His Timeless Treasure (Treasure Harbor Book 5)

by Kristen Ethridge

  As they ate, Reid told stories to Bree about Mandy. His smile broadened as he spoke of a drawing she’d done on construction paper and sent with him on this trip.

  “It looked mostly like a bunch of circles with some squiggles for emphasis, but she insisted to me it was a pirate panda. I hung it on the bathroom mirror in the hotel,” Reid said with a short chuckle.

  Bree had long ago gotten rid of the idea that children had a place in her life. She hadn’t just seen what damage a distracted parent could do to a child’s sense of self-worth, she’d lived it first-hand.

  And now, she most often found herself preferring the company of people who had once lived to people who were actually living in the here and now.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Reid stopped in the middle of a story and focused squarely on Bree. The purposefulness in his expression fell in line with the weight that had dropped on her shoulders.

  “I just realized something, that’s all.” She could barely mold the thought to make sense in her own mind, much less express it to someone else. She didn’t even want to try.

  Bree laid her crumpled paper napkin alongside the empty basket that now held only a grease-stained piece of paper, where a very large burger had been only half an hour before.

  Reid gave a slight nod of his head at her words. “So, to put it in terms a reporter might understand, you’re saying ‘no comment,’ huh?”

  She hadn’t meant to come off as cold. Reid had been nothing but helpful to her since the moment he walked up to her table at the Historical Society building. She turned slightly and looked at the rise and fall of the water across the way. Something about the timeless roll of the surf had always slowed her down since she was a kid.

  It called to her.

  “Do you have time for a walk?” Bree gestured to the scene beyond the windows.

  Reid popped the home button on his phone and looked at the clock on the lock screen. “Sure. I had some notes to work on tonight, but that can wait until later. Hard to pass up any time at the beach. I don’t get to do this back in Manhattan.”

  They left Beachcombers and waited at the corner for the signal to enter the crosswalk. Bree tried to watch the cars as they drove past, instead of watching Reid out of the corner of her eye. He hadn’t said much since she’d clammed up in the restaurant. It felt like maybe they were each waiting on the other to break the ice again.

  Bree let a quiet breath of disgust escape her lips.

  “I’m sure the light will change soon, Bree.”

  She hadn’t been impatient with the light at all—he’d misread the noise she hadn’t even intended to make. Bree felt like she’d chilled the situation between them even further.

  “It’s not that. I’m just frustrated with myself right now.”

  The light changed to indicate they could cross the street safely. Bree stepped her left foot off the curb. As she made a move to walk fully into the crosswalk, Reid’s hand gripped the top of her arm and jerked her back hard enough to make her lose her footing and slam her back into the solid wall of his chest.

  She hadn’t even seen the car that ran the light and plowed through the intersection.

  A lump settled in her throat and she found herself struggling for breath through the mix of fear and adrenaline.

  “Bree, are you okay?” Reid didn’t let go of her arm as he moved himself to stand alongside her.

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  Without another word of his own, Reid tugged on her arm and guided her quickly across the street and down to the sand.

  “Did I hurt you?” Reid asked. “I didn’t mean to pull you back so hard. I just heard the sound and—I just reacted.”

  “Hurt me? I think you saved my life, Reid. I…I never even saw the car. I’ve just been in my own world since dinner.”

  “You kind of have. I know you said it wasn’t something I said, but I can’t help but feel that’s not completely the truth.”

  At the sound of her own admission and Reid’s reaction of concern, the panic in her veins began to dissipate. There was something for calling what was holding you back by its name. Continuing to be fake and cover things up was what her mother would have done.

  The thought of turning into her mother flooded her veins with pure ice again.

  “No, really, it is the truth. It’s accurate to say it’s not you, it’s me—with the small caveat that it was something you said that led to my whole thought process.”

  Reid sat on a chunk of a log that had washed up on the shore. “So what did I say?”

  “Mandy.”

  “Wait. Mandy? What about Mandy?”

  Bree noticed Reid’s jaw clenching as he said his sister’s name. His words became very evenly measured and low.

  “Nothing bad, Reid. Your secret is safe with me, I promise. I’m not going to make some phone call and tip the paparazzi off to Mandy’s spot in the carpool line.”

  Reid ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, then. What?”

  “I was jealous.” Bree also staked out a spot near the center of the washed-up log and kept her gaze firmly focused on the water ahead.

  “Jealous? Of Mandy?”

  “Of both of you.”

  Reid shifted on the log, so that he was now half-facing Bree. “I don’t really get it.”

  Bree made a similar shift in sitting position, but kept watching the waves. “I guess the best way to explain it is that I never heard my mother talk about me the way that you talked about Mandy. Mandy will never doubt that the person raising her is proud of her.”

  “Your mother wasn’t proud of you?”

  A little laugh got stuck at the back of Bree’s throat. “Not that I could ever tell. With my mom, it was always about what you could do for her. After the divorce, my little brother actually went to live with my dad. My sister and I stayed with my mom. My sister was all blonde hair, blue eyes and grew up to have a killer body. My mom signed us both up for the Little Miss Carolina pageant when she was ten and I was eight. I insisted on reciting poetry for my talent. She twirled a baton and smiled as big as a moonbeam. Ellie won. I didn’t even make the cut past the first round.”

