by Avery Flynn
The fact that she ended up with that diary hung unspoken in the air between them.
“And what did you steal to put you in the black sheep category?”
“Nothing. Unlike the rest of my family, I can keep my emotions in check and control my temper. That makes me the blackest of sheep.”
Josie laughed so hard her sides ached. “Are you completely out of your mind? Did you forget you lost it and stormed out into the hallway of that Vegas hotel buck-ass naked to accuse me of sleeping with you to get to Rebecca's Bounty?”
The tips of his ears turned scarlet and his jaw went rigid, but Sam didn't say a word. Instead, he put the car in reverse and backed out of the makeshift parking lot, spitting gravel under his tires.
Deciding silence was the better option, Josie fastened her seat belt and watched the scenery fly by. After half an hour of listening to Sam grind his teeth, she was ready to wrest the wheel from him or bail out so he could drive himself off a cliff. If his plan was to piss her off until she would rather sleep with Snips Esposito than work with Sam to find Rebecca's Bounty, he was well on his way to total success. Meanwhile her attempts to glare a hole in his thick skull failed miserably.
“Enough of the silent treatment. Where in the hell are you taking me?”
The car jerked to a stop in front of a closed metal cattle gate secured with a padlock. “Here. Come on, get out and really see it.”
Wind whipped at Josie's hair, its cold fingers digging underneath her collar despite her coat being zipped up to her neck.
McPherson's Bluff loomed above them looking like a huge, solid, snow-covered brick. It rose nearly a mile from the flat prairie that reached out in every direction from its base. Off to the left, a gnarled path of sunken ravines snaked out toward the horizon. A wide path had been cut down the center of the monument and a modern road weaved its way up the pine-tree-speckled bluff. Josie couldn't help but admire its fierce, solitary and utterly unwelcoming beauty.
“Wow.”
Sam chuckled. “Imagine seeing that from the front seat of a wagon after you've abandoned your old life to create a new one in a place you've never seen and with people you've never met. What kind of person would risk everything to travel through hostile territory for a slim chance at a better life?”
“You sound like you wish you were that kind of person.”
“No.” He slammed the car door shut and stormed over to her, stopping inches from the tips of her black boots. “I'm not that kind of person. I like order and I like certainty. I like standing in the back of the room away from the attention and the talk. I want steak on Friday nights and pancakes every Sunday morning. I like going to my office at the same time every day and having the same roast beef sandwich for lunch Monday through Friday.”
He moved in close enough for her to feel the heat pulsing off of his flushed cheeks. Or maybe it was the heat moving up from her wet pussy that caused the breathless jittering in her stomach. Her entire being focused on him as her nipples hardened in anticipation of the electric flash that would explode inside her the moment they touched.
She should say something, do something but the golden flecks in his hazel eyes held her mesmerized. Josie hung on the edge of a sheer cliff of need—not wanting to pull back, but unable to take that final step forward into the oblivion of passion.
“I have a boring life in a small town where nothing ever happens. My plans for the future involve putting fifteen percent of my salary into my 401K and publishing papers in dry history journals that no one reads. There is no room on my calendar for adventure or treasure hunting with a woman who stands out in the room like a shiny new penny.”
His lips were only millimeters from hers, his breath pushing against her parted lips like a heated caress. Josie's body vibrated from toes to eyebrows. If he didn't touch her soon, she would have to pounce on him.
“You probably don't even eat leftovers,” he grumbled.
“No.”
“Or drive the exact same route to work every day.” He drew a gloved finger down the zipper of her leather coat, frustratingly close to her breasts but not touching them.
“Uh-uh.” So much of her brain had evaporated she couldn't even form words anymore.
“We're nothing alike.” He grabbed her shoulders, squeezing the tender flesh. “I am content with my routine. I don't want to change anything about it. Do you understand me?”
Josie could only blink in response to his growled pronouncement as her heart raced and her body cried out for him.
Sam dropped his hands from her as if she'd burned him and stepped back. “So why do you make me think that I'm missing out on something extraordinary?”
