McGillivray's Mistress - By Anne McAllister Page 0,33
the gravel road.
“Seeing you home.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You’re the one who’s being ridiculous if you think I’m going to let you go by yourself when you’ve had a fall like that.”
It wasn’t just the possibility of her being hurt. There was the idiocy of her running around the island in the middle of the night. Anything could happen. He opened his mouth to say so, then closed it again. If he knew anything about Fiona Dunbar, it was that she would think she didn’t need protecting.
Maybe she didn’t.
But how the hell would he know unless he went with her?
“Go home,” she said, eyes straight ahead, never slackening her pace. She turned off the road and on to the path that led through the mangroves. It was less gravel and more rock, ungraded, uneven and unlit.
Though well traveled during the day, it was not the way the Moonstone’s guests came back from the village at night. They always took the road, which was only one lane but which had the occasional light and was far easier. It was also the long way around.
A sensible person would have taken it, Lachlan thought. So would a barefoot person—which he was. “The road—” he began.
“Is for tourists,” Fiona said. “I know where I’m going.”
She moved unerringly along the narrow path that wound through the mangroves over the dune and down the other side, winding its way toward the top of the village where it would meet the road again. Lachlan followed her. But he was the one who gritted his teeth as the rocks cut his feet. He was the one who tripped over a root and stumbled trying to keep up.
“Go back before you hurt yourself,” she said, not turning.
“No.”
An exasperated breath hissed between her teeth. “You’re going to get cut to bits and I’m going to have to look after you!”
“Then you should have gone on the road.”
She turned and glared at him.
He shrugged equably. “Your choice.”
Apparently she got the point because she slowed her pace a little. She also said, “Watch out for those rocks,” when there was a particularly rough bit and, “Mind the glass,” where someone had broken a bottle.
“Thanks,” he said.
She grunted.
As they came into town he could hear the band at the Grouper still going strong. There were a few people on the street, though none he knew, and Fiona didn’t speak to anyone. They walked silently down the hill, along the quay and stopped when they reached Fiona’s front gate.
“I suppose you expect me to invite you in,” she said gruffly. “Put some antiseptic on those cuts.”
He shrugged and told her the truth. “I’m coming in whether you invite me or not.”
She opened her mouth, then gave him a sharp look, shrugged and turned to open the gate. “Suit yourself.”
“See,” he said when they got inside and he could examine her more closely. “You’re all scraped up.” She had a cut on her arm and a long abrasion on the outside of her right leg where she must have scraped herself on one of the driftwood spars as she fell.
Fiona looked at them dispassionately. “No big deal,” she said. “You probably hurt your feet more.”
“I’ll live.”
She looked at his bloody feet and shook her head. “You can wash them in the bathroom and put some antiseptic on. Coral cuts can get infected easily. There’s some Band-Aids there, too. Come on.” She led the way upstairs and while he washed his feet, she cleaned her arm and her leg.
“See,” she said when they were done and back downstairs again. “It was totally silly for you to come with me. I’m fine. You’re worse. You should call Maurice or one of the other taxis to drive you home.”
“I’m not going home.”
She stared at him. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not going home,” he said. “I’m staying here.”
“The hell you are! I don’t recall inviting you to do anything of the sort.”
“Perhaps because you’re concussed,” he said mildly.
“I am not concussed! I’m perfectly fine. I have a cut on my arm and a scraped leg. That’s all.”
“You could have internal injuries. You fell.”
“I knocked the wind out of myself.”
“That’s what Joaquin thought,” he said. “A friend of mine,” he explained. “He fell off a motorcycle.”
“Oh, well, a motorcycle. What do you expect?”
“He wasn’t going fast, just slid the bike in some mud. He didn’t think he was hurt, either,” Lachlan went on. “Got up, got back on the bike, went home. And nearly died from a burst spleen.”
“Lachlan, I don’t have a burst