LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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