“I’ll take a rain check.” His smile spread slowly. “You know about redeeming rain checks, don’t you, Laura?”

“Yes.” How did a mother handle sexual flutters with her two daughters looking on? Laura didn’t have a clue. “Thank you for coming by.”

“My pleasure.”

“I’ll see you out,” Ali said with great dignity.

To his credit, Michael nodded gravely. “Thank you.”

“I’ll go, too. Mr. Fury, do you think you can teach Bongo to shake? Uncle Byron’s dogs can shake.”

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

Chapter Eight

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.”