In McGillivray's Bed (16 page)

Now he stood just inside the door and watched as Sydney lit a candle on the dresser, then slipped out of her blouse and shorts and into a sheer cotton nightgown. There was no enticement in her movements, nothing overtly erotic or come hither.

But Hugh was definitely enticed.

He wanted her every bit as badly now as he had last
night. Knew he would want her tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that with the very same hunger.

She was in his blood. Forever. And nothing he could do would change that.

He ought to just ask her to marry him.

She might even say yes.

She might figure she owed him since he'd saved her life and all that rot. It was the sort of bloody idiotic thing a proper, well-brought-up female like Sydney St. John would do.

But he wouldn't ask. Couldn't!

He didn't want any part of a marriage based on gratitude or etiquette or anything other than love!

“Are you coming to bed,” Syd asked softly, “or are you just going to hold up the door all night?”

Hugh jerked, then ran his tongue over his lips at the sight of her. She was sitting in his bed, smiling expectantly at him, her hair loose, cascading over creamy shoulders, her breasts covered by soft lacy cotton, but still drawing his gaze, begging for his touch.

He took a desperate shaky breath. How in hell was he supposed to turn away from that?

“The hammock?” he rasped.

“What?” She looked perplexed.

“I can sleep on the porch.”

“Roland would love that.”

He gritted his teeth. “This isn't about Roland!” he said before he could help himself.

“No, it's not.” She held out a hand to him. “Hugh?”

He swallowed. “Are you sure? I mean, last night…” He couldn't finish. He felt like he was cutting his own throat.

“Of course I'm sure,” Syd said. Then she grinned impishly. “After all, we're married.”

So be it.

Hugh crossed the room, tugging his shirt over his head and unzipping his shorts as he went.

If this was what she wanted, who was he to say no?

He'd want to die later. Of that he was certain. When she was gone and all he had were memories, the pain would cut him to the bone.

But not now. Not yet.

He slid onto the bed beside her and with his mouth and his hands and his body he gave her all he had to give. And she matched him every step of the way. Her hands roved over his sweat-slick skin. Her lips nibbled a line along his jaw. She tasted his ear, swirled her tongue within. A shudder slid through him. His fingers trembled as he parted her flesh and slowly, perfectly, she drew him in.

And then the world seemed to stop.

He rose above her, braced on his hands, and hovered watching her, learning her, imprinting the moment on his mind and his heart so he would always remember.

As if there was a chance he could forget…

She lifted a hand and touched his cheek. Her eyes were bright in the candlelight. A smile touched her lips. “Hugh,” she whispered. “My Hugh.”

He loved her then, as fully and completely as he knew how. He moved and rocked and touched and kissed. He drove her to the brink—and himself along with her. And when at last they shattered, they shattered together.

And after, as he held her while she slept, he knew it was true what she'd said: he did belong to her. Forever.

 

R
OLAND
gave her one last chance.

“You can get a divorce—since obviously an annulment is out of the question,” he said as he stood at the back of the house by the Jeep, his suitcase in his hand. The color was high in his pale cheeks and he was looking anywhere but at her.

Syd smiled and pretended not to hear. She held out a hand. “Goodbye, Roland. Thank you for everything.”

He looked perplexed. “What are you thanking me for?”

“You opened my eyes. If you hadn't pushed me, I'd never have known what I was missing.”

He looked at her, horrified. “Don't ever tell your father that!”

She laughed. “Don't worry. I won't. Have a safe trip.”

He hesitated and might have given her more than one last chance if Hugh hadn't leaned on the horn just then.

“C'mon, Carruthers. Move it.”

Roland grimaced, then shook his head. “I do hope you know what you're doing, Margaret.”

Her one-day marriage almost over, Syd stood watching them bump away down the potholed lane—the man she loved and the man she'd left—and hoped she knew, too.

 

H
ALF
an hour later Hugh was back.

