Alone, Laura sat again as her daughter's bright voice echoed away. Experimentally, she pressed a hand to her stomach. Yes, it was churning. And to her heart. Yes, it was pounding.
How did a woman with absolutely no point of reference go about redeeming a rain check for an affair?
She had absolutely no clue about that, either.
Chapter Eight
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The sun tore away the clouds and fog and the chill of coastal winter. While reports of a Midwest ice storm hit the news, Monterey enjoyed soft blue skies and a breeze that held teasing hints of spring.
On the cliffs, the wind was rougher, whipped in from the sea and tasting, as Laura always thought, of adventure and romance.
The winter grass rustled, and the waves roared, fuming water like froth from a bottle of champagne. Once a young girl had died there, through her own will. An old man had grieved there, through his own memories. And somewhere, gold hidden for more than a century waited to be found.
Laura enjoyed the company and the leisure as much as the search. Nearly every Sunday, she and her friends and her daughters came here with the shadow of Templeton House behind them to look for Seraphina's dowry.
"We could buy a horse when we find it, couldn't we?" Kayla looked up from her enthusiastic scraping with a garden spade. "From Mr. Fury. I know how to take care of a horse now. He showed us. You have to feed them and water them, and brush them and clean out their feet—"
"Hooves," Ali put in, feeling superior. "You pick out their hooves. And you have to exercise them, too. And muck out their stalls."
"Have you been mucking out, Ali?"
Ali shrugged her shoulders, hoping the new earrings in her pierced ears showed off to their best advantage. "Mr. Fury says it's part of the job. You don't just get on and ride, you have to take care of them."
"Yes, you do." The father-daughter supper was behind them, and Ali had survived it. Laura touched Ali's hair. "When I was a girl and we had horses, I mucked out my share of stalls. I never minded."
"Couldn't we have some?" She'd tried not to ask. Ali wasn't quite willing to forgive her mother for letting her father go away and marry some other woman. "Mr. Fury's going to build his own stables and house. When he goes away, he'll take the horses."
"We'll talk about it."
"You say that when you mean no." Ali rose
from her crouch.
"I say that," Laura returned, praying for patience, "when I mean we'll talk about it. Right now Mr. Fury's renting the stables and there isn't really time for another horse."
"He'd sell us one of his if you wanted. If you really wanted." Ali turned her back and went over to where Margo and Kate ran the metal detector.
"She's still mad because he's getting married soon," Kayla said.
"Hmm?"
"You know, Mama. He's marrying Mrs. Litchfield."
"I'll talk to her again." Though she could think of nothing left to say on the matter. "Are you mad, baby?"
"No, I don't care if he marries her. I don't know why he wants to when she has that mean smile. And when she laughs it hurts my ears."
With an effort, Laura muffled a laugh of her own. Leave it to Kayla, she thought, to sum up Candy in such accurate terms. "People get married because they love each other." Or so she'd once believed, Laura mused as she looked out to sea. So she'd once dreamed.
"Are you going to be in love with someone and get married?"
"I don't know." Dreams change, Laura reminded herself. "You can't plan these things."
"I heard Mrs. Williamson tell Annie that Mrs. Litchfield planned to catch Dad in her trap, and how he deserved it."
"Ah." She cleared her throat. "She just meant that they were going to be happy together."