Praise for Raye Morgan

“Morgan’s latest is a delightful reworking of a classic plot, with well-drawn characters—particularly tortured hero Max—and just the right amount of humourto offset his tragic past.”

—RT Book Reviews

on Beauty and the Reclusive Prince

“This is a fun story with interesting characters. Despite the fantasy setting, Morgan brings a serious twist to the story as Kayla and Max deal with painful events in their past.”

—RT Book Reviews on Taming the Lost Prince

Dear Reader,

Memories. They light the dark corners of our minds. They warm lonely nights. They make our thoughts rich with detail and fill in the colours of our lives. And, best of all, they’re full of lies.

Little white lies—the good kind—but lies nonetheless. We remember the high points, and even the low points, but do we remember the truth? I would say not so much. Haven’t you ever had this experience? You’re remembering how great everyone looked at that Halloween party fifteen years ago—or what a hero your son was up at bat in the final game of the season—and you just want to experience that joy again. So you get out the videos from the past and there it is, pretty much as you remember it. Only you’d forgotten how embarrassing Harry was in that caveman costume—and did your son really miss that easy catch? Misty watercoloured memories tend to shade over those things.

I say let nature take its course. Keep the videos locked away and enjoy the memories the way you remember them. They’ll always be better that way.

Torie Sands and Marc Huntington have a lot of memories between them—memories they will need to sort through to get to the truth before they can truly let love into their lives. Some memories will be more helpful than others. But in the end how they learn to accept and embrace their mutual past, letting go of old anger, facing past mistakes, will determine their future—and their chance for happiness.

I hope this story conjures up a memory or two for you. All the best!

Raye Morgan

About the Author

RAYE MORGAN has been a nursery school teacher, a travel agent, a clerk and a business editor, but her best job ever has been writing romances—and fostering romance in her own family at the same time. Current score: two boys married, two more to go. Raye has published more than seventy romance novels, and claims to have many more waiting in the wings. She lives in Southern California, with her husband and whichever son happens to be staying at home at the moment.

The Heir’s Proposal

Raye Morgan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This story is dedicated to Bets in Santa Fe.

CHAPTER ONE

TORIE Sands was shivering so hard her teeth clattered together. Not only was she cold, she was—well, sort of scared.

What in the world was she going to do? She’d come out onto this spit of land when the sun was still shining, California-beach style, and she’d gone on a sentimental journey around the rock, looking for her childhood in the caves. She’d forgotten how quickly the weather could change out here—not to mention the water level.

Now she was stuck. The spit turned into an island at high tide. And the fog had come in—not on little cat feet, but like a wild herd of ghostly mustangs, silent and deadly, sweeping in with a vengeance.

She remembered now. This sort of thing was called a killer fog when she was a kid and living up on the cliff above, the only child of the Huntington family butler. She knew she should be able to swim or wade to the shore, but she couldn’t see land and the current was running hard toward the open sea. If she got caught up in that…

A crack of thunder made her jump. Great. Now it was probably going to rain.

How was she going to get out of here? She hadn’t told anyone where she was going. Her cell phone was telling her No Service. She hadn’t brought along any flares. Could she possibly spend the night out here? No!

And then she was eaten by the slimy sea monster…

The phrase came sailing into her head from some long-forgotten campfire story from her childhood. Ah, memories. She shivered that much harder.

Okay, time to call for help. She hadn’t seen another soul as she’d come sashaying down through the dunes and across the wet sand bridge, but just in case…After all, what other option did she have?

“Help!” she yelled as loudly as she could. “Help! I’m caught out here on the island. Help!”

Nothing. Just the sound of water slapping against the shore in rhythmic waves. In the distance—the far, far distance—she could hear the lonely call of a foghorn. She pulled her arms in close and winced as the wind slapped her hair into her eyes. This was no fun and she was bordering on hysteria.

“Mrs. Marino?” A deep male voice came arcing through the gloom. “Are you out there?”

She gasped with relief. Human contact! Maybe she wasn’t going to die out here in the cold after all.

It took her a moment to register the name, though.

Mrs. Marino? What? Oh. That was the name she was going under so as not to alert the Huntingtons as to who she really was. She shouldn’t give out any hints that it was a phony.

“Yes,” she called back, surprised to hear how her voice quavered. “I’m here. What should I do? How do I get back to the other side?”

“Just hold on. I’m coming to get you.”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. She was already in love with that voice. He sounded hard and male and sure of himself. Confidence. That was the key word here. Hopefully, the man would fit the voice and she would be safe. Hopefully.

Marc Huntington was growling softly as he began to pull off his jacket and then his long-sleeved knit shirt. This was not exactly the way he’d planned to spend his afternoon—rescuing one of the vultures who had come to Shangri-La, his family estate, to pick the bones clean.

He knew the situation. There was no money left. He’d come back home just in time to watch his heritage be destroyed. Unfortunately, his ten years in the military hadn’t equipped him with the kind of funds needed to pay the back taxes his mother had ignored for too long. Selling the entire estate seemed to her to be the only way to deal with the problem and she was the official owner. It was her call.

