In McGillivray's Bed Page 5

Hugh averted his gaze. “Rule number one,” he said.

  She looked up, fork halfway to her mouth, which was shaped like an O. She blinked. “Rule what?”

  He set his jaw. “We need some ground rules. So you don’t get any mistaken ideas.”

  “So I don’t…” Her voice trailed off. She put the forkful of potato salad in her mouth, closed it again, then began to chew slowly as if she were chewing over his words as well as the food. All the while her very blue eyes never left his. He felt his blood pressure going up.

  At last she swallowed. “Right,” she said finally. “Ground rules.” She set down her fork and folded her hands in her lap. “By all means.”

  There was something in her voice—sarcasm?—that made him narrow his gaze. She smiled at him.

  He scowled at her. “I don’t want you getting any ideas.”

  “Ideas?” By God, she looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “About what?”

  “About us,” he bit out.

  “Us?” Her eyes grew like saucers.

  “Yes, us. You and me.” He spelled it out. “On account of what happened before. In there.” He jerked his head toward the bathroom.

  Her brows lifted fractionally. “Oh. I see. When you demonstrated your heterosexuality, you mean?”

  Her expression was perfectly bland, but Hugh knew when someone was having a go at him. His jaw clenched. He had to force himself to unlock it. “Call it whatever you want. The point is, don’t get the idea that I’m interested, because I’m not!”

  She smiled. “Could’ve fooled me,” she said brightly, then picked up her fork again and took a big bite.

  Hugh strangled his own fork to keep from strangling her neck. “I didn’t agree to let you stay here to keep Lisa away only to have you thinking along the same lines!” he informed her flatly.

  Sydney St. John’s eyes bugged. “That’s the idea you don’t want me getting? You think I want to marry you? My God, I didn’t even want to marry Roland, and he at least had a job to recommend him.”

  Now it was Hugh’s turn to blink. She didn’t think he had a job? Well, fine. Let her think what she wanted. “Right,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to distract you from your headlong dash toward spinsterhood.”

  She sputtered into her coffee, then visibly pulled herself together and informed him haughtily, “Spinsterhood has a great deal to recommend it. More and more every minute,” she told him, breasts heaving beneath the soft cotton of the T-shirt she wore.

  Hugh cleared his throat again. “Glad to hear you think so,” he said. “But just to make sure you remember it,” he went on, refusing to be distracted, “I think a few rules would make things easier during the short time you’re here.” He came down hard on the word short.

  Sydney shrugged negligently. “Frankly I’m pretty sick of rules,” she told him. “I’ve followed the rules all my life, and look where it’s got me.”

  He didn’t want to look at where it had got her. He just wanted her gone. “Rule number one,” he persisted. “You get your own clothes tomorrow.”

  The sooner she stopped wearing his, the saner and more sensible he would feel.

  “If someone will extend me some credit,” she said. “I don’t want to give out my credit card number for a few days, or Roland will be able to find out where I am.”

  “I’ll lend you some cash,” Hugh promised. “Rule number two—”

  “You don’t look like a man who likes rules.”

  “I don’t,” Hugh said before he thought.

  “Then why do we need them?” Syd asked.

  Because I’d like to jump your bones, didn’t seem like the best response. “I thought it would make you more comfortable,” he said somewhat stiffly.

  “Well, I’m not,” she said, and set down her coffee with a thump. “I’m finished with rules. I’ve made up my mind. I’m done with doing what I’m supposed to do.” The Captain Ahab chin tilted again.

  Seeing it actually made a corner of Hugh’s mouth lift. She had guts, did Syd St. John, he’d give her that.

  “Good for you,” he said, nodding and thinking Roland Carruthers deserved a little payback.

  Syd beamed at him. “You think so? Great!” She leaned intently toward him across the table, her blue eyes alight. “I thought about it all the time I was taking a shower—about how I’d got into this mess. I thought about what happened tonight on the yacht and everything that led up to it. I thought about Roland and about my father. About his expectations—and mine. About where I’ve been and where I’m going.” She straightened up and gave a firm little jerk of her head. “And I’ve decided it’s going to be different from here on out. Completely different.”

