by Zoe Chant
"I'm looking for buried treasure," she blurted out.
She felt stupid just saying it like that, especially when Tara and Saffron both started to smile. But they hesitated, their smiles fading, as they realized that Crystal was serious.
"What makes you think there's something like that here?" Cody asked. He, at least, was taking her seriously; there wasn't a hint of a smile on his face.
"Family rumors," Crystal said. "My father told me while he was ... while he was dying that his father—my grandfather—had said there was a family inheritance that came with the farm. There was something worth a lot of money here. My dad just didn't know what. And neither do I."
She clasped her hands together, looking at them beseechingly. "I hope you don't judge me for this. I swear I'm not a fortune seeker, coming out here to get rich. I don't care about the money for myself. It's just that my father's death left us with a mountain of unpaid medical bills. If I can't find something valuable here, I'm going to have to sell the farm or else my mother will have to declare bankruptcy."
Tara sucked in her breath, started to say something, then turned away, looking thoughtful. Cody squeezed Crystal's arm reassuringly.
"So that's why you've been talking about selling the farm," he said quietly.
It wasn't the only reason, but she decided not to push the entire truth at him right now. Besides, she wasn't sure anymore than it was the truth, not really.
Could she really go back to St. Louis and leave all of this behind? Could she force Cody to abandon these people and this place he obviously cared so much about?
But if we can't get money some other way, I won't have a choice.
"Anyway," she said firmly, "there's a perfectly good lunch spoiling in the sun, so I say we should all finish it up, and then ..."
"And then," Saffron said, "we'll help you look for buried treasure, right?"
Daisy clapped her hands. "That sounds like so much fun! I'd love to!"
"You—what—no!" Crystal protested. "I didn't mean you had to help me look! This is my problem, not yours."
Gannon raised a big finger to point at Cody. "You're his mate. That means your problems are our problems."
"He's right," Tara said. She still looked thoughtful. "I wouldn't mind taking some more of the day off from work."
"And I've got nowhere else to be," Saffron put in. "I was just going to work in the garden this afternoon. It's a gorgeous day. We should take advantage of the beautiful weather."
"The bridge—" Daisy began.
"Can wait a few hours," Tara said, her eyes bright. "We've got a buried treasure to find!"
"You guys ..." Crystal began, overwhelmed. To her embarrassment, tears sprang to her eyes.
Cody put an arm around her and pressed her to his side. He kissed her hair.
"This is what being part of a shifter clan means," he said quietly. "It's how my people—our people—are meant to be. None of us are ever alone."
Crystal wiped at her eyes.
Never alone.
It sounded wonderful.
But ... but what happens when some of us have to leave?
10. Cody
He was so proud of his family. Although it was no surprise that they liked Crystal; of course they welcomed her. She was beautiful and smart, kind and funny. Who wouldn't like her?
But still, as the group prepared to give up their day to help Crystal search her family farm, Cody couldn't help feeling a fierce, devoted love for all of them.
"So you have no idea what we're looking for?" Tara asked, handing Lexie to Daisy, who was taking the first shift watching the kids. Saffron was helping Crystal drag one of the mattresses that had been airing on the porch into the shade of the house for a makeshift play and nap area.
Crystal shook her head, dusting off her hands after depositing the mattress on the grass. "No, I'm afraid I haven't a clue. I have a metal detector; we'll have to take turns with it. Other than that, I don't know what else to suggest. My dad seemed to think Grandpa had something worth a lot of money stashed away somewhere, but it could be anything."
"I expect you've already checked for a bank safe deposit box or that kind of thing," Tara said. Cody gave her a quick, respectful glance; after helping run her family's foundation for years, she was used to dealing with money.
"It would've come up when Mom and I were dealing with Dad's estate," Crystal said. "If 'estate' is really the right word for a small savings account and a farm. There wasn't anything else. Whatever Grandpa had, it's right here, on this farm. If there is anything at all."
"Well, if there is, we'll find it," Saffron said firmly.
They spread out into the sun-drenched fields. Tara and Saffron took the first shift with the metal detector; Cody could hear their friendly bickering as they tried to decide where to start.
Crystal looked up at Cody with a smile and slung a shovel over her shoulder. "I was thinking we could look together," she began, and then her eyes widened and her dusky cheeks darkened further as she looked past him. "Er ... why is he taking his clothes off?"
Cody followed her gaze to Gannon, standing thigh-deep in long weeds just inside the pasture fence and unashamedly stripping. "I expect he's going to shift."
Crystal wrenched her gaze away. "Yes, but why?"
"Bears have an incredibly keen sense of smell, and Gannon is very in tune with his bear side. If there's anything buried on this property, he'll be more likely to find it that way."
"Oh. I ... uh ..." She blushed darker yet as she looked up at him again. "Is that what you are planning to do?"
"Tempting though it is, I think it might be more fun to spend the afternoon on two legs rather than four. After all, as a bear, I can't do this." He dipped down to kiss her.
"I like your logic," she said, breathless and laughing when he finally let her go.
