Prologue

      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