Heart of Gold

by J. R. Ward

  To the frustration of historians, the curtains on the drama were closed at this point. Farnsworth was the only one who made it out of the mountains. Severely injured, he dragged himself back to Fort Sagamore and collapsed outside of its stone walls. The only thing he had with him was his journal but he hadn’t been able or willing to detail the final chapter.

  While Farnsworth lingered near death, Walker escaped and came back with reinforcements. His attack on the British stronghold would become known as one of the major battles of the War of Independence, and Farnsworth died during the assault, at Walker’s hand. As the general was heaving his last breath, Walker demanded to know what had happened to the reverend and the other colonists. Farnsworth told Walker of a murderous attack made by Red Hawk, their guide. A search for the killer ensued but the Indian was never found.

  And neither was the gold.

  From that point, the story drifted down to the present with the popular consensus being that Red Hawk attacked the party. The Native American had never been seen or heard from again so it was assumed that he had been killed in the process and that the gold was likely somewhere in the vicinity of Fort Sagamore. Beginning in the late 1800s, as the Lake Sagamore region was settled more densely, people drawn to the lore and by greed began to get ideas. That was when the digging started. Farnsworth’s descriptions of the clearing in which the party had camped were pretty clear, and folks started to traipse up and down mountains on either side of the lake, looking for the precise spot. Nick Farrell’s mountain was one of the favorites, and the fact that there were rumors of a ghostly Indian spirit who wandered around its summit only increased his property’s allure.

  But after generations of searching, no one had found the gold.

  And the rest, as they say, was history, Carter thought, closing the book.

  Bringing the mug to her lips, she grimaced at the last inch of coffee, which was cold and bitter. She emptied the mug with a quick toss and got off her rock. Already the temperature had come up ten degrees and it was going to be a beautiful day.

  Heading back to camp on the little foot trail, Carter heard someone or something coming through the woods behind her. She tensed up. It was hard to know what would be worse, a bear or Nick Farrell.

  When she realized it was just Cort, she let out her breath.

  “Hey!” he called out, jogging over. He had a baseball cap on his head but hair still managed to escape out of the sides at jagged intervals. He seemed endearingly young in the early light, his brash, self-confident expression at odds with the hint of shyness in his eyes.

  As she greeted him, she watched his face glow with a warm intensity that made her uncomfortable. She knew she was going to have to talk with him soon about the infatuation.

  “So are you ready to get to work?” Carter asked as they walked the rest of the way to camp together.

  “Damn straight. How was your first night up here?”

  “I’m still in one piece.”

  She led the way over to Papercut Central.

  “When do we start digging?” Cort began bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, shadowboxing.

  “Not until my team gets here.”

  His face fell as he stilled. “I thought it would be this morning.”

  “There’s a lot of work that has to happen before the first shovel meets the ground. I also want Buddy’s read on the site before we get going.”

  “So what are we doing today?”

  “We’ve got to map the place first. I understand if you want to skip this part and come back when the fun begins.” She picked up an empty duffel bag and put it on the table.

  Cort shrugged. “That’s okay. It’ll be cool. Besides, I need to get out of the house.”

  “Why?” Carter went over to a toolbox. She flipped the metal latches free and popped open the lid.

  “She’s coming back.”

  “Who is?”

  “My uncle’s girlfriend.”

  Carter’s body stiffened involuntarily, and she had to force her hands to rummage around. She was looking for the hammers, she reminded herself.

  “Did you meet her when you were here last time?” Cort asked. “She’s right out of Greek mythology. Has her hair done at a snake farm as far as I can tell.”

  Carter fought to keep her voice level. “I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”

  “Not really. She can make waiters cry at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Seen it myself.”

  “There must be some redeeming qualities in the woman for your uncle to be in love with her.” She found the hammers, tucked them under her arm, and shut the lid.

  “He isn’t in love. Or if he is, I don’t want to be in love like that. Things are horrible when Blondzilla’s here, horrible before she comes, too. Gertie gets tense and Uncle Nick turns into a crab. Not that he’s much fun to begin with. That’s why I can’t understand it. I don’t know why he invited her up.”

  “Invited?” Carter crammed the tools into the duffel with more force than necessary.

  “Last night, apparently. At least that’s what I overheard Gertie saying to Ivan.”

  Carter stared at the kid blankly as her mind seized up. It was hard to face the fact that the first thing Nick had done after their kiss was go call his woman. That what had kept her up all night was of such little consequence to him. That she was just one more pair of lips.

  Although, as she thought about it, she figured she must be the most naïve person on the planet. The man had been linked with some of the most beautiful women in the world. The whole kiss-at-sunset thing probably happened to him all the time.

  “So are we going to head over to the site?” Cort prompted.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Carter?”

  She shook herself. “Sorry. Let’s get the stuff we’ll need together.”

