The Heir's Proposal. Raye Morgan

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.