who lives on Moonbird Key knows the Connellys.”
“But you don’t. Live on Moonbird Key, I mean. Believe me, I’m sure of that.” He held out his hands, palms up. “And, false modesty aside, I don’t flatter myself that my fame extends much beyond the bridge to Fort Myers.”
“Perhaps,” she countered, wondering whether her voice sounded acerbic or flirtatious, “you underestimate yourself.”
Edgerton snorted. “Oh, yeah, sure. Mark underestimates himself. That’ll be the day. Well, come on, we’d better get going.” His voice was more openly irritable now. He took two testy paces toward the hotel and, sensing that no one was following, turned back. “Mark. Ms. McBride said she works alone. We’d better let her get to it.”
Mark didn’t answer him. He hadn’t taken his gaze off Glenna. She met his appraisal as serenely as possible, but the intensity in his eyes made her skin tingle. His curiosity was as tangible as a touch.
“Damn it, Mark. Mark?” Edgerton’s impatient bluster was dissipating, replaced by a thin tremor of anxiety. “Mark, you know I really need you. Please?”
Please? Glenna’s gaze shot toward the older man. Since when did Edgerton Connelly, undisputed leader of the Moonbird boys, have to say please to Mark?
Mark was the poor cousin, the one who lived at the Moonbird on sufferance, the one who hadn’t a penny to his name. “Is that what makes him dangerous?” Glenna had asked her sister. And Cindy had chuckled melodically. “Sort of, Mouse,” she’d said, ruffling Glenna’s hair. “Sort of.”
For a minute she thought Mark might ignore the desperation in Edgerton’s voice. But finally she felt his gaze shift, releasing her like a butterfly unpinned, and he pivoted toward his cousin.
“You’re right, Edge,” he said agreeably. “We wouldn’t want to intrude. Well, goodbye, then—and good scouting.” He started to move away but immediately halted, as if something had just occurred to him. “You’ll be at tonight’s dinner dance, though, won’t you? Purcell will want to come. So I’m sure we’ll see each other there.”
His smile was wicked. He recognized her reluctance to let him come any closer, that smile said. But it also said that he wasn’t so easily thwarted. He was intrigued by her—he wanted more, and he intended to get it sooner or later. That was no surprise.
What did shock her was the small thrill of anticipation that shimmered through her like a silver fish skimming just below the surface of her mind. Dangerous, she thought with an internal shiver. Cindy had been right. This man was damned dangerous.
“Oh, yes,” she said, meeting his laughing eyes, accepting and answering the challenge. “I’m sure I’ll have no trouble finding you. You’ll be the one dancing with The Senator’s Wife, right? The one with the hibiscus between his teeth.”
Actually it was much easier than that.
Even without a hibiscus, Mark Connelly stood out. Suntanned and swarthy as a pirate in his elegant white tails, he was quite simply the sexiest man in the room.
Which was no small feat, because by nine o’clock that night the Moonlight Ballroom was awash with beautiful people. Every adult in Florida who had any pretensions to glamour, power or wealth was here. To miss the grand reopening of the Moonbird Hotel apparently was to declare oneself a nonentity.
Glenna sat quietly at a table with Purcell Jennings. Comfortable together, they didn’t speak. His intense silence told her that his photographer’s eye was already framing, lighting, capturing the essence of the scene before him.
And what a scene it was! In honor of the legendary moonbird, the ballroom had been renovated entirely in shades of white. The walls were covered with creamon-ecru flocked paper; the white ash planks of the dance floor were polished to a starry gloss. A luxurious bouquet of miniature Snow Bride roses adorned each table, and overhead huge chandeliers dripped hundreds of crystal teardrops.
The invitations had requested that the guests wear white, too, and as the women swirled by, Glenna could see how the Moonlight Ballroom got its name. The shades of ivory, cream, vanilla and pearl were like moonbeams dancing on silvered water.
Glenna was impressed—in fact, she had to make an effort not to be downright enchanted. Connelly money had managed to re-create a level of splendor that hadn’t been seen for nearly a century. There must be, she thought, a lot of Connelly money.
“You should be dancing.”
Glenna turned toward Purcell, surprised. As his Parkinson’s progressed, it was getting harder for him to talk, and ordinarily he confined himself to articulating only the essentials. Film, please. Or Less light. Surely he didn’t intend to waste his breath trying to persuade her to dance. He knew it was futile.
“Should I? Why?” She put her hand over his, aware of how little padding covered his long, elegant bones. “I’m enjoying myself here with you. And I suspect that all this pageantry is more beautiful viewed from the outside anyway.”
Purcell shook his head. “Not more beautiful,” he said slowly. “Safer. You always think outside is... safer.”
“Nonsense.” She felt herself flushing. One drawback to Purcell’s condition was that he didn’t waste any time beating around the bush. He stared at her with a piercing gray gaze that shamed her. “Well, maybe,” she modified, pleating the corner of her napkin pointlessly. “But what’s wrong with keeping a cautious distance? What you call cowardice seems like common sense to me.”
Purcell’s thick white eyebrows drew together. “Bah!” His hand twitched irritably, but he didn’t take it away. “Pure twaddle. You need to get to know these people if we’re going to get any decent pictures. Feel, Glenna. Feel what this family, this hotel, are all about.”
“I know, I know.” Glenna smiled, trying not to notice the twinge of conscience that stung her. Purcell approached all his shoots that way—feeting the atmosphere first, then trying to capture it on film.
And for once his dictates dovetailed with her own private agenda. She wanted to get to know the Connellys, maybe even ask a few subtle questions. Perhaps, before the photos were finished and their bags were packed, she might even learn which of the three young men had lured Cindy out on that fateful night.
She’d already met Philip here tonight. He might be a good place to start. He had always been the sweetest Connelly, somehow less intimidating than Mark’s roguish audacity or Edgerton’s handsome grandeur. Tonight he seemed to be hitting the champagne bar pretty hard. Even better, she thought. Champagne loosened tongues quite nicely.
“You know,” she said, hoping to distract Purcell, “we really should have brought our equipment. You could have taken some wonderful photographs here tonight.”
Purcell studied the room. “Too damn much white,” he pronounced finally. “Only thing worth shooting is the food.”
Glenna’s gaze shifted to the huge buffet table that dominated one corner of the large room. He was right. The rich red of the strawberry pyramid, the golden brown of the stuffed Cornish hens, the bursting suns of tangerine tarts and orange scones... It made such dramatic visual contrasts with all the elegant moonbeam people.
That woman, for instance, with her multilayered choker of pearls and her elaborately
