now as he slowed the boat and headed it into Pelican Cay’s small harbor. Once she’d told him her amazing tale, he’d revved the engine and headed for the island, full speed ahead. Still, it had taken close to half an hour to get there, and the sun had gone down completely now.
In the darkness reflections streamed across the water from the row of street lamps along the quay and from the houses that fronted the harbor. The small houses that climbed the low hill of Pelican Town looked almost like dolls’ houses, tidy and laid-back and welcoming all at once.
Home. Hugh smiled as he always did at the sight, though he doubted it would impress Miss Margaret Sydney St. John. Why ever she did or didn’t jump off the boat, she’d clearly been on it. And that—and the way she looked down her lovely nose at him—told him that she was from a higher rung on the social ladder than him and most of the people who lived in Pelican Town or who made their living on the fishing boats bobbing in the harbor tonight.
Folks like them didn’t name their girls Sydney for one thing. Hugh snorted, thinking about it. Hell of a stupid name for a girl. He supposed her old man had been counting on a son.
Probably she was a “junior,” he thought with a wry grin. From what she’d said he gathered that her old man was married to his company and thought his daughter was merely an extension of it.
Not that she’d been complaining. God, no.
She had actually defended the old man and St. John Electronics fervently when he’d asked her why the hell she would care if she embarrassed its CEO by telling him hell no she wasn’t going to marry him.
“I couldn’t do that!” she’d protested. “It would have made the company look bad if Roland and I were at odds. Besides, it would upset my father.”
“You don’t think maybe hearing his daughter had been eaten by a shark would have upset him?” Hugh had demanded.
He was almost sorry he’d been so blunt when she’d gone white in the moonlight. It was, he realized, the first time she really seemed to consider the concrete implications of what she’d done.
But even then she’d given herself a little shake.
“I wasn’t eaten,” she’d reminded him almost defiantly.
But her tone didn’t sound quite as firm as it had. And she’d clutched the quilt around her even more tightly and determinedly looked away.
Hugh had left her to it. He’d kicked up the speed and focused on the island, only glancing her way occasionally and scowling as she looped an arm companionably over Belle and drew his dog inside the quilt with her.
Belle was still there now, snuggled in. Hugh shut his eyes and tried not to think about it.
He was having way too strong a reaction to Margaret Sydney St. John. It disconcerted him. The only woman who’d inspired anything like it had been Carin—for all the good that had done him. He had no interest in having reactions like that ever again—and certainly not about a crazy woman!
It wasn’t really her per se, he assured himself, gorgeous though she was. It was just the lack of any other woman in his life. In his bed.
Plagued as he had been every waking moment this summer by the determined attentions of the sweet marriageable Lisa, he’d found other women tended to give him a wide berth.
“You have a girlfriend,” they always explained when they turned him down for dates.
“She’s not my girlfriend!” Hugh had claimed over and over.
But the protest fell on deaf ears. And on Lisa’s ears. And Lisa ignored them.
“Well, if I’m not your girlfriend, who is?” Lisa had asked confidently.
“I don’t have a girlfriend!” he’d protested.
Too much.
Women! Hugh despaired of them. They were all crazy as loons.
At least this one—Miss Margaret Sydney St. John—would be out of his life damn quick.
As soon as he got her to shore, he’d take her to the Moonstone, his brother Lachlan’s inn, where she could spend the night. From there she could call Daddy. In the morning her old man could come rescue her, and she’d be gone within the day.
Hugh would never see her again and that would be fine with him.
He was still a little nettled that she hadn’t been a big fish.
She’d jerked his line exactly like a big fish, he thought irritably. Lachlan was going to laugh his head off when he heard that Hugh had caught a woman.
Behind him the woman he’d caught drew in a sharp breath. He looked around. “What’s the matter now?” he asked gruffly.
“Nothing’s the matter. It’s—” she waved her hand toward the harbor and the town “—so beautiful. That’s all. It’s like paradise.” She beamed at him.
Hugh knew what she meant. He felt exactly the same way. But he scowled because he didn’t like the way her approval and her smile had slipped under his defenses. He rubbed a hand against the back of his neck.
“I like it,” he admitted. He spent a moment savoring it again before he continued, “But it’s not exactly ritzy. There are a few inns and resorts on the windward side of the island. One pretty posh one on the north end. The Mirabelle. My brother owns it. I’ll take you there for the night.”
“No!” Her rejection was a yelp.
Hugh frowned. “What do you mean, no?”
“Sorry. I just mean, I don’t want to go there.”
“You’ve never even seen it! It’s beautiful. A class place. Maybe not five-star like I’m sure you’re accustomed to…” he drawled, irritated now.
“I don’t care how many stars it does or doesn’t have. I don’t want to go to an inn or a resort. I want to be…incognito.”
His mouth quirked. “Incognito, huh?” He doubted if Sydney St. John had ever said the word incognito before, much less applied it to herself. Even in her current padded-blanket guise with salt-encrusted hair clumped and straggly, she was a shockingly beautiful—and memorable—woman.
“Yeah,” he said, looking her slowly up and down. “I can see you being incognito. Sure. Right.”
She tossed her head. “I can be. I need to be!” she said fiercely. “I have to think about what to do, how to handle things.”
“You could already have handled things,” Hugh felt obliged to point out, “if you’d just said no in the first place.”
She gave him an impatient look. “I already told you, I couldn’t. It would have messed up everything.”
He couldn’t see that, but obviously he wasn’t as crazy as she was. Nor was he a woman. He figured you’d have to be one or the other to have it make sense to you. “Well, fine. Whatever. Then there’s the Moonstone. It’s pretty cool. An old Victorian place.”
“No inns.”
He rolled his eyes. “Then stay at a B&B. We’ve got at least half a dozen of those.”
“Too public. He’d check.”
“So what are you planning to do? Sleep on the beach?” he asked sarcastically.
She missed the sarcasm. “I’d be far too noticeable if I did that.” She cast about and spied the sleeping bag beneath the bow. “I’ll sleep here,” she said brightly.
“The hell you will!”
He could just see that—the fishermen of Pelican Cay grumbling and bumbling their way down to their boats in the morning and getting an eyeful of Sydney St. John crawling out of his sleeping bag.
She’d shock the socks