The Gift of Love by Peggy Bird Page A

office fell away. All he could see was the gentle sway of her hips and the faintly puzzled look on her beautiful face. It was like the cliché scene in a movie where the lovers float toward each other across the meadow of wildflowers and fall into one another’s arms. He could feel the heat of the summer sun, smell the earth and the faint scent of some blossom. He’d never believed those scenes were anything other than a screenwriter’s fantasy. Now he knew otherwise.
    • • •
    She didn’t know why she needed to find out what the man wanted, but she did. Maybe it was his looks. She’d always been attracted to dark-haired, dark-eyed men like the ones she’d grown up around. This man was neither. Yet from the moment they’d locked eyes, she could feel all the tingles accompanying a chemistry that excited her. And she could see in his eyes he felt it, too. His blue eyes had looked like the sky on a beautiful August day at first. But the closer she got to him, the darker they got.
    His blond hair seemed to have a glow about it. All he needed was to lose his shirt and don a pair of shorts, and he’d be the picture of summer. And with the body he had—six feet something of well-toned male muscle from what she could see underneath his conservative Oxford cloth shirt, striped tie, and nicely fitting trousers—she wouldn’t mind seeing him in nothing but a pair of shorts.
    She never drooled over men. Never. But how could she avoid it when this one had the body of a young god and the face of an angel, if angels had sinfully sensuous mouths and the cheekbones of a male model? And his voice! Deep and soft, the kind you wanted to hear whispering in your ear while you ran your fingers through his thick, wavy hair, preferably when both of you were considerably less clothed than they were at the moment. The way he held himself and talked, he oozed confidence from his pores. He might not trace his family roots to the southern hemisphere, and he might not be able to
hablar Español
,
but he was
muy sexy
nevertheless.
    As soon as she was within handshake distance, he reached for her. “My name’s Taylor Jordan.”
    “Hello. Apparently I don’t need to tell you mine. You already know it.” She took his hand and was startled. The sizzle she’d felt when their eyes met occurred again. When he didn’t let go of her hand but rather covered it with his left hand and caressed her thumb with his, she was sure he’d felt it, too.
    “Yes, your friend Marius Hernandez told me. I saw you with him at the Chamber of Commerce after-hours a couple weeks ago. When I couldn’t find you in the crowd to introduce myself, I called him to ask for an introduction.”
    She shook off his hand, the sizzle replaced by her memory of how she felt when he didn’t appear at the reception. “Oh, are you the man who never showed up at the Erickson Gallery?” She took a step back.
    “Yes, and that’s why I had to talk to you. To say how sorry I am I didn’t make it in time to meet you. I was at a business dinner with a client, and it ran over. Way over. I got to the gallery less than five minutes after you left. Marius wasn’t happy with me. And he said you weren’t either. Rightly so. I couldn’t persuade him to give me your number so I could apologize. I couldn’t believe my luck when you walked past me a few minutes ago.”
    Nate Benjamin called from the door of the conference room, interrupting Taylor’s apology. “Ms. Rodriguez, we’re about to start the presentation. Taylor, finish this up after our meeting.” She could tell from the tone of his voice he was losing patience.
    “I have to get to the meeting.” She wasn’t sure why, but she wanted to give the man a chance to explain further. “Will you be around in an hour or so?”
    “I’ll make sure I am. My office is the second one on the right, straight ...”
    “Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Sorry. I guess you