Great and Precious Things

by Rebecca Yarros

  “Rose Rowan Mine,” I read.

  “They just came in yesterday. I’ve also got sample batches of T-shirts, hats, and key chains in the trailer. Told you I loved the design.”

  We stood there looking at each other with upturned lips. I loved designing it for him. Loved working with him. Loved helping him and confiding in him. Loved everything about every moment I got with him.

  “Are you two going to kiss again, or can we go find more rocks?” Rose asked.

  Cam took my hand, enveloping my grip in his larger one. “Let’s find you some rocks.”

  We cleared the construction equipment, and the main tunnel appeared. “It’s smaller than I remember.”

  “You were smaller,” Cam countered as we approached the wooden platform, where an open-topped train with three cars waited. “Look what I got running this week.”

  “That’s so awesome!” Rose said, racing ahead to the train.

  “What she said,” I agreed. “Is that…?”

  “Completely safe and in park, I promise.” He dangled the keys from his finger. “It’s the original from the last time the mine ran in the fifties, and I worked with Keith Mayberry to convert it for tours.”

  “That’s great, and I bet Keith really appreciated the business.” He was one of the business owners in Alba who didn’t own historical property.

  “Yeah. He’s tracking down another setup just like this one—historically accurate, of course—and then he’ll do the same with those. I figured if we’ve got the grant money, we’d better keep as much of the business in Alba as we can, right? It should benefit the whole town.”

  I nodded, swallowing back the little lump of emotion in my throat.

  “This is amazing!” Rose shouted, already sitting in the car behind the driver’s seat.

  “Want to go for a ride?” he asked.

  “Yes!”

  I tensed.

  “Relax, Pika,” he muttered against my temple. “We’ll only go as far back as they’ve reinforced. I won’t let anything happen to her or to you.”

  My head nodded, but my brain was already down the mine. “How far have they reinforced?”

  He heard the catch in my breath and squeezed my hand. “Not that far.”

  “Okay.” I hadn’t been more than thirty feet inside the mine since the day I’d been way farther than that.

  Cam helped me into the ore cart, which now had cushioned benches and seat belts, and I made sure Rose’s was buckled.

  “Ta-da!” he said, flourishing a bright-yellow hard hat with Rose’s name in big, bold letters above the headlamp.

  “That’s mine?” she squealed.

  “It’s no unicorn shirt, but yeah, it’s yours.” He leaned over the division between cars and put it over her hat. “Can you get it buckled?”

  “You bet!” She buckled as Cam handed me a bigger model that read pika.

  “Your boyfriend is so awesome!” Rose shouted with her hands in the air.

  My eyes popped wide. Oh God. Were we labeled? Was labeling even a thing anymore? Did he think he was my boyfriend?

  “Well, it comes with the territory when you have an awesome girlfriend,” Cam confirmed. “Buckle up, Miss Bradley,” he ordered as he put his own hard hat on.

  Dazed, I snapped the helmet in place, then switched on my headlamp and did the same for Rose as Cam started the engine.

  Rose’s gaze swung back and forth as Cam drove us into the mine, the tunnel beginning a good twenty feet above our heads before sloping down to only five feet or so. The air was musty, thick with moisture and the tang of metal.

  It tasted like blood and fear on my tongue, but I watched how excited Rose was, and the panic eased.

  We traveled more than a hundred yards before the first antechamber opened up and a wooden platform appeared. Cam put the train into park and killed the engine, leaving the lights on.

  “This is as far as the train goes for now,” he told Rose. “Do you want to explore a little with me?”

  She nodded, then swung her backpack over her shoulders and climbed onto the platform.

  “Remember it?” Cam asked me quietly.

  I nodded. “How is it that every happy memory I have of playing down here was eclipsed by that one crappy one?”

  He traced the bump on my nose with his finger. “We can come back and make an even better memory,” he whispered.

  “You say no to hot springs, but a dark and creepy mine is on the table?” I teased.

  “Eventually everywhere is on the table.” His eyes heated.

  I did my best to remember that my niece was ten feet away, when all I really wanted was a table. Any table.

  “Rocks,” I reminded him.

  “Right. Okay, Rose, what do you know about the mine?” He turned to where she had leaned close to the chiseled stone wall, examining the rock.

  “I know I’m named after it. Well, not it but the lady it was named after. Mom thought it was a pretty name.”

  “It is a pretty name,” he agreed, helping me onto the newly built platform.

  It was a good ten feet wide, built according to the specifications I’d given him when we’d discussed this part of the mine.

  “They mined mostly gold and silver,” Rose told Cam. “The first rush came in the 1880s, but by the Great Depression, they only had a small section of silver, and they stopped mining in the fifties.”

  “You know that? At nine?” he questioned.

  “Every kid born in Alba knows that by the time they’re seven.” She looked up at him from under her hard hat with an expression that said she wasn’t impressed.

  “Okay, smarty-pants, do you know where the three tunnels lead?”

  She glanced among the three offshoots of the antechamber and shook her head.

  “That’s the newest tunnel.” Cam pointed to the right. “It was constructed in the thirties. Great Depression, just like you said. The one to the left was a 1910 silver find. The one straight ahead is the oldest vein.”

