Raye Morgan - A Proposal Worth Waiting For - The Heir's Proposal / A Pregnancy, a Party & a Proposal / His Proposal, Their Forever

“Wait. What were the circumstances?” Walking back, she sat beside him again. She wanted to be sure she got this right. She might never have another chance.

“Circumstances?” He shrugged and thought back. “I’m not sure.”

“Here’s what I remember,” she said. “And believe me, I’ve gone over this in my mind a thousand times. My family and I had been gone that weekend. We were up in Monterey to see the aquarium. Your father was at some geology lecture in Los Angeles and your mother was off on a trip with friends. Palm Springs or somewhere like that. Ricky was at a comic-book convention in Oregon.”

He shook his head, his gaze hooded. “I don’t remember all that, but you were there. I wasn’t.”

“That’s just it. None of us were there. When we got home, no one else was back yet. Even the rest of the staff was gone. No one else was due back until Monday morning. But about an hour later, my father went up to the house to get back to work. Even though he didn’t have to.” She almost rolled her eyes. “He always had that darn sense of responsibility toward the place—and toward your father. He wanted everything perfect for when Mr. Huntington got home.”

Marc nodded and almost smiled. “That is how I remember him. I know my father had a lot of affection for him at the time.”

She nodded too. “Your father got back unexpectedly about eight. My father went out and met him on the drive. He told him the treasure was missing. He’d gone into the library and saw that the display case was empty. He’d been searching for the last hour, in a panic, hoping someone had just moved it. Your father rushed in and they both spent rest of the evening searching.”

Marc frowned. “Didn’t they call the police?”

She shook her head. “My father came home about midnight and told us what had happened. He said Mr. Huntington didn’t want to call them until he’d talked to everyone, just to make sure someone hadn’t borrowed it and was bringing it back. He didn’t want to start a scandal.”

He stared at her. “Any idea who he had in mind?”

She held his gaze for a long moment before she answered. “No.” She sighed. “The next day, after everyone was back, the police were called. They questioned everyone. And someone accused my father.”

Marc looked at her sharply. “Just because he was the one who was alone in the house at the pertinent time?”

She hesitated. She’d run out of proven facts. Now she was going to venture into speculation. “I think someone gave them more to go on than that. Someone made some things up about my father. Someone who had a reason to need the money and might have stolen the treasure themselves.”

“Need the money,” he repeated softly. “So now you’ve got a motive.”

“Maybe.”

They were both silent for a few minutes, and then Marc spoke, his tone emotionless. “My family was having lots of money problems fifteen years ago. Did you know that?”

“I...no, not really.” To tell the truth, that shocked her.

“Mostly tax issues as I remember it. I had to work full time in college. Marge had to give up some renovation plans she had because we didn’t have the money for it. My father had some property in Hawaii and he sold that. We were scraping the bottom of the barrel for a while there.”

“I didn’t realize that.”

He considered, then turned to look into her eyes. “You don’t suspect me.”

She waved that away. “Of course not.”

“Or my father.”

“No.”

“Or the cook, or Griswold, or any of the staff.”

She shrugged. “There doesn’t seem to be any backing to suspect any of them.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Ricky?”

“Ricky?” She was shocked at the thought. “No, of course not.”

He knew the name of the person she suspected, but he set that aside. “What about a random theft? A burglar? Someone from the village?”

She shrugged. “Always a possibility.”

He nodded. “And then there’s the obvious one.” He took a deep breath before he said it. “How about your father?”

She winced. “That was what they decided. A few days later, they arrested him. They took him up to the county detention center.” Her voice trembled as she remembered. “It was horrible.”

“Yes.”

She took a deep breath, wishing she could blot out the memories of that time. “He claimed innocence. My mother fell apart. I had to withdraw from my school and stay home to take care of her.” She shook her head, holding it together. “I don’t think she ever recovered. Not really.”

“I’m sorry, Torie.” He looked at her, then away, raking fingers through his thick hair. “I feel a bit cut off from all this. I wasn’t there, didn’t know all the details. I wish I’d been more involved.”

She threw out her hands, palms up. “You were away at school. You couldn’t help it.”

“The next thing I heard,” he said, “was that the treasure had been found buried in the caves. Right where the Spaniards had put it in the beginning.” He shook his head. “Seems odd, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.” She tried to steady her voice. “There still was no hard proof my father was involved. The police found the treasure, and he was released right after that. But...” She shrugged helplessly. “He was fired anyway. And still under a cloud.”

Marc grimaced and looked out toward the ocean.

“You’d think once the treasure was found, they could have at least given him a chance,” she murmured.

“Be realistic, Torie,” he said a bit firmly. Then he seemed to regret his tone. He turned toward her. “Actually, my father considered your father a good friend as well as the best butler he ever had. I’m sure he tried to find a way to keep him on. I think there were others who counseled that he had to go.”

Her voice hardened. “You mean Marge.”

He hesitated, then coughed and looked away. “When it came to Marge, I’m afraid my father didn’t seem to have much of a defense on anything.”

She took a deep breath, knowing she was going to sound bitter, but determined to let it out anyway. “So because he couldn’t stand up to Marge, we were thrown like refugees into the street.”

His head went back and he frowned at her, but he tried to keep his tone light. “Hardly. I’m sure you drove off in a car.”

She shook her head. “You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean, and I know it was painful. Unfair, too. But things in life are often unfair. Most people find a way to get over them.”

She glared at him. She knew what he was saying was true, and his manner wasn’t cold or lacking compassion, but these hard truths weren’t what she wanted to hear right now.

“What else?” she asked shortly. “What did your father ever tell you about it all? What did he say about my father?”

Marc thought that one over for a few minutes, then raised his head and looked at her.

“My father didn’t say anything about it when I came home that year. It was sort of the big unmentionable. Everyone tiptoed around it.”

“Oh.”

That obviously wasn’t going to satisfy her. He sighed, threw her a rueful smile and dug a bit deeper.

“It wasn’t until about a year later, when Ricky died that he talked to me about it. It was the night after the funeral. He’d had too much to drink and he couldn’t stop crying. Neither could I. It was...pretty awful that night. But at one point, he started talking about the treasure. He said that maybe we should have left it in the caves in the first place. Maybe fate—or the ghost of Don Carlos—had tried to put it back where it belonged.”

She shook her head. “I wish I could buy that.”

“Yeah.” He looked at her sideways. “At that point he had the treasure in a safety deposit box at the bank. No more display in the library case.”