Better Than Gold

by Mary Brady

“You did everything right.”

  “Everything except check the walls for skeletons.”

  He studied her face and it wasn’t hard to see there was more. “Tell me the rest of it.”

  She looked down at the two pieces of granite in her hands and after another moment, nodded.

  “I got a building big enough to do the job. Made sure there was ample parking. Lined up money from the historical society, local citizens, two banks via the small business association, even my granddad has chipped in a little of his savings.”

  She dipped her chin.

  “What were you hoping for? Not the business, but what did you really want to do with this place?”

  She shook her head and turned away.

  He pushed up from the floor and pulled her into his arms. She came willingly. He knew she would, and how much of a cad did that make him?

  He kissed her silky hair. “Tell me.”

  “I want them to stay. I want the families who breathe life into Bailey’s Cove to stay. I want the young people with their imagination and drive. I want the retirees, the people who are the living history of the town to stay and to hand their wisdom and legends down to the next generation.”

  He held her against his chest and let her talk.

  “I didn’t even know how much until I sat down and started listening to them. I knew I wanted to be here because Bailey’s Cove is a paradise of the normal and...and...I don’t know. I love life here.”

  She took a slow breath and continued. “If the folks of Bailey’s Cove don’t reinvent this town, there are only two choices. The town continues to fade away or the outside world moves in and has it their way.”

  She leaned back and looked up at him.

  He picked up the tail of the long red scarf she always seemed to be wearing. Lady in Red, he thought and the song begin to play inside his head. When he started to sway, she looked up at him.

  A smile curved her lips and lit her face, made her more beautiful than he had ever seen her.

  “What are we dancing to?”

  He brushed her nose with the tail of her scarf and told her.

  She put her arms around his neck and her cheek against his and they danced to the creaking of the old building. Daniel had never heard more beautiful music.

  “Thank you.” Her whisper brushed his ear and he wondered if he could let himself love her, and if he did, could he keep her from loving him?

  And he wondered how many ways he could let himself break her heart before he had to walk away from her and stay away.

  “I think the music stopped,” he said as he stepped back.

  “Does that mean get to work, slacker?”

  “I don’t think I’d have used the term slacker, but it fits.”

  After a few minutes of studying the pieces with markings she looked thoughtfully over at him. “What do you think we’ll find if we get all the pieces together?”

  “That’s one of the things I like best about this science. Sometimes we aren’t looking for a specific answer. Sometimes we’re just searching for whatever might be there. One thing’s for sure, whoever wielded that hammer after the bones were removed did more damage than necessary to break the tomb apart.”

  “Stupid hammer has caused me all sorts of trouble. Maybe the person using it was mad because there was no treasure here.”

  “Tomb robbers have all sorts of motives. Sometimes it’s just to destroy things.”

  She held up a hand, came closer and whispered, “Did you hear that?”

  He listened. “Sounds like old building noises.”

  “I know this old building. There’s no wind and it’s not cold enough to make her wood creak like that. It sounds like someone is walking around upstairs.”

  He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “We’re not alone.”

  She giggled and huddled closer. “Oh, Danny, you’ve got to save me.”

  Sudden pain shot through him. He stepped quickly away and clenched his fists.

  It was all happening again. Sammy’s face as they put the tiny boy into another scary, noisy piece of high-tech medical equipment. Mandy pleading, “Danny, you’ve got to help me find some way to save him. There must be something we can do. He’s only a baby, Danny.”

  Then Mandy trying her best not to lay blame exactly where it belonged.

  On him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MIA WATCHED DANIEL stiffen. His face ashen as if he were in the middle of some horrible nightmare.

  “Daniel, are you all right?”

  She put her arms around his stiff body and hugged him. Slowly, he dropped his chin until it rested lightly on top of her head.

  They stood like this until he relaxed in her arms, and then she leaned back to look into his face. “You don’t get hugged much, do you?”

  His expression remained grim. “Not many huggers in my life.”

  “What about your family?”

  By the look on his face, that was one huge step backward. Something terrible had happened to his family, something so dark he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it.

  “Come on.” She took his hand and led him toward the door. “You need some sleep.”

  “I need to check upstairs.”

  “Upstairs it is.”

  They were careful to avoid several sets of large sneaker prints on the stairs and in the hallway leading to a back room. Funny, she couldn’t feel anything but annoyance tonight about the sneaker prints. Tomorrow would be soon enough to worry, if then.

  The window gaped open and outside a ladder leaned up against the building. Whoever had been inside left in a hurry.

  They closed and locked the window, put the ladder inside and locked up the building. The police could look at things tomorrow, or today after the sun came up.

  They stood outside the building in the chilly air. Mia knew they needed sleep, desperately.

  “Come to my house.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “If you’re worried about gossip, rest assured they’ve been talking about the two of us since about three minutes after you first arrived at Pirate’s Roost.”