So Shangri-La was up for sale. His mother’s elaborate advertisements had produced a set of eight visitors here for the weekend, here to look the place over and come up with their offers. Every one of them was a grifter as far as he could tell. He could have cheerfully watched them all drown.

Well, not actually. His years as a Navy SEAL had ingrained the protective, rescuing ethic in his mind so thoroughly, it would take more than pure loathing to cleanse it from his soul. It was a part of him. How did you unlearn something like that?

“Talk to me,” he ordered the stranded lady he couldn’t see. “As I go through the current, it’ll help keep me on course.”

“Okay,” she called back, sounding less scared now. “What shall I talk about?”

He was growling again. What did it matter what she talked about? He wasn’t going to listen to anything but the sound of her voice. Her actual words weren’t important. Maybe he should tell her to recite the details of the terms she was planning to offer in buying out his family estate. Hah.

“Sing a song,” he suggested, looking down at his board shorts and deciding not to strip quite that far. He’d taken off the shirt and jacket because he might have to swim if the water was deep enough. But going down to his boxers wouldn’t help much. “Recite a poem. Whatever.”

He stepped into the icy water, feeling it wash against his legs even though the fog was so thick, he could barely see anything. Across the way, he could hear the woman beginning to sing something. She had a nice voice. He stopped and listened. Whatever that was she was singing, it had a familiar sound to it, like a Celtic folk song. Where had he heard that before?

He shook his head. It didn’t matter. If she could keep it up, he would find her soon enough. One last growl and he plunged into the current, heading for the high, clear voice he heard through the fog.

Torie heard him coming through the water. He was getting closer. Sweet gratitude surged through her system. She raised her face to where the sun should be and sang harder and higher, trying to give him a clear signal as to her location.

And then she heard splashing very close and in a minute or two she began to make out the dark shape of a man coming toward her.

“Oh, thank God,” she cried as he approached. “I was afraid I was going to have to spend the night out here in the cold.”

He didn’t speak and as he came closer, she could make out his features and she began to realize he had a familiar look to him. She frowned. Oh no! It couldn’t be.

He stopped a couple of feet away. “Mrs. Marino, I’m Marc Huntington. Marge is my mother. Just so you know I’ m not some random beach bum.”

Her heart began to thud in her chest. Marc Huntington. What was he doing here? It had been years since she’d seen him—at least fifteen of them. She’d heard he was overseas, in the service, fighting bad guys and raising hell.

But here he was, staring at her and looking none too friendly, despite his polite words. “How did you get out here, anyway?” he growled. “And why?”

He didn’t recognize her. That was a relief. But why should he? She barely recognized him—and wouldn’t have if she’d met up with him anywhere else. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been about half this size, a lanky, smart-mouthed teenager who probably didn’t even know she existed.

Now he was all corded chest muscles and wide shoulders, with dark hair that tended to fall over his forehead and crystal-blue eyes that seemed remarkably hostile. Bottom line—he was pretty much the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. She drew her breath in sharply and couldn’t say a word.

His brow furrowed. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. It took two tries before she could speak. “Uh…I’m…my name is Torie…But I guess you know that. I was just exploring the caves and the fog came in and…and…”

“Okay,” he said impatiently. “No problem. Your husband was getting excited when you didn’t show up for tea. Everyone is out looking for you.”

Husband? Husband? She didn’t have a husband. Oh. But she did have Carl Marino, and he was pretending to be her husband. She had to keep that straight in her mind.

“I’m sorry to be a bother,” she said, finally getting control of herself. The shock of coming face to face with the man version of the boy she’d had a crush on for years had thrown her for a loop, but she was getting her balance back. She had to remember he was the enemy, just like everyone else in the Huntington family—the enemy she’d come to slay like a proverbial dragon.

And now here was one of them, saving her from the cold. A bit awkward, to say the least.

“I lost track of time.”

He nodded, his blue-eyed gaze skimming over her bare arms and legs in the skimpy sundress she’d worn. “Next time, bring a jacket,” he suggested gruffly. “It can turn cold fast.”

And she’d known that. After all, she’d spent every summer of her childhood right here on this very beach. But it had been a good fifteen years since her last visit and she’d been so excited to see her old secret places, she’d forgotten about the vagaries of the weather.

“I’m okay,” she insisted, despite her chattering teeth. “Are you going to lead me back?”

He looked her up and down and, for the first time, there was a hint of humor in his eyes.

“No,” he said. “I’m going to carry you.”

“What?” She began to back away from him on the sand. “No. You can’t carry me all the way back.”

“Why not? I’m trained to carry awkward loads, and you definitely look like a lightweight anyway.”

She stopped and glared at him. Was he making fun of her? Why the hostility when he thought he’d only just met her?

“Awkward and bird-brained at the same time?” she asked crisply. “I didn’t realize you knew me that well.”

His mouth twisted. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“No, but it’s what you said.”

His look was long-suffering. “Mrs. Marino, your husband is having a fit back at the house. He seems to think you’re likely to walk off a cliff or something, unless you’re carefully watched. So I intend to make sure you get back safely.” He made a gesture with his head. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

She looked at him, at the smooth, hard flesh she was going to have to touch in order to do what he’d suggested, and her heart began to pound like a hammer. There was a time when she’d dreamed about touching him—but that was when she was half in love with him from afar. Now, the thought was horrifying. He was the enemy. She couldn’t do it.

