by Nicole Snow
Standing next to each other beneath the bright morning sun, squinting at the dust plume left behind by his wheels, Libby and I grimace.
“That’s not gonna do a lick of good, is it?” she asks.
“Nope.”
“So what now?”
“Now,” I say, “we call in the cavalry.”
The cavalry consists of Blake and my niece at the moment.
Andrea’s in the kitchen messing around with Dr. Potter’s old chest of curiosities, whispering to herself in fascination as she picks up one thing after another, reading the labels with wide, curious eyes.
She’s a smart girl, too smart for her own good sometimes.
Which is why we’re out of earshot while we lean over the coffee table like we’re plotting a conspiracy, talking in low voices while Libby and I give the dirty details to Blake.
Honestly, once we’re done telling him about the whole thing, he looks at us like we sprouted second heads.
Who can blame him?
“Let me get this straight,” he whispers, darting a look at his sharp-eared daughter. “There’s a lost ghost town up through the mountain pass. You,” he points at me before continuing, “think it might be the lost bandit town of Ursa. And you think it’s the key to saving Libby’s ranch.”
I nod firmly.
“Okay. But shit, hold up.” Blake points at Libby now. “You think your daddy killed a man before you were born, and his body’s rotting away in the saloon in maybe-Ursa. You don’t want anyone to find out it’s there because Mark’s name will be mud and the cops might seize your land as a crime scene. Plus, your sister’s entitled to half of it and she’s up your ass to sell, and she’s being pushed around by this skeevy asshole who’s been pretending to work for the bank. The same damn bank that’s playing tax collector, breathing down your neck.”
“Yep,” Libby confirms.
“Hell, people. And here I thought all that Galentron shit was complicated,” Blake growls.
“That’s where you come in, brother,” I say. “Declan sent some muscle around to scare up information about the ghost town. He wants to raid it for valuables and sell them since he can’t get Libby to sell the land. You get me?”
“Man, there’s one thing I don’t get,” Blake says.
I cock my head. “What’s that?”
“Sierra grew up here, too. She knows about Nowhere Lane, and she ain’t stupid,” Blake points out. “If she’s with Delcan, she’d just tell him the town’s down there. You said you saw fresh tire tracks out there, so obviously they’ve been there. They saw the body and threatened you with it. So why the hell do they need to muscle you for this 'treasure' when they’ve already got a town there ripe for the picking?”
Libby looks puzzled. “I don’t know. I never figured out what they meant by treasure. Don’t think they’re after player pianos and wagon wheels. There must be something else.”
“I didn’t really see anything big worth stealing when I was there,” I say. “Except the dead guy’s Rolex, and I can’t blame them for not touching that.”
“What are we missing?” Libby asks. “There was this old journal from Ursa in Dad’s junk. A diary by a priest named Father Matthew with a lot of pages torn out. Maybe Sierra told Declan about it, so he thinks there’s something hidden in the town?”
“Hm.” Blake raps his knuckles against his chin. “We ought to take a day trip out there.”
“Maybe,” Andrea calls from the kitchen area, “you should take me with you. It’s no fair you get to see this ghost town and I don’t.”
“Maybe,” Blake retorts sternly, raising his voice, “you should stop eavesdropping on the grown-up talk, Little Violet.”
Andrea wrinkles her nose at the nickname and sticks her tongue out. “Grown-up talk? Are you three years old? Jesus.”
Slowly, Blake breathes in and out, closing his eyes and pressing his hands together, then burying his face in them. “Never have kids, you two. Just don’t.”
“Aw, she’s a lot like me at that age,” I tease.
“That’s why she drives me so damn nuts.” Blake groans again.
“Uh,” Andrea calls. “Guys?”
“The adults are still talkin’,” Blake mutters.
“Yeah, well, the grown-ups might want to get their grown-up asses over here and have a grown-up look at what I just found,” Andrea retorts.
