Many people made the mistake. The twins were so alike they seemed two sides of a coin; male and female brought together just once to share the same species.

At thirty-two Hawk’s sister, Holly, was tall, the cut of her features clean without hardness, her dark hair soft but not fine. Her body was lean and well muscled and her shoulders were broad. Yet only someone crippled with sexual insecurity would have called her mannish.

Hawk was all of this and yet the very essence of masculine. The curve of his shoulders and the blunt efficiency of his wind-chapped hands carried a different message. Where Holly was quick, bright, and strong, he was controlled, thoughtful, exact.

He dropped the line in a perfect coil and came across the planking.

The eyes might take Hawk for Holly, Anna thought, the senses, never. One would have to be as neuter as a snail not to feel the difference.

He stopped beside her, turning to take the sharp edge of the wind onto his own back. “Denny’s made too much salad as usual. Plenty of pike,” he said, nodding toward the hibachi. “Better join us for supper.”

Standing so close, Anna could see the dark stubble on his jaw. A delicate and somehow pleasing scent of Scotch whiskey warmed his breath. She hesitated. Relief at regaining solid ground had released her fatigue.

“No clients today,” he added as an incentive. “We dove the Cox. Just swam around the bow to get our feet wet. Too rough for tourists. Besides, we needed the dive alone.”

“Supper would be good,” Anna said. “Bring it inside? I’ll light a fire and pour a suitable libation.”

Hawk nodded and dropped over the gunwale of the 3rd Sister as Anna trotted, wind at her back, up the dock and onto the shore of Amygdaloid Island. Home, she thought sourly, but she was glad enough to be there.

The North Shore Ranger Station just missed being utterly charming. Standing foursquare to the dock, the outside was picturesque with a peaked roof and walls of red-brown board and battens. The paint had weathered to almost the same shade as the cliff that backed the building. A central door, flanked by many-paned windows, gave it a look of olde-tyme honesty. Two stovepipes, tilted and tin-hatted against the wind, added a sense of roguish eccentricity.