

“You'll have a black eye in the morning if you don't. I'll get you some.” And damned if she didn't start to get out of bed.

“The hell you will,” Hugh said, blocking her way. “I'll get my own ice,
if
I decide I need any.”

Their gazes locked, dueled. When he and Lachlan were little they'd had these pretend swords that lit up with sparks whenever they hit each other. Hugh felt like he was seeing
those same sparks now. He gave his head a fierce shake. And grimaced because his eye did hurt.

“I'll put some ice on it,” he muttered, “if you just shut up and go to bed.”

Once more she looked as if she might refuse, but then she tucked her feet back under the sheet and nodded. “All right.” She paused. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” he said with equal politeness. Their gazes met once more—and lingered. Finally Hugh dragged his away, turned and started out of the room.

“McGillivray?”

He stopped. “What?”

“I…I really am grateful. I'll fix the hole in the wall.”

He'd forgotten about the damn hole. “Don't worry about it.”

“I will. I—”

“Go to sleep, St. John,” he said firmly, and walked out, shutting the door behind him.

But when he got to the porch, he didn't feel as if he should leave. What if she had another nightmare? She'd hit the wall last time. What if Esme's potion didn't calm her down? What if she panicked? Got disoriented?

Hugh sat down on the porch swing. It was even less comfortable than the hammock. He went back into the house and sat on one of the kitchen chairs. No good, either. He made himself a bed on the pile of laundry in the corner on the floor. Not too bad. He rolled onto his side so he could see the bedroom light beneath the door.

Belle padded over and stuck her face down next to his and looked at him quizzically.

“Don't ask,” Hugh muttered.

Belle wandered back outside and settled onto her bed. From the bedroom he heard the bed creak. The light went off.

Hugh glanced at his watch—4:00. Swell. He shifted. He stretched. He sighed. He squirmed.

Sydney slept.

At least he assumed she did. He didn't. He was getting too damn old for floors. And his eye throbbed. He got some ice, put it in a plastic bag and held it against his face. That was what he was doing when the shouting started again.

“Damn it to hell!” Hugh tossed the ice bag into the sink and stalked into the bedroom.

Syd was thrashing on the bed, arms and legs churning.

“Wake up!” he shouted from across the room.

She sat up abruptly and stared at him, dazed. “What? Why are you yelling at me?”

“I'm not the one yelling, sweetheart. That was you.”

“Oh.” Her head sagged forward and she thrust her hands through her hair. “Oh, I'm sorry. I—”

“Move over.”

Her hands dropped. Her body straightened abruptly and she looked up at him. “What did you say?”

“You heard me.” He stalked across the room and flung himself onto the bed beside her.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was high-pitched.

“What do you think?”

Now she really did look stricken.

“Relax.” Hugh sighed, pushing her back onto the bed and flinging an arm across her to pin her there. “I'm not going to have my wicked way with you. I'm just going to try to convince your brain that Roland isn't here, so you can get some sleep.”

“But…you'll be here,” she pointed out.

“So what?”

“So maybe I won't be able to sleep then, either.”

“Maybe not,” Hugh said grimly. “But I hope to God I will.”

S
HE
didn't know if Hugh slept or not.

But despite her protestations to the contrary, Sydney fell asleep almost at once. For reasons she hesitated to examine too closely, the solid warmth of McGillivray's hard body next to hers, the possessive feel of his arm around her and the steady sound of his breathing so close that it might have been her own worked a magic she wouldn't have believed possible.

One minute she was astonished at his presumption—and the next she was sound asleep.

Best of all, it had been a dreamless sleep.

For the first time that night when she'd closed her eyes, Roland hadn't come back to haunt her. In fact, all the stresses of life at St. John Electronics had been blessedly absent. Even her father had stayed away.

When she finally opened her eyes, it was to find the sun already high in the sky. And even then it was the sound of youthful voices, laughing and talking as they passed the open window, that finally awakened her.

She heard them and the sound of the surf, she felt the lazy breeze of an overhead fan and not the hum of air conditioning and for a few seconds she couldn't imagine where she was.

And then it all came back. Paradise Island, the Butler buyout, the “bonding” yacht trip, Roland's wedding announcement, her surreptitious plunge overboard and desperate swim to reach the boat she'd spied in the distance.

McGillivray.

Her eyes flew open. She sat up to look around wildly. She was alone in the room. Alone in the bed.

Now.

But she hadn't spent the night alone. She remembered that, too. McGillivray had been there. McGillivray had slept with her.

Syd had never
slept
with a man before. Gone to bed with, yes. Twice. The more fool she. Neither had been exactly memorable.

No. Not true. She remembered them well enough. She just didn't want to.

They had both been unpleasant experiences, albeit for different reasons. The first time—an eager youthful fumbling that had seemed more awkward and painful than fulfilling—had made her determined to try again “with the right man.” But her second experience four years ago, when she'd actually thought she was in love with Nicholas and he'd been in love with her being the heir to St. John Electronics, had left her with no desire to try a third.

At least Roland had got into St. John's on his own merits, even if he did think subsequently that marrying her would be a good business decision for both of them.

