his dog hadn’t nudged her way between them. Obviously a peacemaker. The dog—a border collie, Syd thought—grinned at her, looking much more reputable and a good deal friendlier than the fisherman.
Venturing a hand out to scratch the dog’s ears, Syd asked, “What’s her name?”
For a minute she didn’t think he was going to tell her. He pressed his lips together, then shrugged. “Belle.”
The dog wagged her tail at the sound of her name.
“Hello, Belle,” Syd crooned, rubbing the soft ears and getting rewarded with a lick of her hands. “You’re beautiful. I’m Syd.”
“Sid?” Belle’s owner echoed in disbelief.
“Syd with a Y. Sydney.” She hesitated, too, then told him her full name, “Margaret Sydney St. John,” and waited for the jolt of recognition.
He looked at her with no recognition at all. No awareness that he was talking to the woman whose father had invented one of the most important telecommunications networks in the world, a woman whose name had been all over the Bahamian papers in recent days as she and Roland Carruthers had been negotiating a buyout of a high-profile Bahamian firm. No clue that, according to people in the know, he was talking to one of the most eligible women in America.
He just looked blank, then reluctantly stuck out a fishy-smelling hand and said, “Hugh McGillivray.”
McGillivray. It figured.
He had that raw Scottish warrior look to him. Syd could imagine him with his face painted blue. She wondered how he’d look in a kilt and was surprised at the direction of her thoughts.
Abruptly she jerked them back to the moment and, reluctantly, took his offered hand. It was every bit as unnerving as she’d imagined it would be.
Used to shaking the soft hands of boardroom execs, she felt the difference immediately. Hugh McGillivray’s palm was hard and rough. There was a ragged bloody scratch on the back of his hand.
“Shark bite?” she asked.
His gaze narrowed. A corner of his mouth twitched. But then he shook his head solemnly. “Barracuda.”
She jerked and blinked in surprise, then swallowed hastily. “Really?”
Hugh McGillivray gave her an unholy grin. “Gotcha.”
HE DIDN’T believe a word of it.
Nobody jumped overboard to avoid getting married. It was preposterous. Ridiculous. Out of the question.
But it was her story and she’d stuck to it. Or at least she had so far.
Crazy woman.
Hugh shot her a glance 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