  Hugh saw the way she was looking at him for approval, and nodded his head “Right. You show ’em.”

  “I will! I’ve spent twenty-seven years living by rules. My father’s rules. My father’s expectations. My fault, not his,” she said quickly. “I know that. But the point is, following them didn’t do any good. I tried to be the sweet malleable daughter he wanted, and I tried to be the takeover-the-business son he never had. And I was just a cog in the machine. I was never a person who mattered. So I’m done with it! From now on, I’m going to be me.”

  Hugh gave her a grin and a thumbs-up. “Good for you.”

  “First, though, I have to figure out who me is.” She beamed at him.

  “Good idea.” He understood the concept. He’d discovered it himself when he’d come up against the Navy’s rules and regs. There were things he’d loved about the Navy, but in the end, it wasn’t him. “So, what are you going to do?” he asked her.

  “I’m going to live a little!”

  The way she said it, it didn’t sound like a little. It sounded as if she intended to live a whole hell of a lot.

  Hugh tipped back in his chair. “Which means what? Besides your not wanting any rules?”

  “It means I’m going to stop putting St. John Electronics first. I’m going to stop trying to be the son my father never had. I’m going to stop doing what’s expected of me and do what I want to do!” She paused, then plunged on. “First thing tomorrow, I’m going to get a job.”

  He stared. “What do you mean, you’re going to get a job?”

  “Well, I can’t presume on your hospitality forever.”

  “Amen to that,” he muttered. “But you can’t get a job. You don’t live here.”

  “I think I might.”

  “What!” The feet of the chair hit the floor with a crash.

  Sydney shrugged. “Why not? I have talent. I have skills.”

  “Oh, yes? Knowing which fork to use is a great talent. Can you arrange a charity luncheon with one hand tied behind your back?”

  “I could. If I wanted to. As it happens, I have other duties. I am in the upper management of St. John Electronics!” She paused. “Or I was,” she reflected.

  “Don’t quit on our account!”

  “I’m not. I’m quitting for me.”

  Hugh shook his head. “This is insane. You can’t just quit your job and move to an island you’ve never seen.”

  “Of course I can. And I’ve seen quite a lot of the island. You drove me all the way across it.”

  “In the dark. You don’t know anything about it.”

  “I don’t need to know anything about it. Not yet. It isn’t the island I need to learn about—it’s me!”

  Hugh put his head in his hands.

  “Don’t be melodramatic,” Sydney said. “It isn’t going to hurt you. It might even be good for you,” she added thoughtfully.

  Hugh’s head jerked up. “What the hell does that mean?”

  She shrugged, unconcerned. “Nothing. Much.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “If you—”

  “Oh, get over it. I just need to prove myself. And getting a job here will do that. I’m perfectly capable of running a business, for goodness’ sake. I ran St. John’s while Daddy was recovering from his heart attack.”

 
“Yeah, right.”

  Fire flashed in her eyes. “It didn’t run itself for eight months, no matter what my father thinks!”

  “You ran it and he never noticed?” Hugh said sarcastically.

  “The doctors told me not to bring it up. Every time I mentioned St. John’s, my father would get agitated. ‘Who was taking care of business?’ he’d ask. And if I tried to assure him I was, he got even more upset.” She gripped her coffee mug so tightly her knuckles grew white. “Who was taking care of me, he’d ask. My father thinks women need to be taken care of. Always. So I stopped talking about it. I just did what needed to be done. I thought he’d understand when he got back to work that things hadn’t just run themselves.” She shook her head. “The more fool I.”

  She picked up another chicken wing and ran her tongue over her lips. Inwardly Hugh groaned.

  “All right, don’t believe me,” Syd said, misunderstanding the reason for his moan. “But I’ve done all I’m going to do for St. John Electronics. I’ve got talents. I’ve got capabilities. I can manage someone else’s company! I just need someone to hire me.”