  “Can we go back there?”

  Fearless, that one.

  “Not today,” he told her. “We haven’t cleared all the tunnels yet. There are places the tunnels have caved into the ones under them. Places the air shafts collapsed, so the ventilation isn’t good enough for your little lungs. and the sides haven’t been reinforced yet like they are here.”

  “Can I look around here, though?” she pushed.

  “If you stay in this chamber and your aunt Willow says it’s okay.”

  Two sets of pleading eyes met mine.

  “Promise to stay right here,” I ordered, hoping she heard the urgency in my voice.

  “I will,” she vowed, then scrambled down the stairs and across the tracks to where the space widened a good thirty feet.

  “Ready for my surprise?” Cam asked.

  “Definitely.”

  “I think I can have at least one tunnel open for tours by the Fourth of July.” His eyes danced.

  “Really? That would be amazing! Have you told anyone?” The town was going to flip. As much as they despised Cam, they loved money.

  “I wanted to tell you first.” His smile blew me away. He was…happy, as much as I hesitated to even think it, and it looked wonderful on him.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  He kissed me in response, then pulled back with a grin. “Hey, Rose, if you come hang with your aunt Willow, I’ll find you something sparkly.”

  “Deal!” she agreed, already heading back to me, and Cam disappeared off the other end of the platform, his light bobbing down the oldest portion of the tunnel.

  “This place is amazing. Pretty sure there’s still gold here somewhere.”

  “Maybe,” I muttered, my eyes trained on that light as it got smaller. A few minutes later, it grew larger until Cam came
into view.

  I let loose a huge sigh of relief.

  “You don’t like it down here, do you, Aunt Willow?” Rose asked, taking my hand.

  “What? No, it’s fine. I’m fine,” I lied.

  “Here you go,” Cam said as he handed two sparkling pieces of ore to Rose.

  “Is it gold?” she squeaked.

  “No. It’s pyrite. Fool’s gold,” he replied.

  “Well, it’s still pretty.” She looked up at him. “You could have pretended it was gold.”

  “You can pretend it’s gold now that you know it’s not.” He tapped her helmet. “I’m not in the habit of lying to girls.”

  Her brow wrinkled, but then she nodded. “Pyrite.”

  “You got it. Now, let’s get you ladies out of here.” He helped Rose into the train.

  “Do you think there’s real gold down here?” she asked, buckling her belt.

  Cam reached for me, letting his hands linger on my waist once my feet hit the steel bottom of the car. “I think there’s a real gold unicorn pin down here somewhere,” he told her, looking straight at me.

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Your aunt lost it when we were kids.” His hands flexed on my waist again before he let me go and climbed over into the driver’s car.

  “You lost a unicorn pin?” Her eyebrows rose in accusation.

  “I did. I got lost down here when I was your age, actually.” God, she was so young. So small. Had I really been her age?

  “You did?”

  Cam fired up the engine, and I buckled in. “She did.”

  “I was exploring with your mom and Xander, and I got separated somehow. I don’t remember a lot of that part, but I slipped and fell down one of those shafts.” I motioned toward the older tunnel as Cam drove us around the circular track that would bring us back to daylight.

  “Were you scared?”

  “Terrified. But Cam found me. It felt like I’d been gone for days, but really it was only a few hours.”

  She nodded slowly, thinking over what I’d said. “And you left your pin?”

  “It got ripped off my shirt when I fell, I think.”

  We were quiet as the train sped up, and I breathed a heck of a lot easier once the sun hit my face.

  “How about I keep your helmet on my desk so you have it whenever you want to visit?” Cam offered.

  Rose debated for a moment but eventually agreed. “I can come back, right?”

  “Whenever you want,” he promised. “I mean, as long as you’re with an adult.” He shot me a sorry look.

  “Deal.” She handed it over. I did the same, then walked toward the Jeep with her as Cam took the hard hats back to his office.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing down the hill to the charred, overgrown remains of the bunkhouse.

  “That was the bunkhouse,” I told her. “It’s where the unmarried miners slept.”

  “It doesn’t look like the other buildings,” she noted. “Even the roofless ones.”

  “It burned down.”

  “When?”

  “When we were teenagers,” Cam replied, coming up behind us. “We had a really big party one night, and it caught fire. Guess what?”

  “What?” she asked him with big eyes.

  “I carried your aunt out of that, too.” He nodded seriously, tucking me into his side.

  She looked from us to the ruins and back with a shake of her head.

  “What?” I questioned.

  She sighed and headed toward the Jeep. “You guys get in a lot of trouble. Mom would have grounded me if I’d been in the middle of any of that.”

  I didn’t bother telling her that her mom had been at the fire, too.

  Cam’s phone rang, and he let go of me to answer it as we walked behind Rose. “What’s up?” He halted, so I did, too. “Are you serious? Have you tried Walt’s cell? Okay, I’m on my way.” He hung up and cursed softly.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Can we make a pit stop at Dad’s? Apparently Walt busted him from at-home-care jail a few hours ago, and Xander is losing his mind.”

  “Absolutely.”

