“I know of him. Everyone knows of him,” Fiona said. “Carin was talking about him. He’s like a god in the high-end tourist industry.” She paused, considering the implications of that. “David Grantham wants to bring his holidays here?”
Lachlan nodded. “I hope so. He thinks Pelican Cay has a lot to offer his clients.”
Fiona doubted that. Grantham was far too Cultural—with a capital C—for a place like Pelican Cay. Grantham Tours took in-depth historical and artistic jaunts. “Why would they come here? What do we have? A rusty cannon? A straw shop? A conch bar?”
“All of the above,” Lachlan agreed. “And the steel band and Carin’s paintings and Nathan’s photos. And—” he paused and did a mimed drum roll with his fingers “—The King of the Beach.”
Fiona flushed at his mockery. “I told you I’d start taking it down. You’re the one who said to wait until tonight.”
“You can’t take it down. He loves it.”
She stared at him. “Get out of here.”
Lachlan raised his hands, palms out, as if fending her off. “God’s truth,” he swore. He was laughing at her.
Fiona bared her teeth. “And if I believe that, you’ve got a bridge to the mainland to sell me!”
Still grinning, Lachlan challenged her. “Come to dinner and he’ll tell you himself. He wants to meet you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Lachlan shrugged. “Your loss.” And just like that, he turned and started to walk away.
Fiona glared after him, furious. “Lachlan!”
He looked back, a grin flashing briefly as he cocked his head. “Yes, carrots?”
She practically squeaked with frustration. “Leave my hair out of this!”
“Whatever you say.” He stopped laughing, but he didn’t stop smiling at her. And the way he was looking at her turned her flush into a full-scale burn.
She didn’t want him smiling at her! She didn’t like the way it made her heart kick over, didn’t like the way it made her insides all warm and wiggly. “Stop it,” she muttered.
He shook his head. “Come to dinner, Fiona,” he said quietly.
“I—”
“Seven-thirty. At Beaches with Lord Grantham, Carin and Nathan, Skip Sellers and his wife.”
“I don’t—”
“You want to sculpt, don’t you? You want challenges, isn’t that what you said?”
“Yes, but—”
“And you want to be able to leave that damned king of yours on the beach to charm and educate the tourists, don’t you?”
She couldn’t speak. She stared at him dumbly. “Not…not if it means you won’t come tomorrow. It’s good,” she said desperately. “Not the king. My sculpture. The one of…you.” She gulped. “It is. I know it is. I didn’t know when we started. I was afraid…but now I need to keep going. It…feels right. So I’ve got to finish it.”
For a long moment he just looked at her. Then he shook his head. “I’ll come,” he told her.
“But you said—”
“I’ll come,” he promised gruffly.
It felt as if the sun had come out. “Really? Honest?”
He jammed his hands in his pockets. “I said I would, didn’t I? Tomorrow morning. Five-thirty.”
She nodded eagerly.
“Only if you come to dinner tonight,” he told her implacably. “Seven-thirty, Fiona. I’ll pick you up.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’LL COME,” Hugh said cheerfully. He popped the top on the beer he’d just taken from his refrigerator and took a long draught from the bottle. “Always ready for a free meal.”
“You’re not invited.” Lachlan grabbed a beer for himself since Hugh didn’t offer any. “I only came to see if I’d left my navy blazer here.” The last time he’d worn it, he’d been staying in the spare bedroom of Hugh’s small beach house while he’d been working on the Moonstone. “The numbers are even the way they are.”
“Numbers?” Hugh’s brows hiked beneath a fringe of shaggy dark hair. A grin touched the corners of his mouth. “Is that, like, an etiquette thing?” He perched on the countertop next to the sink, swinging his bare tanned legs, holding the beer with one hand and reaching down to scratch his mutt, Belle, on the ears.
“It’s like an etiquette thing,” Lachlan agreed drily. “And since you don’t do etiquette these days…”
Eight years of spit and polish in the U.S. Navy had been all the rules and regimentation Hugh had been able to tolerate. Since his discharge four years ago, he’d been turning casualness into an art form.
