He nodded. “That was a long time ago,” he noted again. “Other people have lived here since.”
She took a deep breath and tried to smile. “I know. But I have to look and see.” She met his gaze and tried to maintain her dignity, but she knew he could see the pleading in her eyes. “Please, Marc. I really need to see what’s in the attic.”
He gazed at her for a long moment. The sweet, quiet way she’d asked him made him want to help her more than anything else! If she would put away the threat of antagonism that always seemed just a comment away, they might get on quite well with each other.
He shrugged. “Let’s go take a look.”
To her chagrin, he shoved the attic door open with no problem at all and then followed her up into the dusty area. The light from his flashlight made eerie shadows as it flickered through the beams. The ceiling was low and they both had to bend over to make their way toward where boxes and old suitcases were stacked.
Torie sorted through the boxes quickly, then turned to the luggage. Most items belonged to other people, but there was a suitcase that looked familiar. Marc gave the locks a jab with his pocketknife and they sprang open.
Torie stared at what was inside, more moved than she’d expected. These were the remnants of another life, far, far away, but she recognized them immediately. Her mother’s wool coat. Her own band uniform. Her father’s sweaters.
And beneath all that, a photo album and a stack of papers. She went through the papers anxiously, heart beating. Marc watched her, wondering what she was looking for. He didn’t ask again.
She’d set the photo album aside carelessly and he wondered why. He picked it up and leafed through it while she searched, holding the flashlight high. There was that chubby young girl Torie had once been. Seeing the pictures made him smile.
“How did you manage to make such a big change from the annoying little squirt you used to be?” he asked her dryly.
“Magic,” she shot back, not looking up from her search. “I traded a cow for a handful of beans.”
“Right.”
The pictures showed a loving family living at Shangri-La—his home—and none of them were any relation to him. Sort of weird. Jarvis the butler was just as he remembered him—full dignity with a touch of reserve. He remembered Torie’s mother, too, a pretty woman with a slightly worried, fragile look.
“Darn,” Torie muttered at last, sitting back. “It’s not here.”
He waited for a moment, but she didn’t say any more, and he moved impatiently.
“What? What are you looking for?”
She ignored him and began to put things back in the suitcase.
Assuming she would want the photo album, he held onto it.
“Take a look at these pictures,” he said, opening the album to a shot of Torie in her younger, more rounded past.
She took a deep breath and shook her head, avoiding even looking his way. “I can’t,” she said, her voice strangely choked. “Not now. I just can’t.”
He watched her curiously, touched by the emotion he heard in her voice. Life hurt pretty much everybody, one way or another, but it seemed life had really done a number on Torie. Still, he couldn’t believe she wouldn’t want the pictures eventually. He tucked the album under his arm and led the way back down into the house.
“What now?” he asked her.
She looked tired and a bit defeated. Not finding whatever it was that she’d been looking for seemed to have crushed her for the time being. He had a fleeting thought that this might be the time to press her, to poke around in her psyche and get to the truth of what she was doing here, what she really hoped to accomplish. But when he looked at her sad, pretty face, he didn’t have the heart for it. Maybe later.
“I guess I might as well go back to bed,” she said, holding her chin high with seeming effort. “I can’t really look any place else until it’s light.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to give me a hint?”
She glanced at him, then away. “What do you mean?”
“What are you looking for? What did you think you would find in that suitcase?”
She stared at him and he knew she was mulling over her options.
“You never know,” he said softly. “I might have already found it. I might have hidden it myself.”
“Hidden what?” she challenged, blinking rapidly.
He shrugged. “What you’re searching for. Why don’t you tell me what it is?”
She took a deep breath, looking at him sideways. He was sounding so reasonable and looking so gorgeous. It wasn’t fair. Marc wasn’t fair. He thought he could manipulate her. And maybe he wasn’t far off the track. He had to know she’d always had a thing for him.
She had to convince him that all embers of that fire had gone cold long ago. And they had! After all, he was one of the people, one of the family, who had been so cruel to her father. She had to remember that.
But she was at a dead end. She’d searched the caves. She’d searched the attic. She had no other leads.
“My mother thinks my father had a journal,” she said softly, avoiding his gaze. “She thinks he put things down that might help me—might show the way to the truth.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I never saw it. I was just hoping...”
She stopped. Tears were choking her voice. He stared at her, wanting to take her in his arms. She looked so sad, so lonely. But he wasn’t ready to give her the benefit of the doubt. Not yet.
What was it about this woman that seemed to crash right through all his normal defenses and touch him at his core? They were fighting over something here and he couldn’t concede. Not without getting something for his side.
“I’ve never found a journal,” he told her. At least he could be honest with her. “Are you sure it exists?”
She shook her head, avoiding meeting his gaze. “I’m not sure of anything.” She looked up at him, tears shimmering in her haunted eyes. “I’m not even sure my father was innocent. What do you think of that?”
He raked his hard fingers through his hair, leaving spikes in every direction. He could see she was tortured and he wanted to grab her and hold her and tell her it was going to be okay—but he couldn’t.
“I don’t think,” he told her, mostly because he didn’t know what to think of that statement. “I just react.”
She nodded. She shouldn’t have said that. It was true, but no one else needed to know. She couldn’t un-say it, but she could throw some other things out there into the mix to lessen its impact. Hopefully.
“Okay. React to this.” She took a deep breath and her green eyes looked like bits of shattered emeralds. “I’ve hated your family for fifteen
