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“They admire you,” his mother had said.
“They’re trying to drive me crazy,” Lachlan replied.
But nothing had got rid of them until the day Fiona had heard him telling a college girl he’d met on the beach how awful it was living on Pelican Cay and how glad he’d be to leave.
“It’s the end of the earth,” he’d said. “There’s nothing worth having here.”
“So leave,” Fiona had blurted, her fury turning her complexion as red as her hair.
As he hadn’t been talking to her—hadn’t even realized she was nearby—he and the girl he’d been talking to had both stared at her in surprise.
“Just get on a boat and get out of here,” Fiona had gone on angrily. “Or better yet, swim. Maybe you’ll drown! Go to hell, Lachlan McGillivray!” And she’d spun away and run down the beach.
“Who’s that?” the blonde had asked him. “And what’s her problem?”
Lachlan, embarrassed, had shrugged. “Who knows? That’s Fiona. She’s just a nutty kid.”
And he would be extremely glad when she grew up!
Or at least he’d thought he would be.
Somehow, though, Fiona Dunbar, all grown-up, turned out to be worse.
Her stick-straight body had developed curves somewhere along the way. Her carroty red hair, which back then had been ruthlessly tamed into a long ponytail, had, in the past couple of years, become a free loose fiery curtain of auburn silk that begged to be touched. As did her skin which was creamy except where it was golden with freckles. And that was the most perverse thing of all—even her freckles enticed him!
It wasn’t fair.
He hadn’t come back to Pelican Cay to notice Fiona Dunbar! Perversely, though, he couldn’t seem to help it. She was here. She was unattached. And she was, by far, the most beautiful woman on the island.
But unlike every other woman between the ages of seven and seventy—virtually all of whom had fallen all over themselves trying to impress Lachlan McGillivray during his soccer-playing career—Fiona Dunbar wanted nothing to do with him.
So he wasn’t God’s gift to all women. Lachlan still had had more than his share of groupies over the years. And while he didn’t think he was drop-dead handsome, women seemed to like his deep blue eyes, his crooked grin and his hard dark looks.
Wherever he’d gone, certainly plenty of women had followed—chatting him up in bars, tucking their phone numbers in the pockets of his shirts and trousers, ringing him at all hours of the day and night, clamoring to be the one in his bed on any given night—even offering him their underwear!
Four years ago, at the height of Lachlan’s popularity, a magazine interviewer witnessing a woman doing just that, had asked him if that sort of thing happened often.
“Well, sometimes,” Lachlan had admitted honestly because it was only the truth. And then because that sounded arrogant, he’d joked, “But I only keep the red ones.”
And just like that, dear God, an urban legend had been born!
Two days after the magazine hit the stands the first pair of red panties arrived in his mail. Dozens more followed. He’d been deluged—at his home, at the club, at the hotels on the road. More stories followed. And so did more pairs of panties. Before long every scandal sheet across Europe was filled with women claiming their panties were the centerpiece of Lachlan McGillivray’s collection.
It didn’t matter that none of it was true, it was a great story.
Next thing he knew he had a worldwide fan club whose membership was three-quarters women. The club sent out thousands of autographed pictures of him leaping, legs and arms outstretched, to make a spectacular save.
“They admire my ability,” Lachlan said modestly whenever he had been asked about the extent of his popularity.
“They admire your legs,” his sister Molly had said flatly, shaking her head at the extent of female idiocy. “Men in shorts! Some women just can’t get enough of them.”
Most women, in Lachlan’s experience.
Not Fiona Dunbar.
She hated him. Eighteen months ago she’d proved it. He and a couple of his teammates had come to Pelican Cay to visit his brother, Hugh, over Christmas. Molly had gone to see their parents in Virginia, but because he had work to do in the islands, Hugh couldn’t go. So, feeling a bit homesick, he had invited his brother to visit him for the holidays.
“Not that I expect you to come,” he’d said cavalierly. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty of other more fascinating places to go.”
Lachlan had. Between the demands of goalkeeping and his frenetic social life—even without the red panties collection it was pretty hectic—there was rarely a dull moment. That Christmas he’d gone to Monaco to live it up day and night with a girl called Lisette. Or was it Claudine? Suzanne?