Syd was just finishing the washing up from lunch when she heard the Jeep's door slam. Her heart leaped into her throat. All the time he was gone she'd imagined how it would be—how he would come back and give her that lopsided grin she loved.

And then he would cross the room and take her in his arms and kiss her.

And she would kiss him back, of course.

Then they would stare into each other's eyes and Hugh would say, “That worked out pretty good, didn't it? How about we do it for real.”

She smiled, her heart kicking over at the thought—and at the sound of his footsteps on the porch. She meet his gaze as he came through the door.

He grinned the lopsided grin, and Syd started to smile.

“That worked out pretty darn good, didn't it?” he said.

Syd nodded…waited.

Hugh reached down and ruffled Belle's fur, then straightened, saying, “Reckon we're even now. I'm going for a swim. Then I've got a charter this afternoon to Freeport. I'll probably stay over. C'mon, Belle.”

He grabbed a towel, whistled for the dog, gave Syd a wink, and he was gone.

 

S
O MUCH
for her ability to read people.

She was obviously no better at it now than when she'd misread Roland on the yacht, Syd thought as she prowled around Hugh's house, fighting a losing battle to control her tears.

She might be good at business. She might understand how to motivate people and get them to work together. But when it came to understanding relationships that really mattered, obviously she sucked.

It was not a good feeling.

And that, she thought bitterly, was the understatement of the year.

He'd done her a favor, paid her back for helping him out with Lisa and his family—and that was that. Obviously their “pretend marriage” had, in Hugh's eyes, been exactly that. A sham. A useful convenience. In reality she was neither girlfriend nor wife.

The only thing real about their relationship had been her feelings. Because, God help her, she did love him.

And she understood what he meant now about the island being too small for both of them. She had to give him credit, he'd managed to stay and live on the same island as the woman he loved.

But Syd knew she couldn't. There was no way she could smile and be cheerful and pretend to be Hugh's friend day after day when she wanted to be so much more.

If Pelican Cay were bigger, she might be able to handle it. But it would have to be bigger, she thought. Considerably bigger.

Like maybe Australia.

 

H
E WAS
a coward.

At three o'clock in the morning in a Freeport Hotel room, Hugh couldn't deny the truth anymore.

At three o'clock yesterday morning he'd been making love with Syd. Desperate, passionate, beautiful love. Love that, if he dared, might make his life complete.

And this morning at three o'clock he was watching old movies.

Very old movies. Schmaltzy stories with happy endings in which people faced their fears and risked their hearts and found the loves of their lives.

He tried to tell himself they were movies. Not reality. Fiction. Not fact.

But whatever they were, they were true. He
knew
they were true, not because he'd seen the movies, but because he'd seen his parents and his brother and Fiona, because he'd seen Maurice and Estelle and Nathan and Carin. He'd seen the truth in their lives.

When a guy finds the right woman, he does whatever he's gotta do.

Lachlan's words.

Hard to imagine wisdom coming out of his brother's mouth. But Hugh thought there must be some saying about in love even fools being wise.

Some fools.

Not him. Not Hugh McGillivray, who had done what he had to do—up to a point. Made love to her. Lied for her. Pretended to be married to her because he'd wanted it so damn bad he could taste it.

But he'd been afraid to ask her.

Because she might say no. She might confirm all his worst fears.

The schmaltzy movie folks faced their worst fears. And got rewarded.

What about him?

 

“W
HAT
do you mean she's gone? Gone where?” Hugh's voice was almost a shout. He glowered at his brother, who
lounged back in his chair with his feet on his desk and regarded him as if he were part of the sideshow in the circus.

Lachlan shrugged. “She didn't say. She just came in this morning and told me she was leaving. Said she'd still help out on the island development, though,” he added with considerable pleasure, as if that were all that mattered.

“The hell with your bloody island development!” Hugh snarled. “Why did she leave?”

“Maybe she got fed up with you.”

Maybe she did.

