She came wearily into the cabin, disheveled, her dress torn provocatively so that sun-browned flesh showed through, her cloud of golden hair swirled in fairy patterns, her dark eyes brooding, her mouth a parted dream.
The Saint caught his breath and began to wonder whether he could really make Big Bill Holbrook wake up and vanish.
“Do you belong to the coffee and/or brandy school of thought?” he asked.
“Please.” She fell carelessly into a chair, and the Saint coined a word.
She was glamorous beyond belief.
“Miss Winter, pull down your dress or I’ll never get this drink poured. You’ve turned me into an aspen. You’re the most beautiful hunk of flesh I’ve ever seen. Have your drink and go, please.”
She looked at him then, and took in the steel-cable leanness of him, the height of him, the crisp black hair, the debonair blue eyes. She smiled, and a brazen gong tolled in the Saint’s head.
“Must I?” she said.
Her voice caught at the core of desire and tangled itself forever there.
“Set me some task,” the Saint said uncertainly. “Name me a mountain to build, a continent to sink, a star to fetch you in the morning.”