Trial By Seduction

She wept for Cindy, who had been so willful. If only she hadn’t been so determined to snare one of the wild and sexy Connelly boys. The boys flirted carelessly with all their pretty guests. But only one of them had died.

She wept for herself, too, for the loneliness and the guilt she’d held inside so long. If only she had called out the moment she saw that darkly tanned male hand reaching in through the window, balancing Cindy as she climbed over the sill.

“I’m awake,” she should have cried. “Don’t go.”

She buried her face deeper into her hands, trying to shut out the visions. Her sister’s blond hair in the moonlight, the man’s hand....

On the inside of the wrist was a small tattoo, just two inches long but unforgettable. The moonlight gleamed on the design, and Glenna had recognized it instantly—the legendary moonbird, its outstretched wings undulating eerily.

The moonbird. Only three people wore the moonbird tattoo—Edgerton, Philip and Mark Connelly.

For years, the bird had flown through her dreams every night. Strange and ghost white, silent and menacing, its wings pumping up and down slowly, beating with some primitive rhythm that was both sensual and dangerous. Oh, God, Cindy... If only they had both been a little older, a little wiser.

The flood of tears had finally begun to slow. She rested her forehead on her knees, not caring that her hair was mopping the muddy sand. How long had she been crying? Her chest hurt; her eyes burned. She felt as limp as a strand of seaweed. No wonder she had postponed this emotional storm for so long. It hurt. It hurt like hell.

Lost in the pain, she didn’t hear the footsteps approaching. The cool hand on her back was a shock, and with a gasp she lifted her head, peering with swollen eyes into the glimmering dawn light.

A man knelt beside her, hovering protectively, the way he might have bent over a wounded bird. His faint scent of clean masculinity mingled with the musky smell of the mist. He smiled, just a little.

“You know,” he murmured softly, skimming his fingers lightly across her shoulder blades, “an old Indian legend says that the ocean was created from tears. And all mankind will have to share in the making of it.”

She blinked at him, bewildered, half-mesmerized by the gentle touch, the unexpected words. His voice was low, sensual—but somehow casual, as if he was merely continuing a conversation they had begun a long time ago. As if he was completely comfortable with both legends and tears.

“But surely,” he went on, drawing aside a strand of hair that had stuck to her forehead, tucking it behind her ear, “no one heart should have to contribute so many.”

She didn’t speak. She couldn’t. His eyes were impossibly green, she noticed irrelevantly, fringed with the blackest lashes she had ever seen. And his hands were strong. Masculine. Deeply tanned. Hands that women dreamed about...

Her gaze fell slowly to the inside of his wrist. His white shirtsleeves had been rolled back almost to the elbow. She knew what she would see. She had known ever since she had heard the first mellow syllable of his hypnotic voice.

And there it was. Like fear made visible, like the mark of Cain. The outstretched wings of the moonbird tattoo.

CHAPTER TWO

NO! SHE WANTED to cry the word aloud, cursing the fate that had brought him out here. Not Mark Connelly. No...

She couldn’t be so unlucky. She’d known she would see him eventually, of course—but she had expected to meet him in an office, with Purcell Jennings at her side making the introductions. Not here, not when she was speckled with sand and swollen with tears. Not wet and defenseless and emotionally spent.

She clambered to her feet, brushing at her skirt, miserably aware that the soaked fabric clung to her bare legs. It was hopeless. She peeled one last patch from her wet thigh and then gave up.

“You’re right,” she said. Horrified to hear the catch in her voice, she cleared her throat and tried again. “I’ve cried far too much. I’m fine now.”

He was still down on one knee and he tilted his head to look up at her. Mark Connedly.

For a moment, in spite of the tattoo, she couldn’t quite believe it was true. She had remembered him so differently. Surely his full, hard lips used to have a sneering twist. And his eyes...they used to be cold, slightly cruel. Didn’t they?

Ten years... Suddenly she felt unsure of herself. Just how much did she remember, really? It had been such a long time. That slightly saturnine arch to his black brow—she remembered that. And his intensely masculine, sexually charged aura—yes, she remembered that, too.