“Language, darling,” I say mildly, if only because I’m trying to be the good uncle.
“Uncle Holt?” Andrea answers in the same mild tone.
“Yeah?”
“Shut the entire fuck up.”
Blake’s head comes up sharply. “Andrea!”
Libby bursts out laughing.
“I like her.” Standing, she tosses her head toward the kitchen area. “C’mon. Let’s see what she found.”
Together, we get up and gather around the table.
Andrea’s taken everything out of the box, including the foam padding nesting things in place.
Apparently, that includes the bottom, too.
Only, the bottom isn’t really the bottom.
It’s a wood panel over the real bottom, more than an inch of space, a hidden compartment. And inside, in the bottom of the box, there’s a thick stack of papers.
The ones on top look printed out, but there’s handwritten stuff on legal paper underneath.
What looks like old parchment paper, yellowed until it’s nearly brown and torn on one side.
Libby stands on her toes to peer in, then lifts the documents out, scanning the top ones before her face goes white.
“Holy hell,” she breathes. “Does this say what I think it does?”
“Let me see,” I ask, and she passes the top layer of stuff over to me.
They’re from some kind of...appraising service?
It looks like they do scientific analysis of minerals or something. There’s info detailing percentages of volcanic basalt rock, trace elements of potassium, sodium, magnesium, and chloride.
I’m smart, but I’m not Dr. Potter smart.
I don’t get it.
Until I read the signed notarized paragraph underneath the numbers.
It rocks me so hard I have to read it out loud, whispering the words in something of a hush.
“Dear Dr. Potter,” it says. “Thank you for entrusting the Seattle Institute of Minerology with such a valuable sample of your find. On analysis we can confirm with almost absolute certainty that this specimen dates to approximately 187 million years old. Its composition is analogous with that of Martian rock—specifically, the basaltic shergottite group. As you know, scarcely more than one hundred meteorites on Earth have been labeled successfully as Mars ejecta. Since most Martian meteorites have been discovered in northern Africa, south Asia, and the Middle East, discovering one in our own Pacific Northwest region makes this a fascinating find. Considering the composition of the terrain around your sample, it appears likely that this meteorite broke off from a larger object that disintegrated in the atmosphere during the Jurassic period of the Mesozoic era, and created the depression in the mountains where it was found on impact. I would love the opportunity to further study this Martian artifact, if you can ever find it in your heart to part with it.” By the time I get to the closing and the notary’s stamp, my mouth is so dry I can hardly talk. “Signed, Norman Danford, Ph.D. of Extraterrestrial Minerology.”
I’ll just sign it holy fuck.
Libby, Andrea, and I all stare at the little black box on the table with that porous red rock inside.
Blake’s the only one out of the loop, and he scratches his head, frowning. “What the hell’s that all about? Sounds like some sci-fi shit.”
“This,” Libby says breathlessly, picking up the black box with that innocuous-looking bit of rock inside. “This is the only thing that matches that description.”
“Wow,” Andrea whispers, staring at the rock with her eyes bugged out.
Libby starts to reach inside the box,
then stops, shaking her head and pulling back like she’s afraid to touch it now.
“This thing can’t be that special, right? It’s just a big red rock. It can’t really be...”
“I mean, Mars itself is just big red rock,” I say. “It might be worth a few thousand bucks to the right buyer.”
“Maybe,” Libby says, and that’s when the tone in the room turns dark. “But if this is what my father shot a man for...is it even mine to sell?”
Andrea’s head snaps up sharply. “Your dad did what?”
“Ah, shit.” Blake groans, smacking his face into his palm.
Libby winces. “Oh! Crap. Sorry. I...I didn’t mean to mention that in front of the kid.”
“I’m not a kid!” Andrea grumbles. “Look, I’ve seen enough of the crap that happens in this town. A psycho almost gave me a bad case of frostbite, remember? I’m not gonna freak over a dead-ass body!”
