Chasing Treasure: Granite Lake Romance

by Jody A. Kessler

  Court sat back while Treasure felt around on the floorboards. She accidentally pushed it farther beneath the seat before getting a hold of it. Treasure found her own phone and straightened up. She held his smart phone out to him as she focused on her screen. When Court didn’t take the phone from her hand, she glanced over. He lounged against the driver’s seat with his penis in hand.

  “How about helping me relax a little after such a busy week?” he asked, eyebrows raised inquiringly and a greasy smile on his face.

  “How about you put that away before you regret it for the rest of your life?” She dropped his phone and reached for the door handle.

  His arm snaked out and bit her, hand wrapping around her arm and fingers digging in. He yanked her across the cab before the door opened.

  “I’ve been hitting on you all week, Hope. What the hell is your problem?” He sounded angry, but more frustrated and perplexed over why she continued to turn him down.

  Treasure tried for calm even as her heart tried to escape through her chest. His fingers bruised, but she refused to panic. Diffusing the situation was her best option.

  “Let go of me, Court,” she said as placidly as possible. “I can’t do anything to help you out when I’m like this.” Partially twisted in her seat and leaning at an uncomfortable angle, her body stiff and tense with fear, she acted as if it were his fault for being forceful. She laid her free hand on his upper thigh and stroked her fingers toward his crotch. “What were you imagining us doing?” She forced a demure smile and batted her lashes.

  “Go down on me and I’ll forgive you for being a bitch all week. I’ll even return the favor. We can make it a weekly habit.”

  His grip on her arm loosened slightly and she sat back a few inches. To prove she wasn’t angry, she brushed her hand over his erection. He watched her reaction with a sleazy glint in his eyes. Treasure licked her lips.

  “You know, we haven’t known each other very long, but I like your idea. I’ll do you and then you can do me. God knows you know how to go down on a girl. You were a beast last weekend.” She touched him more intimately as she spoke. “But I have to protect myself. I hope you understand. Mind if I put a condom on you?”

  “Be my guest,” he said.

  She reached for her bag on the floor and quickly glanced out the windows for any people. It would be so much easier if one of her coworkers happened to be walking by, but she saw no one. It was stupid-o-clock a.m. and the morning shift would already be inside the building or inside their ambulances. The other graveyard shift workers would be gone since her and Court had been late arriving to the barn, and she’d been ooh-ing and aww-ing the motorcycle.

  She had to defend herself alone and Court was about to learn a very valuable lesson in why you shouldn’t mess with Treasure Vogle.

  “I have one in my bag. Give me a second,” she said, and her stalling attempt reminded her of the way he stalled while “looking” in his email for the phone number he supposedly wanted to give to her. Her anger reached blood-boiling levels by the time she found what she wanted. She bent over her bag with the hope Court couldn’t see her hands, because the can of bear spray looked nothing like a condom wrapper.

  Treasure pointed and pulled the trigger on the can as she yanked the door handle open. The fumes and overspray were strong enough to irritate anyone so she held her breath as she grabbed her bag from the floor and jumped out.

  The pepper spray shoots twenty to thirty feet, it is a great deterrent for dogs who like to chase motorcycles, and will burn and temporarily blind fucktards that mess with women. There are also a lot of bears in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and around the town of Granite Lake where Treasure grew up. Treasure was well accustomed to carrying bear spray, mostly for misguided dogs, rarely for nuisance bears, but now, she had an even better use for it.

  As she ran for her bike, she heard Court hollering in pain and screaming profanities. She hopped onto her BMW and screeched out of the parking lot before she realized what she was doing.

  Three

  TREASURE WENT straight to bed after walking into her apartment. She stayed there for what felt like days. Court brought a disturbing new episode to her life story and she had no desire to acknowledge it. If she could only rewind her life back to last summer where her routine was regular, her work life stable, and her boyfriends uncomplicated.

