think it.”
But obviously she was. “I wouldn’t hurt anything. I’d clean up after myself.” She looked around the boat. “After you,” she amended, wrinkling her nose. “This boat could use a good scrubbing.”
“It’s a boat, for God’s sake, not a floor,” he protested. They bumped against the rubber-tire-edged dock.
“Even so, a little soap and water wouldn’t hurt it,” she informed him primly.
“No.” He grabbed the stern line and wrapped it around the cleat on the dock, then jumped out to do the same with the bow.
The crazy woman followed him, letting Belle out of the quilt and giving Hugh tantalizing glimpses of bare flesh. “Don’t be so negative, McGillivray,” she bargained. “Just one night. Or two. I’ll scrub the decks for you. Slap on some paint. I like being useful.”
“No. You’d give the fishermen heart attacks.” He jumped back into the boat and brushed past her, reaching for the cooler.
“I could stay hidden until they left.”
“No.”
“Then how about if I stay with you?”
“Me?” Hugh blanched and jerked around to glare at her. “You don’t want to stay with me.”
“I certainly don’t,” she agreed readily. “But I need somewhere that Roland won’t find me.”
“Not my place. I live in a shack.”
Which wasn’t quite true. His place was small, granted, but it wasn’t falling down. It overlooked the beach on the windward side of the island. It was old and comfortable. Perfect for him—and far too small for entertaining the likes of Sydney St. John.
“A shack, huh? Why am I not surprised?” she murmured.
He rose to the bait. “By your standards,” he clarified, “it would be a shack. By mine it’s just right.”
“I’m sure it is. And for me it will be, too—for a short time. Just until I get my head together, McGillivray. Just until I figure out a plan of action. And give Roland pause for thought. I won’t be any trouble,” she promised.
And if he believed that, next thing you knew she’d be selling him a bridge from Nassau to Miami.
“There is no room,” Hugh said firmly. “It’s just a little beach house. Not your style.”
“How do you know my style?”
“I know women.”
“Oh, really?”
The doubt that dripped from her words infuriated him. He did know women. They’d been coming on to him since he was fourteen years old. And generally speaking they liked what they saw. It was only Sydney St. John who looked at him as if she’d found him on the sole of her shoe.
“Like I said,” he told her gruffly, “I’m not your style.”
“I can stand anything for a few days,” she informed him.
“Well, I can’t. And there is nothing you can say that will—” He broke off at the sound of a shrill, happy voice calling his name from the end of the quay. He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes. “Damn it to hell.”
Sydney St. John looked at him, startled. “What?”
“Nothing.” He finished tossing the last of the gear onto the dock, grabbed his bag with one hand and took Syd’s arm none too gently with the other. Then he turned toward the woman approaching them and managed a casual and determinedly indifferent, “Hey, there, Lisa. How you doing?”
Lisa flashed him her beautiful, dimpled smile even as she looked curiously at the woman he held firmly at his side. “I’m all right,” she said, her voice a little hesitant for once. “But I was a little lonely. I thought you’d get back sooner than this.”
“I told you I had, um…business,” Hugh said vaguely.
“Business?” The smile wavered as Lisa looked at Syd. “Of course,” she said, slotting Syd into that role. “I didn’t realize you were bringing a client back with you.” She gave Syd a polite smile, then turned back to Hugh. “I made conch chowder this evening. I figured I’d bring it over when you got back.”
He shook his head. “Thanks, Lisa. I appreciate the thought. But we’re fine.”
Lisa’s smile faltered as he had hoped it would. “We?” Perplexed, she looked from Hugh to the woman standing beside him, the woman whose wrist he had a death grip on.
“We,” Hugh confirmed. He let go of her wrist long enough to loop an arm over her shoulders. “This is Syd—” he began, but Sydney cut him off before he got to her last name.
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” she said smoothly and offered Lisa a hand.
Lisa looked at it warily, but finally shook it, giving the quilt—and the bits of bare Sydney she could see—an assessing look. “You, too, um, Syd,” she said doubtfully even as she managed to paste the smile back on. “I’m Lisa. Are you staying at the Mirabelle? Or the Moonstone?”
“No,” Hugh said before Sydney St. John could say anything at all. “She’s staying with me.”
If she was astonished at his sudden about-face, at least Syd didn’t say a word. It was what she wanted, after all. She’d practically begged him to let her stay with him, hadn’t she?
So he was doing them both a favor.
Roland Wheeler Dealer would get a few days of worrying about whether he’d drowned the boss’s daughter, and Hugh would have a beautiful sexy woman living in his house.
If that didn’t convince Lisa once and for all that he was not interested in her, he didn’t know what would.
Yes, of course Sydney St. John was a little bit whacko and more than a little bit gorgeous. And yes, all his hormones had sat up and taken note.
So what? He could handle it.
It was one night. Maybe two. At the most, three.
How bad could it possibly be?
CHAPTER TWO
“DON’T go using me to make your girlfriend jealous!” Syd protested as McGillivray, his arm still wrapping her shoulders like a vise, hustled her down the dock toward the quay. Over her shoulder she could see Lisa staring after them, lower lip trembling.
“She’s not my girlfriend!”
“Then why is she cooking you conch chowder and meeting your boat?”
“Because she wants to be my girlfriend,” McGillivray said through gritted teeth, sounding beleaguered as he dragged her along.
She clutched at the quilt, nearly tripping, as she hurried to keep up. “Really? Your girlfriend? Why? She looks far too sensible to me!”
“I wish,” McGillivray muttered. “And God knows why,” he added. “I sure don’t.”
They reached a rusty, topless Jeep parked at the foot of the dock, and he tossed his gear into the back, then jerked open the door for her. “Come on. Get in. We don’t have all day.”
“Oh?” It was interesting to see how the girl, Lisa, had spooked McGillivray. He didn’t look the sort to be afraid of women. Tucking the quilt up, Syd climbed into the Jeep. “What’s the problem, then? Does she want to save you from yourself?”
He barely let her get her feet in before he banged the door shut behind her. “That’s what my sister says.” He gave a short sharp whistle and slapped the wheel. “Come on, Belle! Move it.”
Belle took a leap and landed in the back, on top of McGillivray’s bag, some pots and pans, a few unidentified