“I’m polite,” Hugh protested.
“Besides,” Lachlan went on briskly, rummaging through the coat closet, “Grantham already met you.”
Hugh had flown him in from Nassau Wednesday afternoon along with Fiona’s hundred pounds of clay. “The idea is for him to get to know people on the island he might want his tours to meet.”
“Like who?”
“Artsy types. Carin and Nathan. Grantham’s with Nathan now.” Lachlan had taken him to visit Carin’s shop before he’d gone to see Fiona at the bakery. Nathan had been going to pick him up there and give him a tour of the island’s photographic possibilities. “Skip and Nadine Sellers.” Skip was the lead singer and composer for the local steel band Grantham had mentioned. “Fiona.”
Hugh stared, his beer halfway to his lips. “Fiona? Dunbar?”
“That’s right.” Lachlan turned away and opened the door to the broom closet. There were swim fins and a snorkel, an old fishing net and float he’d snagged years ago, a couple of diving tanks, a string of pink flamingo patio lights, and a couple of Hawaiian shirts. No blazer.
“Why Fiona?” Hugh asked.
“She sculpts.”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“She sculpts,” Lachlan repeated, unaccountably annoyed at Hugh’s less than enthusiastic agreement.
Now, though, his brother was looking at him narrowly. “Don’t mess up Fiona.”
Lachlan banged the closet door shut. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“You took her to Beaches before,” Hugh reminded him, in case he’d forgotten.
“So?”
“So, the evening didn’t end well. I seem to remember that she made it pretty clear she didn’t want anything to do with you. Tried to drown you, didn’t she?” Hugh flashed a quick hard grin.
Lachlan’s jaw set. “Her foot slipped.”
At least that was what she’d told Maurice when he’d fished them out.
“Uh-huh.” Which meant Hugh wasn’t going to argue about it, but he didn’t believe it either. He was looking unaccountably serious for a man who never got ruffled. His grip on the beer bottle was turning his knuckles white. “I don’t know what you’re thinking about Fiona, Lachlan, but you’d damned well better not hurt her.”
“I don’t plan to ‘hurt’ her. I plan to have dinner with her. And since when do you worry about Fiona Dunbar?” he demanded.
“Since her old man died and she’s on her own.”
“She’s a grown woman.”
“She hasn’t been anywhere or done anything. She’s an innocent.”
“Not that innocent,” Lachlan muttered under his breath, squatting down to rummage through one of the piles of laundry on the floor.
“What?” Hugh said sharply.
“Never mind.” Did Hugh never put anything away? There were two heaps of clothes on the floor. The only difference seemed to be that one pile was grimier than the other. That must be how he told them apart. “You don’t have to worry about Fiona,” Lachlan said, burrowing to the bottom of each. There was no blazer in either of them. He sighed and stood up again. “As you so aptly pointed out, she can take care of herself.”
“Just make sure she doesn’t have to.”
Their gazes met. Their eyes locked.
“It’s dinner, Hugh,” Lachlan said with a tight smile.
Hugh didn’t smile in return. “As long as that’s all it is.�
�
Belle, clearly sensing the tension, whined and nudged Hugh’s knee.
“Ah, right,” Hugh said, breaking their locked gaze and rubbing the dog’s ears once more. “Dinnertime.” He slid off the counter.
Lachlan glanced at his watch. Hell. The dog was right. It was nearly seven already.
“And I’m going to be late.” He kicked the rest of the laundry out of the way as he headed for the door. “Don’t you ever put anything away?”
“I keep things where I can find ’em,” Hugh told him, unfazed as he reached for the kibble and the dog bowl. He waited until Lachlan was outside before calling after him, “I think your blazer’s in the dog bed on the porch.”
IT WASN’T A DATE.
Definitely not a date, Fiona told her underwear-clad reflection in the mirror.
And thank God for that. If Lachlan had asked her out—on a date—she’d have said no. No way. Never again!
But this wasn’t a date. It was business.
And that was almost scarier.
