Free Mac's Angels: The Last Dance: A Loveswept Classic Romance by Sandra Chastain

place to unwind. She could see little tendrils of heat rising from the water. A hot springs here in the middle of a mountain. A place where an injured body could soak up sun, be rejuvenated, and feel safe at the same time.
    Was all this for Jessie? Why? A girl as beautiful as she was ought to be on a real beach—with moonlight and a handsome lover lying beside her, not enclosed here in an artificial world. Something was wrong.
    “I see you found the pool,” Mac said.
    With the chirping of the birds and the musical sound of the water, she hadn’t heard him come in. She still didn’t see him, but her senses told her he was standing just behind her chair.
    “Yes. I don’t know how you did it, but it’s very beautiful. I can’t believe we’re inside a mountain.”
    “Believe it. The men who hauled in all the rock thought I was nuts. But they weren’t as skeptical as the engineer who had to build a generator large enough to heat and light the entire complex.”
    “How long did it take you?”
    “Oh, I’m still working on it. This wing was built first. It’s been here for almost fifteen years. The other wings and floors evolved from there. I keep a full-time construction and maintenance staff on hand.”
    “They must not have families.”
    Mac suddenly moved to where she could seehim. He sat down on one of the rocks near her. “But they do. What makes you think they wouldn’t?”
    “I don’t know. I guess I see Shangri-la as something like a space station, isolated … restricted. A place where you’d spend six months on duty and six months on R and R.”
    Mac looked surprised. “All the people who work here have the option of bringing their families. There is a grocery store, a small department store, restaurants, a movie house, and a recreation center. If we don’t have it, it can be ordered in.”
    “But they’re living underground.”
    “Do you feel like you’re living underground here?”
    Sterling glanced around. “No, I don’t.”
    “You just want to be able to go outside. Is that it?”
    She nodded.
    “I’m told that back in Virginia you have an office on the beach. How often do you go outside, Sterling?”
    She paused.
    “Almost never, but I can see the outside world.”
    “So can the residents. The rooms that don’t have, windows, and that’s most of them—for safety reasons—have holographic images on at least one wall. Your room has the same ability as the others. If you want to be on the beach, you just program your computer. Didn’t Elizabeth show you?”
    “No. I mean she probably would have, but I feltuncomfortable having her there. I asked her to leave.”
    “Are you always so independent?” Mac challenged.
    “I am. Are you always so controlling?”
    He laughed. “Are we about to have our first fight?”
    “I don’t fight.”
    “All right. I have something to show you.”
    “Something more spectacular than this?”
    “You may think so. Will you allow me to push your chair?”
    “Do I have a choice?”
    “Tsk, tsk, Moneypenney. What would 007 do with a testy secretary?”
    “He’d probably have some kind of secret weapon that he’d use to convince her to take orders.”
    “Oh?” He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “You think he’d charm her into obedience?”
    Sterling couldn’t quite field a comeback to that. As they threaded their way down a path between the trees, she tried desperately to recall the Bond movies she’d seen. All she could remember was Pierce Brosnan brushing up on his Danish in bed with a buxom blonde.
    “I don’t speak Danish,” she said suddenly, rather proud of herself for coming up with a line that caused Mac to falter in his pushing.
    After a moment he replied seriously, “I’ll teach you.”
    They reached an archway in which opaque sliding doors silently opened.
    “No ‘shazam’?” she asked.
    “Picture ID,” he explained.
    “What about me?”
    “Your picture has already been fed into the computer identification