In Mcgillivray's Bed

“DON’T go using me to make your girlfriend jealous!” Syd protested as McGillivray, his arm still wrapping her shoulders like a vise, hustled her down the dock toward the quay. Over her shoulder she could see Lisa staring after them, lower lip trembling.

“She’s not my girlfriend!”

“Then why is she cooking you conch chowder and meeting your boat?”

“Because she wants to be my girlfriend,” McGillivray said through gritted teeth, sounding beleaguered as he dragged her along.

She clutched at the quilt, nearly tripping, as she hurried to keep up. “Really? Your girlfriend? Why? She looks far too sensible to me!”

“I wish,” McGillivray muttered. “And God knows why,” he added. “I sure don’t.”

They reached a rusty, topless Jeep parked at the foot of the dock, and he tossed his gear into the back, then jerked open the door for her. “Come on. Get in. We don’t have all day.”

“Oh?” It was interesting to see how the girl, Lisa, had spooked McGillivray. He didn’t look the sort to be afraid of women. Tucking the quilt up, Syd climbed into the Jeep. “What’s the problem, then? Does she want to save you from yourself?”

He barely let her get her feet in before he banged the door shut behind her. “That’s what my sister says.” He gave a short sharp whistle and slapped the wheel. “Come on, Belle! Move it.”

Belle took a leap and landed in the back, on top of McGillivray’s bag, some pots and pans, a few unidentified tools, a couple of grease-streaked T-shirts and some paper bags that looked as if they had once contained take-out meals. K-rations, Syd thought. And they’d probably been there since World War II. General Patton would have been right at home. “What a mess.”

Her opinion of his Jeep and its contents didn’t seem to matter to McGillivray. He ignored her and ruffled the dog’s fur. Then he turned and loped back up the dock. He stopped to have a brief conversation with Lisa as he piled into her arms a bunch of the stuff he’d taken from the boat and put on the dock. Then he hoisted the cooler into his own arms, and they walked back to the Jeep together.

Syd stared. If Lisa wasn’t his girlfriend, what was she? His packhorse?

“Thanks,” Hugh said cheerfully to Lisa when they got there. “Just toss all that stuff in the back with Belle.”

Lisa did. And when she did, Syd noted that the “stuff” included her beaded dress. Lisa had obviously noticed it, too. She swallowed hard, but then smiled again with clear determination.

McGillivray didn’t appear to notice. He was whistling as he stowed the cooler in the back of the Jeep. “Thanks a lot,” he said breezily, then jumped into the Jeep, flicked on the key already stuck in the ignition. “You’re a pal, Lise.”

Lisa looked stricken.

McGillivray just stomped the gas pedal, and they shot off up the street.

“You hurt her feelings!” Syd remonstrated as they bounced along.

McGillivray shrugged and hit another pothole. The narrow street was paved but there were more potholes than tarmac as it climbed the hill straight up from the dock. On both sides she saw wooden and stucco houses and shops. Most of the people walking about called out a greeting to Hugh, who waved carelessly back as they bounced up the hill.

Most of the houses they passed had small front gardens or none at all. Some had high walls that butted right against the street. Others had broad overhung porches. All of them, as far as Syd could tell in the minimal light from the few scattered street lamps, looked to be of the same vintage as the Jeep or a hundred or so years older. All of them were in better repair than the street itself.

“Hang on,” McGillivray suggested as he took a hard right and she nearly bounced out. “I’ve lost a few passengers who haven’t.”

Slowly, casually—his earlier “gotcha” still ringing in her ears—Syd reached out to take hold of the bar at the side of the windshield. Just then the Jeep hit a particularly wide and deep pothole, and she scrabbled for a grip to save herself from lurching over the side.

She turned to glare at McGillivray.

“Warned you.” He grinned.

