In McGillivray's Bed Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 sharpbreath. He looked around. “What’s the matter now?” he asked gruffly.
    â€œNothing’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 neck.
    â€œI like it,” he admitted. He spent a moment savoring it again before he continued, “But it’s not exactly ritzy. There are a few inns and resorts on the windward side of the island. One pretty posh one on the north end. The Mirabelle. My brother owns it. I’ll take you there for the night.”
    â€œNo!” Her rejection was a yelp.
    Hugh frowned. “What do you mean, no?”
    â€œSorry. I just mean, I don’t want to go there.”
    â€œYou’ve never even seen it! It’s beautiful. A class place. Maybe not five-star like I’m sure you’re accustomed to…” he drawled, irritated now.
    â€œI don’t care how many stars it does or doesn’t have. I don’t want to go to an inn or a resort. I want to be…incognito.”
    His mouth quirked. “Incognito, huh?” He doubted if Sydney St. John had ever said the word incognito before, much less applied it to herself. Even in her current padded-blanket guise with salt-encrusted hair clumped and straggly, she was a shockingly beautiful—and memorable—woman.
    â€œYeah,” he said, looking her slowly up and down. “I can see you being incognito. Sure. Right.”
    She tossed her head. “I can be. I need to be!” she said fiercely. “I have to think about what to do, how to handle things.”
    â€œYou could already have handled things,” Hugh felt obliged to point out, “if you’d just said no in the first place.”
    She gave him an impatient look. “I already told you, I couldn’t. It would have messed up everything.”
    He couldn’t see that, but obviously he wasn’t as crazy as she was. Nor was he a woman. He figured you’d have to be one or the other to have it make sense to you. “Well, fine. Whatever. Then there’s the Moonstone. It’s pretty cool. An old Victorian place.”
    â€œNo inns.”
    He rolled his eyes. “Then stay at a B&B. We’ve got at least half a dozen of those.”
    â€œToo public. He’d check.”
    â€œSo what are you planning to do? Sleep on the beach?” he asked sarcastically.
    She missed the sarcasm. “I’d be far too noticeable if I did that.” She cast about and spied the sleeping bag beneath the bow. “I’ll sleep here,” she said brightly.
    â€œThe hell you will!”
    He could just see that—the fishermen of Pelican Cay grumbling and bumbling their way down to their boats in the morning and getting an eyeful of Sydney St. John crawling out of his sleeping bag.
    She’d shock the socks off the entire fleet! And then what would she do? Amble down the dock to use the facilities at the Customs house dressed in nothing but Belle’s quilt? Or worse, without Belle’s quilt!
    Hugh shook his head vehemently, cutting the engine off