He spun around on one heel and strode to the locked gate, his shoulders slumped. The chain rattled as he shook it in a half-assed attempt to open it. He leaned his forearms against the top railing and looked out at McPherson's Bluff. The rock stood alone in opposition to the rest of the topography, refusing to bow to the winds pushing against it.
“Because maybe deep inside you know you are missing something.” She moved to his side, wanting to wrap him in her arms but knowing he'd rebel if she attempted to comfort him. “Give yourself permission to take a leap of faith—like those people who traveled across the country. Like Rebecca.”
“Leap of faith.” He spit out the words as if they were a curse. “I'm trying to save you the heartache of pinning everything on a longshot and coming up a loser, and you want me to take a leap of faith?”
“Yes.”
“Look at it. McPherson's bluff is covered in a foot of snow. Half the landmarks on the map are buried. If you have to take a leap of faith, at least be sensible about it and come back in the spring.”
The muscles between her shoulder and spine clenched in a stress death grip. “Spring is too late.”
“Why, for God's sake?”
“I have to find Rebecca's Bounty or else Snips is going to hurt my parents.” Just saying the words out loud for the first time made the whole process seem hopelessly overwhelming.
He turned, a wary interest flickering in his tawny eyes. “Keep talking.”
“Cy is working with some sort of hush-hush security group. The Callandriello family is after the governor's daughter and Cy is keeping her safe.”
“What in the hell does that have to do with Rebecca's Bounty?”
Snow crunched under her boots as she paced in front of the gate. “Snips works for the Callandriellos and wants to move up the food chain by offering Cy up on a silver platter. He thought the best way to do that was to use me as bait, by telling me Cy owed him forty thousand and that I had to pay up since he couldn't find Cy. He figured I'd freak out, bring in Cy, and bam, he'd have his man. Instead, Cy moved our parents out of Vegas and I hightailed it to Dry Creek. But Snips tracked me and my parents down. I have to produce the treasure—the whole treasure. If I don't, my parents pay the price.” Heart kicking against her ribs, Josie came to a stop in front Sam and fought to control the tremble in her voice. “Please, I can't save them without you.”
Her panting breath came out in puffs of air, surrounding them like clouds of desperation-tinged hope. She searched his unresponsive face for some sign in his hazel eyes that all wasn't lost, that her faith in him was well placed. That he’d forgive her lies.
The jingle of his phone cut through the tension-filled silence. Without looking away from her, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell. “Yeah?”
The neutral mask slid away and anger drew his eyebrows together and sent the vein in his temple pulsing wildly. “I'll be there in twenty minutes.” He shoved the phone in his coat and marched to the car. “We have to go. Now.”
“What happened?”
“Someone trashed my office and left Uncle Harlan beaten and bleeding on the floor.”
Chapter Twelve
Someone—probably Linc—had done a hell of a job on Sam's office at Cather College, setting off a chaos bomb in what had been the capital of Order Natio
n. The filing cabinets' empty drawers gaped open like a kindergartener without his front teeth, their contents covering the floor. Books littered the once clean desk, volume upon volume lay where they'd been thrown from the shelf. Worst of all, Uncle Harlan sat slumped in the solitary upright chair, a clump of bloody paper towels pressed to his nose and a wicked shiner turning his right eye an unappealing shade of deep purple as he answered a campus police officer's questions. Uncle Harlan had left Sam's house a bit scraped up, but not bruised and battered like this.
“I'm going to kill that bastard loan shark,” Sam growled as they stood in the doorway.
She yanked him out of the opening and down the hall before anyone spotted them. “Don't talk like that. Snips is a shithead, but he's still a guy with muscle and a mean streak as wide as the Rockies. Do not fuck with him. I couldn't live with myself if you were hurt.” The truth of the statement hit her like a slap across the cheek, hard and crisp.
Something feral gleamed in his eyes and he kept his jaw clamped shut.
“We have to handle this ourselves or we'll make it worse.”
“And what do you recommend we do?” He barely got the question out through his clenched teeth.
“Cards close to the vest. We get Snips what he wants and he leaves us alone.”