But somehow she had forgotten just how plain all-American handsome he was. The rising sun, which had finally burned through the mist, lit the sea green of his eyes. It touched the bronze plane of his cheekbone with peach highlights and buried itself in the healthy blue-black sheen of his thick hair.

He was hardly the decadent devil she remembered. He was actually quite beautiful.

“Really, I mean it. I’m fine now,” she stumbled on, aware that she was staring. “You’re right. I was just being foolish.”

“I didn’t say anything of the sort,” he said calmly, still not rising. “There’s nothing foolish about a broken heart.”

She frowned. A what?

“My heart isn’t bro—” she began, but suddenly she stopped. He knew, she realized with a horrible sensation of emotional nudity. He knew all about the pain that had been fracturing her heart into jagged little pieces.

She looked away quickly, out toward the water. The sun, climbing fast, was transforming this landscape right before her eyes.

Her stark, broody study of gray on gray was disappearing. Now this beach was Purcell’s province—the Gulf a shimmering blue ribbon flung out beneath a pink-and-gold streaked sky. Blue and cream and peach-colored bits of shells were scattered along the sand like confetti.

The vivid beauty unsettled her. It was almost too perfect—like this man. Mark Connelly, her number one suspect. Had he always been so gorgeous? How could her memories have been so wrong?

She concentrated on squeezing the water out of the tip of her braid and then tried to brush away the tear trails that crisscrossed her face. But her sandy fingers deposited their gritty residue on her cheeks. She was just making things worse.

“I don’t know what came over me,” she said stupidly, unable to find even a sliver of her usual poise. She desperately wanted him to stop looking at her like that. “I don’t usually do this...this kind of thing.”

“Don’t you?” Finally he rose beside her, and she took an involuntary step away. He was so tall, so male...and, even worse, so knowing. It made breathing difficult. “Maybe you should.”

She frowned. “No—I mean...” She tried to smooth back the tendrils of hair that had escaped the tight braid and now curled damply against her forehead. “I don’t need to. I’m usually much more...controlled.”

“Ahhh...” He raised his brows. “Is there so much to control, then?”

She stared at him, unnerved equally by his astute perceptions and his indifference to the universal rules governing small talk between strangers. Had he always been like this? Yes... A sudden memory flashed through her brain like heat lightning. This same man, that same tone...

Ten years ago. Mark Connelly had been only nineteen, but he had already possessed a man’s body and a lethal sexuality that even a twelve-year-old could sense.

Cindy had talked about Mark more often than any of the others. “He’s not the prettiest,” she’d say, “but he’s the most dangerous.” And when Glenna had asked why on earth anyone would want a dangerous man, Cindy had just laughed.

One day, tired of feeling invisible to the teenagers who noticed her only when they wanted her to fetch something, Glenna had wandered away to pout. She had been busy gouging resentful runnels into the sand with a seashell when Mark had plopped down beside her.

She remembered being stunned by the attention. He had been kind in a rather offhand way. Without ever actually saying so, he had hinted that he understood how rotten it was to be the youngest, to be teased and ignored and exploited. And when he had risen again after only a few minutes, he’d looked down at her with something she interpreted as pity.

“It will happen, you know,” he’d said.

She had scowled, instinctively resenting any sympathy. “What will?”

“You’ll grow up.” He’d smiled. “And boys will think you’re pretty.”

She’d been too shocked to answer, staring at him as if he had just whisked a rabbit out of a hat. Without another word, he had ambled away, returning to the cluster of young men who daily attached themselves to Cindy like so many barnacles.

Back then, Glenna had been too naive to realize that it was just a parlor trick. Mark could dip into a little pop psychology, a superficial understanding of human nature, and the girls believed that he had read their minds. Other boys pretended to pull pennies out of the girls’ ears—Mark Connelly pretended to pull secrets from their hearts. Same game, different props.

But now, at twenty-two, she saw through him all too clearly. He played the flirtation game even better today, and she had dealt him the perfect card. You meet vulnerable woman weeping on the beach. Advance three spaces. Skip past small talk, enter premature intimacy.

But he had the wrong sister this time.