“Sarah, be reasonable. Ten photocopies won’t do him any more good than one. They’re all the same. I guarantee you he won’t get the earrings.”
She gave him a speculative glance. “You’re very certain of Jake Savage’s incompetence.”
Gideon grinned briefly. “As I’ve always said, he’s got his talents, but finding treasure isn’t one of them.” His grin vanished as quickly as it had come. “But he’s gone too far with this business of breaking into your place.”
“That’s certainly the truth. I won’t have it. What are we going to do, Gideon? Call the cops? How will we be able to prove it was Jake who broke in?”
“We probably won’t be able to prove it.” Gideon shrugged into his shirt. “But I think it’s time I had a private chat with my ex-partner. I’ve had it with him.”
“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked anxiously.
“I’m not sure yet, but one thing’s for certain, I liked him a lot better when he was supposed to be dead.”
“Gideon, you wouldn’t, would you? You can’t be serious. I mean, you can’t actually, uh, that is… “
“See that he goes back to being dead? Permanently this time? It’s an interesting possibility. As a solution, it definitely has its merits.”
“Gideon.”
“Weren’t you going to fix me some coffee?”
Sarah wasn’t certain what to make of the blandly innocent expression in his cool green eyes. It occurred to her that on some level she had always understood that Gideon Trace was dangerous. She just hadn’t ever expected to see that side of him. She still wasn’t sure she was seeing it. There were definitely parts of this man she did not completely know or understand yet. The knowledge was disconcerting.
“I’ll be right out,” Sarah mumbled. Clutching the remainder of her clothing, she hurried off to the bathroom.
Gideon watched her until she disappeared down the short hall. He felt a lot better now than he had when he’d first arrived, he realized. Everything was going to be okay again. He could relax. Sarah had just succumbed to a brief storm of feminine emotion, that was all. She hadn’t done anything drastic like change her mind about him.
She still thought he was some sort of romantic hero and apparently he had only reconfirmed her belief by chasing after her.
As if he’d had any alternative, he thought as he got to his feet and pulled on his jeans. He would never tell her, of course, but the truth was, it hadn’t been any grand, romantic impulse that had brought him to Seattle. He’d been operating on instinct and his instincts had told him that he could not let her disappear from his life.
Gideon fastened his jeans and began wandering around Sarah’s colorful, modern living room. The place fascinated him. It was so completely different from his own home. Everything was bright, breezy and exuberantly chaotic. Magazines that ran the gamut from Cache to Vogue were piled willy-nilly on the second level of a two-tier glass coffee table. A collection of bizarre paperweights occupied the top of the table. An unwashed mug or two stood proudly amid the clutter.
The furniture all looked as if it had been designed in an art studio, with more emphasis on abstract lines than functionality.
The walls were filled with posters of the Pike Place Market, photos of Sarah with two other women and framed book covers. He paused in front of one, studying it more closely.
The cover of Dangerous Talent showed a rugged-looking, dark-haired man braced at the edge of a jungle cliff. The man had apparently forgotten to button his rakish, khaki shirt that morning, Gideon noted. It hung open, revealing a lot of chest.
In addition to his unbuttoned shirt the guy in the picture was wearing boots and a wide leather belt. There was a knife strapped to his leg. In one hand he held a large revolver aimed at some unseen menace and with the other he embraced a beautiful woman.
Gideon wondered idly why the heroine had worn a sleek, sophisticated designer gown and high heels into the jungle. The glittering dress was already badly ripped and was probably going to get even more severely torn in the near future. Both characters looked far more concerned with how they were going to make love on the edge of a cliff than they were with whatever threatened them.
Gideon shook his head in mild amazement and then spotted an open box with a publisher’s return address on it. Inside the box were several copies of Dangerous Talent. Unable to resist, Gideon lifted one paperback out of the box, opened it and turned to the first page.
