by Jill Monroe
Her shoulders slumped, and she began softly cry. “I want to believe you.”
“Then let me hold you now. Please?”
She nodded, and he shoved the shovel to the ground and crushed her in his arms. He kissed the top of her head, along her cheeks and across her eyes. “I love you, Molly. I always will.”
She blinked up at him. “You’re being real, right? This is real?”
The harsh angles of strain on his face softened and he nodded. “I remember that first night I was here. I was following you like a creep down to the beach. You were so beautiful. So tempting. In my mind I compared you to a siren. Enticing a man to his doom. I guess that’s what I thought love was. The end of me.”
“And now?”
“Now I know it’s the beginning of something better. Us.” He reached for her hand and settled her palm down against his chest. Beneath her hand his heart galloped. “Can’t fake that.”
Molly cupped his cheek with her other hand. “Kiss me,” she urged.
He whispered her name against her mouth. “Forever.” Then his lips crashed down on hers. The tube fell from her hands and she sunk her fingers into his hair. Her blood thrummed as love and passion spread inside her.
“Forever,” she said, as their mouths parted. “I just had an idea. Since we’re both already sticky and hot—”
Desire lit inside his eyes. “Please tell me this is going where I think it is.”
She flashed him a big smile. “Let’s go to Barefoot Mountain and get our treasure.”
* * *
But the mountain was a bust. Hours of digging confirmed what Coop’s metal detector suggested—nothing irregular below the surface. No buried treasure. What secrets the mountain held, it kept.
They drove back together in silence. The sun set as he parked his car in front of the cottage. Cooper turned off the car, but didn’t reach for the door handle. Neither did she. He seized the steering wheel, his entire body a rigid mass of tension. “I’m sorry,” he finally said.
Molly grasped his arm, his muscles tight knots beneath her fingertips. “What do you have to be sorry for?”
“I promised you we’d find the treasure. You’d be the one Waiter to satisfy your legacy. Now you’ve got nothing. Before you at least had faith.”
“I’ve got a lot more than nothing. I have you.”
He squeezed his eyes. His lips a line of self-condemnation. “Yeah, like that will ever be enough.”
Molly had seen Adventurous Coop. Teasing Coop. Passionate Coop. But never gloomy Coop.
She reached for the door handle. “C’mon. Let’s go for a walk on the beach.” He joined her on the path, and they strolled hand in hand, passing what would soon be an orange grove once more. “My grandpa always used to say, ‘the treasure is orange’.
His brow furrowed. “That’s an odd phrase.”
“Well, he liked riddles,” she explained. But her heart skipped a beat, like her body sensed something but her mind just hadn’t caught up.
His footsteps stopped until he slowed. “Is it? Is that a riddle? Other than the ciphers and cryptograms, you guys did brain teasers. Scavenger hunts.”
She nodded. Her heartbeat kicking up a notch “Coop, you’re right. He didn’t say the treasure was in oranges. As in the vast groves that once covered Brecon.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his lip. “Something’s brewing isn’t it?”
She swallowed, barely able to slow down her thoughts. “He’d also tell me, ‘Some say orange has no rhyme, but give it time’.”
“Please tell me that means something to you.”
“I think we were on the right track when we made the map form the shape of a mountain. It was a clue. Not the location. Because Coop, there is a word that rhymes perfectly with orange—Blorenge—which just happens to be the name of a mountain in the Brecon National Park in Wales. The name my Gram loves—Brecon.”
Cooper lifted her in his arms and twirled her around. She laughed as he lowered her to the ground, her breasts against his chest.
“I’ve lived above the treasure all my life. I’m so glad I didn’t spend the money to replace the floor, because we’re about to pull up those planks.”
“Do you have an axe?” he asked.
“It washed away in the hurricane.”
“I’ll grab the shovel from the trunk. Which room should we start in?”
“Meet me in mine.”
Molly never thought she’d see something as wonderful as the man she loved hacking away at her floors with the business end of a shovel, but soon the first plank gave way. She joined him on the floor, and together they pulled up each slat of wood until finally finally spotting a metal chest.
The trunk didn’t appear much different than her grandpa’s army chest, but once Coop managed to pry the lid off with the jack from his car, not only did they find Le Cœur Surveillé but a chest full of gold Spanish coins. Waves of relief and exhilaration overwhelmed her. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words formed.
Then she grabbed his shoulders and hugged him tight. “Thank you for this. Thank you.”
“This was your grandpa’s discovery first,” Coop said after a few moments, speculation in his voice.
Understanding flooded her. She looked over at the treasure then back at the man she loved. “You may be right. He didn’t wish to spoil what he had with Gram. He also probably hoped his brother would come back one day and they could share it. And then after my parents died, he boarded this up.”
“I think he hoped you would know how best to handle this fortune.”
Her gaze fell to the red bejeweled necklace sitting on top of a bed of gold, shining under the flashlight. A triple strand of exquisite rubies and priceless pearls. And surrounded by intricate knots of gold—Elizabethan love knots.
“Thought the necklace would actually be in the shape of a heart.”
Molly shook her head. “A woman of that time would have worn this above her heart. That’s how it got the name. Or part of it.”
He fingered one of the diamonds. “Do you want to try it on?”
She shook her head quickly. “The curse…”
Cooper laughed and embraced her against his chest. “Babe, we annihilated that curse. The real fortune is you in my arms right now.”
Epilogue
Eight months later, the story of Molly and Cooper’s adventure of finding the treasure, along with learning life-changing lessons, hit the bestseller lists. Molly shies away from the publicity, but her students are always hopeful there will be a camera around.
Cooper is back on top of his game, his show more popular than ever and traveling the globe—only with a different perspective. He’s never happier than at Brecon—even though Molly makes him haul tree limbs and carry buckets of water.
Occasionally on his show, his latest team member makes an appearance. She’s also one of the world’s greatest ancient code breakers as well as his new wife. Deanna has joined the team as well, creating curriculum for teachers around the world to bring Cooper’s adventures into their classrooms.
Molly felt the incredible presence of her grandfather beside her as she and Coop returned Le Cœur Surveillé to the people of Great Britain in a special ceremony. The sale of the gold coins helped speech and literacy programs in Spain, Columbia and Florida.
But Molly’s biggest smile was shared with her beloved Gram, when she finally walked along the rows of orange saplings at the new Brecon Grove.