“Do you really think it will be that easy?”
No, but what other choice did they have than to play Snips' game? “It has to be.”
“Another leap of faith, huh?”
Gazing into his lion-like eyes, Josie searched for the man she met in Vegas and had found again last night. The one who would take a chance and step into uncertainty without hesitation. “Please.”
“This is idiotic.” Sam twisted one of her short curls around his finger. “But I'll do it—my way.”
His caveat hung in the air between them, but still relief swept down her spine, lessening the tension holding her lungs tight.
“I was wondering what was keeping you. Now I understand.” A man in a brown sheriff's uniform walked toward them, a slight hitch in his gait. He grinned at Josie, his hazel eyes shot with green instead of Sam's gold. “Sheriff Hank Layton, at your service. You are?”
She shook his hand. “Josie Winarsky.”
“I'm Sam's brother. Sorry to meet you under these circumstances, but looks like little bro may have ticked off a student. Uncle Harlan said he was waiting for you when someone clocked him a good one. I imagine our mother has a good alibi so who else would have wanted to harm Harlan or go through your stuff?” Hank's mouth smiled, but his eyes stayed cop serious. “Why don't you update me on what's going on in your life.”
Sam hadn't been fooled by Hank's aw-shucks smile since he'd been six years old and his older brother had conned him out of the last Rolo in the pack. Hank's question was anything but innocent, but this wasn't Hank's fight. Hell, he didn't even have jurisdiction on campus. Whatever had happened in his office had to do with the folded map hidden away in Sam’s inside jacket pocket, and he'd be damned before he brought his brother in on another improbable hunt for Rebecca's Bounty.
But that was the kick of it. The more time he spent with Josie, the more the impossible started to seem feasible.
“What's going on in my life? Not much.” Unless, of course, you counted the bombshell next to him, the break-ins or finding a long-lost treasure map.
“Uh-huh.” Brother translation: Bullshit.
“Is Uncle Harlan okay?”
“His nose is busted up pretty good, but he'll live.” Hank shrugged his shoulders. “So I was about to call Mom before she heard the news through the town gossip mill, but figured I'd talk to you first to find out what's really happening.”
As threats went, this was a good one. Glenda Layton had been a helicopter parent before there was even a word for it. Since she'd retired, she'd devoted most of her energy to trying to run her four children's lives, something the siblings resisted more than a cat fights taking a bath.
A crash in the office sounded before Sam got a chance to respond to Hank's challenge. He, Hank and Josie sprinted toward the ruckus.
“I'm telling you, I didn't do this!” Uncle Harlan shook with emotion as he jabbed his finger into the campus police officer's chest. “I was sitting her waiting for my nephew when I heard a noise. The next thing I know, I'm waking up in here staring at the spit-shine of your boots.”
The man, identified as Smith on his name badge, swept aside Uncle Harlan's finger. “The office was unlocked when you entered?”
A flush rose fast across Uncle Harlan's cheeks. “Not exactly.”
“And exactly how was it?” The officer waited, eyebrows arched, for whatever tale Uncle Harlan planned to spin.
Sam couldn't wait to hear this answer himself. He locked his office whenever he left—and sometimes when he was still there, depending on the grades he'd given out during midterms.
“Alright, I may have fiddled with the lock a bit, but I did not do this.” Uncle Harlan waved his hand toward the worst of the disaster zone.
“Uh-huh.” Smith glanced up at Sam. “Any ideas?”
Plenty. “Not a single one.”
Smith eyeballed him skeptically, but Sam refused to give an inch. His orderly world had been shuffled and he would be the one to set it to rights again.
“Can I go now? I need to go get my nose X-rayed.”
Smith leveled a cop-to-cop gaze at Hank. “Can you vouch your uncle won't disappear?”
“He won't unless he wants to miss out on Mom's baked mac and cheese for the rest of his life.” Hank led Uncle Harlan to the door, stopping just under the archway. “We'll talk soon, Sam.”
Not if he could help it.