Or all of the above. The fact was, there had been plenty—more than plenty—of willing women.
Two days before New Year’s, though, exhausted from a season of hard work and a holiday of hard play, he thought that spending a week or so of solitary celibate days on a deserted pink sand beach sounded like heaven.
He’d said as much to Joaquin Santiago and Lars Erik Lindquist, two of his equally hard-driving, hard-living teammates. And twenty-four hours later, the three of them had arrived on Pelican Cay.
Still hung over when Hugh met them in Nassau, Lachlan had sworn, “No booze. No babes. Just sand and sun and sleep.” And at his brother’s disbelieving look, he’d yawned and nodded as firmly as his aching head would permit. “My New Year’s resolutions.”
Bad news, then, that the first person he saw later that day was a Titian-haired beauty in a bikini sashaying past Hugh’s tiny house, heading toward the beach.
“Who the hell is that?”
“Fiona,” Hugh said offhandedly. “Dunbar,” he’d added at Lachlan’s blank look. “You remember—Molly’s friend.”
“Fiona?” Lachlan’s voice had cracked with disbelief. “That’s Fiona Dunbar?” That total knockout?
Hugh grinned. “Doesn’t much look like Fiona the ferret these days, does she?” That was what they had dubbed her at age ten, when she and Molly the mole had been sneaking around after them every day.
Lachlan sucked air. No, she didn’t look much like Fiona the ferret. She looked drop-dead gorgeous. Delectable. Beddable.
His “no babes” resolution began to crack. He kept an eye out for her after that. But while he saw her frequently over the next few days, she never came near.
She was taking care of her father, Hugh told him. A former fisherman, Tom Dunbar had had a stroke some years back, not long after Fiona had graduated from high school. She’d spent the next ten years taking care of him.
“And working,” Hugh said. “She works at Carin Campbell’s gift shop. And she sculpts.”
“Sculpts?” Lachlan had looked doubtful.
“Oh yeah. Sand sculptures. Shells. Even metal. Cuts them and bends them into shape—like paper dolls.”
Lachlan couldn’t imagine. But he wandered down to Carin’s shop later that day to buy some postcards, and he found quite a few of Fiona’s pieces. He had to admit they were pretty impressive—pelicans and other shore birds, palm trees and hammocks and fishermen. She was selling sketches there, too. And caricatures.
Then he realized that the witty sculpture Hugh had hanging in his house—one of him looping the loop in his seaplane—was a Fiona Dunbar piece, as was the caricature of Maurice at the custom’s house taxi stand, and the one of Miss Saffron the straw lady which he spotted hanging on her porch.
She drew caricatures of tourists and sold them the sketches on the beach. She even drew Lars Erik and Joaquin as they’d ogled the bikini-clad women on the beach. He knew that because Lars Erik had bought it from her.
She drew everybody and their dog. But she never drew him.
It rankled. Lachlan didn’t like being ignored—particularly when he hadn’t managed to ignore her.
Finally, when a week had gone by and she hadn’t even said hello to him, he’d had enough, especially since he’d just told Joaquin and Lars Erik that he’d known her for years.
“I don’t believe it,” Lars Erik said.
They were sitting in the Grouper, drinking beer, and Fiona had just come in, carrying a folder with some sketches in it, which she’d hugged against her breasts as she scanned the room. She’d spared Lars Erik a brief smile, but had skipped right over Lachlan as if he were invisible.
“She’s just miffed because a long time ago I didn’t like her precious island,” he explained.
“Oh, right,” Lars Erik said, nodding his head.
“Probably doesn’t even know her,” Joaquin speculated with a sly grin.
“Of course I know her. She’s a friend of my sister’s. Her name is Fiona Dunbar. Isn’t it?” he said to the bartender.
The bartender, Maurice’s son Michael, grinned broadly. “That be Fiona, all right.”
“So you know her name,” Lars Erik said. “So what? Invite her over to have a drink with us.”
“He doesn’t know her,” Joaquin said.