A dozen or so potholes later, he took a sharp left past a broad open field, and then right onto a gravel track into the trees. Abruptly they left the small town behind and plunged into the blackness. Now the road seemed barely wider than the Jeep, and the vegetation rose up on both sides to meet above them. Even with the headlights’ illumination, Syd couldn’t make out a thing. Through the foliage Syd caught sight of occasional lights. Lamps in windows, she surmised as the Jeep slowed and McGillivray whipped it sharply first right, then left, then right again and all at once, a wall loomed in front of them. McGillivray braked, spraying dirt and gravel, then cut the engine.

“Home sweet home,” he announced.

Syd breathed again. Once. Then Belle leaped out and McGillivray followed.

“Come on,” he said to Syd. “And watch out for snakes.”

“Snakes?” Dear God. Syd huddled deeper into the quilt. But even as she sat there she heard his footsteps disappearing around the side of the building. And in the silence there were rustlings in the shrubbery, the sound of branches cracking, slitherings—

“Wait! I’m coming!” She leaped out of the Jeep, hitched up the quilt and flew after him. Breathless, heart pounding, she rounded the corner of the house just as the porch light went on.

Correction: porch lights. A whole string of glowing pink flamingos interspersed with neon-green palm trees dangled along the edge of his roof.

“Why am I not surprised?” Syd muttered. “All you need now is a string of hula girls.”

“Wrong islands,” he said cheerfully from the doorway. “But I didn’t let that stop me,” he said as he flipped another switch and strings of hula girls lit up each of the porch columns.

Syd sputtered, but she couldn’t help laughing. “What does your girlfriend think of these?”

“She’s not my girlfriend!”

“Right.” But if saying so would get a rise of out him, Syd didn’t mind doing it. She was still smiling as she climbed the four shallow steps to the porch, which was as cluttered as the Jeep had been, scattered with swim fins, snorkles and fishing nets, assorted pots and pans, a dog bed, food and water dishes and myriad unidentifiable mechanical objects.

A net hammock was strung across one end of the porch, and a long slatted-wood porch swing swayed at the other. Behind the latter were tucked a surfboard and a boogie board. Above it a disembodied wet suit swung lazily from a clothes hanger on a plant hook. The plant that it might have displaced was balanced precariously on the porch railing.

He was right. It wasn’t close to the five-star hotel she had left behind on Nassau. On the other hand, no one was announcing her betrothal as if it were on the dinner menu here.

And so far she hadn’t seen any snakes.

“How lovely,” she said brightly, stepping over a pan.

McGillivray gave her a doubtful look. But Syd met it with a cheerful, determined one of her own. And she must have been convincing because he said gruffly, “C’mon. Don’t just stand there. You’ll want a shower. I’ll find you some clothes.”

The chaos extended into the kitchen, where newspapers and magazines were scattered amid pots and pans. There were some engine parts on one chair and a pile of laundry on another. Yet another pile was on the floor. The sink, of course, held dirty dishes.

“I thought hurricane season was in the autumn,” Syd remarked.

“Bothers you, do something about it.” McGillivray was busy rummaging through one of the clothes heaps. The clean one, Syd hoped when he pulled out a navy T-shirt and a pair of shorts, surveyed the pile, hesitated, then turned and thrust them at her. “You want a pair of boxers?”

She blinked. “What?”

“I said, do you want a pair of boxers? You’re, er—” he gestured down below her waist but couldn’t seem to say the word “—wet,” he finally managed, scowling.

Was that a tinge of red creeping up his neck and touching the tips of his ears?

His face was definitely red. Talking about women’s underwear embarrassed Hugh McGillivray?

Who’d have thought it? “That would be nice. Thank you,” Syd said politely, smothering a smile.

He gave her another long, baleful look before reaching back into the pile and snagging a pair of pale-blue boxer shorts to toss in her direction. “You can borrow some clothes from my sister tomorrow if you want. Not that Mol has any girls’ clothes, either,” he added with a grimace. “Or you can go shopping. Shower’s this way.” He turned abruptly and headed toward the back of the house.