Hidden Treasures

by Judith Arnold

  She might wish she were a sweet, mellow, accommodating earth mother, but as of this moment, she would have to be what she was: a smart, sophisticated warrior with an Ivy League pedigree and the fortitude to manage her own fate.

  “I,” she announced, striding across the kitchen to the phone, “will call Peter Goss.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SHE’D BARELY DRIFTED OFF to sleep, when a noise woke her. Actually, an assortment of noises: rattling, stumbling, thumping.

  Someone was in her house.

  Her heart stuttered a beat, but she willed herself not to panic. This was Rockwell, after all, a safe, cozy, small town where everyone knew everyone. Of course, some weirdo might have hitched into town from somewhere else, a psychopath with a big hunting knife who hid out in the Moose Mountains and descended into Rockwell whenever the urge to rape and pillage overtook him. Erica had locked her doors, but the maniac had gotten past her locks and was inside her house. The rattling, she realized, was her silverware drawer. The thump had been one of the kitchen chairs colliding with the table.

  Oh, God—oh, God—oh, God. She’d moved to Rockwell to make a life for herself far from the crime of the city, and here she was, trapped in her own house with a bloodthirsty killer. And dialing 911 would do her no good in Rockwell.

  She took a few deep breaths and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Whoever was in her house sounded as though he was still in her kitchen. Maybe the invader was just a raccoon foraging for food. An incredibly smart raccoon who knew how to open locked doors.

  She heard the clap of a cabinet door shutting and decided it wasn’t a raccoon. What was the phone number of the police station? She had it programmed into the telephone in the kitchen, not the bedroom phone.

  She could dial Jed’s cell phone number…No, she couldn’t. She’d been far too grateful for his presence that evening during the opening of the box and the hysteria that had ensued. Having him close by had made her feel too safe, too secure. Too dependent. She couldn’t depend on him. He’d be gone any day.

  But she’d depended on him just hours ago, when happy hell had broken loose in her dining room, in full view of a live camera broadcasting the discovery nationally. Who would have thought the box would contain what had turned out to be twenty-two gold coins, their movement cushioned and their jingling muffled by the thick burgundy velvet lining the box’s interior? Suddenly, unexpectedly, Erica was in possession of wealth—possibly significant wealth—and everyone, not just in town but across the country, knew about her bounty, thanks to Derrick Messinger and all the other media vultures.

  Amid the havoc, Jed had quietly taken over. He’d wrapped the box in a paper bag, taped the bag and made her and Avery Gilman sign the tape. He’d answered her incessantly ringing phone for her and told every caller she was unable to come to the phone. He’d removed the paper plates of cheese and crackers from the living room so mooches would have an incentive to leave. And once she’d finally cleared everyone out of her house, he had accompanied her and Avery to the bank to have her treasure locked in a safe-deposit box. She’d thought they ought to bring it to the police station, but Jed had said the police weren’t necessarily the most trustworthy folks in Rockwell, and she’d deferred to his wisdom.

  So the box was locked inside the bank for the night. But Erica wasn’t. Whoever had been banging around in her kitchen seemed to have moved into another room—the living room or dining room, she wasn’t sure which. In either case, he had moved closer to the hall, closer to her bedroom. Closer to her.

  She briefly contemplated climbing out a window, but she still had the storm panes up, so exiting through a window would entail breaking through the double layer of glass. She might cut herself, to say nothing of the expense and hassle of replacing the Thermopane.

  She stood, tiptoed to her closet and pulled out an empty hanger. It was wood, with a hard metal hook. If she could fight her way to the kitchen, she could phone the police—and grab a knife. She’d feel a lot better if she had a knife in her hand.

  The hanger alone might not be enough weaponry. She lifted one of her thick-soled L.L. Bean work boots from the closet floor. It weighed a good two or three pounds. If need be, she could throw it at the creep, then whack him with the hanger.

  Drawing in another steadying breath, she tucked the hanger under her arm and eased the door open. She heard the invader’s heavy footsteps and the thud of her own heart, now beating in a dirge tempo. Appropriate, if death was imminent.

