Читать книгу The Seducer - Jule McBride, Jule Mcbride - Страница 6

TURN BACK! Pansy Hanley’s instincts silently commanded. “If you don’t quit following him, he’s going to turn around and catch you,” she chastised in a whisper. “And then you’re going to feel like an idiot.” Nevertheless, her eyes remained riveted on the strong, broad back of the dark-haired, dark-eyed stranger she’d been tailing along deserted Sand Road. He was moving in the shadows, his rolling gait slow, easy and oddly compelling. Everyone else on Seduction Island was still at the town meeting, and the souvenir shops and T-shirt kiosks were closed, the windows dark, the silhouettes of clouds overhead dancing mysteriously across the sidewalks.

“The guy’s just a tourist,” Pansy assured herself, but even as she spoke the words, she felt sure—maybe even hoped—they were a lie. Something—maybe the romance of the dark velvet night or the magic of the moon and stars—was convincing her that this stranger was the man of her dreams. Quite literally, since he was the spitting image of a dashing, irresistible pirate ghost who’d been sketched years ago by Pansy’s ancestor and who was said to haunt the nearby dunes.

Not that the man was really a ghost, of course. “The guy’s probably looking for someplace open so he can buy shells,” Pansy assured herself nervously, trying to ignore the night’s sensual, romantic aura. Far off, waves crested. Breakers crashed onto the beach, and the sea breeze blew strands of honey hair across her cheeks, bringing the taste of salt to her lips…a taste that could have been the stranger’s bare skin. Just as she sighed, sinking against the sun-warmed, concrete side of a building, she realized the stranger was starting to head toward the dunes.

Lit by the yellow glow of a three-quarter moon, the majestic sand of the drifts swept upward, casting long dark shadows. As the gorgeous man walked into them, his body seemingly dematerializing and fading into darkness, he appeared oblivious of the peaking bluffs just above his head. Pansy’s heart skipped a beat. Not so much because he was so tall, or so strong, with lanky, sinewy limbs and well-defined muscles, but because, with his flowing black hair and devastating eyes that had captured hers a few minutes before in the town meeting, he really was a dead ringer for Jacques O’Lannaise, the pirate who’d haunted Pansy’s dreams and inspired her fantasies for years, ever since she’d first heard his name. Jacques had been the lover of Pansy’s ancestor, Iris, and after Iris was tragically lost at sea, Jacques was said to have begun walking the dunes at night, searching for Iris as if he was hoping to find her and make wild love to her in the sand.

Pansy tried to chuckle, but the effort only produced a shiver of excitement and a soft, strangled hitch of breath. “At least Vi and Lily don’t know I’m out here, following a tourist,” she muttered, hoping the mention of her sisters might lend some reality to the situation. After all, her sisters would never let her live this down. Pansy was usually the most commonsensical Hanley sister, but when it came to Jacques O’Lannaise…

“It can’t be him,” she whispered insistently. She was being ridiculous! Pirate ghosts didn’t exist! Her breath quickened with anticipation anyway. If she didn’t get a move on, she’d lose this guy! Pulled as if by the tides, she speeded her steps, unable to shake the uncanny sense that meeting him face-to-face was…well, somehow necessary. Destiny, she thought.

“You’re really going crazy,” she whispered. She was out here on a dark night following a stranger. She just hoped he didn’t turn around. Of course, if he did, she could go home, climb into a hot sudsy tub and relax with a good book because he’d turn out to be your average vacationing tourist. Probably married and cruising Sand Road to buy T-shirts for his kids. Yes, once he turned around, Pansy would get a better look at him, and he’d no longer bear a resemblance to Iris’s sketches of Jacques O’Lannaise.

But what was Pansy supposed to do if she caught up to him? She swallowed hard. She knew what she wanted to do.

Live her fantasies. She imagined strands of his hair brushing her cheeks as his lips lowered for a kiss, how hot his gaze would feel on her bare skin as they laid in the sand and removed their clothes. She pushed aside the thoughts, then gasped. He was stopping! Slowly, he turned, and as he did, his hair rippled. It was gorgeous, like dark waters into which someone had dropped a pebble. Awareness flooded her. “No,” Pansy protested when he didn’t turn enough to make his face visible in the darkness. For a second, she could swear he crooked a finger in her direction, but of course, he hadn’t. “Turn all the way around,” she urged, even more determined to catch him. The man really was the spitting image of the pirate who’d long been a part of the Hanley family legacy. Pansy couldn’t let him get away. He headed into the strange, surreal, craterlike dunes, as if he knew she would follow him, as if he wanted to make love….

And then the man seemed to vanish.