"Well, well, well," Sarah murmured. She pushed the door open wider, crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. She wanted to shout her happiness to the world.
"Couldn't sleep?" Gideon asked.
"Something woke me up."
"Probably your world-famous intuition."
"Probably." Sarah couldn't stop the smile that she knew was starting to light up her whole face.
Gideon sighed wearily and leaned back in his chair. "I guess you want an explanation."
She shook her head violently. "Not necessary."
"It's not?"
"No. Gideon, this is the most romantic thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life."
He glanced at the open strongbox. "It is?"
"Definitely. It proves you love me. Proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt."
"It does?"
"Oh, yes." She walked into the room and came to a halt on the other side of the desk. She planted both hands on its polished wooden surface.
"Sarah…"
"Admit it," Sarah said, wanting to laugh out loud at his wary expression. "Go on, admit it. Tell me you love me. Tell me that you're doing this—" she waved a hand to include the array of chess pieces and the open strongbox "—because you're wildly, madly, passionately, head-over-heels in love with me."
"Well…"
"Gideon, this is the sweetest, most romantic gift I've ever had. You knew how much I was enjoying my treasure hunt. You know how excited I was about opening that strongbox. And you couldn't bear for me to find it empty, could you? You wanted to give me a gift and letting me find the Fleetwood Flowers at the end of my big adventure was your present to me. Gideon, I am so thrilled, so incredibly touched. You love me."
Gideon gazed down at the knight still in his hand. "You're amazing, you know that? Some women would look at a scene like this and assume right off the bat that they had been or were about to be robbed, cheated or otherwise swindled out of a fortune. You look at it and assume it's evidence that I'm in love with you."
Sarah grinned. "It is and you are. Aren't you?"
Gideon's answering smile was slow. His eyes lost their wariness. A deep, aching tenderness took its place. His hard face seemed to gentle in the lamplight. "I must be to have gotten myself into a situation like this."
Sarah laughed, her delight bubbling up inside like champagne. She darted around the edge of the desk and threw herself into Gideon's lap. "Tell me," she demanded. "Say the words."
He touched the side of her face wonderingly. "I love you, Sarah."
"Since when?" she pressed.
"I don't know. Does it matter?"
"No." She put her fingertips on his lips. "It doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters is that you're sure now."
"I'm sure."
She put her head down on his shoulder, nestling close. "I figured you must or you wouldn't be putting the Fleetwood Flowers back into that strongbox for me to find in the morning. When did you dig them up?"
"About four years ago. I needed the money to expand Cache and since I was now supposed to be an expert in treasure hunting I decided to do some. I went through a file I had put together on old treasure stories that sounded promising—the real stuff, you understand, the kind of tales I never print in Cache."
"The kind you pursue yourself when you go on vacation?"
Gideon nodded. "The Flowers was a story that had possibilities and it was fairly close to my home here on the coast. So I did a little research, scraped together enough for a down payment on the land and bought the old Fleetwood property for a few months. As soon as I found the Flowers, I sold the land again."
"Just the way I had planned to do it. I guess this proves that great minds really do run in the same track, doesn't it? Why didn't you sell the earrings if you needed the money?"
"Believe me, I was going to sell them. It was the reason I'd dug them up in the first place. They'd definitely bring a nice chunk of change. Take a look."
Gideon unwrapped one of the black velvet packages. A pair of glittering sapphire earrings set in an old-fashioned design tumbled out onto the desk. They lay there like brilliant blue flowers. He opened another velvet bundle and a set of beautifully matched pearl earrings cascaded onto the desk. Then he unwrapped the next three sets of Flowers. Rubies, opals and diamonds winked in the light.
"Emelina Fleetwood's buried treasure," Sarah breathed. "They're beautiful."
Gideon gazed down as the small fortune lying in front of him. "I intended to sell them off quietly, a stone at a time, but I kept making excuses not to do it. Then one day I realized I wasn't going to be able to ever sell them at all. For some insane reason, I felt I had to hang on to them."
"Of course you did. You were waiting for me to come and claim them. It all fits together now. I always knew the Flowers were linked to you. I just didn't understand quite how. But now it's perfectly clear. You were holding them, waiting for me to show up in your life, weren't you? You just didn't know it. You've got intuition, too, Gideon."
"You think so?" Gideon wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her tightly to him.
"Definitely. Why do you think you were the one who made Savage and Company a legend? Why did you sense that ambush five years ago? Why do you think you found the Fleetwood Flowers without even a map?"
