Instinctively Fiona’s fingers tightened around them.
“I found them,” she said stubbornly. “On the beach. Fortuitous, I admit. But I didn’t use anything that I didn’t find. That’s the challenge of it, don’t you see?”
Obviously he didn’t. He was looking flinty and stubborn, glowering the way he always glowered at opponents on the soccer pitch.
“It’s a challenge,” she repeated.
“I don’t need any more challenges, thank you very much.”
“Not to you. To me!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Fiona wetted her lips. She hadn’t put it into words before, hadn’t dared. It seemed presumptuous even now. She wasn’t a sculptor. Not really. She’d never had classes, never studied with anyone. What she did with her shells and sand and steel was craft, not art. But she was fascinated with it. “It’s…teaching me things.”
“Trash is teaching you things?” he said mockingly. “What? Recycling?”
“Composition. Balance. Development. Flexibility. Imagination.” She tried to think of all the abstract artistic terms she could use to explain the things that her nighttime creation had been teaching her.
“Yeah, right.”
It didn’t take any imagination at all to know that Lachlan didn’t believe a word of it.
“It’s what I do,” she said desperately. “I make those little sculptures to sell to the tourists. I cut out metal. I cast sand. I glue rocks. But that’s not all I want to do. I want to be a sculptor,” she whispered. “A real one.”
It wasn’t something she had ever admitted before. Hadn’t dared to. And she felt like an imposter when she said it now. It had been her dream, of course, long ago—when she’d still had dreams. Once upon a time she’d even thought she might go away to study.
But that had been years ago. Before her father’s stroke. Since then she’d been on the island. She’d worked with what the island gave her, learned what it had to teach her. And didn’t ask for more.
“You could go back to it,” her brother Mike had told her after their dad had passed away.
“You ought to,” her brother Paul had encouraged. “Apply for a course somewhere.”
But Fiona had shaken her head. “I’m too old. I have a life right here.”
“You need to do something,” both her brothers had told her. “Dad would want you to. He wouldn’t want to think you’d given up everything for him.”
“I didn’t!” she protested. “I wanted to take care of him.”
“And you did,” Mike said soothingly. “And God knows we all appreciate it. But now you can move on.”
It had been three months since her dad’s death and she hadn’t moved on at all. She’d been grieving, she told herself. She needed time. And a challenge.
The sculpture on the beach had been that challenge. It had brought her to life again. And if it had annoyed Lachlan, well, that had been an added benefit.
“You want to be a sculptor?” Lachlan said doubtfully now.
“Yes.”
His hard blue gaze narrowed on her. “And that’s what your monstrosity is? A learning experience?”
She nodded. “I call him The King of the Beach.”
Lachlan’s mouth twisted. “Well, you’ve been doing him for weeks now. Isn’t the challenge gone?”
“There’s always new material.”
“So use it somewhere else.”
Fiona shook her head. “It’s a challenge to use it there, to make it part of the whole.”
“Find a new challenge.”
“Like what?”
“How the hell should I know? You’re the one who wants to sculpt!”
“Yes, but I need subjects. I need material. I need to do things I haven’t done before. To broaden my horizons!”
God knew it was the truth. She’d never been anywhere or done anything compared to most people. She’d spent her whole life, except for a handful of trips to Nassau and Miami, right here on Pelican Cay. “If I’m going to grow as an artist, I need to tackle new projects, explore different media.”
Lachlan’s fingers flexed and relaxed. He bounced a little on the balls of his feet. He looked the way he always had in goal when a striker was heading his way.
“So,” he said, “if you had something else you wanted to sculpt, something that would challenge you, you’d do that?”
“I—”
“And you’d get rid of that monstrosity on my beach?”
“It’s not—”
“Call it what you want. I want it gone. But if you really mean what you said…if you really want to sculpt and not just play games…if you really want a challenge, I have a deal for you.”
Fiona eyed him suspiciously. “What deal?”
