"He doesn't have to," Josh said shortly, and rose. "She's out by the pool?"

"Yes. Josh, you're not going out there and start poking at her. She's unhappy enough."

Josh shot her a look. "I'll just go and rub some salt in her wounds, then I think I'll run out and kick some puppies on my way to foreclosing on my quota of widows and orphans."

Laura's lips curved. "Just try to be supportive. We'll have lunch on the south terrace in about half an hour." It would give her time to have his luggage taken upstairs and properly unpacked.

* * * * *

Margo knew the moment he stepped off the flagstone path onto the skirt of the pool. She didn't see him, hear him, smell him. Her instincts when it came to Josh went into a sixth sense. When he didn't speak, merely sat on one of the padded lounges on the pool terrace, she continued to swim.

It was too cold to swim, of course. But she'd needed to do something. The water was warm enough. Steam rose from it into the cooler air, and every stroke she took brought her arms into chilly contact with the freshening breeze.

She cut through the water in long, slow strokes and risked a quick glance at him. He was staring off toward the rose garden. Preoccupied, she thought.

He had Laura's eyes, she thought. It always surprised her to see Laura's lovely gray eyes in Josh's face. His were cooler, she thought, more impatient, and often brittlely amused at Margo's expense.

He'd gotten a tan somewhere, she noted as she pivoted and started back across the length of the pool. Just a nice warm hint of color that added another dash of appeal to what was already a sinfully handsome face.

As one who accepted that she'd lucked out in the gene pool, she didn't set much store by simple good looks. It was, after all, just a matter of fate.

Joshua Templeton's fate had been superior.

His hair was shades darker than his sister's. Tawny, Margo imagined was the term. He'd let it grow a bit since the last time they'd run into each other. What was that—three months before in Venice? It flirted with his collar now, the collar of a casual chocolate silk shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

He had, she recalled, a good, expressive mouth. It could smile charmingly, sneer with infuriating style, and worse, curve in a smile so cold it froze the blood.

The jaw was firm, and thankfully without the beard he'd sported briefly in his twenties. The nose was straight and faintly aristocratic. Over it all was an aura of success, confidence, and arrogance, all shimmering together with a glint of latent danger.

She hated to admit that there had been a time during her adolescence when she'd been both allured by and frightened of that aura.