“No,” she said. “I’ll follow you. I’II…I’II hold on to…” She was going to say, your shirt, but he wasn’t wearing one, and the only alternative was the back of his low-slung board shorts. The thought of sticking her fingers down there made her gasp.

He watched her, waiting as her face registered a growing realization of the problem.

“Exactly,” he said, his voice mocking. “I’ll carry you,” he said again.

She was shaking her head. “I don’t think so.”

His patience was running thin and it showed. “Listen carefully. There is a hard current running through the deepest part of the channel, right where we have to cross. If it knocks you down, the strength of it could carry you right out to sea. Then I would have to swim out after you, and I don’t know how successful I’d be. It’s safer for all concerned if you just let me pick you up and…”

“Isn’t there some other way?”

His frown was getting fiercer. “What is your problem?”

She drew in a deep breath and told him with a glare. “You’re almost naked, you know.”

He gave her a look that said he thought she was nuts. “You’re not exactly well-covered yourself. If we’d been swimming, you wouldn’t think twice.”

“But…”

“Look, every minute we delay, it’s only getting worse. Come on.” His quick smile was sarcastic. “I’ll be gentle, I swear it.”

By now she was seriously annoyed with him. He wasn’t even trying to see this from her point of view—and he had no interest in exploring alternatives. She looked around, trying to think of some way to avoid this, and he took a step forward and grabbed her, swinging her up into his arms. It was pretty obvious he wouldn’t mind just chucking her over his shoulder, good to go, but when she shrieked he relented and straightened her so that one arm was under her knees and the other behind her back. She threw her arms around his neck to avoid being dropped, and they started off.

He was impossibly hard and exciting to touch, but even worse, his incredible warmth worked on her like a drug. She was clinging to him, trying to get closer. She closed her eyes and took it all in, trying to pretend he wasn’t the boy she used to watch with stars in her eyes.

Those stars had dimmed when the Huntingtons had fired her father, accused him of crimes and kicked her whole family out of what had long been their beloved home. Let’s face it, the Huntingtons had pretty much destroyed her family and torn apart their lives—and all over a lie. Nothing had ever been the same again and the pain and resentment still smoldered deep inside her.

But she’d never been in stronger arms. It felt good—as long as she didn’t think about who he really was.

The water was surging against him and she could feel the effort it took him to keep his footing. He almost went over at one point, splashing a spray of seawater against her legs, and she cried out, holding on more tightly, pressing her face against his neck.

“I’ve got you,” he told her gruffly. “Just a little bit more. We’re almost there.”

She peeked out. She couldn’t see a thing but the cold, clammy gray of the fog. How did he know they were almost there? She couldn’t tell. But she knew one thing—his skin against hers felt like heaven. To think she’d been resisting.

But the fog was lifting and she began to see the shore herself.

“Here we are,” he said, and she could feel the difference in the way he was walking. They’d hit dry sand. He began to lower her and she felt a pang of regret.

“Put on my jacket,” he told her as he picked it up off the sand and handed it to her. She did as he suggested. It was big and heavy, made of denim with a few studs at the pockets—and it still felt warm, as though his body heat had lasted.

She turned to look at him. His arms were raised and he was pulling a long-sleeved thermal shirt down over his head. She watched, marveling at the interplay of muscles, and then gasped as she noticed the deep, ugly scar that disfigured an area of his rib cage.

Her shocked gaze met his ice-blue eyes as the shirt came down into place and covered everything—the muscles and the scar. She blinked at him, feeling breathless.

She wanted to ask about the scar, but the look in his eyes told her not to do it. Still, she had to say something. It was only right.

“Did you do something horribly brave that saved the day?” she asked a bit too quickly.

His look was dismissive. “No. I did something horribly stupid and ended up injured, which is something you never want to let happen.”

“Oh. Of course.”

But she didn’t want him to think she was just a snotty brat. She needed to let him know she did appreciate what he’d done for her.

“Thank you,” she said at last, feeling almost shy now that they were on firm ground and about to end their rescue encounter. “I really appreciate it. I mean…”

“What I’d appreciate,” he said, his voice calm but icy, “is some answers.”

She’d been stopped in the middle of her sentence, and she was still staring at him. “Uh…answers? About what?”

“About what you’re doing here. Why you came.”

She blinked at him, a flicker of panic near her heart. Had he really caught on to her so quickly? “I…we came to see the estate, of course. It’s for sale, isn’t it?”

He nodded, waiting.

“Well, we came to see if Carl wants…I mean if we want to buy it. Isn’t that what this is all about?”

His gaze never left her eyes. “You’d think. That’s what all eight of you people came for, to spend the weekend looking over the property, evaluating it.” His eyes narrowed. “I would have thought the house itself would be the main attraction. Either that, or the patio, the waterfall area, the huge front yard. And yet you’d hardly dropped your bags in the bedroom before you were off to see the caves. And your husband was off to nose around in the old vineyard area.” He cocked an eyebrow. “What gives?”