  “What poem did you recite?”

  Her eyes darted away from the waves, pulled like a magnet to Reid’s face. It wasn’t the question she’d expected him to ask.

  “A poem about my teddy bear, Hampton. I wrote it myself.”

  “Do you remember it?”

  Bree felt a roll of warm nostalgia wrap around her like a biscuit on Sunday morning. “Of course.”

  Reid poked at her shoulder with his index finger. “So tell me.”

  “Hampton, my friend, I’ll be there for you until the end. When your fur has worn away, I’ll still want you to stay. When the velvet’s gone from your nose, I’ll still think you’re more beautiful than a rose. Everyone needs a friend so true, and in my world, Hampton, that’s you.”

  She hadn’t thought of Hampton the bear in years. He’d been packed away in a box since she’d moved into the dorm at college. But all of a sudden, her mind was filled with memories of her childhood, of the times when she dragged Hampton along in the car and of the nights spent cuddling with him as a defense against a dark room at bedtime.

  One fresh tear rolled down Bree’s cheek. It was too bad she couldn’t think of anyone in her life who was a friend to her now like Hampton had once been. She’d put her nose in a book a long time ago to escape the feeling of disappointing people, and this was where it had gotten her.

  She was crying on the beach about a bear in front of PeopleWatch magazine’s most eligible TV bachelor.

  Suddenly, the tear on her cheek was gone, wiped away by Reid’s finger. Her skin tingled as he traced the curve between her cheekbone and jaw. She chose to blame the slight breeze in the air rather than her long-dormant heart.

  “Hampton sounds like he was a good guy.”

  Bree nodded in agreement.

  “Can I ask you a crazy question?” Reid dropped hi
s hand from Bree’s face and let it come to rest lightly on her hand. A slight breeze twisted between them on its way to kick at the sand along the shore line.

  “I just recited a twenty-year-old ode to a stuffed animal. You’ve probably got a long way to go to win the crazy award for the night.”

  “Do you have a good guy in your life now?”

  The usual squeeze in her chest didn’t come. Josh wasn’t in her life now. And for the first time that she could remember, she didn’t feel the same tug of sadness and thoughts of what could have been.

  “No, I don’t,” she said simply.

  “That surprises me.”

  As surprised as Reid claimed to be, Bree was even more surprised. Reid’s hand didn’t move from where it had landed a few minutes earlier—and she made no move to change that situation.

  “Why?” Maybe if she stalled, she could figure out the swirl of thoughts in her head.

  “You’re smart, have a good career, and are easy to talk to—I’ve never told anyone about Mandy, never even been tempted to. It just seems like you wouldn’t be alone for long.”

  Now the thoughts of Josh pulled front and center. “I’ve been alone for the last four years. My fiancé was KIA by a roadside bomb in Iraq. I just haven’t been very interested in putting myself out there.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Bree, truly. I guess we’ve both gotten good at keeping secrets.”

  The moon began to reflect white light over the water. Bree felt the sight stir something in her soul. It unleashed a whisper inside that she knew she’d need to give voice to sooner rather than later—no matter how much that scared her.

  The best thing to do now was to try and change the subject.

  “Well, keeping secrets and searching for them. I really think we made good progress today. There’s something more there, I just don’t know what it is.”

  Reid gave her hand a slight squeeze. “Me neither, but I feel like if we keep searching, we might find it.”

  Bree heard a double meaning in Reid’s words, but couldn’t decide if he’d intended them or not. She looked back up at him, searching his face for the answer.

  Reid returned the open gaze, and Bree found herself looking into his eyes as he looked into her own. His eyes were a deep shade of blue, made even deeper by the moonlight that was splashed all around them. She was reminded again of Hampton the bear and the velvet of his nose, the same velvet richness she now saw in Reid Knight’s eyes.

  It was no surprise that a magazine’s editorial board considered him eligible.

  It was a surprise, however, that Bree considered him to be the same.

  Bree noticed the gap between them on the log had narrowed slightly. She felt her shoulders pull forward and the shift of her hips as she leaned slightly toward Reid. Much like in the Historical Society earlier, he finished the work she’d started.

  Before she realized it, he dropped a gentle kiss just above the center of her eyebrows. She breathed in the tangled scent of sandalwood and fir and stayed still. Reid pulled back slightly, then lifted his hand from where it had been cradling hers. He tucked two fingers under her chin and adjusted the angle of her face. She realized she now mirrored the tilt of his chin.

  For once, she wanted to stay in the moment, not escape to the past. She wanted to see what came next.

  She wanted to feel what came next.

  Reid’s lips brushed gently across hers and before she could let the little voice in her head talk herself out of it, she leaned in a little more, letting Reid know she wasn’t going to pull away.

  He pushed her ponytail out of the way and laid his palm at the base of her neck. She could feel his fingers resting on her skin, following the curve down to where it met her shoulder.

  She’d always wondered what she’d think when she found herself kissing someone new. Now she knew. She wasn’t thinking about what could have been. For one moment, Bree Burton, a trained historian, let the few thoughts she could collect fall forward into the future.

