McGillivray's Mistress - By Anne McAllister Page 0,22
incredible, so empowering, she couldn’t believe it.
She’d worked for over three hours. She’d made him stand there that long—far too long, she knew. And yet she couldn’t help it. Time had just flown past. And even after he’d left, she had continued to work.
She had studied the torso, had felt it with her fingers, pushing here, shaping there, finding hints of the ridges and hollows and pads of muscle. She had closed her eyes and had seen Lachlan in her mind and she’d shaped and pushed and let her fingers move. Her whole body had hummed with an energy she’d never felt before.
She could hardly wait until tomorrow.
And she didn’t want to hear his second thoughts, his excuses, why he couldn’t come!
“Excuse me.” She tried to step around him. He stepped in front of her. She moved the other way. So did he. Oh, for heaven’s sake!
“I have a proposition for you,” Lachlan said firmly, not giving ground.
“A proposition?” Nikki echoed, blinking owlishly, looking from Fiona to Lachlan, all avid interest. The table of customers right next to them gave up all pretense of trying to eat.
“Lachlan! For heaven’s sakes! I’m working! Are you blind? Do you not see the tray? The food?” Fiona glanced over his shoulder, nodding at the table she’d been heading toward. “The starving patrons?”
Lachlan glanced over his shoulder, too, then turned and snatched the basket of rolls out of her hand. “Here you go.” He passed the basket to the lady at the head of the table.
Fiona tried to stop him, but he elbowed her aside and unloaded all her bowls of chowder, plopping them down one at a time in front of each diner. Then he dusted his hands briskly together.
“There now. All set. Get you anything else?” He gave them a bright smile.
Negative shakes of heads and bemused looks all around.
Lachlan beamed and winked at them. “Then I know you won’t mind if I borrow your waitress for a few minutes.” He grabbed her hand. “If you need anything, just shout.” And he dragged her out on to the street.
“Lachlan! Stop it. My boss will kill me. What do you think you’re doing?” She tried unsuccessfully to snatch her hand out of his.
“Inviting you to dinner,” he told her. “And making sure you accept.”
Inviting her to dinner? This didn’t have to do with tomorrow? “Dinner? When? Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“That meeting I had this morning, the one I was late for—” his mouth twisted “—was with Sir David Grantham, the head of—”
“Grantham Cultural Tours.”
“You know him?”
“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,”