She frowned at him. She hadn’t realized Carl had gone off on his own sightseeing mission. She had to admit, it might look odd that the two of them had been so driven by alternate goals so immediately. She ought to do her best to quell all suspicions—if she could.

“What do you mean, ‘what gives?’ Nothing. We’re just interested in everything, the house, the land, the beaches. I’d heard about the caves and…and I wanted to see them for myself.”

He didn’t look convinced. “The caves are cool, but they’re hardly the best feature on the estate.” He eyed her speculatively. “They do have a lot of historical significance,” he said. “Smugglers seem to like them, and have since the old Spanish days.” His gaze narrowed and he added acidly, “Is that what you were doing out there? Hiding something?”

She wanted to laugh out loud at such a silly suggestion, but she could see that this was no joke in his mind. “If I were, I wouldn’t tell you about it, would I?” She bit her lip, regretting her words before she’d finished uttering them.

Keep it friendly, Torie, she told herself silently. Save the anger for when you’ve got the ammunition.

She quickly added out loud, “I’m going to enjoy seeing everything. It seems to be a wonderful property.”

“Oh, it is that.” A stormy look filled his blue eyes. “And it’s worth a whole lot more than my mother is asking for it.” He gave her a faint, sarcastic smile. “But you know that, don’t you?”

A crash of thunder seemed to give an eerie emphasis to his words and large raindrops began spattering around them. Torie was shivering again.

CHAPTER TWO

THUNDER rolled and the rain began in earnest. Looking up, Marc swore under his breath.

“The fog no sooner thins out than the rain comes,” he grumbled. “Come on. We’ll never make it back across the dunes. Head for the tool shed just beyond the ice plant over there.”

He pointed toward a wooden structure only a few hundred feet away and they ran for it, reaching it in moments, the threat of a downpour chasing them. Luckily the door wasn’t locked and they tumbled in, breathing hard and laughing. Marc slammed the door shut, holding back the cold, wet wind, then turned to look at her.

They were both still laughing from the run across the sand, but Torie saw the humor fade in his eyes, and she looked away quickly.

“This shouldn’t last too long,” he said. “We might as well have a seat and wait it out.”

The interior of the shed seemed clean enough, with tools piled along one side and bags of gravel and peat moss stacked along the other. They sat down on the plastic bags and listened to the rain pound on the roof. A couple of leaks appeared along the walls, but they weren’t bad. Neither of them spoke, and the rain was too loud to try to talk over anyway.

Marc’s head was turned away, looking out a small window at the rain, and Torie had time to study him, the back of his head and the angle of his neck and the width of his shoulders.

She shivered again, but not with cold. She was beginning to realize this wasn’t going to be easy. How could she ever have imagined it might be? For fifteen years, she’d hated the Huntingtons. They’d seemed like monsters in her mind. She’d ached to find a way to clear her father’s name and turn the world right again.

But now that she’d come face to face with them, things looked a bit different. If she’d succeed, she needed to be smart about it. She was going to have to stay strong. Reality had a way of cancelling out fantasy every time.

They were just people. That didn’t mean they weren’t guilty of some ugly things. But they were still proving to be only human—for now.

First there had been Marge, Marc’s mother. When she and Carl had come up the front walk and climbed the steps to the wide porch and the huge front door, her heart had been pounding so hard, she’d thought she might faint. And then the door had swung open and there was this short, redheaded woman in a simple pants suit, welcoming them to Shangri-La with a warm smile. She didn’t look much like the Cruella de Vil monster Torie had been remembering her as all these years. In fact, she looked more like a Brownie den mother. Sort of a letdown.

Marc’s older sister Shayla had shown them to their rooms. She was a little closer to the mark. She’d always been snooty and full of herself, and things hadn’t changed. But Torie had to admit, even she didn’t seem like a fiend close up.

There had been two boys in the family, Marc and his older brother Ricky. Torie had assumed, as she and Carl had first arrived, that both young men were off living their own lives somewhere by now. The surprise had been to find Marc here.

Of course, the one most to blame for what happened, Marc’s father, Tim Huntington, usually called Hunt, wasn’t here at all. He’d drowned when his sailboat capsized in the bay years before. She would never be able to confront him. There would always be a hole in her soul for that.

In her dreams, she came charging up to Shangri-La and found the evidence to clear her father, presented it to Marge and Shayla with a flourish, and had them dissolving into tears of regret and apology. She would demand they write up a complete retraction and send it to the Alegre Beacon, the local paper. The little town of Alegre would be thrown into an uproar. The mayor would name a special celebration and present Torie with a plaque commemorating the day.

And Torie would take the plaque back down to Los Angeles and present it to her mother. That was her dream.

At least, it had been for years. She’d recently discovered evidence that cast a shadow on those hopes. Was there more to all this than she’d ever known? Possibly. And that was the main reason she was here today.

The downpour was almost over. The noise on the roof had faded to a dull drumbeat. Marc turned and looked at her, his blue eyes full of skepticism.

“So tell me about Carl,” he said without preamble.

Her eyes widened. She hadn’t really expected that. “What about him?”

“How long have you and Carl been married?” he asked her.

