But not Treasure Harbor, North Carolina. The discovery of the long-lost treasure had ignited the fantasies of every kid at heart who had ever said aaargh and fenced with a plastic sword. Everyone around here wanted to find the mother lode left by Drake Burton centuries ago.
Everyone except Bree Burton. Her initial reluctance had surprised Reid. Beyond the fact that every head in Treasure Harbor seemed to be turned by the prospect of gold in the dunes—or wherever the old pirate had stashed it—he knew from experience that most people loved the idea of getting their fifteen minutes of fame and being on TV. Not only did Bree not bat an eye when he introduced himself and his network, but she didn’t come out on pursuing the leads with great gusto, either.
Reid thought it was nonsense that he’d been sent back to Treasure Harbor in the first place. He was a meteorologist, not a reality TV star. But he couldn’t afford to lose his contract with NWN right now, so he was willing to swallow his pride and play by the rules his boss had outlined. But in order to get all those boxes checked, he needed a partner like Bree Burton—someone with the local knowledge and the historical chops.
The fact that she was actually a Burton made things even better for him. Her personal connection to the story would get him the ratings he needed and then he could get on with his life and the obligations he had back at home.
For now, though, the only obligation he had was to a big burger with cheese, sandwiched between a fluffy bun. The waitress stopped by his table and took Reid’s drink order.
“But make sure the tea is unsweetened. Just lemon. No sugar.”
The teenager with the multi-hued orange ombré hair looked at Reid like he had just insulted her grandmother. If there was one thing he had learned traveling around the south, chasing storms and stories, it was that people in this part of the country held their sweet tea dearly. Every time he announced he wanted just plain old-fashioned tea, it was as good as holding up a banner that said “Yes, I’m from somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon Line.”
“Chad, I said ‘I want a to-go order of hot wings.’ I don’t even know how you heard ‘let’s go on a date, you hot thing’.”
Reid didn’t recognize many voices in this town, but he knew that one. A little bit soprano, a lot of Southern sass, he knew without hesitation that blend belonged to exactly one woman: Dr. Bree Burton. He looked toward the counter, letting his eyes confirm what his ears already knew.
Her blonde ponytail swished across the top of her shoulders as she laughed at the young man behind the counter. She pushed three green bills across the counter and waved her hand from side-to-side. “Keep the change. Maybe you can use it to take some other girl on a date.”
A hearty smile settled across Bree’s lips as she turned toward a row of high stools topped with bright red vinyl cushions. The corners of her mouth dropped slightly as she made eye contact with Reid. She raised her hand reflexively in a half-wave.
Reid would have preferred the over-the-top rejection she’d shown the guy behind the register. At least he knew Bree was just kidding around. There was no denying that the look on her face clearly showed she’d have rather seen anyone in booth number three but him.
The brief trail of thought he’d had about her Southern sass and high-voltage smile rolled away as smoothly as one of the waves bobbing at the edge of the horizon. He raised his hand in a gesture matching hers. They didn’t have to be friends. He just had to get the story.
In his line of work, that’s all that really ever mattered. And now, more than ever, Reid felt that responsibility. He needed to bring in the ratings on this new project for NWN so that he could go back to doing the work he preferred doing, and bringing in the paycheck.
Ratings and paychecks. For years, he’d tried to convince himself that he was a different kind of TV personality.
Now he knew. He was just the same as the rest of them, and it ate away a little part of his soul to admit it.
But for Mandy, he’d do anything. Even take Bree Burton’s clear displeasure without saying a word in his own defense.
Bree looked at the clock on the back wall and knew she had another eight minutes to wait on her food. She’d ordered a basket of hot wings to go every Tuesday night since moving back to Treasure Harbor. One of her favorite reality shows came on Tuesdays, and after a day of staff meetings and office hours with her students, Bree was usually ready for a guilty pleasure or two by the time she made it to her couch at the end of the day.
She took a deep breath. She could either sit on this stool and feel awkward about avoiding Reid Knight, or she could walk over and say hi and feel awkward about talking to him.
Either way, the key word was “awkward.”
But this was the South, and in the South, you did the polite thing…even if it was awkward.
“So you like health food, too?” Immediately, she wanted to put the words back in her mouth. This is why she was an introvert. This is why she didn’t fill the role of social butterfly at parties like her mother always pushed and shoved her to do. This is why she had a job based on lectures. She got to plan what she wanted to say in advance.
Because otherwise, she sounded like an idiot who just needed to crawl back in a hole. By herself. Where she didn’t have to talk to other people.
“Is it that obvious that I’m considering ordering a double cheeseburger and the loaded fries?” He laughed and looked straight at her with those eyes she’d noticed the minute he’d announced he was looking for her help.
Bree felt a flicker of a smile as she realized he didn’t think she sounded stupid or socially awkward. He’d laughed at her lame joke and played along.
“You can have a seat while you wait, if you want.”
He was a guest in town, and as she’d already reminded herself, this was still the South. Above almost all, hospitality was still rule number one in places like North Carolina. She hadn’t lived here in a while, but some things never changed. The only option she really had was to accept his offer and be friendly.
