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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.
CHAPTER THREE
A FEW minutes later, dinner over, Torie had to brush past Marc in order to leave the room.
“Waiting to high-grade the leftovers?” she asked mockingly in a soft voice for only him to hear.
“That would lead to starvation with this greedy crew,” he murmured back to her.
She’d meant to get past him and move on, but something in his smoky blue eyes caught at her and she paused, held in his gaze for a beat too long.
“I get first pick at all times,” he added arrogantly. “Or I don’t play at all.”
She flushed. He was so obviously trying to rattle her, and, darn it all—it was working. She should have known it was very foolish to taunt the tiger. A sharp retort came to mind, but she bit her lip and held it back, flipping her hair over her shoulder with a toss of her head and looking away as she walked on.
She could feel his gaze follow her like a brand on her back, but she just kept going. She’d come here to Shangri-La with a purpose—she wanted to find facts and clear her father, and that meant snooping into things. It might be best not to tempt Marc with reasons for him to want to follow her around.
She needed to stay as far away from this man as she could manage.
She joined the others on the wide terrace. The rain had cleared out the fog and now it had gone away as well. Twilight wasn’t far off, and in the light that remained, Marge suggested they all join her in an excursion to the pier. She wanted to show them the boathouse and the dock. They all gathered into a group and began the long tramp down to the shore, but Torie noticed that Carl had slipped away and she hung back.
“I want to run up and get a jacket,” she told Marge. “I’ll catch up with you.”
Just before she started up the stairs, she heard a muffled thumping down the hallway, and she followed the sound into the library. There was Carl, knocking on wooden panels as though he expected one to slide open at his touch.
“Searching for a secret compartment?” she asked a bit caustically. “Not cool, Carl.”
He whirled to face her, his thin face intense. “Just checking the quality of construction,” he said unconvincingly.
“I’ll tell you what the construction is like,” she responded, a bit impatient with him. “It’s old. This place was built about a hundred years ago. And it’s held up all this time. I wouldn’t worry about how sound it is. If you buy it, obviously, you’ll have to get some expert advice. Structural engineers and architects.”
“Yes, of course,” he said, frowning at her as though she were being a nuisance. He hesitated, then sighed and moved closer so that he could whisper. His dark eyes were darting about the room, strangely impatient. “But these old houses have false fronts and hidden passageways. I’m just checking it out.” He frowned at her. “Did you know about any? Did you ever find one?”
She shook her head. He was really turning out to be a little strange, wasn’t he?