  After hours of tossing and turning and minimal sleep, she dragged herself out from under the security of her blankets and into the restroom. A hot shower eased some of the tension in her shoulders, but her mind kept replaying the scene with Court in the parking lot. The nightmare was inescapable. How could she go back to work now? She needed to call her boss and tell him what happened, but just the thought of telling Paul filled her with mind-numbing dread. Actually doing it would be much worse.

  Dressed in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top, Treasure walked into her kitchen and thought about eating some breakfast. Gray light filtered in through the window. A slash of raspberry sunset dipped over the western horizon. She checked the clock on the stove. Late evening had arrived. She hadn’t stayed in bed as long as she thought she had. Treasure considered going back there and remaining all weekend. She definitely didn’t plan on leaving her house tonight.

  She padded across her living room and double checked the deadbolt and the chain on her door. She’d been careful to not let Court find out where she lived, but if he were a true stalker or maniac she couldn’t discount he knew anyway. Craptastic! she thought. Because of him, she now added paranoia to her list of unbecoming personality traits.

  “Arghhh!” she growled and squeezed her head between tense palms. She should have bit his pecker off. That would have been even more memorable than bear spray. She hoped she’d blinded him, at the very least. Chauvinistic a-hole. She forced herself to stop thinking about him and move on with her day.

  Treasure poured chocolaty puff cereal into a bowl and drowned it with milk. Between crunchy bites, she started brewing a pot of coffee. Aromatic steam rose from the pot and filled the apartment with the rich complex scent of her chosen vice. Treasure dug her phone out of her bag and caught the faint trace of peppery bear spray. She wrinkled her nose at the acrid odor and made a mental note to buy a new can. If Court turned out to be a persistent problem, she’d be investing in a case of real pepper spray, which is stronger than bear spray. The bastard deserved the most potent and harmful deterrent available.

  Treasure headed back to her breakfast, phone in hand. She spooned out the last couple of bites and saw she had a text message from Bodie and a voicemail message from a number she didn’t recognize.

  The urge to read the text immediately didn’t outweigh her desire to save it for when she could relax and enjoy it. After doctoring her coffee with a dash of half-and-half and two spoonfuls of sugar, Treasure brought her mug and phone into the living room and curled up on the couch. She loved texting with Bodie. Their timing wasn’t usually in sync because Bodie’s survival and search and rescue training at Wilderness School took first priority. His training included long backpacking trips into the middle of nowhere with little or no supplies. Cell phones had no service, or the trainees weren’t allowed to use them as they pretended to be stranded, injured, and in grave danger. Whether or not he answered her messages now or later, she wanted to savor the seconds or minutes she had to chat with him.

  Treasure checked the voicemail first, wanting to get it out of the way. She listened to the recorded message. “Hi, Treasure. This is Lucia Pinelli over in Granite Lake. I’m calling to tell you there’s been a water line break in front of our house and your father’s building. There’s some flood damage. I don’t know how bad it is over at your place, but our basement is sopping wet. The county men say they’ve fixed the problem and now the insurance company has to handle the rest. I thought you might want to know in case you need your insurance man to come look. Sorry to call with bad news.”

  Her heart sank and raced as she returned the call t
o her father’s old neighbor. Lucia Pinelli answered on the third ring and her news sounded as dismal as the message. With an unusual amount of snow this winter coupled with an extra warm spring, the thawing and freezing caused havoc and a lot of flooding. The old water lines on their side of town couldn’t seem to handle the extreme weather. Mrs. Pinelli said pipes were cracking like peanut shells everywhere. Men were working on it twenty-four-seven. She said Treasure was lucky she didn’t have a basement, but she wouldn’t be surprised if the toilet had overflowed inside her dad’s shop. Earlier in the day, Mrs. Pinelli saw water running like a river around the side of the garage, but had no idea if any seeped inside.

  Treasure hung up, rose from the couch, and bustled around the apartment. She packed an overnight bag, poured coffee into a thermos, and grabbed the keys to Bodie’s Jeep. He’d lent it to her before leaving for Wilderness School. She hadn’t driven the Jeep very much, but with Mrs. Pinelli’s description of road conditions in Granite Lake, she thought it a wiser choice than her BMW motorcycle.