At least for the next seven or so minutes.
She perched on the edge of the bench seat across from Reid. “How long are you in town?”
Small talk was perfectly hospitable. So far, so good.
Reid shrugged. “Until I get the story. Or a hurricane blows up somewhere between here and Texas. Hopefully it won’t be like last summer, where it seemed like I spent months living out of a suitcase, first covering Hurricane Hope in Port Provident, Texas and then here, covering Igor.”
For reasons she couldn’t quite articulate to herself, Bree still felt uncomfortable with his pursuit of the Burton treasure as a “story.” She appreciated his access to all the tools the media had to offer, since she knew spreading the word far and wide could finally change public sentiment toward the Burtons. Because of that, she’d committed to partnering with him. But still, she needed to know more about what he was aiming for.
Bree decided to approach it like she would in a conversation with one of her students.
“Do you have a hypothesis about what happened?”
Reid brought his hands close together, then drummed his fingers on the table top. “I think I do.”
Although she was a historian and was used to going through the historical records of others, for some strange reason, it surprised her that someone in the media had given thought to her own family history.
“Like what?”
“From what I’ve come across, I think of Camilla and Drake as some kind of pirate Romeo and Juliet.”
This time, Bree’s laugh was real and it was loud. Quickly, she let her eyes dart around the crowded restaurant to see if she’d attracted any attention.
“Well, we all know how that ended, right?”
Reid smiled. He had perfect television teeth. Bright white, all in a row, completely gap-free.
“As far as I can tell, Camilla and Drake didn’t have a much happier ending. Although I guess Drake didn’t kill himself. He did, though, kill her family’s fortune and
his family’s legacy, and then died anyway when his ship sank off the coast.”
Bree raised an eyebrow. “Okay. You’ve got a good point. But how does this lead to finding the rest of the treasure?”
“I don’t know yet. But I think the answer lies here on this island somewhere. And I intend to find out. Are you free at all this week? I don’t know how professor’s schedules work.”
“Bree? Your order is ready.” The speakers in all four corners of the room rattled with the announcement. “Order for Bree.”
“As luck would have it, I have Wednesday afternoons free to do research and projects.”
“Do you know Lookout Point?”
Bree turned away from Reid slightly as she maneuvered out of the booth. Just the mere mention of Lookout Point brought back more memories of Josh and the first awkward kiss they’d shared. She hadn’t realized coming home would mean that his ghost seemingly followed her everywhere.
“Of course I know Lookout Point,” she said as she scooted.
“Great. Meet me there at three tomorrow.”
HIS TIMELESS TREASURE
Chapter Two
Lookout Point was situated at the tip of a small strip of land that jutted out of the barrier island, curving around like the tentacle of an octopus. No one lived out here—except Miles Wharton, an eccentric man in his eighties that Reid had surprisingly gotten to know during the coverage of Hurricane Igor.
Even more surprisingly, Miles had remained in touch with Reid. He always sent letters the old-fashioned way—there was no email or social media at Lookout Point. Sometimes the brief notes made sense, sometimes they really didn’t. But Reid had saved them all. And then, a few weeks ago, he’d done some corresponding of his own. He’d submitted a request to a genealogy research firm to find out any information they could on the weathered old man.
The report came back on Monday, just before his flight to North Carolina took off. And it confirmed what Reid had come to suspect, based on a few cryptic lines here and there in the small collections of notes.
Like Bree Burton, Miles Wharton was a descendant of the area’s best-known pirate. But unlike Bree, he traced his lineage through an illegitimate line. He came to be a member of Drake Burton’s family through a relationship with local barmaid Jenny Wharton. She’d had a son, Drake Wharton, two years before the pirate’s relationship with Camilla Callahan and the untimely deaths of both.
According to the local lore, Jenny Wharton took her son and moved out of the town of Treasure Harbor to protect him from the enmity of the Callahan family toward anything associated with Drake Burton. And there the Whartons had remained, on the edge of Treasure Harbor for almost three hundred years.
Three centuries was a long time for a family to live in exile.
It was also a long time to collect secrets.
And so, when he’d been sent back to Treasure Harbor to find out the secrets of the gold, Reid’s first stop when he returned was to the home of the pirate’s descendant that no one really wanted to acknowledge.
“So why are we at Lookout Point?”
Reid heard Bree’s voice coming over the dunes a few seconds before he saw her. She was dressed for adventuring, her blonde ponytail threaded through the back of a baseball cap embroidered with the pirate-shaped logo of Carolina Harbor College’s mascot. She wore a simple white tank top with wide straps, tucked into a pair of khaki-colored cargo pants. A pair of well-worn steel-toed boots were laced up on her feet.
He was used to showing up at New York galas and press gatherings in Washington, rubbing shoulders with celebrities and politicians and journalists who’d become the faces of their respective networks. And he always had someone best described as “eye candy” on his arm. Always. And it was never the same candy twice.
He’d seen—and been seen with—his share of beautiful women through the past ten or so years.
But those women all served a purpose. They wanted to be seen. He had access.
It kept the press out of his business if he looked like an eligible bachelor out on the town with a succession of women. It played into the image he’d worked hard to cultivate, an image that gave people what they wanted to see of Reid Knight—not the reality.