“You want to be a sculptor, fine. You want new challenges, great. Go for it. Whatever you want to sculpt, I’ll provide it. We can add a little ‘culture’ to the island. And in return, you take down the monstros—The King of the Beach.” He looked at her expectantly.
Fiona hesitated. Possibilities reeled through her mind. Hopes. Dreams. Fears.
Lachlan grinned at her, challenging her, like the goalkeeper he was. “Or maybe it’s all bull, Fiona. Maybe you’re just a prankster, and not really a sculptor at all.”
Her spine stiffened. She met his gaze defiantly. “Anything?” she asked. “I can sculpt anything I want?”
He shrugged, still grinning that satisfied grin. “Anything.”
“Then I want to sculpt you. Nude.”
CHAPTER TWO
“OR MAYBE you’re not up to the challenge?” she suggested, the faint smile on her face now turning into an unholy grin.
Lachlan felt as if he’d been blindsided, as if he’d dived to stop the ball—and it had gone zinging past his feet as he’d lunged the other way.
Nude? Had she said she wanted to sculpt him nude?
Yes, she had.
But she didn’t mean it. Couldn’t mean it. She had to be kidding.
But she didn’t look like she was kidding.
She looked like she was daring him. There was a sparkle of mischief in Fiona Dunbar’s wide green eyes, a blatant challenge in the look she gave him.
Lachlan felt his teeth come together with a snap.
She hadn’t wanted him nude once before, damn it. She’d very nearly drowned them both to prevent any such occurrence!
And now—?
“Right. Very funny,” Lachlan said tersely and spun away.
Soft but distinct gobbling chicken sounds followed him.
He jerked back around and glared at her.
Fiona stood in guileless silence and stared back. He looked at her closely. There was determination in her gaze—and defiance. And just a hint of something else.
Vulnerability?
No way. Impossible. Fiona Dunbar was about as vulnerable as an asp.
So what was she playing at?
A charcoal gray cat jumped past him suddenly and walked along the table behind Fiona. It came up to her and nudged her with its head. Without breaking eye contact with him, Fiona reached around and scooped the cat into her arms—like a witch with her familiar.
The cat stared at him with watchful green eyes. So did the woman.
Lachlan felt a muscle in his temple tick.
“So you want me nude?” he said at last with all the casual curiosity he could muster. He was gratified to see the color rise in her cheeks.
“I don’t want you nude,” Fiona denied swiftly. “I want to sculpt—”
“Sure. Of course you do,” he said sarcastically.
She hugged the cat tighter, as if it were a shield. “You’re the one who offered,” she pointed out. “Anything you want to sculpt, you said.”
“I meant—”
“Of course I’ll understand if you’ve changed your mind,” she added archly as she focused on scratching the cat under the chin. “You might not want to bare all. I understand that men who aren’t particularly well,
er…” She flicked a glance below his belt.
Enough was enough. “You want to see how well-endowed I am?” he asked softly with more than a hint of menace.
“I want to sculpt—”
“Fine,” he snapped. “When do you want to do it? Now?” He reached for his belt. She wasn’t the only one who could throw down a challenge. She might have scored first with her little “I want to sculpt you nude” line, but the game wasn’t over yet.
“No!” she yelped. “I mean, no,” she said in more moderate tones. “Not…now. I can’t…now. I…I have to get some…some clay first.”
“Some clay?” he mocked her.
“Clay,” she repeated with a quick jerky nod. “I’ve never done terra-cotta. I don’t have it on hand.”
“Right.” He didn’t believe it for a minute. Oh, he believed she didn’t have any on hand. But he didn’t believe she really wanted to sculpt him. She was scoring a point. Making him squirm. Wishing him gone.
But he wasn’t going anywhere and it was time she realized that.
“Get plenty,” he instructed her.
“What?” She blinked and half a dozen expressions flickered across her face.