  No, Erica wasn’t going to die. She had her hanger and her boot. She could make it to the kitchen, grab the phone—or bolt through the back door. And flee to Jed’s—not because he was Jed, not because he was so damn tall and strong looking, but because he was her only neighbor.

  She peered down the hall. The living room was dark, but light from the kitchen spilled a glowing rectangle through the doorway and onto the carpet. She crept down the hall, wishing she’d paused to throw on a bathrobe over the baggy cotton T-shirt she slept in, then froze when she heard another cabinet door slam, followed by the incoherent growl of a male voice. Edging closer, she was able to decipher a couple of the words. They were uniformly foul.

  She sidled a little closer to the doorway, tightened her grip on her weapons and charged through the door, screaming, “Get out! Get out!” while waving the hanger and the boot above her head.

  “Jesus Effin’ Cripes!” Toad Regan screamed back, flattening himself against her refrigerator, looking terrified.

  “What are you doing in here? Get out!” Erica shrieked, hoping volume would frighten him off. He smelled like cheap booze and old dust, and cracker crumbs were caught in his scraggly beard, probably left over from the snacks he’d wolfed down earlier that evening.

  “I’m not doin’ anything! Stop waving that stick at me.” He seemed to regain his courage, unfortunately. Pushing away from the refrigerator, he approached her.

  If she fell back, she’d appear weak. She held her ground and continued to brandish the hanger. “How did you get in here?”

  “Walked,” he said. “I’m not askin’ for any trouble—”

  “You broke into my house!”

  “Oh, come on. You know who I am. It ain’t no big thing.”

  “And you’re banging around in my cabinets—” He took another step toward her and she extended the hanger as if it were a sword. “Breaking and entering. That’s a crime, Toad.”

  “I didn’t break nothin’.”

  “Get out of my house.”

  “Come on. Just show me the box and then I’ll go.”

  She sighed. Of course. Her first burglar, hoping to steal the box. “It isn’t here.”

  “Yeah, right.” He snorted, then lunged for the hanger. For a disheveled, malodorous town drunk, he was pretty quick, and his eyes glinted with malice. He gripped her wrist with surprising strength, but she refused to let go of the hanger. “Just show me the box and I’m outta here,” he promised. “And don’t give me none of this stuff about it’s not here. Schoolteachers ain’t supposed to lie.”

  It occurred to her that now would be a good time to start being frightened. Toad Regan tightened his hold on her. He stood nose to nose with her, his breath beery, his gaze nasty, his fingers meeting in a bruising circle around her wrist. He could hurt her.

  She swung her left arm up and smacked the side of his head with her boot. Her left hand wasn’t her dominant one, but even if the impact didn’t stun him, it startled him.

  “Hey, you bitch! What’re kickin’ me for?”

  “I didn’t—” She hesitated, realizing that in a way she had kicked him—and realizing further that this wasn’t a good time to argue with him. He was still holding her wrist, squeezing it so tightly her fingers began to go numb as they clung to the hanger. “Let go of me!”

  “I’ll let go when you show me the box.”

  “It’s not here,” she snapped.

  “Let go of her,” a voice came from the kitchen doorway. A man’s voi
ce. A hushed, threatening voice.

  Toad released her and spun around. Jed stood on the threshold, tall and hulking and powerful. His hair was mussed; his eyes, squinting; one hand was fisted and the other held a candy cane.

  And she’d thought she might have looked silly carrying a hanger and a boot.

  Even wielding a candy cane, Jed cast a menacing shadow across the room. Toad seemed to lose an inch in height. “Hey, Willetz,” he muttered. It occurred to Erica that, Toad’s thinning hair, hollow cheeks and sunken eyes notwithstanding, he might be not much older than Jed.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Just looking for a place to sleep. You know me.” Toad laughed nervously.

  “I don’t think Ms. Leitner wants you sleeping with her,” Jed said, his tone laced with such deep condemnation that Erica couldn’t take issue with his phrasing. “Were you planning to bed down in her kitchen?”

  “Well, I was just…you know, looking around before I settled down.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “The box,” Erica said.