For the first time in a very long time, Reid Knight wished he was the eligible bachelor he pretended to be. While he was most definitely a bachelor, he was most definitely not eligible.
Which meant he needed to stop thinking about how amazing Bree Burton made a casual top and work pants look and start thinking about solving the mystery of the treasure and bringing in the ratings for NWN’s new venture.
Ratings brought in advertisers. Advertisers brought in money. Money kept NWN afloat. And afloat kept Reid employed.
And if Reid wasn’t employed, then he couldn’t keep his promise to Mandy.
A hand waved in front of his face, breaking Reid’s wildly wandering train of thought. “Hey, you didn’t answer me. Why Lookout Point? There’s nothing here. In fact, there hasn’t been for centuries. Lookout Point is where you come when you want to get lost.”
Reid nodded in agreement. “Exactly.”
“Okay.” Bree sounded skeptical.
“Do you know Miles Wharton?”
She ran her tongue across her front teeth. “I know of him. Crazy. Loner. Eccentric.”
“Not crazy."
“How do you know that? You’ve been in town for less than a week. I’ve been here my whole life.” The waves laid a soft roar like a cap over the sound of her words. “Well, most of it anyway.”
“I know Miles. And I know Lookout Point. I got to know them both after Igor. He asked me to meet him out here today.”
Bree adjusted her moss green canvas backpack on her shoulders. “He has a phone?”
“He has ways.” Reid pointed toward the packed sand path that led back through dense beach vegetation.
Bree followed Reid closely. He could smell her perfume faintly over the smell of salt in the air. A light scent with a hint of gardenia. It made him think of all the moonlight and magnolias themes associated with the South.
The seagrass to either side of the path stood more than waist-high. Reid pushed back stray blades, trying to hold them at bay. Finally, they came to the end of the twisting strip of sand and shell. A structure best described as a hut was partially hidden by more grass and some thin trees.
Miles Wharton sat on the porch of his unassuming residence, shaded from the afternoon sun by a low overhang covered with uneven shingles.
“You came,” he said simply. “And you brought the Burton girl?”
“I did.” Reid gestured toward Bree, standing a half-step behind him. “So you said there’s been a new development in the search for the source of the Burton treasure?”
Miles stood with a short nod, then abruptly turned and headed inside the weather-beaten front door.
Reid cupped Bree’s elbow with his palm and guided her inside the small structure. He couldn’t decide if he should listen to the voice in the back of his head or not.
He also couldn’t decide if the little voice in the back of his head wanted to talk more about the fact that the dimly-lit residence reminded him of something in a movie…or if it wanted to talk more about how Bree Burton looked as she stepped cautiously across the threshold.
As soon as they made it inside, Reid realized he didn’t have time for either of those trains of thought. Miles was digging in the threadbare couch in the center of the room. A faded army green with faint stripes that Reid believed had once been some variant of white, the shabbiness of the fabric stood in perfect harmony with everything else in the cabin—including Miles Wharton himself.
The old man pulled the center cushion off the couch and tugged at a zipper across the back of the square. He began tugging out tufts of matted stuffing, then discarded each on the floor in rhythmic succession.
Reid watched Bree watching Miles and lost sight of the pile of tufts. A metallic thunk on the wooden floor drew Reid’s eyes quickly
back to Miles’ work. He could just make out a faint variation of color behind the edge of one tuft.
Gold.
Another metallic thunk, then another as whatever Miles was removing from the pillow began to tap on one another.
More gold.
Bree inclined her face toward Reid. Her eyes were wide and the stunned circle of her mouth matched her startled gaze.
“Gold,” she mouthed.
Reid nodded. His ingrained instinct surged through his veins. He’d been hunting for the story his entire life. From childhood, he’d had a nose for news—as his Aunt Peggy had always said—and he could smell something in this room as clearly as he’d just smelled Bree’s gardenia perfume.
Why was eccentric loner—and illegitimate pirate descendant—Miles Wharton hiding a treasure of his own in a lumpy couch cushion?
Miles rose, his cupped hands filled to the brim with shining coins. Reid took two steps forward and leaned over the loot.
Although mostly gold, tucked in the pile were also shades of bronze and silver. The golden ones gleamed as though they’d just been brought home from the mint. But that was where the impression of newness stopped.
“Byzantine?” Bree’s voice cracked into the silence as she touched a circle of silver.
Miles made a sound of approval deep in his throat. “Some of ‘em.”
Bree’s finger brushed across the top of the pile. Reid chided himself for noticing there wasn’t a wedding ring at its base. He should have noticed nothing but the mysterious gold that this mysterious man had brought out of hiding, but something about Bree Burton kept making him lose that killer, focused instinct he’d always been known for in his professional circles.
She pushed one coin to the side, then another, then another. Suddenly, she stopped and plucked a large gold one between two fingers, then held it in front of her face.
“King Ferdinand of Spain. That’s his crest.” She twisted her fingers back and forth, studying both sides of the coin. “How’d this get here?”
His Timeless Treasure (Treasure Harbor Book 5) Page 2