“Violet!” Blake yells desperately, before I hold my hands up, clearing my throat.
“Could the clown car stop for a second and everybody just breathe?” I ask. “What we need to be thinking about is if this is the treasure Declan thinks he’s looking for.”
“Could be,” Libby says somberly, holding up the pages still in her hand. She’s flipped past her father’s handwritten notes on legal paper, and to those older parchment pages. “Because these other papers...looks like a few of the missing pages from Father Matthew’s journal.”
Today’s been a day for some serious goddamn revelations.
We’ve got a Martian rock worth murdering over, a priest’s confessions totally linking Ursa with its legendary bandits, and no frigging clue what to do about Declan until he shows his face again.
Blake suggests having someone post watch at the town to make sure Declan and his crew don’t start looting.
It’s not a bad idea.
Trouble is, who?
It’s one thing to ask Blake, Warren, Doc, and Leo to step in for quick things, but overnight guards are for single men—not married guys with children, businesses, and lives of their own.
Which basically leaves me and Alaska.
And I don’t want to leave Libby alone at night when those thugs might just come back.
Guess I’ll be owing my foreman free beer for life.
After Blake and Andrea leave, Libby and I sit in the living room, silent and facing each other across the L-shaped couch with the rock and the stacks of papers on the coffee table between us.
Libby presses her clasped hands against her mouth, her brows knitting. “I’m still not quite buying it. It’s just a freaking rock. It can’t be from Mars. And it can’t be...I mean, Dad loved astronomy, but he wouldn’t kill someone over a meteorite. He wasn’t that kind of guy.”
“I know he wasn’t,” I say, trying to keep my voice low, soothing. She’s had a rough enough day. “There’s got to be more than we’re seeing. Bostrom said he had buyers lined up from that note in the briefcase.”
“So something went sour between them.” She stares blankly at the table. “But what?”
“We’re not going to figure that out tonight, honey. No use in turning ourselves inside out until we’re stressed to death and still don’t have any answers.” I flash her a quick smile. “How do you feel about getting dressed up?”
“Huh?” Libby lifts her head, blinking at me quizzically.
“Well.” I drape my arms over my spread thighs, leaning across the table toward her and dropping my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Just so happens the Nortons are having a big shindig tonight. Half barn raising, half barn dance.”
It’s not hard to tell she’s locked up inside her own head. She’s staring at me like I’ve lost my mind. “And?”
I chuckle. “Libby Potter, I’m asking if you want to go out with me. We’ve been stressing over so much shit we’re fixing to give ourselves an aneurysm. You ask me, we both need to take our minds off it and shake loose. It’ll still be there in the morning to sort. Tonight, let’s get messy.”
It dawns on her slowly. Then her eyes glitter, wicked blue and bright as she leans back on one hand, throwing the tempting curves of her body into stark, enticing relief.
The worst part is, she doesn’t even know it.
“I take it,” she says, “you know about this barn dance because the Nortons’ twenty-one-year-old daughter invited you after your crew put up their new barn?”
“It’s a possibility,” I concede. “She didn’t tell me I couldn’t bring a date.”
“Because she was hoping to be your date. She’s too young to know not to mess with men like you,” Libby points out with a smirk.
“You, too?”
“Huh?”
“Are you too young to know not to mess with dudes like me?” I tease.
She leans forward, folding her arms over her thighs, drawing close to me across the coffee table.
Shit. It gives me a damn nice view down the plunging neckline of her tank top, distracting me with creamy tan lines against gold skin.
“That depends what you mean by 'mess with,'” she drawls in a husky whisper. “’Cause I can promise you, Holt Silverton, I’m old enough to mess around plenty with any man I please.”
Those words stab lightning right through me.
The girl’s a grade A tease, I’ll hand her that.
While I’m staring, my mouth practically half open, she just pulls back with a pixie smile playing at her lips and stands. The switch of her hips draws my gaze down over that tight ass and those toned, pretty thighs as she heads for the stairs and the bedroom.