  Hugh shook his head. “Just like that,” he said dryly.

  “What do you mean, just like that?”

  “There aren’t a lot of jobs for managing directors on Pelican Cay. We’ve got a population of somewhere around fifteen hundred, give or take a parakeet or two.”

  “Well, I’m sure someone will hire me.”

  “I’m not.” Hugh was adamant about that. “You might be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but we don’t need you on Pelican Cay.” I particularly don’t need you. “We don’t do managing directors. We don’t do hotshot female executives. So you’ll just have to go somewhere else to find yourself.”

  She stared at him, opened her mouth, then she did it again and looked at him pityingly. “As if you would know a hotshot executive of any sort even if it came up and bit you.”

  “I—”

  “Just because you have nothing better to do than fish all day doesn’t mean the rest of the world is the same.”

  “You ought to be glad I was.”

  “I said thank you.”

  “Did you? I don’t remember.”

  They glared at each other. Then Hugh leaned forward suddenly so that all four chair legs landed on the floor with a thump. Abruptly he stood up, carried his dishes to the sink, and dumped them in.

  “Since you’re so determined to work,” he said to her over his shoulder, “feel free.” He jerked his head toward the overflowing sink. There were enough dirty dishes there to keep her busy awhile. “I’m sure you can manage that.”

  She sputtered indignantly. Served her right for being so snotty about his fishing trip. Deliberately Hugh yawned and headed toward the bedroom.

  Behind him he heard her scramble to her feet. “Where am I going to sleep?”

  “Not with me.”

  “I didn’t imply—”

  “There’s a hammock on the porch.” He cut her off, not wanting to discuss her sleeping arrangements any more than necessary. “Take that. Or you could try the sofa.” He glanced at it. There was a sea kayak on it, balanced on several loads of laundry. “Maybe not the sofa.”

  “You don’t have a guest room?”

  “If you have a guest room, you get guests.” Like his well-meaning parents or his interfering aunt Esme. He let them stay with Lachlan at the B&B. Far less meddlesome that way.

  But Syd turned to look in the direction of his spare room. “What’s that?”

  “A mess.”

  It was his extra room. His “office” he called it. But it was more a closet than anything else. Lachlan had bunked there before he’d bought the Moonstone and the Mirabelle. Before that Great-Aunt Esme had commandeered it for her spring getaway one year and had expected him to clear it out for her. No one said no to Aunt Esme.

  “We could clean it out,” Sydney St. John said.

  “No way.”

  “You don’t have to. I will.” Captain Ahab was back.

  “No, you won’t. It’s almost midnight.” He sighed when he could see she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Look, okay. You take the bedroom tonight. I’ll take the hammock. One night only.” Then he turned and snapped his fingers for his dog. “C’mon, Belle. Time to hit the rack.”

  “By all means,” Sydney St. John said. “Get your rest for another hard day fishing tomorrow.”

  Hugh’s lips twitched. “I wish,” he said. “Unfortunately, I’m flying to Jamaica in the morning.”

  Syd stared as if she hadn’t heard him right. “You’re—” long pause “—flying?”

  Hugh dug into the back pocket of his shorts and pulled a business card out of his wallet. He flipped the card at her as he headed for the door.

  “Maybe we’re not all hotshot executives, but you’re not the only one who can manage a business, Ms. St. John. Have fun cleaning up the dishes.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  SHE had never done so many dishes in her life—and not just the ones in the sink.

  Sydney did those as soon as Mr. “Fly Guy” McGillivray had banged out the door. Then, because she was still trying to work out the implications of that business card he’d flipped at her, she kept right on going. Heaven knew there were plenty of dirty dishes.

  “Fly Guy” must do them once a week.

  But the notion that he flew—that he actually had a business and supported himself by flying and apparently by doing other transportation-oriented things, as well—boggled her mind.

  But that was what it said in big swooping letters on the business card: Fly Guy Island Charter. And below that in smaller type, the card proclaimed: “Whenever and wherever you want to go, call…Hugh McGillivray, Owner and Pilot.”