  * * *

  Night encapsulated Granite Lake by the time Treasure drove through town. Golden light poured from the windows of the Mountain Spoon diner and The Bistro. Floyd’s Tavern squatted in the dark and appeared abandoned. Was her local hang out closed tonight, or was it shut down? The biker bar had been a fixture in Granite Lake since long before she was born. She knew the owner, Floyd, had grown old like her father. The last time she’d been inside, the place looked like it should be shut down for violating more than a few health codes. Had Floyd’s bar finally run its course? And what about his kids? Why weren’t they managing the place?

  She turned off the main street, drove one block north and turned again. At the end of the lane, the Jeep’s headlights shone on her dad’s motorcycle shop. The building with the attached apartment leaned to the left. It was a convincing illusion in the slant of the headlights. Three garage doors, with paint flaking and cracked, dominated the front of the building. Her pear tree was coming out of hibernation after the long winter. Budding green leaves crowded the white flowers and the blooms were beginning to fall to the ground. Her and her father planted the tree when she was in kindergarten and they grew up together. It stopped producing pears years ago, but Treasure loved the spring blooms. The tree brought good memories and helped balance all the shaky ones.

  Treasure noticed the water damage before she pulled into the driveway. Glowing orange traffic cones were strung together with yellow caution tape on the right side of the cul-de-sac between her dad’s place and the Pinellis’. She squinted into the nighttime gloom at a large ditch or trench on the other side of the tape. Floodwater had run off the street and down the driveway, causing deep grooves and an abundance of mud and gravel. Apparently, her driveway had become a temporary river leading straight to the garage doors. Broken branches, a plethora of pine needles, and other detritus were strewn all over the yard. Shoving her dread and reluctance aside, Treasure parked the Jeep, dug out the building keys, grabbed a flashlight, and climbed out. Her boots landed in the half-frozen mud, and she made her way carefully through the muck. A groan passed her lips as she shined the light on the debris and mess in front of the garage.

  Her father’s death had been a blow that nearly swiped her off her feet. The only way she’d been able to cope with his passing was to close up the building and ignore it. She went on with life and kept putting off her responsibilities regarding being a property owner in Granite Lake. Part of the denial was because of situations like this. Losing her father was devastating. Dealing with an entire property filled to the brim with motorcycle parts was overwhelming.

  Treasure trudged forward, taking the emotional bull by the horns. She scraped gravel, mud, and twigs away from the bottom of the door with her boot and took a steadying breath before inserting the key. She entered the office side of the garage. The metallic scents of steel and aluminum mixed with stale gasoline and motor oil overtook her senses. The air held a new musty scent, but otherwise the garage smelled exactly as she remembered. A puddle sloshed beneath her feet and she stared at it with unease. How much water made it inside? Shining her light across the concrete floor, she saw the legs of her dad’s oversized metal desk sitting in a shallow pool. The dark stain of wet concrete stretched halfway across the garage floor but appeared dry at the back.

  Treasure wanted nothing more than to turn around and go to the cabin she’d rented for Christmas. The vacation cabin nestled in the woods on the farthest side of the lake for which the town was named and was ten million times more welcoming than this. The cabin was cozy, clean, secluded, and warm. Everything this place wasn’t. She wished she called the rental property managers to see if the cabin was available before she’d left Reno, but that was now water under the bridge.

  The light flashed over miscellaneous bike skeletons, and hundreds, if not thousands, of motorcycle parts. A sigh heavy with responsibility fell from her lips. Even if the entire garage flooded, it wouldn’t cause much damage. As it were, based on the minimal inspection in the semi-dark, everything would survive the night. A more thorough inspection would happen in the morning.

  Treasure turned to the door on her right that led into the adjoining apartment. She didn’t know if she wanted her childhood home to have more or less damage than the garage. If the apartment were under water, it would give her an excuse to come in and start shoveling everything into a dumpster without feeling guilty.

