by Mary Brady
“I missed you. I missed you,” she said as she clung to him, her feet dangling in the air.
“It was hard to tell.”
She pressed her mouth to his, her lips and tongue hungry and exploring.
He smoothed down the tail of her nightgown and held her close.
“So now do you believe me?” She smacked her lips to his one more time.
“I do and I think I might have missed you, too.”
“You think? You might?” She pressed closer. “I think you know you did.”
“You are a crazy woman.” He kissed her again and then picked her up and deposited her in the passenger seat of the SUV. “I had no idea I liked crazy women.”
“Only one crazy woman, please, and we’re being watched.” She pointed to the porch of the Victorian home named Rose, the first of the Three Sisters as approached from the sea. “Brown Dog has something to say.”
“So you’ve been here in town, what, one day?”
“One and three quarters very long days.”
“And you’ve already been convinced the stray dog has powers.”
“He had me pegged.”
“Pardon?” He made a U-turn in the middle of the empty street and headed back the way he had come.
“He apparently finds lost people and helps them be found.”
Zach reached across the console and touched her cheek as he turned from Treacher Avenue onto Church Street.
He’d like to be the person that helped Adriana Bonacorda feel found. Tomorrow, in the light of a new day they might feel differently, but this morning, they had found each other and that needed to be enough for now.
* * *
ADDY SMOOTHED THE sheer fabric of the nightgown and tried to repress a shiver.
Zach flipped a switch and in a few moments, warm air poured over her. When he put his hand on her thigh, she wanted to insist he stop the car and make love to her. But she was sure Bailey’s Cove had some of the same rules about such things in public as the bigger cities.
“What have you been up to?” she asked to distract herself.
“Mostly getting covered with mud.”
“Without me?”
“I thought about you. Didn’t want to, but I did.”
“All the time?”
“Most of the time.”
“Good. I thought about you, Zach, but all the wrong kind of thoughts. I should have been thinking about how to pin your ears back, about how to trim your sails, about how to put you in jail for decades.”
“But you weren’t.”
“I don’t want to do those things anymore. I don’t believe they are right anymore.”
“Does a journalist have to believe in a story?”
“I do. I tried for several years to give editors the line they wanted, sometimes the truth bent to someone else’s moral code, but those stories always came out flat. I have some extremely dreadful clippings in my filing cabinet.”
“I’d like to see them.”
“I’m burning them tonight.”
Being with Zach again excited her beyond belief. She wanted him, but she also liked him. A rare thing for Adriana Bonacorda and men.
She loved him. Crazy, so crazy. “Are you driving as fast as you possibly can?”
“Faster.” He turned the last corner and drove the SUV inside the garage in quick time.
They opened their doors as the SUV stopped and he met her in front of the SUV’s grill. The air warmed by the engine engulfed them. He reached under her nightgown and ran his hands along her naked hip to her thighs.
“I almost couldn’t wait to do that,” he said in a breathy voice against her ear.
“I thought it would never happen.”
He snatched her up into his arms and carried her up the stairs. By the time he lowered her to the bed she wanted him so badly she hurt with the ache of anticipation.
As he undressed, she slipped her jacket off and reached for the nightgown.
He caught her wrist. “Leave it. It’s incredibly sexy.”
“To have sex with a woman while she wears another woman’s nightgown? Have you ever?”
“I’m going to now.”
He was naked by then and she held her hand up when he started to lower himself to the bed. “I just want a moment to admire.”
After a split second he asked, “Had enough?”
“Not nearly, but show-and-tell is finished.”
He obliged her by stretching out full length on top of her. When she groaned her appreciation, he moved against her.
“You make me hot,” her voice so wispy, she hardly recognized it. “Am I on fire yet?”
He smiled and then covered her mouth with his. After long, uninterrupted minutes, his searching lips kissed her neck and on down to her chest. He sucked her nipple through the fabric of the gown and she was wild to have those lips against her skin again.
Murmuring sweet words, he bunched the material of the nightgown in his fists and raised it up to her hips. Nothing had ever been better than having Zachary Hale make love to her. Nothing. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the homage he paid to her as he lowered his mouth, inching hot kisses along her belly until, he lifted her and pressed his hot mouth to her center.
Stars exploded behind her closed eyelids as she arched into him, letting the waves of pure pleasure wash over her again and again.
“Oh, Zach. The things you do to me.”
She must have spoken aloud as he ran his hands up her belly under the gown and pressed his palms to her breasts.
“More,” she said when the pleasure ebbed.
He moved away and swiftly put on a condom. When he was pressed to her in every way, he kissed her breathless again and she took all of him willingly. As he began to move inside her, she let herself rise with him, keeping him as close to her as she could.
She wanted him close, always close.