“Hope you’ve got something nicer than that to wear,” she throws back over her shoulder. “Even if we’re raising a barn, you shouldn’t dress like you were raised in one.”
I look down—another flannel over an undershirt, jeans. Typical work duds lately if I’m not in protective coveralls, but it does just fine for casual wear, too.
“What’s wrong with my outfit?” I ask.
“Nothing, if you’re mucking out stables,” she calls down, and I laugh.
“I can do that, if you want me to.”
She doesn’t answer, and I tilt my head, looking upstairs where I can just make out hints of motion.
“Libby? You want your stables cleaned so bad, I can make myself useful around h—”
Her head appears over the railing—and a few other tempting glimpses.
Tumbling golden hair falls down over the edge, lacy bra straps, hints of bare flesh through the latticed wood.
But it’s her smile that fucking does me in.
Wicked, wild, bright, and sinful.
“Holt?” she says sweetly.
“Yeah?”
“You just asked me out on a date. In case you didn’t notice, my answer’s yes. So go get in the shower and make yourself presentable. We’ll talk about putting you to work tomorrow.”
Laughing helplessly, I stand and snap off a proper Air Force salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
But from the way she’s looking at me?
Goddamn.
Is it wrong to hope she’ll be putting me to work tonight?
I wasn’t lying when I told her it’s been a while.
My dick is so blue I think I’m part Smurf, and I might plow her clean through the wall if she gives me half a chance.
Ever since the shitshow that killed my career in New York, I’ve behaved. I’ve held back.
But where Liberty Potter’s concerned?
I’m fucking starved.
And tonight, she looks like dinner.
Delectable can’t even describe Libby when she comes downstairs.
I’ve cleaned myself up a bit, trading work boots and worn jeans for a pair of my nicer designer denim and a pair of square-toed boots with a buckling strap.
The boots are another expensive, showy gimmick I’ve kept from my New York days, but tonight they work with the clean, pressed black button-down I’ve swapped with my flannels.
I must pass muster bec
ause her eyes glint with approval as she flits down the steps, looking like a goddamn dream.
She’s wearing a peasant dress, off the shoulder with a ruffled bodice. It’s this pretty semi-translucent fabric that’s off-white with subtle patterning in tiny red dots and stripes.
The chest bells hang loose, offering suggestions of her sweet curves in ripples and a flared skirt.
She’s wearing sandals like a flower child, cork soles with lace-up pink ribbons that crisscross her ankles. Draws me right in to the deep golden tan of her skin.
For now, just a sexy tease, but dammit, those tan lines on her chest are still there, peeking above the bodice’s trim.
She’s gorgeous.
Especially with her hair brushed into a golden tumble, pouring over one shoulder, calling like a siren in every movement.
Her lips curl into a smile that’s both shy and defiant as she stops halfway down the stairs with one hand resting against the railing.
I’ve never met a woman who hollows me out with a glance.
No bull, no coy mannerisms, no quiet games.
When she fucks with me, I know it up front.
Libby doesn’t play at being anything but herself.
Turns out, real is damn hot on a woman.
“Well?” she teases, arching an eyebrow, her eyes glimmering like wicked twilight. “You just gonna stare at me all night, or tell me I look nice?”
“Thought this look told you plenty.” I grin, offering up my arm. “You look a lot better than nice, woman. You could wake the dead. Prettiest cowgirl in Montana.”
“You could’ve stopped with ‘better than nice,’ but I’ll accept the flattery.” She descends the last few steps lightly and slips her arm into mine, her hand resting against my forearm.
She leans against me.
Just a little bit, but enough to make it feel like I’m walking on air.
“You found your balance between small town and big city, I see,” she says, casting me a sidelong glance. “I suppose I’ll let you escort me.”
“You’re too good to me.”
I can’t stop smiling at her shit. It’s practically hurting my face.