After a quick discussion with Smith, Josie and Sam were back in his spanking-clean Volvo, a stark reminder of the mess they'd just left. Damn, the whole thing pissed him off and put him right in the center of attention for Dry Creek's gossips. The place he'd hated being more than anywhere else.
Then again, he seemed to be doing all sorts of things that were out of character whenever he was near Josie. It wasn't that she pushed him to be someone different. Strangely enough, he just felt more himself around her.
Josie cleared her throat. “So where to now?”
“O'Neill's.” The single word was all he could manage as he pulled out of the parking lot, the smell of her amber perfume swirling around him in the enclosed space, distracting him from the plan he'd started working on as soon as he'd gotten the news about the break-in. Years of research about Rebecca and the family jewels she'd supposedly brought West, along with the map in his pocket, meant he had the best chance of finding Rebecca's Bounty. Once he found it, the woman who beguiled him could go back to Vegas and his life would return to normal. Exactly what he wanted. He didn't give a damn about the treasure itself. Now he wanted to find it just to check that off his to-do list and get his life back to the way it always had been. And should be.
They drove in silence, if not in peace. Josie sat ramrod straight in the passenger's seat, the afternoon sun glinting in her hair as they drove south from Dry Creek. Tension as tightly wound as the platinum curls surrounding her heart-shaped face filled the car's interior.
“Okay, so what's the plan you're cooking up in that head of yours?” She arched an eyebrow at him.
“What makes you think I have a plan?”
“Of course you do. You wouldn't make breakfast without a plan so you sure as hell wouldn’t go on a treasure hunt without one.”
“You know me that well, do you?”
“You’re the one who just told me all about how much you love routine, but I know plenty more about you than just that. I know you love your family and this town. I know you are curious about everything. And I know that if you'd ever let anyone close enough to scratch your anal-retentive surface, they'd find there's so much more to you than tan furniture and mad organizational skills.”
Sam concentrated on the empty road ahead of them much more than needed. He had no clue how to r
espond to her declaration. On unsure emotional ground, he resorted to the best self-defense move he had—being a prick.
“What makes you think I'm going to help you find the treasure? Maybe I'm planning to turn you and that buffoon Linc over to Hank as soon as I get back to town.”
For once, Josie didn't have a smart-mouthed rejoinder—something Sam didn't realize he'd miss until it wasn't there.
The fallow, snow-covered fields whipped by as they sped down the highway, clocking in at fifteen miles over the speed limit. Being the sheriff's brother in a small town had its benefits, but getting out of speeding tickets from the state patrol wasn't one of them. He eased his foot off the gas and settled back into a more professorial pace. Much more like him.
“Are you going to tell Hank?”
Her soft question thrummed his conscience. “No, I won't tell him.”
“So you'll help me find Rebecca's Bounty?”
“No.” He was going to find the treasure on his own. At this point, getting her any deeper involved than she'd already made herself would just put her in more danger, and he wasn't willing to risk that—even if they did have to go their separate ways. Josie had burrowed her way into him, making a place for herself in the nooks and crannies of his soul that had stayed vacant for far too long. If he wasn't careful, he'd never be able to get her back out. Hell, it was probably too late.
“Then what is your plan?” Her cheeks had turned beet red.
He parked the car in front of the only guest cabin at O’Neill’s where the windows hadn't been shuttered for the winter. “Not to see you until I have the treasure.”
Chapter Thirteen
Under the cover of darkness, Josie inched up the window to Sam's house. Her held breath burned in her chest as she strained to hear the slightest noise—or the blaring of an alarm system. After two break-ins in two days, if anyone in this small town needed a security system, it was him. But instead of an alarm, the only sound she heard was the rushing of blood in her ears.
Light bounced off the glass and Josie ducked behind a snow-covered bush. The beam hadn't come from inside, but from a car rolling toward the house. As it neared, Josie picked out the Dry Creek County Sheriff's decal on the passenger door. The cruiser drove slowly down the block and past Sam's pin-neat yard. Even though she knew the evergreen shrub shielded her from exposure, the urge to skulk away didn't abate until the cruiser turned the corner.