Syd supposed she ought to be grateful for that.

Certainly there had been no zing or sizzle between them. She had never once envisioned—or desired—to experience lovemaking with Roland. And that had been fine with her. There would be time enough for that sort of thing when she had found the right man, married him and wanted to have children. Sex for its own sake seemed highly overrated.

Then.

Somehow McGillivray didn't inspire the same sublime disinterest.

And yet she had actually
slept
with him there.

Weird.

Sydney couldn't quite bend her mind around that. It probably had something to do with the rum and whatever
else he put in that concoction he'd made for her. But it wasn't the concoction that had made her sleep.

She swallowed, feeling a tingle of lingering awareness even now. It energized her, gave her purpose. It was the first day of the rest of her life—her
new
life.

She bounced out of bed and got to work.

McGillivray's house was actually quite wonderful once you got past the mess and the clutter. It wasn't palatial like the Long Island home she'd grown up in or the sumptuous penthouse her father kept in New York. Both of those were elegant and opulent and a tribute to her mother's decorating taste.

McGillivray's place was a tribute to the thrift shops and the hand-me-down school of interior decoration. But it was bright and breezy and the view of the nearly deserted beach and turquoise sea could not be surpassed.

Besides that, it felt homey, warm and welcoming. Syd had never lived in a place that felt homey and welcoming.

Sun streamed in as soon as she opened the wooden blinds. But even beyond the sunlight, there were colors everywhere—in the mismatched furniture—the lumpy futon with its bright-blue cover, the wicker rocker with its palm-tree-print cushion and the pillows scattered about. It was a room clearly designed for comfort and function with no thought at all given to style.

And that gave it a style all its own.

Syd liked the style. It was fresh and open and as brash as McGillivray himself. It would be even better if someone dealt with all the clutter.

So she did.

Straightening and sorting, making piles and making decisions about what stayed and what went energized her, focused her. He obviously hated doing it himself. So she would do it for him. She started in his spare room, making it hers, then moved quickly from one room to another, sorting and shelving and straightening. And while she did so, she did the same to her life, articulating her talents aloud
while she shelved his books, reminding herself of her accomplishments while she lined up all his various engine parts, enumerating her goals while she swept and scrubbed the floors, shook the rugs and dusted everything in sight.

And once she had blitzed her way through his house, making it tidy and presentable and remarkably
un
cluttered—if you ignored the pile of stuff she had no idea what to do with and had stacked neatly in the spare room and shut the door—she was ready to do the same for herself.

She took a quick shower, found the clean T-shirt and pair of shorts McGillivray had left her and, fortunately, a belt to hold them up with. Since McGillivray's amenities didn't run to hair dryers, she simply pulled her long dark hair back into a ponytail and wrapped a rubber band around it. She hadn't worn her hair in a ponytail since she was ten years old.

When she was eleven, her father had sent her to the Swiss convent school her mother had attended, to learn to be a lady.

“Ladies,” Sister Ermintrude, who was in charge of deportment, informed her, “do not look like horses.”

The ponytail had gone.

Now a woman she barely recognized stared back at Syd from the mirror.

The always professional, always perfect Margaret St. John—with her sophisticated demeanor, her skillfully applied makeup, neatly groomed hair and quietly elegant clothes—was gone.

The woman in the mirror looked like a different person altogether. Younger. Earthier. More elemental.

Sunburned, in fact, Syd thought, wrinkling her already-beginning-to-peel nose. And still freckled. For years she had treated them as blemishes. Now they defied her to try.

She cocked her head and considered herself. The woman in the mirror cocked her head right back. Syd smiled tentatively. So did the woman. It began as a cool professional
smile, but it didn't remain one. It widened, grew quirkier, turned into a grin.

The woman grinning back wasn't wholly unknown. In fact, Syd felt rather as if she had unexpectedly met an old friend. A girl she used to know—and like. A self she had buried under layers of polish and civility. The girl who had been Syd, not the woman who had become Margaret.

It seemed fitting somehow.

“Ready or not,” she told the mirror and the world at large, “here I come.”

There were a few people on the beach—sunbathing and swimming and a few batting a volleyball around—but it was nearly empty compared to the beach by the hotel where she and Roland had stayed. It was prettier, though. The sand was almost pink and very powdery between her toes as she walked out onto the beach to get a look around.

Last night's perception of the lay of the land turned out to be reasonably accurate. McGillivray's low-slung, yellow, wood frame cottage sat on the crest of a low dune overlooking the beach. There were other houses dotted along the same ridge, masked by the same line of palms and other foliage that shaded McGillivray's. And quite a way down the beach there seemed to be a larger building, an inn, she guessed, because outside it a game of volleyball was going on, and several people sat beneath beach umbrellas, and a few more were paddling about in the water. But between where she stood and the inn, she could count no more than a dozen other sunbathers and swimmers.

Paradise, she thought. Unspoiled. Gorgeous. It invited her to bask in its unhurried charm.

But she couldn't. Not yet. She had work to do. Clothes to buy. A job to find. A future to discover.