“If you’re going to sculpt me,” he challenged her. He saw consternation on her face. Was that panic? Resolution? Determination? He couldn’t sort them all out.
Then she squared her shoulders. “I will,” she said after a moment. “Hugh can bring it from Nassau when he goes on Wednesday.”
Now it was his turn to gulp. Then he got a grip and managed a credibly nonchalant shrug. “Whatever you say.” It wasn’t going to happen no matter what she said. “Look, Fiona. What do you really—”
“So how about Thursday morning?”
He hadn’t expected her to set a date. “Fiona, we’re not—”
Soft chicken gobbling noises met his protest.
He ground his teeth. “I have a meeting Thursday morning.”
It was nothing but the truth. Thursdays were meeting day. And if he didn’t have one with someone from an agency or a supplier, he and Suzette spent the time discussing on-going developments at the Moonstone and the other inns he’d bought over the past year. It was right there on his appointment calendar. In ink.
Not that Fiona believed him.
“I have meetings every Thursday morning,” Lachlan told her.
“Of course you do. I should have guessed.” A tiny smile played on her lips. “I’ll bet you have lots of meetings coming up. I’ll bet your life is just full of meetings.” Her singsong tone mocked him.
“Fine. I’ll change the meeting,” he snapped. “You want me nude, you’ll get me nude, sweetheart. Thursday morning.” He looked straight at her. “Six o’clock.”
“Six o’clock!”
“What’s the matter?” he asked smugly. “Too early for you? I thought you looked a little ragged.” Deliberately he let his eyes rove over her mussed hair and unironed shorts. “Too bad. Some of us have jobs. Or maybe you’d like to change your mind?”
Fiona drew herself up sharply. “Six o’clock will be fine. I’ll look forward to it.”
“You do that.” He went out the door and down the steps. “I’ll see you then.”
“I’ll see you first!” Fiona’s voice carried after him on a soft laugh.
“I SAW The King of the Beach this morning,” Carin announced cheerfully when Fiona arrived at her shop that morning with a wheelbarrow full of sculptures. “I love the new arm. It gives him power. You ought to hang something on the end of it.”
I did, Fiona thought as she unpacked the wheelbarrow and carried the sculptures into the shop. But saying so would have meant explaining what she’d hung there, which would have led to explaining why it wasn’t there now, which would have led the conversation even further in a direction she didn’t want to go.
Had she really told Lachlan McGillivray she wanted to sculpt him nude?
Had he really agreed to do it?
“But I guess you have to wait for something to wash up, don’t you?” Carin went on.
“Yes.” Fiona ducked outside to get more sculptures.
“You’re at the mercy of the tide,” Carin told her with a grin when Fiona came back.
Or her own idiocy. She hadn’t been able to focus since Lachlan had stomped down her stairs and stalked away. What had she done?
“Oh, this is great!” Carin held up a metal surfer balanced on his board, riding the break of a wave, the whole thing cut from a single square foot of steel. “Absolutely perfect.”
Fiona smiled. “Glad you like him.”
The surfer was the first new cutout she’d made in well over a year. There wasn’t much surfing on Pelican Cay. The waves were rarely large enough to attract surfing aficionados. But over on Eleuthera there were a few spots that drew surfers from all over the world.
“You ought to be doing new things,” Carin said. “Stretching a bit. Spreading your wings. I worry about you.”
“I’m fine,” Fiona assured her, just as she’d been assuring everyone since her father’s death. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
Carin didn’t look convinced. “Well, the surfer is a step in the right direction. I like him. What else can you do?”
Fiona wondered what Carin would think if she said she was going to sculpt Lachlan McGillivray nude!
She was still in a state of panic every time she thought about it. Not just because of Lachlan. Because she didn’t know the first thing about terra-cotta sculpting!
Not that it would matter, she assured herself, because it wouldn’t happen.
But it had been worth it to see the look on Lachlan’s hard handsome face.