So he had to prove it. With Joaquin and Lars Erik egging him on, he’d strode over to where Fiona had just handed a pair of sketches to a tourist couple. He smiled his best charm-the-ladies smile and invited her to have a drink with him.
She blinked, then shook her head. “With you? I don’t think so.”
He stared at her, astonished at her refusal. “What do you mean, you don’t think so?” He was annoyed that she’d said no, more annoyed that she didn’t seem to recognize him, and most annoyed by the fact that the closer he got to her the more gorgeous she became.
He wanted to see flaws. There weren’t any.
“Maybe you don’t remember me.” It was possible, he supposed. He didn’t think he’d changed that much, but she sure as hell didn’t look the way she used to!
“Oh, I remember you,” she said, and gave him a blinding smile as she slipped between him and the barstool. “That’s why I don’t want to.”
And leaving him standing there staring after her, Fiona sashayed out the door, letting it swing shut after her.
Behind him, over the sounds of the steel drum band playing “Yellow Bird,” Lachlan heard Joaquin and Lars Erik hooting.
“Well, helloooo, darlin’,” a sultry voice sounded in his ear, and Lachlan turned to see a busty blonde sitting on the barstool behind him.
“Hello, yourself,” he said, teeth still clenched, but managing a smile to meet her own.
She put a hand on his arm and slid off the stool to stand next to him, almost pressed against him. “You’re Lachlan, aren’t you? The one they call ‘the gorgeous goalie’?”
“Some people have said that.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Some people are very perceptive,” the blonde purred. She smiled. “I was just heading out for a little walk on the beach. Want to go for a swim?”
“Why not?” It sounded a hell of a lot more appealing than listening to Joaquin and Lars Erik snickering into their beers. He looped an arm around the blonde’s shoulders and steered her out the door.
Fiona, after her grand exit, hadn’t gone far. He spotted her standing on the porch of the gift shop talking to Carin. She didn’t look his way.
Lachlan looked hers—and gave her a long slow smug smile as he and the blonde walked past.
“I knew I’d get lucky,” the blonde was giggling. “I’ve got my red panties on tonight.”
Deliberately Lachlan nibbled the blonde’s ear. “Not for long,” he promised her.
He didn’t remember whether she’d been wearing red panties or not. He didn’t remember anything about her. He’d gone back to England two days later—and the only thing he remembered from the holiday was blasted annoying Fiona!
“The fish that got away,” Joaquin called her.
“Like letting in a goal,” Lars Erik said, “when you’ve kept a clean sheet.”
“We’ll see about that,” Lachlan muttered.
He hadn’t had time then. But when he came back this past winter, sailing over on the boat he’d bought in Nassau, making plans to move to the island permanently that spring, he’d taken another shot.
Hugh had been going out with a model he’d met who was doing a honeymoon photo shoot, so Lachlan had suggested a double date—a blind double date.
“Why not?” He’d made the suggestion casually. “Just ask Fiona Whatshername along.”
Hugh had raised his eyebrows. “She’s busy with her dad.”
“I’ll get someone to stay with her dad,” Lachlan had said. “It will be good for her.” He arranged for Maurice to go by and play dominos with Tom Dunbar and Hugh did the asking.
To say that Fiona had been surprised when Lachlan had been the one to pick her up would have been putting it mildly. She looked stricken when he turned up on the doorstep. Then she said, relieved, “Oh, you must have come to see my dad—”
“No. I’m here for you.”
“But—”
She looked like she might protest. But in the end, she’d let herself be drawn out on to the porch and down the steps. “We’re meeting Hugh and his girl at Beaches.”
“Beaches?” Fiona’s eyes widened.
Beaches was the nicest place on the island. Not a place Hugh could afford.
“I’ll pay,” Lachlan had told him. “You want to impress this girl, don’t you?”
“Yeah. But…” Hugh had shaken his head. “Do you want to impress Fiona Dunbar?”
Lachlan hadn’t known what he wanted to do with Fiona Dunbar. Then. Later that night he’d known exactly what he wanted—
He hadn’t got it.
She’d damned near drowned him instead.
These days he wasn’t touching Fiona Dunbar with a ten-foot pole!
