by Becki Willis
“I most certainly am!”
“B—But… that’s breaking and entering, “ Genny sputtered. “Destruction of property. It’s bad enough that we’re trespassing. Lamont Andrews will throw every accusation he can against us, until one of them sticks.” Her eyes widened even more. “I don’t want to have this baby in prison!”
“Okay, you are definitely pregnant; the Genny I know doesn’t panic like this.” Madison rolled her eyes, all the while secretly thrilled for her friend. “First of all, I have no intention of entering. I’m just trying to get Pup to exit. Second, we might be doing him a favor, tearing down a decrepit old barn like this one. However, there’s no reason to get that wild look in your eye. I don’t want to tear it down. I just want to loosen one board. As for trespassing…” Madison looked over at her friend and grinned. “It only counts if you get caught.”
“Madison Josephine! When did you become so cavalier about breaking the law? And you, the wife of the chief of police! What’s happened to you?”
“Like you said. I’ve had a year and a half of personal growth. Desperate times have called for desperate measures, and if I’ve been anything since Gray died, I’ve been desperate. I think I finally realized what you and Granny Bert have been telling me all along.” She lifted the ax with determination. “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”
As Pup licked her fingers again and whined in what she was certain was a plea for help, Genny heaved out a resigned sigh. “I think Pup is desperate in there. And I think there’s some sort of animal cruelty law that says you can rescue a trapped animal.” She stood and brushed off her hands. “Let’s do this.”
In Madison’s mind, the feat was easy enough. All she had to do was lift the ax over her shoulder, swing it a time or two, the board would splinter into a dozen pieces, and Pup would be free.
In reality, the ax weighed a ton. She couldn’t get it above her elbow, much less swing it with gusto. How did Brash make this look so easy? She had watched him cut wood for bonfires and his parents’ fireplace a dozen times, and he never had a moment’s hesitation when wielding the tool.
Maybe that’s how he gets those killer abs, she mused, momentarily distracted by thoughts of her husband.
When she did finally manage to get in a good, hard swing, the blade bounced off the weathered wood as if it were made of rubber.
“I think it’s so old it’s petrified!” she panted, already exhausted with her meager efforts.
“Let me take a swing,” Genny offered.
“No! If you are pregnant, I plan to keep you that way. No ax, my friend.”
“Then I better stand back. You look a little dangerous with that thing. I’m afraid you might chop off my leg or something.”
“I don’t have the strength. Just like I don’t have the strength to break through one of these boards.”
“Maybe we could pry one loose. Just enough to let him out.”
It took far longer than it should have, but after ten minutes of grunts, groans, two broken fingernails, a gallon of sweat, and more strained muscles than either cared to acknowledge, they were successful. Wedging the ax between two boards, they wiggled and coaxed until a few nails pulled loose. With a loud creak, one of the boards gave way and slowly scraped against the dirt. It was a tight fit, but with coos of encouragement from his rescuers, Pup squeezed through the narrow opening and scampered to freedom.
Exhausted, the women fell back onto the ground to rest. Pup ran circles around them, happily yapping and licking, professing his undying gratitude.
After a brief respite, Madison was still panting when she said, “We—We need to get out of here.”
“You may have to help me up. I’m not sure I can move.”
Pup danced around their feet as they walked back to the car. “School’s out by now,” Maddy said, glancing at her watch. “I hope Monte is home.”
“I saw the school bus go by while you were putting the ax back.”
“Can you imagine how happy he’ll be when he sees his dog?” Madison was already smiling, envisioning the happy reunion. She opened the door to the backseat. “Get in, boy. Let’s take you home.”
Twelve
Knowing she had reunited the boy and his dog gave Madison a warm feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. No money on earth could equal the reward of seeing the youth’s happiness over having his beloved pet back.
She was vague on details when telling Brash the good news. She admitted little more than finding the dog near Lamont Andrews’ house, ‘about the same place he had gone missing.’ Offering her husband a second helping of his favorite dish and quickly changing the subject, Madison narrowly avoided an inquisition by the lawman. It helped that all three teens were home tonight, all vying for a chance to talk about themselves. With a grateful smile, Madison gave them the floor.
With one case down, the next morning, Madison turned her attention to another problem: finding out more about the gold.
Immediately after starting her online research, ads popped up on her browser and social media sites with offers of gold coins, fine jewelry, and the best price for an ounce of gold.
“But searching the internet is anonymous, right?” she muttered in aggravation. “No one is tracking my history. And I’d love to sell you a prime piece of mountain property down in Galveston, too.” She sighed, thinking Mr. Pruett was right. Big Brother was always watching, and he had been reincarnated as the World Wide Web.
Madison decided to walk over to the public library and contaminate their browsers, instead of her own.
The fact that the library was directly across the street from the Big House was hardly by accident. When drawing up the city plat, Juliet Randolph (later Blakely), insisted the library be adjacent to the mansion. She funded the project herself and set up a generous trust fund for decades to come. Despite the current decline of libraries worldwide, the Juliet Municipal Library was ensured a long and prosperous future.
