McGillivray's Mistress - By Anne McAllister Page 0,47
Nathan will, too. We’ll write the letters tonight. But—” she hesitated “—it’s awfully late in the year, you know.”
“I know,” Fiona said. “I need to get started. Will you please show me what to do?”
There were four e-mails to go out with portfolios attached. Applications to the three schools in England that David had recommended. And a fourth to the school in Italy she’d hoped to attend all those years ago.
She couldn’t refuse to apply to the English schools. Not after all the help David had given her. But she didn’t want to go there if it gave David the wrong idea. She didn’t want to lead him on. So she applied to the Italian one as well. It was a good school, emphasizing sculpture. And if once upon a time its geographic proximity to Lachlan had appealed to her, now the attraction was that it was halfway across the world from Pelican Cay.
She typed in the personal application letters she had written out in longhand that morning. Carin helped her attach the files with the photos David had taken of her work. They weren’t a lot but they were all—almost all—she had. They would have to do.
She sent them out one after another, then let out a deep breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding.
“All done,” she said and stood up. “Thanks.” She even managed a smile for Carin and Elaine as she left the shop.
She didn’t notice Carin and Elaine going to stand in the window and watch worriedly as she walked back down the street. And she was well out of earshot when Carin said, “I don’t know what he did, but I’d like to kick Lachlan McGillivray to Nassau and back.”
“MY, YOU’RE UP EARLY.” Suzette blinked in surprise when she walked into the office at seven the next morning and found Lachlan already there, poring over some specs for an inn in St Maarten.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he muttered and tipped back in his desk chair, scowling at the papers in his hand. Couldn’t focus on the damn specs, either.
He’d been reading them, trying to make sense of them since five-thirty. He’d awakened, like clockwork at five, had known a moment’s eagerness to get up and head over to Fiona’s, and then had remembered he wasn’t going anymore.
Good, he’d told himself and rolled over to try to go back to sleep. But it hadn’t happened. Fifteen minutes of tossing and turning was all he could stand. Then he got up, went for a swim, then came back and got to work. Tried to get to work.
He tossed the papers on the desk and stood up. He needed something more physical. Like tearing down a building.
He went to find his brother.
Hugh, naturally, wasn’t up yet.
He squinted blearily when Lachlan walked into his bedroom and jerked open the blinds “What are you doin’ here? Wha’ time is it? Don’t you ever knock?”
“It’s seven-thirty. Up and at ’em.”
For months Hugh had been trying to get Lachlan to help him tear down the old hut on the land he’d bought beside the cricket field so they could build a machine shop there.
“I’ve got time now,” Lachlan said, kicking the bed frame. “And if you want me to knock, put a lock on your door.”
Hugh scowled and pulled the sheet over his head. “Come back when it’s morning.”
“If I don’t go there, I’ll dig in here.” Looking around at the mess that was his brother’s house, Lachlan could almost relish the prospect.
Hugh groaned, then scrubbed his hands through his hair and over his face, and finally hauled himself up. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Fiona kick you out?”
FIONA HAD NOT KICKED HIM OUT.
But try telling Hugh that. Or anyone else.
Lachlan understood very quickly the difficulty Fiona had had in convincing anyone that she and he were not having an affair. Everyone on Pelican Cay had their own answers to questions before they even asked.
“What are you doing?” Molly asked when she’d come to work to find Lachlan ripping out a window frame.
“What does it look like?” he growled.
Molly grinned. “Like you’re frustrated. Fiona dump you, then?”
“No, damn it. Fiona did not dump me!”
But if Hugh and Molly didn’t believe it, neither did Carin or Nathan or Miss Saffron or Maurice and Estelle or any of the kids on his soccer team.
When he yelled at them to pay attention for heaven’s sake, they just shook their heads and smiled at each other.
“My aunt dumped him,” Peter Dunbar said knowledgeably.
And Lacey Wolfe nodded. “My