The Heir's Proposal. Raye Morgan

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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. СКАЧАТЬ