She frowned. She hated questions like this. She really didn’t want to lie. But what could she do? Try to avoid it, she supposed. Just dance around the facts any way she could.

“Not long,” she said brightly.

“Newlyweds, huh?”

She gave him a vague smile. She couldn’t imagine Carl as a newlywed—not to anyone. He was a fairly cold, unemotional person. Business deals were all he cared about. Her accompanying him here was all part of a bargain to him. He needed to pretend to have a wife—she needed a way to get onto Shangri-La without letting the Huntingtons know who she was. They’d struck a deal.

“Any kids?”

“No. Oh no.”

“I guess not if you always ask for separate bedrooms.”

She flushed and her eyes flashed, but she held her temper. “Carl snores,” she said, reciting the excuse they’d given when they made their reservations. That had been her one demand when Carl had asked her to come along. It had to be separate bedrooms, no matter how strange that looked.

Marc’s eyes narrowed. “Carl’s a bit older than you are, isn’t he?”

She wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer. Suddenly the bag of gravel felt hard and uncomfortable, and she got up to stretch her legs a bit. There wasn’t much room for pacing, but she did her best.

“Where did you two meet?”

She glanced at him. The question flustered her. Her fingers were trembling. He was going to figure this whole charade out, wasn’t he? He wanted to catch hold of a string and begin to pull it all apart. She could see it coming. But she had to make an attempt—keep her finger in the dike, so to speak.

“I…uh…he hired me to plan some cocktail parties for his business clients.”

“You’re a party planner?”

“And a caterer.” She nodded, brightening to a theme she knew well and something she didn’t have to skate around. “Yes. Any event, large or small. I can make it magical.”

“I’ll bet you can.” His smile was ironic. “So you partied and you fell in love?”

She frowned, not trusting him at all. “You might say that.”

Okay, it was time she got a little tougher. She couldn’t let him think he had the upper hand. Turning, she glared at him.

“Listen, Marc. What’s with the third degree? What is this intense interest in my private life?”

His wide mouth twisted. Maybe he was coming on a bit too strong.

There was no doubt he was suspicious—suspicious of every one of the visitors they were stuck with for the weekend. The last time they’d had an influx of strangers like this had been shortly after his father had died, drowned just outside the bay when his small sailboat had capsized. Once the word had spread that he’d taken the Don Carlos Treasure down with him, fortune hunters had come crawling all over the place. None of them believed that the old Spanish fortune that had been in the Huntington family for over a hundred years had really gone down into the sea. Everyone thought if he just looked hard enough, he would find the hiding place.

And the place searched most often were the caves. Of course. The caves had been where the treasure was first found. And the caves had been where the treasure had been hidden the first time it had disappeared.

But not this last time. Experts had gone over the place with a fine-tooth comb. There was no treasure, not anymore. It was pretty obvious his father’s suicide note had said it all. The Don Carlos Treasure had gone back to the sea, from whence it had come.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust and Spanish doubloons back to Neptune.

So was that what this pretty young woman had been looking for in the caves? Of course it was. Why else would she hurry right out there? She even had the look of a treasure hunter—always hopeful.

His gaze held hers for a long moment. There was a spark of humor in his eyes, but that didn’t make her feel any better about this air of tension between them. Finally, he actually smiled.

“No big deal,” he said. “Just making conversation. Passing the time.” He slid off his bag as well and faced her in the small space. “I think the rain has stopped. Let’s go.”

She took a deep breath and watched as he left the shed, then hurried to catch up with him. He started across the dunes, striding quickly in the wet sand, and she had to run to keep up. His legs were much longer than hers.

About halfway to the cliff, he stopped, turning to watch her arrive at his position.

“Rest a minute,” he said.

“I wouldn’t need to if you wouldn’t go so fast,” she said testily.

“Sorry.” But his gaze was restless. He looked toward the large white house up on the cliff. “I can’t help but wonder what they’re doing up there,” he said, mostly to himself. He shook his head. “What is she thinking?”

“Who?” Torie asked, though she was pretty sure he meant Marge. “What’s wrong?”

“‘Turning and turning,’” he muttered, along with some other words she couldn’t make out. He was staring into the distance. “‘The center cannot hold.’”

“What?”

He looked directly into her eyes. “I think I’m in need of some ‘passionate intensity’,” he said.

Funny, but those words seemed to strike a chord with her. “Me too,” she said. “Where do I go to get some?”

His grin was quick and then gone just as quickly. “Try a little Yeats,” he suggested. “That just might be your answer.”

And he was off again across the sands.

She came behind him, muttering about Lawrence of Arabia, but he didn’t go as quickly this time and she arrived at the end of their mad scramble across the dunes only seconds after he did.

“My dear Mrs. Marino.” He said with a touch of sarcasm. “We have reached the end of the line. I think we’d better part company here.”

“You’re not going up to the house?”

“Not yet. I have things to do in another part of the estate.”

“Oh. Well, I guess I’ll see you later.”

“Unfortunately, I think you’re right.”

He sounded bitter, but before she had a chance to analyze that, he stepped closer and grabbed the two sides of the jacket, acting as though he was straightening the collar, but she was pretty sure he was really just trying to make a point—and maybe trying to establish his sense of control. The way he pulled on the jacket, she had to look up into his face.