  “I can’t let you...”

  She put her hand on his cheek and made him look at her. “It’s a small town. We’ve got a movie theater that gets movies after they’ve been at the budget theaters in Bangor and Portland.”

  When he didn’t look convinced, she said, “We’ve no symphony, not even mini-golf. Our shopping mall has eight little stores and our yarn and craft store specializes in gossip. What’s a person to do?”

  Brownie came over to see what was up. Sniffed each of them and then moved on.

  “Brownie thinks it’s okay.”

  He gave a quick nod.

  A few minutes later, she let them in her front door and turned on the lamp in the small foyer. The dim light spread into her living room of neutral colors with splashes of red, filled with the odds and ends of life.

  He looked around and smiled. “Thanks, Mia. I like your house. It’s welcoming, like you.”

  “You’re welcome here anytime, Daniel.”

  She hung her red scarf and coat on a hook behind the door and took his vest and hung it beside them. “I’m going to brew some tea. Make yourself at home.”

  She flipped on the light above the sink and started the teakettle heating.

  “What kind of—” She turned and stopped quickly. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to yell in your face. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I didn’t want you to wait on me.”

  “Then the cups are there—” she pointed to a cupboard beside her sink “—and the tray’s over there. How about Rishi’s Serene Dream? It’s got, let’s see, valerian root, lemon verbena, lemon balm, c
hamomile, lavender and spearmint.”

  “I have no idea what most of those ingredients are.”

  “Serene Dream it is.” She scooped loose tea into her teapot. “Oh, you can light the fire if you would, please.”

  He nodded and backed away.

  Left alone in her kitchen, the tight knot that was supposed to be her heart relaxed a little. This was totally new ground here and she had no idea what she was doing. She and Daniel had spent so much time together in the past three days it felt like a month, at least her poor struggling heart thought so.

  She rubbed her chest. Real, unselfish feelings for a member of the opposite sex were things you didn’t know until you knew. She now realized there had never been a love of her life. She already felt more for Daniel MacCarey than she felt for any man in her past, men she thought she’d marry and spend the rest of her life with.

  Ironic. She wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life with this one, either.

  When the teakettle started to steam, she poured the hot water into the teapot and carried the tray into the living room. Daniel stood in front of the crackling fire, the light doing that gorgeous stuff to his hair again.

  “It’ll steep for five minutes and then we can drink it,” she said as she put the tray on the table.

  “I’m sorry, I guess I should have asked you if you wanted to be left alone to get some sleep. I’m still so awake and there isn’t a crack in my ceiling I haven’t mapped tonight.”

  “Sleep’s not my forte these days.” He retrieved both of the pillows and put them on the floor in front of the fire.

  “I’m trying not to feel awkward about this,” she said as she brought the quilts over near the fire and sat down. “New territory for me.”

  She stretched out with her toes toward the fire and stared into the flickering flames.

  “As long as you don’t get hurt.” He sat on the floor close to her.

  “By this, whatever it is.”

  “Yes.”

  After a few minutes, the microwave timer in the kitchen chimed and Daniel placed the tray with the teapot and cups beside them. When she reached for the pot he said, “I’ll get it.”

  He poured the steaming Serene Dream into their cups.

  “Smells nice.” She picked up her cup and leaned her face over the column of rising moisture.

  “Don’t fall in.”

  His friendly teasing reminded her of the things, the little bonuses she would get if she had this man for her own.

  This was dangerous thinking.

  Still she didn’t care.

  She intended to take pleasure in every enjoyable thing Daniel MacCarey offered.

  “A mini facial,” she said as she lifted her face from the steam. “I take one every time I have bedtime tea.”

  “They must work.”

  “Oh, a compliment. I’ll take that.”

  “Don’t you have a string of guys out there waiting to spend time with you?”

  She snorted and almost spilled her tea. “There was somebody, but he wisely ran away.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. Been there done that. Right now, I’m in the ‘I’m perfectly fine with me’ phase. I’m actually quite happy to have run the gauntlet without marrying any of the toads I kissed.”

  This time when she leaned forward over her tea, he tucked the strand of hair behind her ear.

  “They were lucky toads. Well...you know what I mean.”

  They talked about his work and the university. They talked about Rory and her previous boyfriend and this was the first time she had ever been truly able to laugh about those relationships.

  She quite enjoyed talking with Daniel. She couldn’t ever remember having a man for a friend before. That may be where her problems were with the others. She couldn’t imagine sitting around chatting with Rory.

  “So what do you think of our little town? Wait. Sorry.” She held up a hand. “If you’d like me to shut up and just let you rest, I’m good with that.”

  A soft smile spread across his face. “It’s fine, as long as you don’t mind my less-than-sparkling conversation.”