Even with such easy access to the thousands of books inside the public library, the Big House sustained two libraries of its own. The formal library on the first floor, filled with many first-edition treasures and literary greats, now served double duty as the official office for In a Pinch, superseding Madison’s previous space at New Beginnings’ back booth. Juliet’s upstairs personal library, filled with books curated to fit her precise tastes and whimsy, was now Madison’s personal office and sanctuary. Despite her offer, Brash had yet to set up his own desk inside.
With a nod to the library’s benefactor, Madison researched Darwin Blakely first. She wasn’t surprised to see an entire section dedicated to Juliet’s true love. There were artifacts from his life and times, quite a few of his medical books, photographs of the man and of the couple on their wedding day, and various volumes of literature and reference books tying back, however loosely, to the handsome physician. The section was a literary shrine to the man Juliet had loved and lost.
Madison soon learned that her earlier assumptions about the doctor had been wrong. He hadn’t been an opportunist, taking advantage of Miss Juliet’s wealth. He had plenty of his own. From everything she read, he came from a very rich and upstanding family in Philadelphia. Old money, even back then.
Hope flared within her when she read that his uncle, Hiram Blakely, amassed even greater fortunes when he struck it rich in the Alaska Gold Rush. Maybe the gold had belonged to Darwin! It was too soon to say if he was the one to hide it in the chair, or if Miss Juliet had done so after his death, but it offered a new possibility.
Her hopes sank when she realized that Hiram was ostracized from the family for his chronic sense of wanderlust. He died during a mining accident, never to be reunited with the loved ones left behind.
After spending the morning with her nose in books, by noon, Madison’s head swirled. She felt as if she had taken a crash course on that elusive element called gold.
While Alaska and California were known for their gold rushes, Madison learned that gold could b
e found in most any state and any country. Even Texas had seen a few small claims over the years. She was certain, however, that the gold in the chair wasn’t native to her state; nuggets that size would be considered a major find, she was sure.
Her research revealed inconsequential information on how to mine for gold, the best places to find, buy, or sell the commodity, the differences in quality and grade, the history of mining, and the world’s largest claims. But after hours of research, however, she never found a hint of how the four nuggets came to be inside the chair.
“Are you still finding everything you needed, hon?” the librarian asked.
Puffing out her cheeks, Madison spoke more to herself than the older woman. “A secret gold rush here in River County would be nice. We have so many caves around here, some of them could have held gold, right? Even better, a listing of unclaimed gold would be nice. Sort of like a lost and found for gold nuggets.”
Sadie Bealls propped her hands upon her generous hips and beamed with pleasure. “Is Mr. Jenkins still using that in his science class? We cooked up that assignment thirty years ago! I didn’t know he still used it.” She misread the confusion on Madison’s face for worry. “Oh, don’t you worry, hon. I won’t spill the beans about you helping your young ‘uns with the assignment. As long as you send them in at least once or twice to gather information, I’ll play along with you. The whole idea of the assignment was to not only make science fun, but to hone library and research skills, as well.”
Madison quickly recovered. “Uhm, yes. It sounds like a brilliant plan.”
“Why, thank you, hon. Like I say, I helped develop the assignment years ago. Come to think of it, it may have been closer to forty years ago. I’ve been retired as school librarian for over twenty years now.”
The elderly woman was roughly Granny Bert’s age and, like her grandmother, still active in mind and spirit. She led Madison on a brisk march to the rear of the library.
They entered a room lined with old tomes. A woman was cleaning, running a feather duster along the higher shelves by way of a ladder.
“I’m almost done in here,” she assured Madison. “If my dusting won’t bother you, I’ll finish this shelf and be done.”
“You’re fine. Don’t let me rush you.”
With a demure smile, the woman turned away and went back to work.
“So,” Sadie Bealls told Madison with a sweep of her hands, “this is where you’ll find most of what you’re looking for. Local prospecting claims, assayer notes, and surveys are right here in the reference section. One aisle over, you’ll find photos of local claims and the biggest nuggets found in each state. Another aisle over is lost and found.”
Madison shook her head as if to clear it. “Wait. Two things. One, are you saying there have actually been claims of gold strikes here in the area?” Her mouth hung slightly agape.
Miss Sadie smiled indulgently. “I suppose that depends on how you clarify the word ‘strike.’ The truth is, hon, that every river in the world has traces of gold in it. Rain erodes rock walls containing the gold, and it naturally flows downhill, entering rivers and streams. Gravity pulls it downward where the current is slower. Eventually, deposits are formed. As the riverbeds dry up or shift, the deposits remain, either as flakes or nuggets. As you know, caves are formed when underground water cuts through rock formations, so it stands to reason there’s gold in most caves, as well. Whether or not there’s enough to bother mining is another matter, entirely.”
Madison stared at her in fascination. “But people have tried. Right here in our area.”
“Some people always try to strike it rich, hon. It’s human nature.” The librarian’s smile looked sad. “What was your other question?”
“Pardon me?”
“You said you had two questions. That was only one.”
