Where the Heart Is

Chapter One
The last thing Shelley Wilde expected to find tucked away in the self-conscious gilt and velvet of her client's house was a man like Cain Remington.

Not that the French antique reproductions were Shelley's fault. She had done everything except hold a gun to JoLynn's stylish head and demand that she have a home that lived up to the spare elegance of its Pacific Palisades setting.

The land was magnificent.

The sky was a cloudless, burning blue. To the west, dry hills marched steeply down to the Pacific Ocean. Bleached by southern California's sun, grass on the hillsides rippled in a tawny echo of the sea's restless waves.

The view of water, wind, and land was untamed even by the expensive homes that stood astride the very crests of the hills.

At least the architect understood the view, Shelley thought. The house itself has clean lines and a wonderful sense of place.

What a pity that my client has neither.

The air inside the house was filtered, refrigerated, and carefully odorless. It could have belonged to a hotel anywhere in the world.

Outside the house, the wind was hot and alive, vivid with the scents of chaparral and the secrets of a dry, wild land. She could barely restrain herself from yanking aside the heavy drapes and throwing open the sliding glass doors that led to a redwood deck overlooking the sea.

If she had been given a free hand to decorate the house, the view would have become a living piece of art, a compelling sweep of primary color and primal force.

But Shelley's hands were well and truly tied. The client had insisted on a certain type of decor for her rented house. There must be nothing unusual or unexpected, and absolutely not one thing that wasn't universally applauded and labeled as tasteful.

If an object wasn't labeled, JoLynn didn't know what to think of it.

And despite man's best efforts, Shelley thought humorously, the Pacific doesn't yet wear a designer label sewn neatly along the seam where land meets sea.