Key West Dreams - A Cozumel Nights Novella by Ophelia Sikes

Author:Ophelia Sikes
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 8

The man before me didn’t look anything at all like my brother. My brother had been a driven student in school, top of his class. It was no surprise to the family when, right out of high school, he’d been grabbed up by some high-tech firm out on the California coast. He’d been clean cut, bright-eyed, with that look of a man who was going places. It was part of why he’d always been mobbed by women.

The man in front of me was bulked out, more fighter’s arms than lean runner’s build. His hair was shoulder-length and shaggy. His face was creased as if he’d been through quite a lot in his twenty-something years.

But Andros’s core shone from his eyes. Those dark eyes with the golden flecks in them.

I’d know them anywhere.

He blinked at me in baffled surprise, looking down my beautiful white dress, then up into my wide smile. His eyes seemed to take in Dylan at my side, the people surrounding us on the street, and then even those entering and leaving the many shops around us.

He drew in a breath -

And then he was gone.

I blinked, stunned. One moment he had been there in front of me. The next he had simply faded from view.

I craned up on my toes, frantically searching the area. “Andros? Andros?”

Nowhere.

He had simply faded into mist.

Dylan’s gaze held bright curiosity. “And who might that have been? Do I already have a competitor for your affections?”

I nudged him in the side as I continued peering all around us. “I could have sworn that was my brother, Andros. I haven’t seen him in, what, eight years or more. Not since he graduated from high school and moved west.”

“Not a man to keep in touch, I see,” he offered dryly.

“If you’d met my parents, you’d understand why,” I stated, finally coming down off my toes. “I must have been wrong. And I probably scared the poor guy half to death, shouting at him like that. He probably thought I was some drunken tourist and fled.”

Dylan shook his head, looking at me. “Believe me, if any man thought you were calling to them, they’d be running to you, not away. You are a goddess of sunlight.”

I chuckled. “You are certainly the flatterer, Dylan.”

He put out his arm to me. “Just in case, I’ll keep you close at my side. You’re mine for the day, and I’d like to see any man try to claim otherwise.”

A glow of warmth swept over me. I tucked my hand in his, and he led me into the swarming mob which was Key West.

We walked, we talked, the sun shone down, tropical fragrances filled my nose, and it seemed as if we’d known each other forever. I had never talked with anyone as easily as I did with Dylan.

I told him stories about growing up in the formal-discipline of my Polish parents. About being teased in school for my accent and my shabby clothing. About how much I had missed my brother when he’d left after high school.

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