regret rose in him now. Suddenly, he felt the need, stronger than ever, to set them apart from each other in his mind, these two women who would have looked like sisters, were they standing side by side. He knew he would be able to tell from the eyes. Unfortunately, Taylor Bissett was halfway across the room, and the mirror glass on the other side of here could stand a polish to clear up the view. He would have to go down there for a closer look.
Des headed for the steps that led to a side door at the end of the bar. He glanced one more time through the back of the mirror. “Damn,” he cursed as he saw a lanky man walk up behind Taylor with a smile on his face that said he intended to get to know her very well, very fast. Des quickened his pace toward the door.
* * *
WHEN TAYLOR FELT someone at her shoulder, she thought it might be the person she had come here to find. She looked up to see a dark-haired man of wiry build, attractive in a rawboned sort of way. He leaned over and flashed her a quick smile that told her he was just a stranger trying to pick her up, after all.
“I bet you won’t believe this, but I know you,” he said, starting out with the most clichéd of pickup lines.
“I beg your pardon. I don’t think I know you.”
“It was when you were a kid,” he said. “May I?” He gestured at the chair next to hers and sat down in it before she could say whether she wanted him to or not. His movements were abrupt, like a darting animal’s, so much so that there was no time to react.
Taylor hesitated. Was this a new twist on an old line? “Are you trying to say you knew me when I was a child here in Key West?”
“That’s right. I did.”
Taylor almost laughed at him. She had left here as barely more than an infant, and she hadn’t been back since. How could he possibly recognize her now as an adult?
“That was so long ago. You probably don’t remember,” he said. “Your aunt used to bring you to my mother’s house almost every day. I’d sneak around corners to get a look at you. You were almost as pretty then as you are now.”
“Thank you for the compliment. But you’re right, I don’t remember you. What did you say your name was?”
“Oh, sorry. I was so surprised to see you I forgot my manners. I’m Jethro.”
He took her hand and shook it briefly. His grip was firm, but darting like the rest of him.
“Was it my Aunt Netta who brought me to your house when I was small?”
“That’s right. That was her name. But you weren’t so small. I could already tell you were going to be tall like you are now.”
Taylor was again tempted to laugh. She had seen pictures of herself at three years old. She had been average size then, maybe even a bit small for her age. Her first growth spurt hadn’t happened till a couple of years later, at least. She was about to throw this guy some lines of her own, of the brush-off variety, when she noticed a man coming through a doorway at the end of the bar that extended the length of the room. He stopped for a moment to say something to the bartender. Taylor was looking at him with such concentration that, when he turned, he caught her staring. The directness of his gaze connected them, one to another, across the room with a flash of electric intimacy that almost made Taylor look away. She felt suddenly apprehensive, but she held his stare despite the flutter in her chest that was her heart picking up speed.
He was powerfully angular, almost too imposing for the low-ceilinged barroom. The lines of his face might have been chiseled from the rich-grained wood of the beams supporting that ceiling. His cheekbones were high and resolute, like the ridge of collarbone below his square, dimpled chin. He seemed out of place somehow in this smoky barroom, as if he was meant to be out-of-doors, among trees and landscapes as rugged as himself.
He began walking across the room. He was headed, in as straight a line as possible, directly toward her. She had guessed who he was the moment she saw him. He walked as if he owned the place, and that meant he had to be Destiny Maxwell. She felt that ownership reach out toward her the way it sometimes did with very strong-minded men. She steeled herself against its strength. She wasn’t about to be dominated, especially not by this particular man, no matter how strong-minded he might be. If this was to be a test of wills, she was determined to come out the winner.
Still, she couldn’t deny how attractive he was. She had seen it in the photographs in her portfolio, but those had only been pictures. The man in the flesh was even better-looking, almost disturbingly so. She would have preferred that not to be the case, but Taylor wasn’t accustomed to lying to herself. She had to admit, if only in private silence, that even the way he walked was somehow unsettling to her. He moved fast across the room without appearing to hurry at all, as if he wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t the kind of man who hurried for anybody. He might put on a little speed when his priorities required it, but he didn’t hurry. That would mean behaving as if something really mattered to him. Taylor guessed that this man didn’t like things to matter to him, or to let anybody know they did.
Des Maxwell might possibly be the handsomest man she had ever seen. He might also be the coolest and the most detached, and that coolness and detachment intrigued her. It also made her increasingly uneasy with every step he took because, the closer he got, the more striking he looked. As he approached she noticed more details about him, such as that he was quite tall, six feet or more. She couldn’t tell exactly from this angle. His hair was bronze and gold, much like April Jane Cooney’s. His deep, copper tan made Taylor aware of her own snowbird-pale skin.
Taylor felt a sudden shift of perspective, as if she had turned abruptly at an angle to see something not visible in her former line of vision. However, she hadn’t moved a muscle. She knew what was happening. She had experienced it before. The barroom scene disappeared for her for an instant and was replaced by something much more disturbing. She could see her body stretched out full length and naked. His nude body lay atop hers. Their skin touched, almost blended, but remained mysteriously different, like night from day.
Then the image was gone, as suddenly as it had materialized, and she was watching him stride toward her once again. Unfortunately, as with other such experiences, the shadow of the vision remained, along with its aura of strong sensuality. Taylor struggled to erase that sensation from her consciousness. She reminded herself that she’d always been put off by men who were what she thought of as too handsome. Vanity usually came along with such physical gifts, and arrogance. The way this particular man moved led her to suspect a generous portion of both.
Still, Taylor had to concede that the very sight of him had shaken her. Or, could it be just the vision she was reacting to? She hadn’t gotten over being startled when this kind of thing happened. She doubted she ever would. The experience made her feel unprotected, as if her usual defenses had toppled and she was left completely vulnerable. She definitely didn’t want to feel that way now, in front of Des Maxwell. She stifled the impulse to swallow hard against the rapid beating of her heart.
“Well, Jethro,” the tall man said when he reached the table. “You usually don’t prowl your way in here till the weekend.”
She wouldn’t go so far as to say there was a sneer in his voice, but it came very close to that. Meanwhile, though he was talking to Jethro, Destiny Maxwell was staring at her. His green eyes didn’t waver an instant from their study of her face. She felt their imposition so keenly that she was tempted to slap him for his rudeness, or maybe to dispel the shock his close-up gaze seemed to be causing to her system. She could actually feel her stomach tightening into a knot under his scrutiny. The vision of herself naked under him had already