Hilary sat frozen behind the wheel of the broken-down Jeep and watched helplessly as the man with the gun sauntered toward her. Around her the jungle was alive with brooding menace. But nothing it offered seemed even as remotely threatening at that moment as the cold, deadly expression in the eyes of the human predator in front of her.
Green, Hilary thought fleetingly as she stared, mesmerized through the windshield. She could see that his eyes were emerald-green like those of a jungle cat and just as chilling.
Her friends had told her Jed Mclntyre was dangerous—a man who made his own rules out here in the wilds of Rio Pasqual. But Hilary, as usual, had refused to listen to good advice.
She had insisted on setting out to find Mclntyre and now she was very much afraid that she had done exactly that. The man coming toward her with such casual, graceful menace certainly fit the description Kathy had given her.
Dangerous.
Jed Mclntyre was perhaps ten paces away from the Jeep when Hilary came to her senses and remembered the pistol she had stuck in the glove box. Jerking herself out of her momentary trance, she lunged across the seat for it.
She never made it.
Gideon closed the book and put it back in the stack as he heard Sarah’s light footsteps behind him.
“See what I mean?” Sarah asked as she went on into the kitchen. “All my heroes are like you.”
“Other than the color of Jed Mclntyre’s eyes, I didn’t see much resemblance.”
“Then you didn’t read far enough.” Sarah switched on the coffee maker and put a kettle of water on the stove.
Gideon shrugged. If she wanted to see him as dark, dangerous and sexy, who was he to complain? “Just tell me one thing. Do I have to start carrying a gun and wear a knife strapped to my leg?”
“Good heavens, no. You don’t need one. In that sense, you’re a lot more interesting than Jed. Jed, I’m afraid, tended to rely a bit too much on brawn instead of brain. But brawn works nicely in a romance novel.”
Gideon smiled at that. “Well, that’s a relief. I’ve never liked guns or knives. Or khaki, for that matter. Stuff wrinkles like crazy.” He went down the hall to the bathroom, which smelled of lemon-scented soap. Automatically he plucked the used towel that was hanging askew off the rack and tossed it into the hamper. He located a fresh one in a small closet.
A few minutes later when he got back to the kitchen he found Sarah pouring freshly brewed coffee. The stuff really was a lot better than instant, he decided. He was getting used to it. He sat down in a high-backed stool at the counter and picked up the red mug.
In front of him on the counter lay an assortment of odds and ends including a couple of large yellow notepads, a glass jar holding a dozen pens and a stack of romance novels.
“All right,” Sarah said as she plunked herself down on the seat beside Gideon. “What are we going to do about your pal, Jake?”
“As I said, I’ll have a talk with him.” Gideon sipped his coffee thoughtfully.
“But how will you convince him to stop pestering us about the earrings? This little matter of going through my files is more than I can tolerate, Gideon.”
“I agree and I’ll deal with it.”
She looked skeptical. “If you say so.”
“Don’t tell me you’re losing faith now?”
“No, it’s not that.” She broke off, her thoughts clearly taking her in other directions. “But I can’t help worrying about those earrings. I don’t like leaving them buried up there in the mountains. I don’t have as much confi
dence in Jake Savage’s lack of competence as you do, I guess.”
“Okay,” Gideon said, coming to a decision. This had gone on long enough. Time to end it. “We’ll go get them.”
Sarah swung around on her stool and stared at him in surprise. “We will?”
“I want you to be able to relax and stop worrying about them. Obviously the only way to do that is to dig them up and put them in a safe place. We’ll go see if we can find them in the morning.”
“What about Jake Savage?”
“With any luck, he’s still over at the coast, looking for an angle or contacting a talk-show producer. If he saw me leave, he probably assumed I followed you to Seattle.”
“Gideon, this is wonderful. Do you know what this means? Do you realize what you’re saying?”
He eyed her warily. “I’m saying we’re going to dig up the earrings. If we can find them.”
“No, no, no.” She shook her head with obvious impatience. “That’s not what you’re saying at all.”
