working CPA who could handle complex accounts without complaint. Eventually she expected to be offered a full partnership. When that time came, she would ascend yet another rung on her personal ladder of success.
She had family she loved and who loved her. And friends…well, her closest friends were family. And what could be more convenient than that?
She adored them, had loved growing up at Templeton House, overlooking the wild, sweeping cliffs of Big Sur. There was nothing she wouldn't do for Aunt Susie and Uncle Tommy. That included keeping what she had learned weeks before in her office to herself.
She wouldn't question them, though questions burned inside her. She wouldn't share the pain or the problem with Laura or Margo, though she had always shared everything with them.
She would suppress, ignore, and forget. That, she had to believe, would be best for everyone.
Her entire life had been focused on doing her best, being the best, making her family proud. Now, she felt she had more to prove, more to be. Every success she had enjoyed could be traced back to the moment when they had opened their home and their hearts to her. So she promised herself to look forward rather than back. To go on with the routine that had become her life.
Under ordinary circumstances, treasure hunting wouldn't be considered routine. But when it involved Seraphina's dowry, when it included Laura and Margo and Laura's two daughters, it was an event It was a mission.
The legend of Seraphina, that doomed young girl who had flung herself off the cliffs rather than face a life without her true love, had fascinated the three of them all of their lives. The beautiful Spanish girl had loved Felipe, had met him in secret, walked with him along the cliffs in the wind, in the rain. He had gone off to fight the Americans, to prove himself worthy of her, promising to come back to marry her and build a life with her. But he had not come back. When Seraphina learned he had been killed in battle, she had walked these cliffs again. Had stood on the edge of the world and, overcome with grief, had flung herself over it.
The romance of it, the mystery, the glamour had been irresistible to the three women. And of course, the possibility of finding the dowry that Seraphina had hidden away before she leapt into the sea added challenge.
On most Sundays Kate could be found on the cliffs, wielding a metal detector or a spade. For months, ever since the morning that Margo, at a crossroads in her life, had found a single gold doubloon, the three had met there to search.
Or maybe they gathered not so much in hopes of uncovering a chest of gold as simply to enjoy each other's company.
It was nearly May, and after the jangled nerves she had suffered leading up to April 15 and the income tax deadline, Kate was thrilled to be out in the sun. It was what she needed, she was sure. It helped, as work helped, to keep her mind off the file she had hidden in her apartment. The file on her father that she had carefully organized.
It helped to block out the worries, and the ache in her heart, and the stress of wondering if she'd done the right thing by hiring a detective to look into a twenty-year-old case.
Her muscles protested a bit as she swept the metal detector over a new section of scrub, and she sweated lightly under her T-shirt.
She wouldn't think of it, she promised herself. Not today, not here. She wouldn't think of it at all until the detective's report was complete. She had promised the day to herself, for her family, and nothing would get in the way.
The gorgeous breeze ruffled her short cap of black hair. Her skin was dusky, an inheritance from the Italian branch of her mother's family, though beneath it was what Margo called "accountant's pallor." A few days in the sun, she decided, would fix that.
She'd lost a little weight in the last few weeks of crunch time—and yes, because of the shock of discovering what her father had done—but she intended to put it back on. She always had hopes of putting some meat on her stubbornly thin bones.
She didn't have Margo's height or stunning build, or Laura's lovely fragility. She was, Kate had always thought, average, average and skinny, with an angular face to match her angular body.
Once she had hoped for dimples, or the dash of a few charming freckles, or deep-green eyes instead of ordinary brown. But she'd been too practical to dwell on it for long.
She had a good brain and skill with figures. And that was what she needed to succeed.
She reached down for the jug of lemonade Ann Sullivan had sent along. After a long, indulgent drink, Kate cast a scowl in Margo's direction.
"Are you just going to sit there all afternoon while the rest of us work?"
Margo stretched luxuriously on her rock, her sexpot body draped in what, for Margo Sullivan Templeton, was casual wear of red leggings and a matching shirt. "We're a little tired today," she claimed and patted her flat belly.
Kate snorted. "Ever since you found out you're pregnant you've been finding excuses to sit on your butt."
Margo flashed a smile and tossed her long blond hair behind her shoulders. "Josh doesn't want me to overdo."
"You're playing that one for all it's worth," Kate grumbled.
"Damn right I am." Delighted with life in general, Margo crossed her long, gorgeous legs. "He's so sweet and attentive and thrilled. Jesus, Kate, we've made ourselves a baby."
Maybe the idea of two of her favorite people being blindly in love, starting their own family, did bring Kate a warm glow. But she was bound by tradition to snipe at Margo whenever possible. "At least you could look haggard, throw up every morning, faint now and again."
"I've never felt better in my life." Because it was true, Margo rose and took the metal detector. "Even giving up smoking hasn't been as hard as I thought it would. I never imagined I wanted to be a mother. Now it's all I can think about."
"You're going to be a fabulous mother," Kate murmured. "Just fabulous."