* * *
THE FIRE FLICKERED across the room when she opened her eyes to find Zach’s face next to hers. “Did I fall asleep? I didn’t mean to sleep.”
“But you’re so beautiful when you sleep.”
“I’d rather be beautiful and awake. I want to spend every moment I can enjoying you.”
“How about now?”
“Now is perfect.”
“You’re perfect.”
“Nearly.” She put a hand in her out of control hair.
He drew her hand away and kissed her on the mouth. “Completely perfect.”
“We might have to agree to disagree on that one. Now about this adventure you spoke of earlier. Oh, the box. You saw Heather and the two of you opened the box.”
“We did, but it’s not about the little box. You’ll have to get dressed.”
She realized for the first time he was dressed. “I don’t even know where I dropped my—” She stopped when he held up her jeans and shirt.
“I brought this for you also.” Now he held up a plaid flannel shirt.
“Am I about to get cold?”
“If you do, let me know. I’ve discovered the best method to warm you up.”
When she lifted the gown over her head, he leaned in and teased her nipple. As he went on to tease the underside of her breast, she leaned back on her hands and let him have his way.
“Yes, you have discovered wonderful methods to keep me warm.” The words came out strained as she struggled for air.
He suddenly pulled away and with shocking swiftness popped her shirt on her and followed that with the flannel one. Resigned to getting dressed, she lifted her feet, and her panties and jeans followed. Left sock and then the right.
“You really mean business here.”
“Come on, you lazy thing.”
> She stood and stretched, raising her arms above her head. “The sun is nearly up,” he pointed out.
“The sun. You are insane.”
“Come, anyway. You like me because I’m insane.”
“I like you because you are rich.”
He chuckled. “And I’ve brought you to such luxurious surroundings as you’ve never experienced before.”
“All right, because you’re handsome.”
She ducked under his arm and snuggled close. She liked the warmth of his body against hers. She had missed him desperately even before she climbed into Patty O’Reilly’s tow truck.
“Hunter is handsome and you didn’t throw yourself at him.”
“Maybe I did. How do you know?”
“Because you’re not on the slow bus back to Boston by way of Newfoundland.”
“And glad of it.”
He led her down the wooden steps from the loft and then down the stone steps to the cellar.
She stopped. “Wait. You didn’t demand that I come here so you could put me to work, did you?”
“How’s it going so far?”
“Well, so far so good. Why are we going to the basement? Isn’t it wet down there?”
He shrugged. “Wet and, in the right spots, muddy.”
She pulled away in mock horror.
He took her hand again and continued down.
“Duck,” he told her.
“What?”
“Oh.” At the last step, the ceiling to the basement came up really fast and if he hadn’t had his hand out, she might have struck her head.
He picked up a lantern from the bottom step and lit it. The walls of the place were rock and dirt.
“Whoa, cheery place you’ve got down here.”
“You will not mock me when you see what I’ve brought you here for.”
“You didn’t just bring me for...” She paused and waited for him to look back at her and then pointed upstairs and winked.
“That, too.”
He stood up.
“Stop!”
He slowed enough to prevent crashing his head into the wooden beam but did impact with a slight crack. “Ugh.”
In horror, Addy reached for his head and felt for blood.
He laughed that sweet sound she would never tire of but would love to get the chance to try.
He took her by the hand, stooped and led her to the far end of the cellar.
In one excavated section there was a two-foot area in which there was something that looked like reddish-brown plastic. He carefully lifted the edges, several layers of it; the inner layers were pure red. Nested under the layers of the old cloth was a chest, an old wooden chest.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Addy could barely catch her breath as she spoke.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ADDY LIFTED A drooping corner of the red cloth, revealing more of the box. By the grain, it appeared to be oak. By the age of the surrounding cloth, it seemed to be as though it had been walled up here for a long time.
“How old do you suppose it is?” she asked quietly.
Zach laughed soft and warm. “Old enough.”
She touched the box. The surface felt oily and cool. “Do we get to take it out of there and see what it is?”
“It should be removed by someone like Heather Loch, someone who knows what they’re doing. Heather might not even touch it. She might defer to someone from the university or a larger museum who has more experience.”
“How long do you think that would take?”
“Days to weeks depending on how long the barricades stay up outside town.”
“Don’t you think they would let someone from the university inside the roadblock to take a look?”
“They might, but I don’t think Bailey’s Cove could withstand that.” He answered as quietly as she had spoken and then leaned closer with the light. “The town’s in a vulnerable state. If treasure seekers descended on us, the essence of Bailey’s Cove might be destroyed forever and the townsfolk have been struggling with this for a long time.”
“So what do we do?”
“Take it out of the wall.” He leaned in and opened the layers of oilcloth again so they could see the wood of the box. “Looks like a hasp, a closure mechanism.”