McGillivray had left money and a note on the table. She tucked it into the pocket of her shorts and, wearing a pair of his too-large-for-her flip-flops, set off down the potholed road toward where she hoped to find the town.

The further she got from the ocean, the less breeze there
was and the hotter Syd became. McGillivray's T-shirt stuck to her back. She could feel a line of perspiration trickling down between her breasts. It was a relief when the narrow road through the foliage opened out onto a large well-groomed field with soccer goals at either end. Beside it was a large Quonset hut and a new frame building, and right next to the road, overlooking both, loomed a sculpture of the most amazing collection of junk Syd had ever seen.

It rose at least twelve feet in the air, and it was made of everything from railroad ties and driftwood spars to plastic sunscreen bottles and beer kegs. Sea glass and aluminum foil alike hung from fishing line and glittered and swayed. In its outstretched arm, it held a Junkanoo T-shirt. A pair of gigantic sunglasses were settled on a soda bottle nose, and a battered visor that looked more like a crown with its woven straw points, shielded the sculpture's “face” from the sun.

Syd stared up at it, astonished and laughing at the same time. It looked like where all McGillivray's clutter went to die.

“First time you've met him?” an amused voice asked.

Syd turned. A woman about her own age was wiping her face on a bandanna as she came toward Syd from the Quonset hut.

“Yes. He's amazing.”

“He is. We call him the
King of the Beach.
My sister-in-law made him.
Makes
him,” the woman corrected herself. “He's a work in progress. Like all men.” She grinned.

Syd grinned back. “He's better than most.”

“Oh, yeah.” The woman stuffed the bandanna in the pocket of her shorts. They were men's like the ones Syd was wearing, and peeked out below an oversize orange T-shirt that, had it not been faded almost to gold, would have clashed furiously with a riot of carroty curls. The curls, Syd suspected, were natural, and exactly the sort that hundreds of women would have spent hours in a salon to
accomplish. This woman had them tucked beneath a grease-streaked purple sweatband, which was entirely functional.

“You must be Hugh's friend,” the woman said.

Syd blinked. “Um, well, yes. But how did you—”

A grin flashed. The woman wiped a slightly greasy hand on the side of her shorts, then stuck it out. “He told me. I'm Molly.”

“Molly?”

“McGillivray. His sister,” Molly clarified cheerfully. “For my sins. When he left this morning, he said he had a friend staying with him. He said I was supposed to ‘stay away from his place so his friend could have peace and quiet.'” Molly's tongue traced a circle inside her cheek, and Syd could see her lips twitch as she tried not to grin. “I wonder why.”

Syd wasn't sure what to reply to that. “I had a hard day yesterday,” she said finally.

Molly laughed and raised her brows. “Thanks to Hugh?”

“Not exactly.” But she could hardly explain what had happened.

Molly didn't seem to care, anyway. “What a dark horse!” she said cheerfully. “He never said a word. But I'm so glad!”

“Glad?”

“That he's moved on.”

Syd didn't have a clue what Hugh's sister was talking about. She was also fairly sure she couldn't say that. So she settled for saying, “I don't think he mentioned you, either, I'm afraid.”

Molly shrugged. “Most guys don't talk a lot about their sisters. Did you give him the black eye?”

Syd felt color rise in her cheeks. “Accidentally,” she admitted. “I bumped into him.”

Molly nodded knowingly. “Right. I won't ask. You don't have to tell. So, are you going to marry him?”

“What?”

Molly laughed. “There are some things I do ask. I'm blunt. Everybody says so. That McGillivray girl has no tact, they say.” She shrugged, her eyes twinkling. “And it's true. But who cares? He's my brother. I love him, and I want the best for him. You seem to know how to deal with him.”

Syd shook her head, still reeling. “I don't think I know anything of the sort.”

Molly shrugged. “Well, you made a good start. He's very careful of you. Protects you and all that. So what about it? Are you?”

Clearly Hugh's sister wasn't going to be put off.

“We're discussing it,” Syd said enigmatically. Well, they had discussed marriage, though not exactly with the results that Molly clearly hoped for!

But apparently her words satisfied. “Good enough for me,” Molly said. “At least you didn't say you were ‘just friends.' That's lame.”

Having been tempted to do just that, Syd was glad she'd restrained herself. “But sometimes people are just friends,” she pointed out.

“Of course. But you're not. You've got to be pretty special or Hugh wouldn't have invited you to live with him.”

“I'm not exactly
living
with him. I'm staying with him for a while.”

“It's a start. Hugh's never asked a woman to live with him before. It means he's getting past Carin.”

Carin? “Who's Carin?”

Molly clapped her hand over her mouth. “See? No tact at all. I shouldn't have said anything.” She hesitated. “Oh, hell. You should know…” Molly sucked in a breath and then blurted, “Carin Campbell. She's an artist. A really good artist. Heaps of talent. She has shows in Miami and New York and Santa Fe. But she lives here on Pelican Cay. She owns Carin's Cottage, a gallery and gift shop just down the road.” She jerked her head in the direction of the town.