“It’s not?”
She smiled, her bright eyes triumphant. “What you’re really saying is that you finally realize it’s all right to help me dig up the earrings because you no longer think I’m just using you to get them.”
Gideon absorbed the statement slowly, struggling with the convoluted feminine logic. “You really do have a talent for leaping to conclusions, don’t you?”
“Go ahead. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you haven’t decided to trust me at last,” she challenged happily.
Gideon studied her for a long moment, enthralled by the warmth and delight in her vivid gaze.
“You win. I trust you.”
He became aware, even as he said it, that it was the truth. He wondered if he’d known it all along on some instinctive level or if it was some grand realization that had just hit him. He decided not to worry about it. How and when he had come to trust her was no longer important.
What he couldn’t explain to her was that this business of going back into the mountains to dig up the Fleetwood Flowers proved nothing at all about his trust in her.
GIDEON’S SHOVEL hit metal and clanged loudly in the morning stillness.
“Oh, my God, that’s it,” Sarah exclaimed. “You’ve found them. You’ve found the earrings. Gideon, this is so exciting. I can hardly believe it.”
She leaned closer to examine the small pit they had dug precisely ten paces due north of the white rock. She had dragged Gideon out of bed very early so that they could get to Emelina Fleetwood’s old cabin by mid-morning. Gideon had hardly complained at all.
“Stand back and let me get a little more of the dirt out of the way. It might not be the earrings, Sarah. It could be nothing more than an old tin can that was covered by mud years ago. Or a hubcap. Or a hunter’s trap. Anything.”
“It’s the earrings. I know it is.” Sarah used her own shovel to pry out more dirt. Slowly but surely an old metal box came into view. “Look at that, Gideon. It’s a locked chest.”
Gideon studied the rusted metal lid of the box. “An old strongbox. And you can bet Emelina didn’t bury the key along with it.”
“Maybe it’s not locked.”
“If it’s not, then I doubt there’s anything valuable inside,” Gideon said reasonably.
Sarah knelt in the freshly turned earth to reach down into the pit and drag out the heavy box. She studied it intently. “Darn it, you’re right. It is locked.” She brightened. “But, as you said, I guess that means the earrings are still inside.”
“We’ll get it open.”
“But how?” Sarah shook the box but it was impossible to tell if there was anything inside. She could hardly stand the suspense. “This is killing me. I can’t wait to get it open. This is such an incredible experience. I’ve never done anything like this before in my life. Imagine. We’ve actually dug up buried treasure. We decoded the map and found the cache. Just like in a book.”
Gideon leaned on his shovel and watched her with a curiously enigmatic smile. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’re going to use the experience in a romance novel, right?”
“Probably, but first I’m going to savor every minute of it for myself. I have to get a picture of this.” She dug her small camera out of her bag. “Good thing I thought to bring this along, isn’t it? Here, you stand next to the box.”
Gideon shook his head and put down the shovel. “No, you’re the one who should be in the picture. This is your treasure hunt. I just came along to consult, remember?” He took the camera from her and went to stand a few paces away.
Sarah hesitated for an instant, wanting him in the shot with her. But that was impossible. She scooped up the old strongbox and held it in front of her. Laughing with delight at her trophy, she stood posing for the shot. Gideon raised the camera to his eye, smiled again and pressed the shutter release.
“Now all we have to do is figure out how to open this strongbox,” Sarah said, examining the rusty container.
“It will take a little time but we’ll find a way,” Gideon said, putting down the camera and picking up the shovel. “I’ve had some experience with that kind of thing.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” Sarah glanced up from the locked box. “What are you doing?” she asked as she saw him lift a spadeful of dirt and toss it back into the hole he had just finished digging.
“Filling in the hole.”
“Why?”
He gave her an odd glance. “I don’t see any point in advertising the fact that we’ve been here and dug up something valuable.”