She carried the shovel and Cody picked up the brush cutter. They walked up the field as the sun beat down on them. Cody was glad for his hat shading his head; he glanced at Crystal, next to him. "You doin' okay in this heat? You're not used to working outside; need to remember to stay hydrated."
Crystal held up a bottle of water. "Way ahead of you." She uncapped it and drank deeply, then passed it to Cody. The water was still cool, the mouth of the bottle slightly warm from her lips.
The women's cheerful voices faded behind them. Occasionally Cody caught a glimpse of Gannon at the edge of the trees, a big dark-colored grizzly, working his way methodically back and forth with his head down to the ground.
"There's just so much to search," Crystal said quietly. Cody glanced down at her and saw that she was looking back toward the farm buildings. "I really appreciate your family helping, and maybe someone will get lucky, but if he did bury something out here, we could search forever and not find it."
"You have to consider that he would have wanted it to be found, though," Cody pointed out. "If he hid something here, it would be hidden from casual searchers, not from the family. Do you ever remember anyone saying something that might give you a hint? Something that would have suggested a solution the family could find but no one else could?"
Crystal shook her head. "It would help if I'd even met the guy since I was a tiny child. I still don't know what happened between him and my dad, though if I were going to guess, I'd say it had something to do with Mom."
"Because she was a shifter?"
Crystal nodded. "My parents never really talked about it, but I think it says a lot that our family moved close to her family rather than Dad's."
"I never remember him acting weird towards us," Cody said. "Of course, I didn't know him well, either. He didn't talk much and didn't like strangers around. That's just a pretty typical old rancher for you, though."
She stopped again, turning to look down at the house and outbuildings. They'd come high enough that they could see the whole farm spread out below them. Tara and Saffron, both of whom were dressed in bright-colored blouses, were little splashes of color against the green
backdrop.
"What was it like when this place was in full operation?" Crystal asked quietly.
"Not too different from how it is now. The pasture was less overgrown, with cattle grazing on it." Cody hesitated. "You gotta remember, though, the place was already in decline when I knew your grandpa. He was old and in poor health. I never saw your family farm in its prime."
Crystal looked around. Cody looked, too, seeing it for a moment not even as it used to be, but how it could be: the trees behind the barn loaded with apples, the hills covered with grazing cattle and sheep, the outbuildings in good repair. He pictured his own farm truck parked in front of the barn, and a couple of horses grazing in the pasture.
He saw himself with Crystal, picking baskets of fruit to take to the local farmer's market, carrying buckets of grain to feed to flocks of chickens with beautiful-colored feathers, while a little boy and girl (one with sandy curls, one with Crystal's wavy dark hair) scampered along at their side ...
In that instant, it felt like a true vision of their future.
And then he shook himself out of it, and saw again what was really there, the fields swamped in bushes and blackberry canes, the fruit trees nearly lost among young willows and other kinds of trees that had taken over during the many years they were untended. The barn needed a new roof before it would be suitable for livestock. All the fences needed to be checked and probably replaced. He had some doubts about the well pump; it was probably going to need to be replaced soon. And so on, and so forth. When he looked over the farm with the eye of a professional rancher, it was nothing but an endless series of necessary repairs, most of which Crystal probably didn't even know about. She was eager to learn, but she didn't have the years of experience that Cody did.
She needed him. The farm needed him, in a way the Circle B no longer did.
And she hadn't been at all afraid of his bear—
Of course not, his bear rumbled contentedly.
—and, though not a shifter herself, she even came from a shifter family. Her soul yearned for the forest, even if she didn't know it.
"Crystal," he said, her name singing on his tongue, and she turned to him, breaking out of whatever fantasies about those overgrown fields she had been entertaining. "If we can find your grandpa's treasure, pay off your family's debts—"
"Those are some big 'ifs,' you know," she said, smiling.
"I know, but ... if we could do that, do you think you might consider keeping the farm?"
All the world seemed to hang on her answer.
"I ... don't know," she said slowly, and relief rolled through him. True, it wasn't yes, but it wasn't no either. "When I came here, I didn't expect ..." She looked across the fields again, down to the cluster of buildings where Cody's family, marked by their bright splashes of color, worked their way through the expanse of green on their impromptu treasure hunt. "... any of this," she finished, spreading her arms. "Cody, I like it here. No, I love it here." Then, even as his heart leaped with hope, she brought him crashing back to earth. "But I can't stay if it means abandoning my mom to a mountain of debts. It's either the treasure or the farm, and if there is no treasure—"
"Don't think that way," Cody said quickly, taking her hand. They were so close. She wanted to stay; it was just a matter of finding a way. "C'mon, think about your grandpa. What kind of treasure might he have owned?"
"Well, that's the problem, I don't know. The guy was an old rancher. What could he possibly have that was that valuable? If there's one thing I know about you guys, it's that you put everything back into your ranches and farms. He wouldn't have just been sitting on a bunch of money if he could've used it to keep up the farm."
Unfortunately, she was right. Cody couldn't imagine his parents or Alec doing something like that, hiding a bunch of money when they could have used it to pay for improvements to the ranch's infrastructure or fresh breeding stock for the herd.
"So forget about the treasure for a little while." He tugged her gently after him. "This is the nice thing about having a whole clan to help you. My family's searching for it, so you can take a little time off."