That she should be having dinner with Lord David Grantham of the posh upscale Grantham Cultural Tours and an award-winning photographer like Nathan and a stunning painter like Carin (even though they were friends of hers) and who knew who else—besides Lachlan—was enough to make her stomach do what it had done when Hugh had taken her up in his plane and done a loop.
What did she know about the tourism business? Or the art business, for that matter?
Just this morning she’d been afraid she was out of her depth trying to do a terra-cotta sculpture. And while she felt better about her ability to do that now, it hardly gave her the credentials to hobnob with an earl!
She didn’t know how to dress to hobnob with an earl. She wished she could talk to Carin. Carin would know how she should dress, how she should act, what she should say. Carin was sharp and sophisticated. She might have lived on the island for years, but she’d grown up in the city. She knew that sort of thing.
But when Fiona had got off work and run to Carin’s shop, Elaine said cheerfully, “She gone home. Gotta make herself beautiful.”
Which didn’t exactly inspire confidence as Carin was already the most beautiful woman Fiona knew.
“Maybe I shouldn’t go,” she said to Sparks who, having finished his own dinner, was sitting on her dresser washing his paws and watching her rifling through her closet in vain. “I don’t have anything to wear. There is nothing—nothing!—here!”
If she had expected him suddenly to turn into one of those cartoon animals like the ones who had whipped up Cinderella’s ball dress, she was sorely disappointed. He stopped washing long enough to yawn. Then he turned around three times, made himself comfortable on her one good silk blouse, and went to sleep.
She snatched it out from under him. “Fat lot of help you are.”
Well, the silk blouse was out. Covered with cat hair. And she only had two dresses: the one she’d worn to dinner the last time Lachlan had taken her to Beaches—not a memory she wanted to inspire—and the one she’d worn to her father’s funeral. Also not an option.
“What am I going to do?” she demanded.
Sparks didn’t even bother to purr in reply. Clearly he wasn’t best pleased having his cushion snatched away from him.
Downstairs the front door rattled. Dear God, Lachlan couldn’t be here yet, could he? She scrambled for her watch. Oh, whew. It was only just past six.
“Fee? Anybody home?”
Fiona breathed a sigh of relief. “Up here!” she called, relieved to hear her sister-in-law, Julie.
There was a bit of movement below, the sound of the refrigerator opening and closing, which opened Sparks’s eyes briefly. Then there came the sound of elephants climbing the stairs.
Ordinarily Julie bore no resemblance to an elephant at all. But now, seven months pregnant with twins and—forget the elephant—big as a cruise ship, she finally gasped into view.
“Brought you some grouper,” she said between gasps. “Fresh off the boat. I put it in the fridge so Himself—” a look based on prior experience passed between her and Sparks “—doesn’t think it’s for him. What’s wrong? Are you sick? Why are you standing here in your underwear?”
“I’m supposed to be going out to dinner,” Fiona waved a helpless hand toward her closet. “But I’ve got nothing to wear.”
Julie’s eyes got wide as it was a Rare Event for Fiona to go out at all. “Dinner? With who?”
“Lots of people. It’s business.”
“Paul didn’t say anything about dinner out.” As far as Julie was concerned, there was only one business—the fishing business. And Fiona did own a share of their boat as her legacy from her father.
“Not fishing,” Fiona said. “Sculpting. The stuff I do for Carin and the, um…King of the Beach.”
“The big trash thing?” Julie looked enormously impressed. “The one you were having a go at Lachlan McGillivray with?”
Fiona didn’t answer that. But it didn’t matter because Julie had already moved on.
“How’d that happen?” There was nothing Julie enjoyed more than news. She plumped herself down on Fiona’s bed and looked expectantly at her sister-in-law.
Dutifully Fiona mumbled something about the earl and his tour company and Carin and Nathan and, because she knew it would get out anyway since Pelican Cay had no secrets at all, Lachlan McGillivray.
Julie’s eyes bugged. She hooted. “You and Lachlan! He’ll roast you!”
“He’s the one who asked me.”