“I still want to know what the hell you were doing in the caves,” he said, his voice low and harsh. “You want to come clean now, or wait until I’ve got more information to go on?”

She stared up at him, shaken. His face was only inches from hers. “Uh…nothing. I was just exploring. I…I love the beach and I…”

But an expression flashed across his face and suddenly he was frowning, studying her features, his gaze sliding over every angle.

“Do I know you?” he asked softly.

Her heart was thumping so hard surely he could hear it. “I don’t think so,” she said quickly. “Now if you don’t mind….”

“But I do mind.” He pulled harder, bringing her up to where she could feel his warm breath on her face as he spoke. “And I’ll give you fair warning. I won’t let Shangri-La be trashed. Any excuse I can find to disqualify any of you, I’ll use it.”

She stared up, mesmerized by his voice and his eyes.

A shout from the cliff area turned them both in that direction. Carl was coming down the wooden steps.

“Torie!” he called. “Thank God you’re okay.”

She looked at Marc. He stared back, not letting go of the jacket. For a long moment, their gazes held. There was a look deep in his eyes, a mood, something that told her he was a bit of a loner, that he couldn’t trust anyone enough to let go. Her heart seemed to melt, something in her yearned toward him. Someone ought to teach him how to trust. Too bad she was exactly the wrong person to expect that from.

She was the one who’d been lying to him all along. When he found out, he would discard her like yesterday’s news.

But Carl was coming and it was obviously time to draw apart.

“Just keep that in mind, Mrs. Marino,” Marc said coolly. “I’ll be watching you.”

He gave her one last impenetrably hard look, then turned and walked away.

Torie groaned as she watched him go. Marc Huntington would be watching her. Great. Maybe this was turnabout for the way she used to watch him when she was fifteen. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing a bit hysterically, and she turned just as Carl reached her.

Tall and slim with thick auburn hair, Carl was handsome in an older way, and came across as very sure of himself. But right now, the man looked nervous.

Maybe Marc had threatened to watch him, too.

“What are you doing?” Carl whispered loudly, glancing toward where Marc was disappearing through the brush. “You’re going to ruin the whole thing if you start messing around with young guys.”

Messing around?

She drew back, offended. “He just saved me,” she told him tartly. “I was in danger. Sort of.”

“Where were you?” Carl asked, looking perplexed.

“Where were you?” she countered, pulling the jacket close around herself. “I heard you were out looking at the vineyard. I thought it was the house you were interested in.”

His gaze shifted in a way that startled her. Was that a guilty look? He grabbed her arm and started leading her toward the stairs, muttering as he went.

He was annoyed but not really angry. She knew he didn’t really care anything about her personally, he just didn’t want anyone to get suspicious. And when you came right down to it, she felt the same way about him. The two of them were more like partners in this enterprise than anything else. They were definitely not a couple.

Carl looked back over his shoulder as they started up the wooden stairway. “Stay away from that guy,” he said. “I can tell he’s nothing but trouble.”

“His name is Marc Huntington,” she told him, in case he didn’t know. “He’s Marge Huntington’s son.”

“He didn’t recognize you, did he?” he asked in alarm. He knew all about her childhood here in Shangri-La.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Good.”

She eyed him curiously. “I would think you might want to get friendly with him, not avoid him,” she said. “He would probably be a good source of information about the property. And maybe have a little different perspective than his mother has.” And then she remembered what he’d said just before Carl arrived. Maybe there was really no point in getting closer to Marc. Maybe it would be safer all around if Carl kept his distance.

Carl shrugged. “I think I can gain more by exploring the place on my own,” he said, giving her a pointed look. “And that is something you are going to help me with.”

“I am?”

He nodded. “Sure. What do you think I brought you for? You grew up on the place. You know all the secrets.” He gave her a crafty smile. “Don’t you, darling?”

They’d reached the wide front porch and Marge Huntington was holding the door open for them, clucking over how everyone had been worried about Torie, freeing her from having to answer Carl’s surprising statement. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. As she went up the stairs to dress for dinner, his words echoed in her mind.

You know all the secrets.

Something in his words chilled her. Maybe it was time she faced a few facts. She’d ignored her own doubts about Carl because he was giving her a chance to come back to Shangri-La, a chance she’d never have had without him. He’d told her he wanted her along to give the impression he was a stable married man, to help his chances of buying the place.

But now that they were here, she was beginning to realize there was more to it. When he’d quizzed her about her life her as a kid, she’d been happy to spill out just about everything she could think of. The trip down memory lane had been worth it. But now his interest seemed more pointed, less general. What was he after, anyway? That started her shivering again, despite the warmth of Marc’s jacket.

The room she’d been given was a little heavy on the pink accents for her taste, but it was certainly charming. There was an old-fashioned canopy over the bed and plush, heart-shaped cushions everywhere. There were two doors besides the entryway—one to the private balcony and the other to the bathroom.

She shrugged out of Marc’s jacket and threw it over the back of a chair, then walked out onto the little balcony and leaned out over the white wooden railing with its Victorian ornamentation. She could just barely make out the red tile roof of the butler’s cottage where she’d lived as a child. Just seeing it brought a lump to her throat.