  “You sparkle just fine.”

  “What do I think about your little town? An old coastal fishing village and the prospect of finding an early Maine settler would have been great news to share with my aunt Margaret.”

  “You mentioned her before. She must have been important to you.”

  “She was a wonderful person. She was ninety-two when she died.”

  “I’m so sorry she’s gone.”

  “So am I. You would have liked her. She’d have liked you.”

  Something about his professor appearance made him look more uptight.

  “Thank you.” She reached over and ruffled his hair. “I like it better that way.”

  He scowled but she knew he didn’t mean it.

  “Margaret MacCarey knew a lot about the world,” he said.

  “The world before the internet. Before space travel.”

  “Born about the same time as the cake mix. She had a 1956 black Cadillac convertible when she died. Bought it new. It’s still in her garage.”

  “So you have something to remember her by.”

  He seemed to study the fire while Mia poured more tea for both of them.

  “She left me something else.” He spoke very quietly as if thinking about each word.

  She put her teacup down and focused on him.

  “She left me a ring.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, cloth bag. If the flames told it true, a light lavender pouch with frayed ribbons, and he handed it to her. “I haven’t taken it out since the night she died.”

  Mia held up the bag. The fabric was thin with some of the velvet worn away.

  She looked up at him and when he nodded, she tugged at the ribbons to loosen them and opened the delicate purse.

  Into her palm she poured a heavy gold ring with a large pale blue stone encircled by what were probably diamonds.

  “It looks old—even I can tell that, and very beautiful.”

  “I never saw her wear it. The hospice nurse gave it to me after Aunt Margaret died, and it came with this.” He pulled an envelope from his shirt pocket and handed it to her.

  Mia took the envelope, scooted closer to the light and read the note she found inside.

  When she was finished, she looked up. “She was a lovely woman, wasn’t she?”

  “She was the best. The nurse also gave me a last message, said it would be up to me whether or not I shared or kept the secret.”

  A family secret. Mia wasn’t going there, definitely not going there, so she tucked the note back inside the envelope and held the ring up to the firelight.

  “Is this your family’s coat of arms on the inside?”

  Daniel sat forward. He cupped one hand under hers and gently took the ring. She couldn’t help it. When he touched her he stoked the fire.

  Fires she could control...

  She hoped.

  She poured more tea into her cup.

  He examined the ring for a long time. Then he got up and turned on the lamp on the end table and looked at it more closely.

  “There’s a magnifying glass in that drawer under that lamp.”

  She wanted to bite her tongue off as soon as she said it. That drawer was currently chock full of condoms.

  He opened the drawer, and without a moment’s hesitation, pulled out one of the little devils and then pretended to use it as a magnifying glass.

  “You are one sick puppy.”

  He raised one eyebrow at her.

  “Very sick.”

  “I think that’s a compliment these days.”

  “
It fits.”

  He smiled a relaxed smile and exchanged the condoms for the magnifying glass.

  She drank the rest of her cooled tea, but what she really wanted to do was use a fistful of the packages.

  “There is a wafer of gold that seems to have been added after the ring was made. On it is a coat of arms and it’s not the MacCarey coat of arms.”

  “Oh, secrets galore.”

  “They’re holding the package at the post office. I guess I should pick it up, but I keep trying not to do things that will remind me she’s gone.” He looked up from the ring. “I would have been here sooner if it weren’t for her funeral on Saturday.”

  “Kind of makes me feel bad for thinking all those evil things about that unknown person who was supposed to be coming from the university. Sorry.”

  He turned off the lamp and returned to sit beside her in front of the fire. The warmth reached out and wrapped around them. He put his hand on hers, but didn’t say anything.

  She squeezed his hand in return. “I won’t ask, but if you ever feel like telling me, you can.”

  He smiled a small smile, one that seemed to say something had lightened inside him. That his life just got a little easier. She hoped so.

  Time and tea had taken hold. She reveled in the feeling of sleepiness as she leaned back in to the pillow and relaxed. Daniel did the same, then he put an arm around her and drew her close. She turned over so her body fit into his and he breathed a sound-asleep sigh.

  * * *

  THURSDAY AT SEVEN-THIRTY in the morning Mia awoke to the sound of her shower. She sat up and folded the quilts. That was so much better than a note.

  As she pulled the pillows back to their corners, she wondered if Monique had heard yet that Daniel had spent another night on Blueberry Avenue.

  More, she wondered how Monique and Lenny were doing. Since all was quiet from the neat little house on White Pine Court, things must be going very well.

  With the quilts folded and placed on the arm of the couch, she went out to the kitchen.

  Light streamed in her kitchen window as if starting up a new day meant something different this morning. She touched the hanging crystal and watched the rainbows dance.

  As the coffeepot started to gurgle, she got out the pan for oatmeal.