  Which meant, she supposed, that there was more to the man than dark good looks, hard muscles, kindness to dogs, a don’t-bother-me-while-I’m-breathing attitude and a smart mouth?

  She considered the possibility that he could just have the cards made to toss at people who crossed his path and commented on his lifestyle. But she doubted it. It would take too much effort. McGillivray didn’t seem given to over-exertion.

  He hadn’t even bothered, in the end, to take a shower. Instead he’d headed for the beach saying, “I’ll take a swim instead.”

  He hadn’t come back by the time she’d finished washing the dishes and had stripped the sheets off his bed and replaced them with clean ones. At least, she assumed they were clean ones as she’d found them in the same pile in the closet from which he’d taken the towel he’d given her.

  There was a certain method to McGillivray’s housekeeping. Dirty dishes were in the sink and on the countertop. Clean dishes were everywhere else. Dirty clothes were in a heap by the back door. Clean clothes and linens were in the closet in the bathroom and in heaps on the chairs. There were other piles, too, which she hadn’t identified yet. She folded the clean clothes and took them into the bedroom. She left the dirty ones in a heap, but kicked them into the corner.

  Now she padded out onto the front porch. She picked her way over the snorkles and swim fins and skirted the dog blanket and the portable cooler. Then she stood on the steps and let her eyes become accustomed to the darkness. There was a bit of moonlight spilling on the sea beyond some low bushes and across a narrow expanse of beach.

  The sea where, presumably, McGillivray had gone swimming.

  She didn’t see him.

  Just as well. She didn’t want to think about him now. Didn’t want to analyze the quickening sensation she felt every time she looked at Mr. Fly Guy McGillivray—or every time he looked at her.

  It would be a distraction.

  Syd didn’t do distractions. She liked to focus. Zeroing in on a problem and assessing ways of overcoming it was her strength. Her father said that. Even Roland said it.

  And now dear Roland had some firsthand experience with it, she thought grimly as she tipped her head back and let the night’s soft breeze blow through h
er nearly dry hair. The breeze soothed her, calmed her, made Roland and St. John Electronics seem as far away as another galaxy.

  It really was gorgeous here—what she had seen of it. And quiet. Very different from Paradise Island. That had been glitz and glamour, casinos and jet-skiing and parasailing and lots of fast-paced to-ing and fro-ing. The only sound she could hear now was the soft rush of waves breaking on the shore.

  She was tempted to walk down to the water, but she didn’t see a path, and McGillivray’s warning about the snakes was still fresh in her mind.

  Were there really snakes?

  She had no idea. With McGillivray, who could tell? His “gotcha” still rankled. Men ordinarily did not try to annoy Sydney St. John. On the contrary, usually they fell all over themselves trying to figure out what she wanted so they could do it.

  Obviously not Fly Guy McGillivray. She studied the underbrush and thought she heard vague rustlings. She stayed where she was, studying his house instead.

  It was a low-slung wood frame place of indeterminate age, whose color from what she could see on the porch seemed to be a sunny yellow. It sat on a rise overlooking the bushes and beach. In the distance through the trees she could see the lights of several more houses along a broad and gently curving cove. But they were scattered. There were a couple of larger places, probably inns, but even these were nothing like the string of high-rise hotels on Paradise Island.

  Was Roland back there now? Or was he looking for her? Wherever he was, she hoped he was well on his way to panic. Serve him right.

  If she hadn’t jumped overboard, she realized, she would be in bed with Roland right now. The very thought made her shiver.

  Or perhaps he wouldn’t have expected theirs to be a real marriage.

  No, that was the stuff of novels. Roland wouldn’t have had the imagination to even think they might marry and not have sex. He would have married her for the business, but he would have expected his “conjugal rights” just as he had expected her to go along with his planned nuptials because it made good sense.

  It would have been just another merger—only this time one of a physical sort. There would have been no passion. No love. No electricity. No spark.