Nathan's Child - By Anne McAllister Page 0,22

If he was, there was no doubt that Hugh McGillivray, Pelican Cay’s “best-looking bachelor”—his own description—would say yes to pulling up a chair to her table tonight. Hugh was notorious for trying to wangle dinner invitations. He also made no secret of his attraction to her—an attraction that Carin generally discouraged.

Well, one meal wouldn’t get Hugh’s hopes up. She just prayed he wasn’t already eating at someone else’s house.

“Bring him,” Lacey said promptly. “Hugh’s just a friend,” she explained to her father. “Remember, I told you about him. He’s the one who flew Lorenzo to Nassau.”

“Right.” Nathan looked at Carin. “Bring him along.” There was an edge to his voice. Still Carin hesitated.

“Come, Mom. Please,” Lacey begged. “It’d be fun.”

It wouldn’t be fun at all. But maybe if she brought Hugh, Nathan would think she and Hugh were an item. Maybe he’d realize that he didn’t need to stay around Pelican Cay, that Lacey didn’t need a full-time father.

“I’ll ask Hugh,” Carin said. “I’ll let you know.”

“Seven o’clock,” Nathan said. “I can pick you up.”

“Hugh has a car. Or we’ll walk.”

Nathan looked as if he might argue, but Lacey grabbed his hand. “C’mon, Dad. Let’s swim. And I want to show you how I can stand on my hands.”

Carin swallowed the temptation to tell Lacey not to brag. She should be pleased that daughter and father were forming a relationship, forging bonds, making connections. But she turned away at the sight of Nathan’s fingers curling around their daughter’s as he allowed himself to be led toward the water. She couldn’t look. It made her wish…

She didn’t want to wish.

“Dinner?” Hugh looked amazed, then delighted at Carin’s invitation. “You’re inviting me to dinner?”

A grin cracked his handsome face as he looked up from the boat engine he was working on. Hugh McGillivray had dancing blue eyes and thick dark hair, cheekbones to die for and a once-broken nose that merely added to his appeal. And even with a streak of engine grease on one cheek and another on his bare muscular chest, it was true, what he always claimed—that he was the best-looking bachelor on Pelican Cay.

Or he had been until yesterday, a tiny voice piped up in Carin’s brain.

“Yes, dinner,” Carin said firmly, ignoring the traitorous voice, not wanting to admit that, even now, in her eyes Nathan was far more appealing. “Tonight. If you don’t have other plans.” Please God, don’t let him have other plans.

“Sounds great,” Hugh said cheerfully. “I’ll bring the beer.”

“Not necessary,” Carin said quickly. At Hugh’s look of surprise, she shifted from one foot to the other. “It’s, um, it’s not at my place. Well, it was going to be, but…there’s been a change in plans. My, um…that is, Lacey’s…father…is on the island…visiting…and he took Lacey fishing and they asked if we’d like to come to dinner.” She said all this in sort of a jerky stop-and-go jumble and wasn’t surprised when Hugh cocked a brow.

“Invited us?” Clearly he was reassessing the invitation and didn’t believe her one bit. Carin couldn’t blame him.

“Invited me,” she clarified. “But I didn’t want—I said I was inviting you to dinner—” she flushed a little admitting that “—and Lacey said bring you, and Nathan said yes, do. And, well…you know.”

Hugh knew. “Right,” he said. “So you want me to go as your boyfriend?”

Carin felt the heat in her cheeks increase. “I don’t—I mean, it’s not what you think,” she said lamely.

Hugh tilted his head. “Oh? And what do I think?”

She put her hands on her hips. “You think I’m still attracted to him. I’m not!”

Hugh’s silence told her what he thought of that remark.

“Of course he’s attractive,” Carin allowed, because it was impossible to deny that Nathan was a damned attractive man. It was the fact that he didn’t love her and had left her that she found unattractive! “But I’m not attracted to him.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not!”

“I understand.” Hugh nodded solemnly, though there was an unholy light in his eyes. He started to rake a hand through his hair, then looked at the grease on it and wiped it on his disreputable cutoffs instead. “I get it. You’ve finally become attracted to me. And about time.” His grin flashed. “Taste comes to Carin Campbell at last.”

“Don’t you wish?” she teased.

“Don’t I,” Hugh agreed with just enough seriousness to make her wonder as she sometimes did, if he was serious or not.

As long as she’d known him, he’d had one girlfriend after another. None had been serious. None had lasted. The