Read In McGillivray's Bed for Free Online

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?
    â€œThanks,” 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.
    â€œYou 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. Onboth 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.
    â€œHang 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.
    â€œWarned 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.
    â€œHome sweet home,” he announced.
    Syd breathed again. Once. Then Belle leaped out and McGillivray followed.
    â€œCome on,” he said to Syd. “And watch out for snakes.”
    â€œSnakes?” 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—
    â€œWait! 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