Sarah smiled with sudden appreciation. “Good idea. Why leave tracks for someone who might want to steal our treasure from us? I told you that you were smarter than Jed Mclntyre.”
“As long as I’m a little smarter than Jake Savage, we’ll be okay,” Gideon muttered.
“What did you say?” Sarah asked, uncertain she’d heard him correctly.
“I said, it’s going to be a long drive back to the coast this afternoon.”
“We could stay here or in Seattle tonight,” she suggested.
“No,” said Gideon. “We’ll go back to my place. I didn’t have a chance to ask my neighbor to take care of the cats.”
“We’d better get back there, then. Poor things. They’ll be starving.”
“Not likely. Machu can still hunt when he has to, although he doesn’t much care for the effort involved. He’ll see that Ellora eats if it’s necessary but he’d much prefer someone opened a can for both of them.”
Sarah grinned. “He’s a lot like you, isn’t he?”
Gideon cocked a brow. “Because he doesn’t mind eating canned food?”
“No, because he can still hunt if it becomes necessary.”
SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT Machu Picchu landed on Gideon’s bare back with a heavy, near-silent thud. Gideon stifled a soft groan. The cat stepped off his back and sat on the edge of the bed, tail moving restlessly as he waited for a response.
Gideon rolled over slowly so that he wouldn’t waken Sarah who was curled up beside him. He eyed Machu’s implacable face for a few seconds and then he slid carefully out of bed.
Machu leaped soundlessly down onto the floor and started toward the bedroom door. Gideon paused long enough to collect the revolver he always kept in a shoe-box under the bed and quickly put on his jeans. Barefoot, he went down the stairs as silently as Machu had.
At the bottom of the staircase, Gideon turned right and went down the hall to his study. He stopped outside the open door and peered into the shadows. He was not unduly surprised to see the figure of a man hunched over the locked file cabinet where the strongbox had been stored earlier. Keeping the revolver hidden behind the half-open door, Gideon reached just inside the room and flicked on the light switch.
The intruder jumped and whirled around to face him, his mouth open in shock and alarm.
“Forget it, Jake,” Gideon said calmly. “Even if you managed to get the file open, you’d only find an empty, ruste
d out strongbox with nothing in it. The Fleetwood Flowers are long gone. Somebody got to them years ago.”
Jake’s hands fell away from the file cabinet. “Damn it, Gid, you always did have a way of sneaking up on people.”
“Sarah kept saying she was afraid you’d get close to the earrings. I guess this was what she anticipated, wasn’t it? That you’d break in and find the old strongbox. Looks like I’ve got to start paying more attention to that woman’s intuition.”
Jake hesitated, relaxing slightly when Gideon didn’t move or say anything else. Then his brashness returned in a rush. With a cocky grin he stalked across the room and threw himself down in Gideon’s desk chair. Legs stuck out in front of him, hands behind his head, Jake continued to smile the rakish smile that had never failed to charm.
“Tell me the truth, Gid. This is your old partner here so you can be honest with me. I know you went back into the mountains this morning. I followed you. And I know you did some digging. I saw where you’d filled in the hole. You really didn’t find the earrings?”
“Just an old strongbox. The earrings might have been stored in it at one time, but the box is empty now.”
“Why keep it in a locked cabinet?”
“Sarah doesn’t know yet that the strongbox is empty,” Gideon explained patiently. “She’s looking forward to opening it in the morning. I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
“But you couldn’t resist taking a quick look for yourself, is that it?”
“That’s it. You know me. I get curious about locked boxes.”
“And you’re telling me there was nothing inside, huh?”
“Right.”
“I don’t believe you.” Jake Savage shook his head slowly. “You never came back empty-handed from a job.”
“This wasn’t my treasure hunt. It was Sarah’s. I just went along as a paid consultant.”
“Bull.” Savage suddenly sat up straight in the chair, his eyes glittering with frustrated anger. “I think you found the earrings. I think you found them the same way you always find what you go looking for, you bastard.”
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