Laura let them argue. She could have defused the sniping, but she understood it was simply part of the friendship. And she didn't care about cars. Not that she didn't enjoy the spiffy little convertible her parents had given her for her sixteenth birthday. But one car was the same as another to her.
She realized it was easier, in her position. She was the daughter of Thomas and Susan Templeton, of the Templeton hotel empire. Her home loomed on the hill behind her, stunning under the churning gray sky. It was more than the stone and wood and glass that composed it. More than the turrets and balconies and lush gardens. More than the fleet of servants who kept it shining.
It was home.
But she had been raised to understand the responsibilities of privilege. Within her was a great love of beauty and symmetry, and a kindness. Aligned with that was a need to live up to Templeton standards, to deserve all she'd been given by birthright. Not only the wealth, which even at sixteen she understood, but also the love of her family, her friends.
She knew Margo always fretted at limitations. Though they had grown up together at Templeton House, as close as sisters, Margo was the daughter of the housekeeper.
Kate had come to Templeton House when her parents had been killed. An eight-year-old orphan. She was cherished, absorbed into the family, as much a part of the Templetons as Laura and her older brother, Josh.
Laura and Margo and Kate were as close as—perhaps closer than—sisters who shared blood. But Laura never forgot that the Templeton responsibility was hers.
And one day, she thought, she would fall in love, marry, and have children. She would carry on the Templeton tradition. The man who came for her, who swept her up in his arms, who made her belong to him, would be everything she'd ever wanted. Together they would build a life, create a home, carve out a future as polished and perfect as Templeton House.
As she pictured it, dreams budded in her heart. Delicate color bloomed on her cheeks while the wind tossed her blond curls around them.
"Laura's dreaming again," Margo commented. Her
grin flashed, transforming her striking face to stunning.
"Got Seraphina on the brain again?" Kate asked.
"Hmm?" No, she hadn't been thinking of Seraphina, but she did now. "I wonder how often she came here, dreaming of the life she wanted with Felipe."
"She died in a storm like the one that's coming. I know she did." Margo lifted her face to the sky. "With lightning flashing, the wind howling."
"Suicide's drama enough by itself." Kate plucked a wildflower, twirled the stubby stem between her fingers. "If it had been a perfect day, with blue skies and sunshine, the results would have been the same."
"I wonder what it is to feel that lost," Laura murmured.
"If we ever find her dowry, we should build a shrine or something to remember her by."
"I'm spending my share on clothes, jewelry, and travel." Margo stretched her arms up, tucked them behind her head.
"And it'll be gone in a year. Less," Kate predicted. "I'm going to invest mine in blue chips."
"Boring, predictable Kate." Margo turned her head, smiled at Laura. "What about you? What will you do when we find it? And we will find it one day."
"I don't know." What would her mother do? she wondered. Her father? "I don't know," she repeated. "I'll have to wait and see." She looked back toward the sea, where the curtain of rain was inching closer. "That's what Seraphina didn't do. She didn't wait and see."
And the sound of the rising wind was like a woman weeping.
Lightning jagged, a flashing pitchfork of brilliant white through the heavy sky. The blasting boom of answering thunder shook the air. Laura threw back her head and smiled. Here it comes, she thought. The power, the danger, the glory.
She wanted it. Deep inside her most secret heart, she wanted it all.
Then came the squeal of brakes, the angry pulse of gritty rock and roll. And an impatient shout.
"Jesus Christ, are you all nuts?" Joshua Templeton leaned out of his car window, scowling at the trio. "Get the hell in the car."
"It's not raining yet." Laura stood. She eyed Josh first. He was her senior by four years, and at the moment he looked so much like their father at his crankiest that she wanted to laugh. But she'd seen who was in the car with him.
She wasn't certain how she knew that Michael Fury was as dangerous as any summer storm, but she was sure of it. It was more than Ann Sullivan's mutterings about hoods and troublemakers—though, to be sure, Margo's mother had definite opinions on this particular friend of Josh's.
Maybe it was because his dark hair was just a little too long and too wild, or because of the little white scar just above his left eyebrow, which Josh said Michael had gotten in a fight. Maybe it was his looks, for they were dark and dangerous, and just a little mean. Like a greedy angel's, she thought as her heart fluttered uncomfortably. Grinning all the way to hell.
But she thought it was his eyes. So startlingly blue they were in that face. So intense and direct and intrusive when he looked at her.