Catching Moonlight (Man Season) by Mila McClung Page A

stopped.”
    “But, Mom, if he had loved you as
desperately as you believe, and he had money, why didn’t he come after you?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe he found someone
else. But it doesn’t matter now. He’s gone.”
    Lauren dried her tears; sat quietly
for a moment, remembering.
    “What else does the letter say?”
    “You’ve inherited Gregory’s family
manor and the island it sits on. It even has a name! Moonsea !
Sounds downright romantic, doesn’t it?”
    “Yeah. But, Mom, what am I going to do with
an island in Greece ? I’m supposed to transfer to
Stanford in a few weeks.”
    “You have time to fly out and look at
the place. Maybe the lawyer can help you sell it, if you don’t want to keep
it.”
    “Will you come with me?”
    “Oh, Toby, I couldn’t!” She began to
cry again. “I’ve just lost your father, and now this! I’m not sure if I can
handle any sort of trip.”
    “I understand. I’ll book a flight as
soon as I can. I might as well get it over with quickly.”
    Now, there Toby was, in paradise,
surrounded by beautiful people and glossy scenery. Her quick trip had stretched
out into three weeks, thanks to some rather confusing laws and a huge language
barrier. And she’d spent those weeks in Athens , a busy, dusty, bustling city,
seeing the usual tourist havens and getting antsy about missing her first
semester at Stanford.
    All her worries seemed to melt away
as she let the sea breeze flow over her newly tanned skin, bared in spots by
the design of a saucy yellow sundress. It dried the sweat on her freckled brow
and swept her long red hair up into a delicious frenzy. Never in her twenty
years of living had she felt so free.
    Stephan Cristos openly admired her. He was a black-eyed devil with an infectious grin and a
sleek, cultured accent. He’d told Toby that he studied at Oxford in England before deciding to chuck it all and
return to Greece to sell real estate. She kept
expecting him to ask her out while they were in Athens but he was content to be her lawyer
and nothing more. Or was he?
    Toby wasn’t very good at reading
signals from men. She’d lived most of her life in expensive private boarding
schools, away from her family – and boys. When the other girls would sneak out
to meet their boyfriends at the theater or the skating rink Toby would hide in
her room, her pert nose stuck in the pages of some hopelessly romantic novel.
Books were her comfort, her real schooling; her only true friends.
    When she realized she’d be going to
Greece Toby had a strange hope rise in her heart – that somehow, there in one
of the most romantic places in the world, she would meet a stranger who could
sweep her off her feet and carry her away into a glorious love affair. She kept
the hope hidden like a jewel too precious for anyone to see. At first she
thought Stephan Cristos could be the man she’d
dreamed of for so many long, lonely nights but he remained polite and aloof.
And he had a kind of arrogance that she didn’t enjoy.
    He was admiring her figure as she
surveyed their surroundings.
    “I can’t believe I’m finally here!
And I can move in immediately?”
    “Yes, as soon as you want. The house
is completely furnished. And it comes with two servants … Aella ,
the cook and housekeeper, and Kosmas, the gardener.”
    “Servants? Oh, I don’t need anyone to help me.”
    “It stated in Mr. Alexandrou’s will that his servants should stay here as long as you own the house. They were
like relatives to him. He would not see them turned out.”
    “Well, why didn’t he leave the house
to them? Could I do that? Just hand it over to them?”
    “No, Miss, I’m afraid not. The house
cannot change hands again for a year. He was explicit in that as well.”
    “I can’t sell it, either?”
    “Not for a year, no.”
    “Lovely. So it’s going to sit here,
running up property taxes, while I’m in college?”
    “No, Mr. Alexandrou knew he was dying, so he set aside enough to pay taxes