McGillivray's Mistress - By Anne McAllister Page 0,6

illuminated Fiona Dunbar’s trash masterpiece, he saw what he’d been unable to make out before—the pair of red women’s panties that flapped—like a red flag in front of a bull—from the sculpture’s outstretched arm.

THE POUNDING ON HER DOOR woke her.

Fiona groaned, then pried open an eyelid and peered at the clock: 7:22.

7:22? Who in God’s name could possibly want to talk to her at 7:22 in the morning? No one who knew her, that was for sure.

Never an early riser, Fiona preferred to start her day when the sun was high in the sky.

It was why she was a sculptor not a painter, she’d told her friend Carin Campbell more than once.

Painters needed to worry about light. Sculptors could work any old time.

Obviously whoever was banging on the door wasn’t aware that she’d been working all night long.

She’d labored until well past midnight on the pieces she sold in Carin’s shop—the metal cutouts and seashell miniatures that were her bread and butter. The paper doll silhouettes she cut and bent and the tiny exquisite sculptures made out of coquina shells, sea glass, bits of driftwood and pebbles were tourist favorites. Easy to transport and immediately evocative of Pelican Cay, they paid the bills and allowed her to keep the old story-and-a-half pink house on the quay that overlooked the harbor.

Normally she finished about two. But last night after she’d done two pelicans, a fisherman, a surfer and a week’s worth of miniature pelicans and dolphins and flying fish and the odd coconut palm or two, she had just begun.

Of course she could have gone to bed, but instead she’d gathered up the treasures she’d found on the shoreline after high tide—the driftwood spar, the sun lotion bottle, the kelp and flipflop and…other things…and set off to add them to her sculpture on the beach.

She hadn’t got home until four.

“All right, already,” she muttered as the pounding continued. She stretched and flexed aching shoulders, then hauled herself up, pulled on a pair of shorts to go with the T-shirt she slept in and padded downstairs to the door. “Hold your horses.”

If it was some befuddled tourist, hung over from a late night at the Grouper and still looking for the house he’d rented for the week, she was going to be hard-pressed to be civil.

Yanking open the door, she began frostily, “Are you aware—?”

And stopped as her words dried up and she found herself staring up into the furious face of Lachlan McGillivray.

He didn’t speak, just thrust something at her. Something small and wadded up and bright red.

Fiona bit back the sudden smile that threatened to touch her lips.

“Yours, I presume?” he drawled.

Fiona snatched them and started to shut the door, but Lachlan pushed past her into the room.

“What do you think you’re doing? I didn’t invite you in.”

“Didn’t you? Seems to me you’ve been inviting me a lot.” He was smiling but it was one of those smiles that sharks had before they ate people.

“I never—!”

A dark brow lifted. “No? Then why put that monstrosity in front of the Moonstone?”

“It’s not a monstrosity!”

“That’s a matter of opinion. Why there?”

“It’s a public beach.”

“There are three miles of public beach.”

“I can put it anywhere I want.”

“Exactly. And you wanted to put it in front of the Moonstone.”

“So?” Fiona lifted her chin. “You should be glad,” she told him. “I’m raising the artistic consciousness of your guests.”

He snorted. “Right. You’re saving them from standard brands, aren’t you?” He made it sound like she was an idiot.

Fiona wrapped her arms across her chest. “That’s one way of putting it,” she said loftily.

“Another way is saying you’re draining away the life blood of the island economy,” Lachlan told her.

“I am not! I would never hurt the island!” Trust a jerk like Lachlan McGillivray to completely misunderstand the whole reason behind her efforts. “This is my home,” she told him. “I was the one who was born here! I’m the one who’s never left!”

“And that makes you better than everyone else?”

“Of course not.”

“Just better than me.”

“You hate it here,” she reminded him.

“Hated it,” he corrected her. “Hell’s bells, Fiona. I was fifteen years old. I’d been dragged away from my home to some godforsaken island in the middle of the ocean. I missed my friends. I missed playing soccer. I didn’t want to be here!”

She pressed her lips together, resisting his words. Of course they made sense now, as they hadn’t back then. Back then she’d taken them personally, as she’d taken everything Lachlan McGillivray had