“I’m back, Huntingtons,” she whispered to herself. “I’m back and I’m going to find out what really happened fifteen years ago when you fired my father and destroyed my family.” She flipped her thick blond hair back with a toss of her head. “Get ready for it. I want some answers, too.”

Shangri-La.

The name conjured up images of the mysterious East, and yet, the Huntington estate was plunked right in the middle of the California central coast and looked it. The house was a huge old rambling Victorian, perched on a cliff over the ocean, and there was nothing mysterious about it.

Torie did a little exploring, disappointed to find the grounds had been changed here and there. The beautiful rose garden that Mr. Huntington had been so proud of was a barren mess, and the trellis along the ocean cliff was gone. A new set of buildings lined the driveway and a new pool complex filled what had once been the tennis court area. The changes gave her a sick, empty feeling and she went back into the house, slipping quietly down the hallways to get a feel for the place.

She found the kitchen, and just as she turned to go again, Marc appeared in the doorway.

“Looking for something?” he asked, gazing at her skeptically.

She blinked, feeling guilty for no reason at all. “Just a drink of water.”

He went to the cabinet and got down a glass, then poured her a drink from the pitcher next to the sink. Turning, he watched her levelly as she drank it down.

“Shouldn’t you be attending to your husband?” he said, his voice soft but filled with a sense of irony.

“My…?”

Funny. Whenever Marc came near, she completely forgot that she was pretending to be married to someone.

“Uh, no,” she said quickly, using a phony smile as a cover-up. “Carl is actually pretty self-sufficient.”

“Lucky you,” he noted, his gaze cool.

She smiled at him but he didn’t smile back and she retreated quickly, pulse beating a bit too fast. This might be Shangri-La, but it wasn’t paradise. Too many conflicting emotions for that.

Another name came to mind as Torie sat at the dinner table, looking at the eclectic gallery of other perspective buyers. Actually, she was reminded of the cantina scene in the original Star Wars. A den of villainy, no doubt about it. Not to mention strangeness.

There was Tom, the jovial Texan whose booming laugh filled the room and bounced from the walls. Sitting next to him was the stylishly dressed Lyla, a pretty young widow from Los Angeles, who looked upon them all with a sense of disdain flaring her elegant nostrils. Andros, a Greek restaurateur, and his wife Nina, seemed pleasant and friendly, but Phoebe, the voluptuous blonde in the low-cut dress, and Frank, the vaguely sinister-looking real estate broker who dressed as though he was trying out for a role in a local production of Saturday Night Fever, were a couple she wouldn’t have wanted to meet in an alley on a dark night.

Marge Huntington presided at the head of the table, attempting to tame them all with pleasantries and offers to pass the au jus. She hardly looked any older than she had fifteen years ago, her flaming red hair flying like a flag. Torie remembered seeing her out sunbathing on the beach and hosting luncheons for the local women’s groups.

She’d been jumpy at first, wondering if the woman would remember her, but Marge hadn’t given her a second glance. She didn’t recognize her—and why should she? Her name had been Vikki then, short for Victoria, and she’d been short and chubby, with mousy brown hair and no personality that she could remember having. A typical plain Jane sort of girl, short on friends and scared of her own shadow.

That was then. This was now. She’d learned a thing or two about making herself ready for her place on the stage of life. She was taller, thinner, blonder—and definitely more confident.

Even so, sitting at the table with the woman made Torie a little nervous. Every time her eyes met Marge’s, she felt a little surge in her heart rate. She couldn’t help but think her hostess was going to begin to recognize her at some point.

But maybe that wouldn’t happen. After all, Marge was pretty self-absorbed. As long as she was the center of attention, she didn’t seem to need anything else.

She’d been prepared to face Marge, but it had never occurred to her that Marc might be here. She wondered if that was going to be the fatal flaw. Marc could very possibly ruin all her plans.

The food was good—cold trout and roasted Cornish game hens with a warm caramel apple pie for dessert. She noticed that the butler, a semi-handsome young man whom they called Jimmy in an annoyingly casual manner, was exchanging the sort of looks with Marge that usually meant bedroom visits late at night—but she didn’t care. She was just glad her father wasn’t here to see the Shangri-La butler being so unprofessional. He would have been appalled.

Marge welcomed them all and laid out the plans for the weekend.

“I want you to love Shangri-La like we do,” she said, smiling at each in turn around the table. “I want you to feel what it’s like to have the ocean in your front yard. I want you to explore the gardens, the vineyards, the cliffs. I want you to ride into town and visit our quaint little stores. Once you get a true feeling for the place, for the possibilities, I know you’ll see how it could change and enrich your life.”

The Texan gave a grunt of amusement. “And then you’re hoping one of us will be ready to ‘change and enrich’ yours with a nice ownership bid, aren’t you?”

Marge didn’t flinch. “Of course. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

Everyone laughed, but a bit tentatively, glancing sideways at each other. After all, if they did all love the estate, they would all soon be fighting each other for the chance to own it.