She put a hand on his shoulder and stood on tiptoes. “Life with you in it is so exciting.”
He put a hand over hers and turned so he could see her face. The emotion she saw there almost took her breath away. When he kissed her slowly and tenderly, she melted against him.
He pulled gently away, the longing of a lifetime etched on his face, “Addy, I—”
“Zach, I know.” She studied his face, the features, the lines, the secrets told by his eyes. She would remember this man for every day of her life. Reaching up she put her palm to the smoothness of his cheek. “Now tell me, is the hasp like one might find on a treasure chest?”
He smiled and so did she.
“I guess one of us had to say it. Treasure chest,” he said shifting back to the work at hand.
“Hold the light,” he said as he tugged at the cloth. The chest didn’t move. “Seems as though two hundred years of house settling has caused an issue.”
“If I carve out the dirt above it, I might be able to slide the chest free.” He worked carefully with a hammer and the railroad spike.
Twenty minutes later, he was able to bring the box forward.
“It’s heavy.”
She rushed in. “Let me help.”
He brought a knee up to support it and hefted the chest in his arms so he had a better grip. “I’ve got it, I think.”
“Can we take a peek now?”
“We could, but I’d like to take it up to the loft. If you’d lead with the flashlights, that would be helpful.”
“We can open it in front of the fire, see it the way a pirate might have seen it, at night by firelight, after everyone else has gone to sleep.”
“In secret,” he whispered.
She led him through the darkened basement and breezeway. At the top of the stairs she held the door.
He carefully placed the still-wrapped box on the dining-room table and slowly removed the red oilcloth.
Addy moved around the table, looking at the box from different angles without touching it, excitement bubbling up inside her. “Not a very fancy treasure chest, but I guess they couldn’t order one from treasurechests.com or...”
He looked up at her.
“I know. I know. I’m like a kid. I want to rip it open, but then I don’t want to open it at all. I couldn’t stand it if there was no treasure or just a few trinkets and a bunch of meaningless documents.”
He retrieved a rag from under the sink. “You wipe it off and I’ll move the couch and chair so we have plenty of room.”
By the time she had the chest mostly cleaned off, Zach had spread a light-colored blanket between the couch and the fire and placed a towel near one edge.
Addy tried to lift the box. “Wow. It is heavy. I suppose I could carry it if I had to, but I’ve got you.”
She grinned at him, trying not to think of how brief her time with him was going to be.
“You do have me,” he said and kissed her with what felt like regret and longing. She understood those emotions.
Zach carefully placed the box on the towel to keep the blanket from getting any of the oil on it. They sat down on the blanket and she leaned against him. Neither one of them reached for the box.
Plain lines, polished oak with carefully dovetailed corners. The hasp and hinges appeared to be brass. There was no lock on the hasp. Burying a box behind a rock wall must have been considered enough of a lock.
She put a hand on his arm.
“Thank you, Zach, for thinking of me. I’m honored you wanted me to be with you when you opened this...this whatever it turns out to be.”
“You seemed like just the right amount of adventurer and crazy person to get the most out of it.”
He looked at her for a good long time. He wasn’t thinking about treasure.
“You’re thinking about Hale and Blankenstock, aren’t you?”
“I should be in Boston seeing what could be done about getting to the truth.”
“The FBI confiscated the paper records and electronic versions and they asked the two of you not to handle anyone’s money for the time being or to do any kind of investing at all. Your assets are frozen and they instructed you not to contact your investors. Plus your attorney told you to get out of town.” They both knew there was little he could do. “I, on the other hand, could be back in Boston, seeing if there is anything I could do from there.”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “I appreciate you wanting to enter the fray on my behalf, but the battle is not yours. Carla Blankenstock and I are going to have to go head-to-head on this one. She thinks she has all the advantages, but there is still some game on my side.”
The fire crackled merrily as they sat in silence.
“What do you say we ignore the rest of the world and open this mystery chest, Addy?”
“I don’t know. What if it’s not treasure? What if it’s old golf shoes?”
He grinned. “Too heavy for that.”
“Lead bars?”
“A decoy? And the treasure might still be out there. Then we can’t let the town find out. They’ve had their collective hearts broken for two centuries and this would have been their best and biggest hope.” He reached out a hand only to pull it back. “I don’t know if I can take that kind of disappointment right now, either.”
“Well, we both can’t chicken out,” she teased him. “You don’t have to look. I’ll do it and if it’s disappointing, I won’t tell you, I’ll just take the box with me and you’ll never have to see it again.”
She started moving toward the chest.
“I’ve got it.” He caught her and she laughed. “Go sit back there where it’s safe.”
“In case it has asps or a deadly chemical spray or something equally dangerous.”