Lachlan McGillivray had always been too high-and-mighty for his own good.
“What have you got against McGillivray?” her brother Paul had asked her when she’d begun the sculpture on the beach.
“Ride out a storm with him, I would,” Paul had said. And Mike had agreed. “He’s a good guy.”
But Fiona couldn’t see it.
As far as she was concerned Lachlan McGillivray was still a weasel.
He’d called her “carrots” from the moment he’d met her, when she’d been almost nine and he a haughty fifteen. No one called Fiona carrots! Ever!
Except Lachlan.
He’d even tugged her braid whenever she’d got close.
Not that he’d let her get anywhere near him. She and his sister Molly had spent a lot of hours trying to. They’d been studying to be secret agents in those days, lurking in the bushes, peering around corners, peeking over the rocks.
“Spying,” Lachlan had accused furiously, “on me!”
Could anyone resist a challenge like that?
Well, Molly probably could have. She had to live with Lachlan, after all.
But Fiona had been inspired. And intrigued.
Despite his bad attitude toward the island—and toward her—there had always been something about Lachlan McGillivray…
Or something perverse about her own hormones, Fiona thought grimly. Because heaven help her, over the years her fascination with him had never waned.
She’d been besotted with him.
Lachlan, of course, had not been besotted with her.
He would be, she assured herself, once he realized she’d grown up. She remembered with total clarity and abject humiliation the day she’d decided it was time to make her move.
It had been the summer after Lachlan’s graduation from high school. He was leaving in a few weeks to go to Virginia to university, and Fiona, nearly thirteen, entering puberty with a vengeance, had known time was running out.
If she wanted to convince Lachlan that there was someone worth coming back to on Pelican Cay, she had to hurry. She couldn’t wait for her shape to get any curvier or her breasts to get any bigger. She wasn’t quite stick-straight anymore, but voluptuous certainly wasn’t her.
Still, the next time her father went to Nassau, she begged to go along, and while he wa
s buying supplies, she’d gone to Bitsy’s Bikinis and bought a suit she would never have dared buy on Pelican Cay. It was bright blue—what there was of it—and the fabric shimmered when it was wet.
“Like the sunlight sparkle on the sea,” the saleslady told her. “You be smashing. Everybody notice you.”
Not everybody.
The day she finally got up the guts to wear it, Fiona had lain on her towel on the sand right in front of where she knew he would come down to the beach even though there was a family of tourists camped right in front of her.
She’d gone early so she wouldn’t miss him. And she’d slathered on sunscreen because she was cursed with her redhead’s complexion. Then she’d arranged herself as enticingly and voluptuously as she could, and opened her book and pretended to read.
She’d waited. And waited.
The tourist family splashed in and out of the water and ran up and down the beach, and stayed cool. There were parents and two boys and a college-age girl. They started an impromptu volleyball game and invited her to join them.
But Fiona had shaken her head. There was no way she was going to jump up and down and jiggle in Bitsy’s blue bikini. “No, thanks,” she said politely and sweated and sweltered and waited.
Hugh came down with several of his friends. They ogled her and made comments. Hugh had whistled admiringly, and that teasing pain-in-the-butt Carson Sawyer had winked and suggested she go with him to the old shed behind the water tower.
Fiona flushed. “As if,” she’d dismissed them. “Scram.”
But she was glad the boys had noticed—even if their comments were completely immature. It gave her confidence.
So when Lachlan finally appeared on the rise overlooking the beach a little while later, she rolled oh-so-casually over on to her side and waited for him to see her.
He scanned the beach briefly, as if he were looking for someone. He shook his head at Hugh who had shouted something to him.
Then, as she’d known it would, his gaze came to rest on her.
“Hey!” he called eagerly.
Fiona smiled her best come-hither smile. She hadn’t had a lot of practice in real life, but she’d worked on it in the mirror for weeks. And it must have worked, because Lachlan grinned broadly, then came sprinting down the trail.
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