"No I can't," she complained, but she allowed herself to be led into the sun-dappled shade of the trees. Cody leaned the brush cutter against a tree, but she stubbornly hung onto the shovel. "It's not fair to let everyone else work while I goof off. And anyway, there's so little time; I have to use every minute of it ..."
"My grandma used to say," Cody said, "that the best way to find something you've lost is to stop looking."
Crystal laughed. "What, so I should just wander around and hope to stumble across it by accident? That's a good strategy, all right."
"No, it's just that sometimes you can get caught up in trying the same thing over and over, even when it doesn't work, and forget about other options."
"The same thing over and over," Crystal murmured. She tipped her head back, her full lips parted. "Like me and the St. Louis dating scene. I tried Craigslist, OKCupid, heck, I even tried speed dating one time. And it turned out, all I had to do was go out to the middle of nowhere and the first unattached guy I met would be my ... soulmate."
She might not be a shifter, but she wore her soul in her eyes anyway. Cody was drawn down as if by magnetism to take her mouth with his, exploring those sweet lips, drawing her to him with a hand at the small of her back. When their lips parted, she rested her head against his chest, and he stroked her hair. The shovel lay forgotten at their feet.
"I don't want to talk about leaving any more," she murmured. "You're right, I've been thinking about nothing but finding that stupid treasure since I got here. I just want to enjoy this day for a few hours, and—"
"Shhh," Cody breathed into her hair.
"I'm sorry, here I go talking about it again—"
"No," he whispered, "just stop talking, and look to your left."
He felt her tense slightly as she turned her head, and then she breathed out a soft "ohhhh" of wonder.
A deer had stepped out of the edge of the woods. Cody often saw them around the ranch while he was out checking on the herds, to the point where he'd almost stopped noticing them, but this time he saw it anew through Crystal's eyes, tinged with her open wonder. It—she—was a beautiful creature, with large liquid eyes and slender, delicate legs. She moved through the dense brush with a light, high-stepping gait as if she was dancing on those tiny hooves.
Cody leaned down so he could whisper into Crystal's ear, "See the fawn?"
The deer paused at the sound of his voice, then took a few more steps, hardly seeming aware of the couple just a few yards away.
"No," Crystal breathed. "Where?"
"Behind her. In the woods."
It was almost invisible with its spotted coat. Then, as the mother deer looked around and saw nothing to alarm her, the baby trotted out of the woods in a quick scurry of steps to catch up with its mother.
A sudden, distant burst of laughter drifted to them on the wind, coming from the yard of the farmhouse. The mother deer swiveled her head around, big ears pointing forward, and with hardly a sound, she and her baby ghosted back into the woods, vanishing like smoke.
Crystal relaxed with a giggle of released tension and delight. "That was amazing," she said softly, staring into the woods where the deer had gone. "It's like they didn't even notice us. I've never been that close to a deer before."
"Animals often recognize shifters as their own kind," Cody said. He, too, kept his voice quiet, though the two deer were probably long gone. It seemed somehow disrespectful to be loud. "Maybe they recognize you too, because of your shifter heritage."
"But you're a bear."
"Doesn't really matter. I'm not hunting right now, and they can tell. I've seen a fox and a rabbit come down to drink from the same spring together, not bothering each other." He brushed a wind-tousled lock of hair away from her cheek. "You have so many wonders to see, Crystal."
"I'm starting to realize that," she murmured. "And I want you to show the
m to me."
Cody grinned. "Want to start with your first tracking lesson?"
"Oh! I guess—okay?"
With her hand in his, he walked through the tall grass to the place where the deer had stood. The grass was bent down, the ground underneath scuffed by small, pointy hooves.
"You can see that something's been walking here by the way the grass is bent," Cody explained. "The stems bend in the direction she went—see?" He brushed a hand through the grass, parting it with his fingers. "You can't see the actual tracks very well here. If you want to walk back into the woods a little ways, we might find a place where the ground is soft and they'll show up."
"Is it safe?" Crystal asked, glancing at the shade under the trees.
"You're with a bear. What could be safer?"
She smiled and followed him into the edge of the woods. "Oh, there's a path!"
"Deer trail. Look here." Cody knelt and showed her a delicate, cloven hoof-mark in a patch of disturbed earth. "This is what their tracks look like. If you keep your eyes open, you might find them around the barn in the morning, or under the apple trees. Deer love windfall apples."
"Oh right, I forgot I have apple trees. Wow." She looked ahead of them, where the deer path wound in and out of patches of sun and shade. "This is all part of my land too, right? Can we follow this and see where it goes?"
"Sure." Cody's heart lifted at her phrasing. My land, she'd said. She was already thinking of the farm that way, with the loving pride of the born rancher ... or shifter.
She's not a shifter, though? he queried his bear.
No, the bear answered back. We would be able to tell. But there is a lot of shifter in her.
You could have mentioned this before, you know.
Deep, rich amusement from the presence curled in his mind.
Crystal started to take a few steps up the path, then stopped and looked back. Leaf shadows drew patterns on her shoulders. "We won't bother the deer, will we?"