  HIS TIMELESS TREASURE

  Chapter Four

  Reid belatedly realized that every time he thought about it, his car would begin to drift toward the shoulder of the road. He needed to stop thinking about kissing Bree Burton or he was going to wreck his rental car.

  And he couldn’t imagine NWN would be too pleased about seeing a bill for a new Jeep on his expense report.

  That said, not thinking about Bree, not thinking about that kiss, was far easier said than done.

  He hadn’t planned to kiss her.

  But he’d needed to.

  He’d spent so long keeping himself closed off, keeping his secrets hidden, that he recognized that same vulnerability in Bree almost instantly. He’d felt completely comfortable telling her about Mandy.

  But now, he was anything but comfortable. He’d spent so many years biting his tongue and keeping his emotions under rein, that he couldn’t believe he’d felt powerless not to kiss her.

  She wasn’t like him, lonely because she’d wanted to keep someone else safe. She was alone because she’d had a fiancé who had died to keep others safe. When he put it that way in his mind, the space between them was wider than the ocean that stretched off the shores of Treasure Harbor.

  Reid had placed his phone in the cup holder when he’d gotten in the Jeep, and now it rattled as it vibrated to alert him to a call.

  “Reid Knight.”

  The connection crackled slightly. Reid supposed reliable service out on Lookout Point wasn’t exactly high priority for cell phone companies.

  “Reid—it’s Allen. Where are you?”

  He hadn’t heard from his boss since embarking on his current assignment.

  “In Treasure Harbor. Why?”

  “I need you back. Time’s up. Do you have something we can run? The office is telling me they’re pushing up the launch of the new series. You’ve got to have something they can run. I don’t need to tell you how serious this is, Reid.”

  No, Allen didn’t need to tell Reid what the consequences were if this new reality programming vein was not successful. He’d outlined it clearly. They’d be forced to re-tool their lineup. Rick O’Connell, the lead anchor—the man whose name was practically synonymous with weather-related disasters—would remain as the face of the network.

  Reid Knight, the face of eligible bachelor lists, would be out of a job.

  And Mandy would be out of insurance to pay for her treatments.

  Reid let out a harsh breath. Basically, failure was not an option.

  “I need another week, Allen. I think I’m on to something. The whole town’s gone treasure crazy, so we’re having to keep what we’re doing under wraps. I can’t compromise my sources. You don’t want someone else scooping the story and getting it put up first just because you’re rushing me.”

  “No, I don’t,” Allen said slowly. “And who’s ‘we’? I thought you and I decided you were going to tackle this one on your own because we knew the town was treasure crazy.”

  Reid thought of the moment he walked into Bree’s office and caught her scolding a shelf of books. It made a smile come to his face and relaxed the well-worn furrow of his brow.

  “A professor at the local college. She’s not going to compromise the trail that we’re hot on. She’s not like that.”

  The line crackled again like a popcorn machine in a movie theatre. “She’d better not. I’m counting on you, Reid. I fought for you to get this assignment so we could give management every reason possible to save your job. Don’t make me regret it. You’re not the only one whose job is on the line.”

  He knew it, knew the sobering realities in his bones. It wasn’t just about his career. It was about the livelihood of everyone who depended upon him. He needed to find more than treasure.

  Reid needed to find the scoop of his career.

  And, he thought as he hung up the phone, if he was lucky, maybe he could find out more about the blonde professor he’d just defended to his boss. She intrigued
him more than any bar of gold on this island could.

  “But you understand why I’ve got to do this, right?” Bree stood inside Treasure Harbor’s favorite candy shop, Swashbucklin’ Sweets, picking out a new assortment of treats to leave for students in the bowl she kept on her desk.

  It wasn’t hard to cross paths with a Burton in a town the size of Treasure Harbor, and on today’s errand, she’d run into two of her cousins. Ryan ran the Burton family’s import-export business, and Victor stood behind the counter of the store. It was good to see Victor with a smile on his face. His new relationship with Mallory Reed, the owner of the Buried Treasures antique store next door, had been like adding a spoonful of sugar to the hard-as-a-lemon-drop personality he’d carried around since his own parents divorced years ago.

  “I get it, Bree, but you shouldn’t get your hopes up. The whole town’s gone treasure crazy—more so than even in previous years. Some of us have found things other than gold, though.” Ryan’s face broke into a smile. Bree presumed he was thinking of Lara Callahan. Lara returned to town to cover the story of the treasure—much like Reid Knight had—and while neither Lara nor Ryan found the legendary loot, they had found each other.

  “I’m a professor of history. I should be able to do the research, connect the dots. I have three degrees in this, for Pete’s sake. I’ve catalogued treasures in a pyramid in Egypt and written the paper to tie it all together. I can do this. I want to do this. I want get to the bottom of this, once and for all, and clear the Burton family name. Don’t you want the real story?”

  Victor weighed the bag of candies that Bree had selected. “Of course we do, Bree. We’ve all said that for years, and we’ve all gotten close at one time or another—but just not quite there. You know I think the world of you, but I don’t see what’s going to be different this time. Maybe we’re all wasting our time looking for something that’s not really there?”