Hugh slumped against the wall, feeling gut punched. He hadn't slept. He couldn't think. He'd expected to come home and sweep her off her feet, wrap his arms around her and tell her he'd been a fool.

Obviously, she already knew.

“She didn't leave any kind of address? Nothing?”

He loved her—and he'd lost her, without even laying his heart on the line. Now he felt lost, hollow, empty. Sick.

“Not with me. Said she'd be in touch, that's all. Maybe with Molly? Or Erica? Otis? The Cashes? Turk?”

“Maybe.” Hugh straightened up, hauled himself away from the wall. Pulled himself together. “I've got to find her,” he said more to himself than to Lachlan. “Got to…even if she's gone to the ends of the earth.”

It couldn't be over before it had really started.

Lachlan, watching him go, sighed and shook his head. “I know the feeling. Good luck, bro. You're gonna need it.”

 

H
E'D
said he'd go to the ends of the earth.

He meant it, but he hadn't actually thought he'd have to do it.

What the hell was Syd doing in
Montana?

Hugh cracked his knuckles and shifted in the hard seat of the waiting room chair, as he thumbed through a magazine and periodically tried to venture a smile at the stern-
faced receptionist whose nameplate on the front of her desk said her name was Dusty.

“Will Ms. St. John be long?” he asked.

He got a shrug for a reply.

“Thank you.” He smiled his best please-the-customers smile and wished to God the waiting were over.

Then again, maybe he should be glad it wasn't. Sitting here, even while gritting his teeth, crackling his knuckles and waiting to discuss “merger possibilities,” at least he still had hope.

Once he was face to face with her, she could say no.

He wouldn't blame her if she did.

He'd let her down. Let them both down. Hadn't been honest when it had mattered most. And now…

Now he'd been waiting, hunting, hoping for two damn months! He'd looked everywhere, tried every lead he could think of, but no one knew—or was saying—where she was. If Lachlan or Molly knew, they hadn't said. No one else had either. He'd asked everyone he knew. He'd even broken down and called Roland Carruthers.

“I knew it,” Carruthers had said with considerable satisfaction. “I
knew
she wouldn't have married you.”

“Then that makes two of us she wouldn't have on a plate,” Hugh had said. “But I'm going to grovel.”

“Are you?” Carruthers had sounded interested at the prospect. “I'd like to see that. I almost wish I knew where she was.”

Hugh wished he had too. But he'd had to wait another two weeks until, amazingly enough, Turk Sawyer mentioned her.

“You still lookin' for your lady friend?” He'd poked his head into the shop and asked Hugh two days ago.

Hugh had practically leaped on him. “Yes! Have you heard from her, Turk? Where is she?”

Turk had shrugged. “Say she's in Montana.” He said the word as if it were a completely foreign term, then shook his head. “Say she's runnin' a business there. Connections
Somethin' or Other. Found me a place that sells my paperweights.”

Montana? Connections?

It wasn't much.

It was enough.

It didn't take him long to discover that SJ Island Connections operated out of, of all places, Bozeman, Montana. The website said the company did just what its name implied—“connected people and products, enhanced lives, made the world a better place.”

That would be Syd, all right. Connecting people. Enhancing lives. Making the world a better place. Oh, yeah. She did that better than anyone.

Without stopping to think Hugh called the number and asked to speak to her. She wasn't in.

“Could I make an appointment?”

“What for?” the receptionist had asked bluntly.

“I want…” he groped “…to discuss merger possibilities.”

There was a pause. A shuffling of considerable paper. Then the receptionist said, “Tomorrow. 11:00 a.m.”

Hugh had moved heaven and earth to make it. He had—barely.

It was 11:00 now. In fact it was a minute past.

 

S
YD LOVED
M
ONTANA
. The local literature called it The Last Best Place. She was inclined to agree. It was beautiful. The mountains, the valley, the sky, the weather. It was always gorgeous. Always changing.

And very nearly as far from Pelican Cay as it was possible to be.