  We pulled into the Danielses’ driveway about ten minutes later to find Xander yelling at Walt on the porch.

  “At least they’re back,” I offered.

  “Right,” he replied, killing the engine and getting out.

  I checked to make sure the keys weren’t in the ignition and the e-brake was on. “Wait here,” I told Rose.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To make sure Camden doesn’t get in any more trouble your mom would ground him for.” I jumped down from the Jeep and headed up the stairs.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Xander yelled.

  “That my best friend asked me to take him out, so I did.” Walt crossed his arms calmly over his chest.

  Mr. Daniels sighed and moved to do the same, but he winced instead and put his arms at his sides. Cam’s attention focused on his dad.

  “And you were okay with this?” Xander questioned, but I kept my eyes on Mr. Daniels, noting the way he shifted his weight.

  “Well, he was on the approved list you left me, Mr. Daniels,” May explained. At least according to the schedule Cam had tacked on his fridge, it should be May.

  “Well, he’s not anymore! How could you not tell anyone where you were going? Not pick up your phone?”

  Mr. Daniels moved again, the same wince puckering his expression for a second.

  He was in pain.

  “Alexander, I don’t answer to you. You’re not my mother,” Walt stated.

  Xander ripped at his tie to loosen it. He couldn’t have looked more different from Cam’s casual ruggedness in that moment.

  “Enough, you two,” Cam growled. “Dad, what the hell did you do? You’re hurt.”

  Art’s chin rose at the same moment Walt sighed. “Look, he wanted to.”

  “Wanted to what?” Xander snapped.

  Art unzipped his jacket and let it fall to the wooden porch. “My name is Arthur Daniels. I’m fifty-eight years old, and I have early-onset Alzheimer’s,” he said to Xander as he started unbuttoning his long-sleeve flannel shirt. “This here is Walter Robinson, who’s been my best friend since we were kids. That’s the babysitter you hired—I don’t remember her name because I just don’t care. Sorry, but it’s true.” He glanced at May and back to Xander. “You’re Alexander, my oldest son. That’s Camden, my second son. And that’s—” He saw me and paused, surprise flaring in his eyes. “That’s Willow Bradley—”

  Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

  “Sullivan’s girl.”

  FML.

  Cam stiffened next to me, his jaw flexing. I brushed the back of my hand along his. Now wasn’t the time or place, but I’d back whatever he decided.

  “And you can control just about everything in my life, Alexander, but I’m lucid as you are today, and guess what?” He pulled back the sides of his shirt, and my mouth dropped open.

  Under a layer of shiny plastic wrap were large, bloodied, and raised black letters that read do not resuscitate.

  “You took him for a tattoo?” Xander shouted at Walt.

  Walt shrugged. “When your best friend asks you for ink, you go for ink. Art, I’ll see you later.”

  Art nodded at his friend and began buttoning his shirt.

  “Don’t you have anything to say about this?” Xander asked.

  “As first pieces go, Dad, that’s a pretty bold one,” Cam told his dad. “Make sure you’re keeping it clean. Did they give you anything for it?”

  “Are you serious?” Xander fired back.

  Art lifted a small brown bag from the deck. “Got the instructions and everything.”

  “Okay, then I think we�
�re done here.” Cam turned to face me. “Willow?”

  I nodded and felt Cam’s hand on the small of my back as I walked down the steps.

  “That’s really all you have to say about this?” Xander challenged.

  Cam paused, then laced his fingers with mine.

  My breath hitched, and he squeezed me reassuringly.

  “No,” Cam replied over his shoulder. “Willow isn’t Sullivan’s girl. She’s mine. Nice ink, Dad. Call me if you need any help.”

  I looked back to see Xander’s eyes narrow and Art’s jaw drop as he saw our clasped hands. “It was nice to see you,” I said in farewell.

  They didn’t respond.

  “Well, that was a way to go public,” I told Cam as he walked me to my door.

  “Seemed like a good day for bold statements.” He opened the Jeep and kissed me in full sight of the porch before helping me up into the lifted monster.

  “Did you keep Camden out of trouble?” Rose asked from the back seat as Cam walked to his side.

  “I’m not sure,” I said slowly.

  Cam climbed into his seat and gave a little wave to his dad and brother as he fired the engine to life. “Well, I’m starving, ladies. How about that picnic?”

  Picnic? He’d just handed the town gossips enough fodder to keep them fed for the rest of the summer.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Camden

  “Cam.” Willow moaned my name as I set my lips to the tender strip of skin under her jaw. I’d only meant to kiss her quickly, but one hadn’t been enough.

  One was never enough lately. I lived in a perpetual state of wanting Willow.

  Her fingers threaded through my hair, her nails lightly scraping my scalp as she tugged, sending a shock wave of electricity down my spine. I gave in to her demand, and she arched under me as I settled between her thighs.

  This was where I wanted to live, to exist—in these moments where nothing outside these walls could touch what we were building inside them. Where we always should have been.

  My hand gripped her hip, then slid up her waist and over her ribs, committing her curves to memory as I brought my mouth back to hers. I kissed her slowly, like we had all the time in the world, because we did. I wasn’t going anywhere—not when I had her.