Lyla began going on and on about the invigorating effects of fresh sea air while Phoebe was throwing flirtatious glances at the Texan. Torie looked at Carl sitting next to her and found that he was staring at his food as though his mind was off in some other place.

And then an odd thing happened. The hair on the back of her neck was rising. She glanced up quickly and found Marc leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded across his chest, watching her coolly. He was wearing a long-sleeved jersey shirt that said Airborne just above where his forearms sat. He had the look of a man who was deciding who was naughty and who was nice. She was afraid she could already tell which category he had her in.

Funny. A look like that from Marc Huntington would have sent her running for a hiding place in the old days. But times had changed. She was all grown up and had a temper of her own. So she raised her wineglass as though toasting him and smiled.

His face didn’t change but something glittered in his eyes. Was that a hint of humor? Couldn’t be—not in a tough guy like Marc. She shrugged, raised her chin and put the glass down. He was obviously in fight mode, just searching for ways to stop his mother’s plans. She actually had no interest in either side of that struggle. She had her own agenda.

Marc stayed where he was and studied each one of the characters around his family dining table in turn. Every one of them seemed have hidden motives. Every one of them needed to be watched.

Or was he just being paranoid? Too many months on the front lines of war tended to do that to a man. He had to watch out. He’d known others from his line of work who ended up raving against reality, seeing assassins behind every tree. He didn’t want to be like that.

His biggest problem right now was that his gaze kept getting tugged back to Torie. Wasn’t there a phrase for that? He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. That was it.

There was no getting around it—something about her appealed to him in a core, involuntary way. It was visceral. It came from inside him and he couldn’t get it to stop.

He didn’t trust her and he certainly didn’t trust Carl. He’d already put in a call to an old friend in local law enforcement who sometimes worked with the FBI to see if he could find out something about Carl. The man just had a gangland look about him. What in hell a woman like Torie was doing with scum like that, he couldn’t imagine. He didn’t want to believe what that pointed to—that she was just as bad as he was. Or at least, willing to tolerate his badness.

But never mind. It wasn’t as if he was falling for her or anything. It had been a long time since a woman had really yanked his chain and he thought he’d been pretty much inoculated against it.

He was a Navy SEAL for God’s sake. He’d been out and seen the world and the world had done it’s damndest to him. He’d been shot at, he’d been attacked by a man with a knife and a deadly grudge, he’d been in bar fights. He’d been loved by some beautiful women and hated by others. He’d lived, and he planned to live some more.

But what he hadn’t planned for were the feelings, the emotions, that coming home had delivered like a blow to the gut. Coming back to Shangri-La, seeing its majestic beauty again, remembering his life, his father, his brother, and all that they had meant to each other—those emotions had surged through him and pierced his heart, cutting to the soul of who he was and where he came from.

His gaze kept shifting back toward Torie. He liked the look of her. There was love and laughter in that face, and a lively intelligence. Most women he’d known had one or another of those qualities. But she seemed to have them all in spades.

But there was something else that teased his imagination. Every now and then when he looked at her, he caught an expression in her eyes that he couldn’t quite analyze. Was it sadness? Regret? Or fear? She was always quick to erase it with a smile and he hadn’t had time to get a fix on it yet.

But he knew one thing about her for sure—she wasn’t in love with Carl. That was clear. She might be in love with someone, but this guy wasn’t it. A little part of him felt a twinge of jealousy.

He grimaced. Ridiculous. He could admit she attracted him, but even that was off limits. She was married, and even if she didn’t love Carl, that was a situation he would stay a million miles away from.

At the same time, he didn’t trust her. How could he? She lied every time she spoke to him. Why didn’t he hate her for it?

No. He couldn’t hate her. Even her lying was cute, like a kitten who couldn’t help but bite you.

Whoa. He seemed to be about to hand her carte blanche for anything. This was ridiculously dangerous. He had to get out of this mood and fast.

He shifted his gaze to his mother. Except, she wasn’t really his mother. It had been drummed into his head that he had to call her that, but it had never penetrated his heart. She wasn’t his real mother. She was his stepmother. She and her daughter Shayla had come into his father’s life after his biological mother had died. Now she ruled the roost here at Shangri-La, and that was just wrong.

He and Shayla had always been at daggers drawn. But Shayla was older and his brother Ricky had been forced to deal with her. Marc had flown under the radar, staying out of Shayla’s way and pretending she didn’t exist.

Poor Ricky had been battered daily by the attacks Shayla dealt out. Now that he looked back, he wondered how his brother had put up with it. If only he’d been there for Ricky more often. If only he’d taken some of the blows himself, maybe Ricky would still be alive.

Maybe. Sure. It was no use thinking ‘maybe’.

So he’d come back to his ancestral home to find his stepmother and his stepsister about to throw away the Huntington legacy that was over a century old. No one could pay enough to make the sale worth it. At least, that was the way it seemed to him. They wanted to sell the place and go live it up in the Bahamas. As if money could make up for losing their heritage.

This was a no-go as far as he was concerned. It was not going to happen. This property belonged to generations of Huntingtons and these interlopers were not going to be allowed to ruin that. He was the only real Huntington here, and he was going to have to put a stop to it.

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