  Even though she’d been doing digs for almost a decade, she had to think about what they were going to need to chart the site. She retrieved four balls of white twine, three dozen wooden stakes, and a measuring tape. In a backpack, she put a camera, scissors, mapping paper and pencils, rulers, and some bottled water.

  “What are all the stakes for? We hunting vampires?” Cort started shadowboxing again and then mimicking stabbing motions in the air.

  Smiling and shaking her head at the kid, she resolved to push the subject of Nick Farrell from her mind. Feeling a little stronger for the decision, Carter slipped the backpack on and straightened her spine.

  It was simply mind over matter.

  Make that mind over man.

  As she and Cort headed into the woods, each holding one handle of the duffel, she told him what they were in for. “We’re going to create a grid pattern over the site.”

  “Why?”

  “When we excavate a site, we ruin it. The artifacts are significant in and of themselves but equally important is their relationship to each other. A well-mapped site and conscientious documenting mean that any archaeologist can re-create the dig from the records and come to their own conclusions.”

  They stepped inside the ring of stones and she took out her camera, offering Cort the job of photographer. He began to shoot, the sound of the shutter clicking away.

  “Give me more,” he vamped at the rocks. “I need to feel the emotion. That’s it. A little more pout.”

  After ten minutes, she called out, “Hey, take it easy on the film there, Helmut Lang. We don’t want to run out on the first day. How about trading in that lens for a hammer?”

  “For you, anything.”

  Flamboyantly, he sashayed over to her and accepted the duffel bag of stakes.

  “Put one of these every three feet around the interior, as close to the rock walls as possible.”

  While he went to work, she sketched the outlines of the site and then began to string twine between opposite stakes so that a grid pattern was formed about a foot and a half above the ground. In the middle where it sagged, they reinforced it with more wooden pickets.

  �
��It looks like a checkerboard,” Cort commented when the job was done.

  He watched as she drew the grid on the map she’d sketched and then ran numbers down the left margin and letters across the bottom.

  “Now, whenever someone finds an artifact, it gets entered on the site map. I’ll create another map which will measure depth. On that, we’ll record how deep the finds are underground. In addition, everyone who digs will keep a daily log of what area they excavated and what they found. These daily logs will be extrapolated into the excavation log that encompasses all the diggers’ work and also details what the condition of the weather was, what the soil was like, in what order things were found.”

  Cort rolled his eyes. “It’s a wonder you ever find anything with all that recording.”

  “Cross-checking is important and so is having a minute attention to detail.”

  “I’ll bet being compulsive helps, too.”

  Carter smiled.

  After lunch, they prepared a spot outside the circle of boulders where dirt would be passed through screens to make sure even the smallest finds would be retained. Then they took a break and did some exploring around the mountain.

  It was late in the afternoon when they returned to camp. Cort’s eyes were looking off into the distance when he said good-bye. “So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Sure. Thanks again for all your hard work.”

  With an awkward wave, the kid disappeared into the woods. She was hoping that the day spent at work with her had discouraged his crush. After laboring in the dirt, she felt sweaty and disheveled and trusted that her current condition wasn’t the stuff to attract the opposite sex.

  Especially not sixteen-year-old boys who probably believed magazine models looked like they did without the benefit of airbrushing.

  Carter picked up her site map and a pad and went back to the rock that she’d started the day sitting on. She was ready to spend the next hour or so working on dig strategy.

  Should they do a few test pits or just start the excavation? The site was insular enough—

  Nick had invited his woman up.

  Carter looked around, as if she’d been struck by a spitball.

  Frowning, she went back to the map.

  The site was insular enough, sufficiently compact, and had had at least one artifact retrieved, Winship’s real cross. Test pits were probably not necessary to—

  She was jealous.

  “I am not!” The sound of her indignant voice startled a nearby chipmunk who squeaked and scurried under a log.

  She put her head in her hands. She and Nick Farrell had nothing in common. She didn’t even like him. He was arrogant, sarcastic—

  He was a terrific kisser.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered.

  Even when things had been unbearably bad after her mother’s death, even in those bleak moments when her world was spinning and shifting on its axis, even then, she’d been able to find some relief in her work. Certainly enough for her to get by. But now, as she looked down at the map with its static grids and alphanumeric coding, she couldn’t see farther than the surface of the paper.

  “Dammit.”

  With her head full of images of Nick Farrell, she wanted to run but had nowhere to go. And she found it hard to believe she could feel so suffocated in the great outdoors.

  Carter left her perch and returned to camp. The change in scenery didn’t help, so she dropped the map, as well as any thought of getting some work done, and took a walk over to the brook. When she got there, she crouched down and dropped a hand into the water. It went numb under the cold rush.

  Exactly what she was looking for.

  Stripping off her clothes, she stepped into the river. The cold took her breath away even though the water only came up to her thighs. Reaching down, she cupped her hands and carried the chill to her body, desperate to cleanse herself of her thoughts and the heat they generated. As the water streamed down her body in icy paths, she enjoyed the stinging sensation that lingered. Even if her teeth chattered, at least she wasn’t thinking about Nick Farrell for the moment.