“Lachlan did? You’re joking. You tried to drown him!”
God, was she never going to live that down? “I did not try to drown him! We fell in the harbor.”
“Oh, right. Of course,” Julie murmured. “How could I forget?” She smirked, then sobered. “You’re probably the only girl who ever said no to him.”
If she had managed to say no to him, they wouldn’t have ended up in the water, Fiona thought ruefully. But she didn’t tell Julie that. She just plucked at the clothes in her closet once more. Time was running out and her fairy godmother was nowhere to be seen.
“I should just call and cancel.”
“No, you shouldn’t.” Julie was adamant. “You have to go.”
“I don’t have to,” Fiona said.
“Yes you do. You need to get out. You hardly ever went out anywhere while you were taking care of Tom. It’s time you had a social life. You need to meet people. How old is this earl?”
“What? Stop that!” Fiona exclaimed, realizing where her sister-in-law’s thoughts were headed. “It’s business, Julie!”
“Whatever.” Julie didn’t care. She was going full-speed now. “I have the perfect dress for you.”
“You do?” Fiona stared at her, nonplussed.
“I wasn’t always as big as a minivan,” Julie reminded her. “Once I wore a size eight, too. And I bought a fabulous dress when Paul and I were in Nassau on our anniversary last year. It will be perfect. I’ll call him and he can bring it over.”
Fiona opened her mouth to object, but Julie was already reaching for the phone.
“You’ll love it. It’s elegant,” Julie said. “Understated. One of those less-is-more dresses. Cost the earth. You’ll be gorgeous in it.”
Fiona hesitated—but only for a moment. She had no choice, really. There was no way she could call Lachlan and beg off. I’m sorry. I can’t come. I don’t have anything suitable to wear.
How could she say that to a man who had dared to let her sculpt him naked?
“Call Paul,” she said and sighed fatalistically.
Julie called. “He’ll be right over. One thing,” she said when she hung up. “This dress is dry clean only. Try not to fall in the water.”
LACHLAN DIDN’T PUT ON ARMOR before he went to pick up Fiona, but he gave it some thought.
Inasmuch as his navy blazer had literally “gone to the dogs,” he put on his best khaki trousers, a blue oxford cloth shirt, then stopped by Suzette’s qua
rters to tell her to meet them at Beaches at 7:30. Then he put on mental armor and set off to Fiona’s.
He expected they’d have a battle.
She hadn’t looked all that keen on the dinner invitation. If he hadn’t had the morning sculpture session to play as a trump card, she’d probably have refused.
He fully expected she would be elbow deep in clay or some other messy substance when he arrived, in the hope that he would leave without her.
Not a chance, sweetheart.
Fiona was coming to dinner tonight if he had to clean her up and make her presentable himself! Actually, he thought with a grin, that wouldn’t be much of a hardship. And it would serve her right for dumping him in the water last time they’d had dinner together.
He was grinning in anticipation as he went up the steps and pounded on her door.
So it was a bit of a shock to have it opened promptly by a stunning redhead wearing an emerald-green silk dress who smiled brightly at him.
“Right on time,” Fiona said cheerfully. “Let’s go.” And she pulled the door shut behind her and, without even looking his way, headed briskly down the steps.
Lachlan stared after her, feeling gut-punched.
Where the hell had she got a dress like that? And what was it Hugh had said about Fiona Dunbar being an innocent?
No innocent had ever worn a dress like that one! It was cut low in the back and displayed acres of gorgeous golden freckled skin. The dress nipped in at the waist and flared at the hips, swinging lightly around her legs as she walked. Two thin straps were all that held it up in front, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Lachlan sucked air. It made his mouth dry just watching her. So much for cleaning her up and making her presentable.
He vaulted down the steps and hurried after her.
“Change of heart?” he drawled as he caught up with her near the straw shop. He tried to breathe normally.
She slanted him a glance. “What?”
“You didn’t want to come, as I recall,” he said, dodging around three boys kicking a ball in the street and falling into step beside her.
Fiona shrugged. “I decided I’d like to meet a real live lord.”
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