  Treasure walked over to the wall and clicked on the light with the ease of movement that came from doing something more times than you could count. She never had the electricity turned off to save the pipes from freezing in the winter. The overhead light cast a dingy hue over the living room and dining area. She knew there were twenty-six steps to the kitchen at the back of the apartment and another eight steps to reach her old bedroom.

  Everything appeared the same as the day her father rode off in the ambulance to the hospital with a burst aortic aneurism. The dining table still held his salt and pepper shakers, a folded newspaper, and his pipe.

  Crap. Emotion rose into her throat like a strangling creeper vine. She placed a trembling hand to her neck. She hadn’t been prepared for this. It was as if her dad could walk in from the garage at any second and ask her if she wanted a fried bologna sandwich for dinner. Staring at the floor, she saw no signs of water. After peeking into the bathroom and seeing no other flood damage, a sense of mild relief eased some of the stress load.

  A knock sounded on the shop door and she hurried to answer it.

  “I was hoping that was your Jeep,” Mrs. Pinelli said, leaning forward and wrapping Treasure in a tight embrace. “I didn’t need a burglary on top of all the other excitement happening around here.”

  “It’s just me.” Treasure smiled at the tiny Italian woman.

  “How bad is it in here?” Mrs. Pinelli peered around Treasure at the darkened garage.

  “It’s not bad.”

  “Ohhh...” She drew out the word as if stretching her mind with the sound. “That’s good. Maybe you can skip the insurance adjuster. Are you still keeping up on the bills for this old place? Even if your pop didn’t owe the bank, the taxes and insurance adds up. We pay a fortune to keep the house. I tell you, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to stay in this town if the taxes continue to increase the way they have over the last few years. California is too expensive anymore.”

  “You’re right. It is,” Treasure said, reassuring her motherly neighbor. “And yes, I’m keeping up with the bills. It’s hard paying for two places, but I’m managing.” The building had become the primary reason Treasure lived paycheck to paycheck. The taxes, insurance, and extra electric bill had drained her small savings account and she would soon be forced make a decision about keeping the property.

  “Good, good,” Mrs. Pinelli said, patting Treasure’s arm.

  “Come over and eat with us. I made ravioli.” Her words came out with a sing-song affect to tease Treasure’s taste buds into co
mpliance. Lucia Pinelli knew how much she loved her cooking, and if it was anything Italian, it was probably her favorite. “I have tiramisu for dessert,” she added with a knowing sparkle in her warm honey-brown eyes.

  Treasure couldn’t hold back the smile. Warm hugs and free dinners. Had she died and gone to heaven? The Pinellis bought the house next door when Treasure was in elementary school. They were always kind, and fed her and her father once a week, often more than that. As Treasure grew older, and wilder, she drifted away from Lucia. After graduating and moving away, Treasure rarely returned home. She forgot how thoughtful and caring her neighbors had been. Just add it to my list of regrets regarding Granite Lake, she thought.

  With her mouth watering, she had to swallow before answering. “I don’t want to burden you and Mr. Pinelli. It’s late. I should settle in and get some rest. I have a lot of cleaning up to do tomorrow.”

  “It’s no bother. Mr. Pinelli has been talking about you all day, and if you don’t come over to say hello, he’ll be crushed,” Mrs. Pinelli said. “Would you do that to an old man? Ayee,” she tsked and threw an impatient hand into the air. “I’ll be stuck listening to him whine and complain about how he never sees his Treasure girl. It’ll be torture. You want to torture me?”

  Treasure couldn’t refuse. She’d known the woman long enough to understand her cunning and not so subtle ways of guilting Treasure into eating ridiculously large amounts of amazing homemade Italian food. She fell for Mrs. Pinelli’s sob story and pulled the door closed behind them.

  After visiting with the Pinellis, Treasure bid them goodnight and waddled back to her dad’s house. The ravioli, garlic bread, and salad were better than she remembered, and she fell instantly in love with the tiramisu. Treasure cradled a to-go container against her body filled with an extra piece of the four-inch thick espresso soaked ladyfingers layered with fluffy sweet cream. God bless Mrs. Pinelli and her amazing culinary skills, she thought as she entered the apartment.