No way on earth.
He’d never ever do it.
HE WAITED FOR HER to contact him, to tell him what she really wanted in exchange for removing her damned sculpture.
“Were there any messages?” he asked Suzette when he got back to the inn Monday night.
She glanced at her notes. “Dooley called about the roof on the Sandpiper. And the lumberyard called from Nassau.”
“No one else?”
“Lord Grantham. He’ll be arriving Wednesday night.”
Lachlan drummed his fingers on the bookcase. He scowled out the window. There seemed to be new additions to Fiona’s monstrosity. The “king” had an actual six-pack where his abs would be. He had a lasso dangling from his hand. And he seemed to be wearing a baseball cap.
Lachlan could just imagine the cultured Lord Grantham’s reaction to that.
“Did Fiona Dunbar call?”
Suzette blinked and shook her head. “Was she supposed to?”
“No. No. I just thought she might.”
She didn’t call Tuesday afternoon or evening, either. Nor did she call Wednesday morning, though he was in his office the whole time, right there by the phone.
Lachlan felt sweat sliding down his spine and wondered if there was something wrong with the air-conditioning. He also wondered if she actually meant to go through with it.
That thought prompted a vague hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. And feeling it made him furious. It wasn’t as if it bothered him to take his clothes off, damn it!
He’d taken his clothes off lots of times, in front of lots of women. He wasn’t any damn prude.
But he sure as hell had no intention of taking his clothes off in front of Fiona Dunbar so she could stare at him, ogle him, judge him!
He slammed his hand against the doorjamb.
Suzette looked up from her calendar, confused. “Did I get something wrong?”
“No. I’m just…thinking.”
“About…?”
He shook his head. “Never mind.” He raked a hand through his hair, agitated, needing a release, wanting to kick something—someone!
“I’m going for a swim!” he decided abruptly.
“But, Lachlan, we need to—”
“Let me know if anyone calls.”
SHE THOUGHT HE WOULD CALL. She expected he would ring her up and give yet another excuse as to why he couldn’t possibly be there on Thursday morning.
But he didn’t call on Monday, and though she worked at the bakery on Tuesday morning and in Carin’s shop on Tuesday afternoon, she did have an answering machine. And there were no messages on it.
So was he really going to show up?
Strip off his clothes?
Expect her to sculpt him?
Dear God.
She called Hugh and ordered the clay. She called her brother Paul to help her build a modeling stand and armature. She dragged out all her books on sculpture and began to read them feverishly.
He wouldn’t show up, she assured herself.
But what if he did?
Would she dare to try to sculpt him?
LACHLAN LAY AWAKE all night Wednesday night. There was, he figured, always the chance that the world would end by Thursday morning.
If it did, he didn’t want to miss it.
When it hadn’t by five, he dragged himself out of bed with all the enthusiasm of a man told to set the alarm for his own execution. He got dressed, briefly debated on whether he ought to wear shorts or jeans for the occasion, then asked himself savagely what the hell difference it made.
Then he slipped quietly out of the inn, stood glaring into the darkness for one long minute in the direction of The King of the Beach. And then he turned and looked at the Moonstone—his future, the island’s future.
“Life,” his father had warned him when he was a boy, “isn’t all fun and games. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for what you want, for what you believe in.”
And Lachlan had nodded gravely, ready to do his all.
Somehow he’d never imagined his “all” coming down to taking off his clothes for Fiona Dunbar.
At five forty-five he mounted her steps and tapped on her door. His palms were damp. He dried them on his shorts. His stomach was queasy. He ignored it. At the same time, he was aware that this all felt oddly familiar, much like the way he felt before a match.
It was nerves. A good thing, he reminded himself. Nerves got the adrenaline pumping. They moved the blood around.
On second thought, perhaps not a good thing. His blood appeared to be moving in a southward direction. His body wasn’t thinking of this as a sacrifice. His body was doing things he didn’t want it to do at all.
The morning hadn’t dawned yet. Only the faintest sliver of light had begun to line the horizon as he’d left the Moonstone. There had been no one else up in the inn when he’d let himself out, the guests enjoying a long lie-in. He’d heard the sounds of Maddie, the cook, and Tina, her daughter, just coming in as he’d slipped out the front.
It would have been faster to go through the kitchen, but he hadn’t wanted them to wonder where he was going at that hour.
He didn’t see anyone on his walk over the hill and down into the village. There was, naturally, a bit more activity at the harbor.
From Fiona’s front porch overlooking the water, he could see a few small lights moving as fishermen preparing to leave, hauled nets on to the dock and into their boats. Some were already aboard, and the low rumble of the diesel engines began to fill the air.
Lachlan envied them. He’d gone out fishing a few times with the locals when he was a teenager. He’d even gone with Fiona’s father and brothers, working alongside Mike and Paul, doing the grunt work, pulling his weight, but glad he didn’t have to earn his living that way.
Now he stood with his back to Fiona’s front door, watching and wishing he was going with them. Working his tail off hauling nets all day was a damn sight more appealing than what he was going to be doing.
Unless, he thought hopefully, she didn’t answer the door.
If she didn’t—if, he thought with marginally more cheerfulness, she slept right through their appointment—he could turn around and go back home again, obligation fulfilled.
It could happen.