It took a moment for Madison to collect her senses and retrace her line of thought. “Oh, yes,” she recalled. “The lost and found. There’s truly a file for that? It was just wishful thinking on my part!”
“Well, now, why don’t you just send your kids in and let them find that out for themselves?” With an ambiguous smile, the elderly woman sashayed away.
Madison stared after her in surprise. It took a solid moment to realize she had an audience. The woman dusting the shelves had listened to her exchange with the librarian in open curiosity, and still studied Madison’s dumbfounded look.
With a sheepish smile, Madison lifted her hands in a helpless expression. “Who knew?”
As the rhetorical question needed no reply, the woman simply turned away.
Thirteen
“Granny? Granny Bert, are you home?”
“In the kitchen.”
Madison made her way back to the heart of the old home. It was here that she had learned to cook. Here on the scarred countertops that her grandmother showed her how to measure ingredients for cookies and cakes and light, fluffy biscuits. Here she had learned to roll out piecrust, even though hers never quite came out like Granny’s. Here at the old scrubbed pine table, she had done her homework and had late-night talks with her grandparents.
Here, that she had created a heart full of cherished memories. The laminate may have been old, and the appliances outdated, but in Maddy’s eyes, the kitchen was perfect just the way it was.
“What’s that?” she asked, peering into the massive pot as she dropped a kiss on her grandmother’s wrinkled cheek.
“Jambalaya. Larry was down at the coast this weekend doing a little fishing and brought me back a whole mess of fresh seafood. I figured the best way to cook it was all at once. There should be plenty, if you and Brash want to join us.”
“Who else is coming?”
“I invited Larry, but you know your cousin. Other than business, he’s been a bit of a loner since his divorce, but his parents will be here. Since Joe Bert and Trudy are coming, I invited Glen and Daisy. Might as well have two of my four boys together, even if the other two are scattered to the ends of the world.”
Madison didn’t point out the fact that neither her uncle’s home in West Texas nor her father’s missionary assignment in Africa were the ends of the world.
“What about Sticker? Is he coming?”
Her grandmother gave a disapproving sniff. “I haven’t spoken to Mr. Pierce in the past few days.”
“Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise again?” she guessed.
For over sixty some-odd years, her grandmother had been toying with rodeo legend Sticker Pierce’s heartstrings. They had taken time out for marriages—a long, happy one for Bertha and Joe Cessna until his death eight years ago, and six or so marriages to various women, none of them particularly long nor happy, for Cutter’s grandfather—but the two had become reacquainted last year when Sticker returned to The Sisters. Old flames still stirred between them, but both were too stubborn and too set in their ways to commit to anything beyond an on-again/off-again courtship. Granny Bert spent most of her time miffed at the older gentleman for still being so attractive and flirtatious toward other women, particularly those she had a long-standing feud with. More than once, Madison had compared the octogenarians’ romance to that of teenagers.
“Paradise? Is that the name of that new club in Snook, the one where Mr. Pierce may or may not have been seen cutting the rug with none other than Dolly Mac Crowder?”
A smile hovered around Madison’s lips at the outdated expression ‘cutting the rug.’ She doubted her twins even knew what that meant. They did know, however, that any sentence including Dolly Mac Crowder was a negative one.
“I think it’s called The Armadillo Hole.”
“Which is exactly where I’d like to stuff that old biddy. Her and her new pearly white false teeth. I’d send them both right down an armadillo hole!”
Madison knew when to change the subject. Her grandmother and Dolly Mac Crowder shared such a long and ancient history, no one was certain when or why their feud began. Everyone, however, knew it was still ongoing.
“That’s the problem with folks these days,” Granny Bert grumbled. “Always busy, busy, busy! Never take time for the important things in life, like visiting with kinfolk and strengthening family ties. No time for loyalty.”
Madison hastily changed the subject, yet again. “Hey, I’ve got some good news. I found Monte Applegate’s dog!”
“Really? Good for you.” She looked genuinely pleased. “Where did you find it?”
“Believe it or not, he was locked up inside Lamont Andrews’ old barn.”
“On purpose?”
“I don’t know. I hope not.”
“You didn’t ask Lamont?” Granny Bert propped one fist upon her hip and glared at her granddaughter. “You didn’t demand to know if the man all but trapped that poor little boy’s dog and left it for dead?”
“No, I didn’t. And for good reason, so stop glaring at me.”
“It’d better be good, girl. Let’s hear it.”
Madison hesitated before admitting, “I… may have been on his property without an official invitation.”
Granny Bert leveled her gaze on her. “So, you were trespassing,” she surmised.
“Sort of. And I may have sort of… broken into his barn. Actually, what I did was break the dog out.” When Granny Bert didn’t say anything, Madison hurried on, “What’s important here is that the boy and the dog are reunited, and Lamont Andrews never has to know of my involvement in what is essentially a happy ending.”
Granny Bert waggled a gnarled finger. “What’s important here is that there’s hope for you yet, girl! I swear, every day you’re getting more and more like your old Granny!”
Unsure whether that was a good thing, Madison merely offered a wan smile. Genny had said as much yesterday. Should she be concerned?
“Did you come to work on the chair?”