  Through the trees, Nick watched her with complete absorption. The only thing that kept him from going over to her was his iron will.

  Which was feeling less ironlike with each passing minute.

  He’d come up the mountain to talk about their kiss and had waited until Cort had returned home so they’d be alone. He’d intended to have a straight-out conversation about what had happened the night before and was determined to put the event in its proper context. In the intervening hours since he’d felt her against him, he’d managed to convince himself that it had been nothing more than an impulsive mistake and he wanted to make sure she knew how he felt.

  It was a damn good plan. Until he got knocked off his soapbox.

  When he’d arrived at camp, he’d found it empty. After he didn’t find her at the dig site either, he decided to check and see if she’d gone swimming.

  That was when he took a turn off the high road.

  When Nick got to the river, he saw Carter bending down to put her hand in the water. Her expression was grave, the moment private, so he thought he’d go back and wait for her at camp. That was when she began to unbutton her shirt, and Nick’s feet had started ignoring his commands to get moving.

  Leaning against a tree for support, he watched as, inch by inch, she opened her shirt and then peeled it from her shoulders. As the shirt floated to the ground, she turned to kick off her shoes and that was when he saw her breasts. Draped in sunlight, they were taut and perfectly proportioned, her nipples pink and small. Below the curves, her stomach was flat and toned.

  Nick’s heart started pounding like a jackhammer and he felt himself harden.

  He told himself he should turn around and go. He was no Peeping Tom, after all. And he’d seen women naked before. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know the inventory of female attributes well enough, but somehow the familiarity didn’t register. As he looked at her, it was as if he was seeing a woman for the first time.

  And he liked what he saw. So much so, he could feel the images burning into his memory.

  Her hands went to the fly of her jeans and she released the buttons. Gripping the waistband, she slid them free from her long legs. Her hips were a gentle swell, her thighs strong and shapely. When her simple white panties followed, Nick gripped a tree limb so hard he cracked it in half.

  Carter froze and then looked in the direction of the noise.

  Nick ducked for cover.

  He waited a moment and peered around the tree again.

  Carter had turned back toward the river and was stretching her arms over her head, arching her back.

  “Oh, sweet heaven,” he whispered, clenching his jaw.

  In the course of his life, he’d lusted after companies, real estate, works of art. Even a few women. Nothing, however, came close to the throbbing urgency he felt while looking at her. As she stepped into the water and splashed herself, her neck arched as she looked to the sky, he was as close to desperation as he’d ever been.

  Nick wrenched himself away from the scene, afraid if he stayed any longer he’d give in to his driving impulses. That he’d step free from his hiding place and reveal his desire. That he’d take her down onto the bank of the river and enter her body in one deep thrust.

  Lost on his own mountain, he struggled to find the trail back down.

  6

  THE DAYS before Buddy and Ellie Swift’s arrival were a blur for Carter, and she spent a lot of time with Cort, who came up every morning. When he seemed to stop staring at her with hopeful eyes, she began to think he’d gotten over his crush and relaxed in his company. Together, they pored over Farnsworth’s journal, speculated on the route used by the Winship party, and talked about Indian lore.

  The only difficult part of it all was enduring the updates on how things were going down at the mansion.

  According to the news bulletins, Candace had turned up
with enough luggage to stay for the whole summer. In contrast to other visits, Nick seemed to be spending a lot of time with her, a sacrifice for which the rest of the household was paying dearly. Evidently, extended proximity to the woman put him in an awful mood and yet he still seemed determined to be with her.

  The turn of events made everyone uneasy. Everyone, that was, except for Candace. She was cheerful and bubbly, according to Cort, apparently thanks to seeing marriage in her future. And, as a result, she was growing bolder with her demands. The woman had even gone so far as to inform Gertie that she needed to start coming to work in a uniform, as all housekeepers should.

  That had just about done it. Needless to say, Gertie was still wearing her own clothes. Nick had flown off the handle when he’d heard what had happened and had been driven further into his dark temper. But Candace had stayed on.

  Carter tried not to show how much she cared. She laughed off the comments or gave noncommittal responses, but inside she felt a burning curiosity over what Nick was up to with his woman. She hung on Cort’s every word and at night she tossed and turned, wondering what she’d done to deserve getting sucked into Nick Farrell’s world. She just couldn’t get him out of her mind.

  Though she soon had another problem to mull over.

  At the end of a long workday, she and Cort were sitting against two boulders, looking at the lake view and talking about colonial munitions, when the boy cleared his throat and blurted, “I was thinking maybe you and I could go to a movie tonight. If you want.”

  Carter glanced up in surprise. He wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was drawing on the ground with a long stick.

  “The theater in town has two screens,” he mumbled. “There’s an action movie in one. And I think the other is a love story. It would take about a half hour to drive there. Each way. But I have my learner’s permit. It could be like a date. Sort of.”