He gave her a wry look. "Why did I marry the wrong woman the first time around? Why did I trust Jake Savage to be my partner and friend?"
Sarah waved that aside. "I guess your intuition works better with treasure and danger and that sort of thing. Mine seems to work mostly with people. We'll make a great team."
"I think we will." He kissed her throat.
"You let me go through the whole treasure hunt from start to finish so I'd have the thrill of actually finding the Flowers on my own, didn't you?"
"I don't know if that was my initial plan," Gideon said. "I wasn't thinking that clearly in the beginning. I just knew I had to keep you around for a while and hiring on as your consultant and partner was a way to do that."
"And naturally you stipulated that you'd get to keep at least one pair of the earrings. After all, you'd already found the whole bunch. You had some rights in the matter."
"That's very understanding of you. It's also exactly what I told myself at the start."
Sarah giggled. "When I think of how you let me tramp all over the Fleetwood property and struggle with that darned map…Oh, Gideon, it's too much. You must have been laughing yourself silly."
"Treasure hunting is fun. I wanted you to have the thrill." Gideon's eyes turned serious. "And I didn't want the adventure to end too soon. I wanted time with you. I couldn't figure out what was going on between us, but I didn't want to let you go out of my life too quickly. The treasure hunt was a way of stalling you for a while."
"What about arranging for us to have to share that cabin? That was a deliberate ploy to try to get me into bed, wasn't it?"
"I guess it could be viewed in that light," Gideon said modestly.
"And virtually kidnapping me and forcing me to come back here instead of going home to Seattle? That was a ploy to try to keep me around, too, right? Protecting me from Jake Savage was just a convenient excuse."
"For all the good it did me."
"They were all terribly romantic gestures, Gideon, worthy of any true romance hero, but I would have to say that seducing me right on top of the white rock was the pièce de résistance."
"I was rather proud of that move myself."
She kissed him. "You were going to have great fun watching me discover the earrings in the strongbox in the morning, weren't you? And now I've gone and spoiled your surprise. Sorry about that." She kissed him again. "Gideon, you are so wonderful."
His eyes held hers. "So are you. What did I ever do without you?"
"We were bound to connect eventually. After all, you're the man of my dreams. How many times do I have to tell you?"
Gideon's fingers tightened in her hair was sudden fiercenes
s as he held her still for his kiss. "You can keep on telling me that for the rest of my life. I like being your hero. I like it very, very much."
"Good. And you won't mind if I continue to use you in my books? After all, I've built a whole career based on you."
Gideon looked down into her warm, loving eyes. And for the first time since Sarah had known him, he laughed out loud. The cats, sitting side by side on the couch, flicked their ears at the unusual sound.
"Just so long as you change my name," Gideon said.
"No problem. I always change your name in each new book."
Gideon caught hold of her hand and kissed her fingers. "Now, about the wedding…"
"Yes," said Sarah. "I was thinking of a quick trip to Reno or Las Vegas. What do you think?"
"I was thinking of something a little different."
MARGARET LARK received the telegram at ten in the morning. Without stopping to calculate the time difference between Seattle and Amethyst Island, she dialed the phone. Kate Inskip Hawthorne answered at once.
"You got one, too, I take it?" Margaret asked without preamble.
"Reminds me of the one I sent," Kate said cheerfully. "Looks like we've got a tradition going here. I guess Sarah's intuition was right again, as usual."
"She was sure of him from the first letter, wasn't she? A Beast waiting to be saved with Beauty's love." Margaret smiled to herself. "The poor man didn't stand a chance."
"Neither did Sarah, if you ask me. That treasure hunter of hers must be very extraordinary."
"Why do you say that?"
"Are you kidding? I would have bet good money that there wasn't a man left on the face of the earth who could have convinced Sarah to go for a big wedding. Not after what happened the last time."
"Good point. That settles it. It must be love on both sides. Will you be flying to Seattle for the festivities?" Margaret asked.
"I wouldn't miss this wedding for the world."
Margaret laughed. "We'll get to be bridal attendants. That should be fun. I've never been one." She hung up the phone a few minutes later and picked up the telegram on the kitchen counter. She reread it with a gathering sense of happiness for her friend, Sarah.
Pleased to report that my adventurer is even better in real life than he is in my books. He's got everything, including a couple of cats. Wedding set for one month from today. Will need lots of help as Gideon insists on the works. Will return to Seattle on Monday to start interviewing caterers and shop for gown. Wait until you see the earrings I'm going to wear.
Love,
Sarah
^
The Adventurer Page 18