  “Okay, so…so…” Toad shifted from one foot to another, refusing to meet either Jed’s or Erica’s gaze. “So, okay, so what’s one coin, right? To you it’s nothing. You got plenty more. You wouldn’t ’a even noticed.”

  “Get out,” Jed snapped.

  “How’m I gonna get back to town?” Toad whined.

  “Same way you got here. Go away, Toad. And don’t you ever come back here uninvited. You understand?” Jed stepped farther into the kitchen, leaving Toad a clear path to the door.

  Toad took it, casting Erica a final, doleful look as if he actually expected her to ask him to stay. She glowered at him and he slunk out of the house. Jed slammed the door behind him, then wedged a chair under the knob.

  “That door was locked,” she said. An unwanted tremor tugged at her voice, and her knees suddenly felt wobbly.

  “Are you all right?” Jed strode toward her, clasped her arm and led her to one of the other chairs. She sank into it and understood from his worried expression that she must have appeared on the verge of fainting. He moved to the sink and filled a glass with water for her.

  “I’m fine,” she said shakily. Damn. She didn’t want to faint. Not in front of Jed. Not while all she was wearing was an oversize baby-blue T-shirt and panties.

  “Drink this,” he ordered, pressing the glass into her hand. Noticing the bruise Toad had left on her wrist, he cursed. “Son of a bitch. I can’t believe he did this to you.”

  “I don’t understand.” She took a sip of water. It felt cold and soothing, so she took another sip. “The door was locked—”

  “I could break that lock with a credit card,” Jed told her. “People don’t take locks seriously in Rockwell, because no one except you bothers to use them. Maybe we should ice your wrist.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” She studied it belatedly. More red than blue. It would probably fade in a few minutes.

  “I should have punched his lights out,” Jed muttered, hunkering in front of Erica, gently probing her hand and wrist as if he thought the bone might be fractured.

  She flexed her fingers to show him her limb was operational. His touch irked her, made her want to touch him back, to weave her fingers through his and feel his palm against hers. Heaven help her, she was sitting just inches from Jed, dressed in next to nothing. She definitely should have put on her robe before she’d ventured out of her bedroom.

  “Stop being so macho,” she chided, wishing she could put some distance, both physical and emotional, between Jed and herself. “I had the situation under control.”

  “With a boot and coat hanger?”

  “A dress hanger,” she said. “It’s better than a candy cane. What are you doing here, anyway, Jed? How did you know to come over?”

  He leaned back on his haunches and grinned sheepishly. “Okay,” he said, as though about to embark on a long, involved story. “I quit smoking a few months ago. I still have cravings. I was having a real bad one tonight. I’m sick of sourballs and chewing gum, and I’ve gone through most of my grandfather’s supply of toothpicks, so I was poking around in his cabinets, hoping to find something to take the edge off. And I found this candy cane.” He eyed it as if seeing it for the first time, and laid it on the table. “I don’t know how long the stuff has been sitting in that cabinet. I’m assuming it’s from this past Christmas and not some Christmas ten years ago.”

  He paused, apparently waiting for acknowledgment. Erica nodded dutifully.

  “So I took the candy cane and went out on the porch. Because I wanted the whole experience, you know? I always used to go outside to have a smoke, so tonight I went outside to have a candy cane. And I saw your back door standing open, and I heard voices. And…” His smile faded as he searched her face. “Are you upset that I’m here?”

  “No.” She would have liked to have handled Toad by herself, but she hadn’t been able to get rid of the jerk on her own. Her hanger and her boot hadn’t been anywhere near as effective as a few pointed words from Jed Willetz.

  She wanted to be self-sufficient. She wanted to be connected to her town, her neighbors and most of all to herself and her own inner resources. If Jed hadn’t come along, though…She was pretty sure Toad was harmless, but she just didn’t know.

  Another tremor fluttered through her. Jed must have noticed, because his eyes narrowed slightly, his face tightening with concern. “Are you okay?”

  Yes. No. He was still hunkered down in front of her, his face close to hers. His hair glinted with blond highlights in the overhead light, and his expression was so worried, more worried than a neighbor might have been, much more worried than any guy just passing through town ought to be. He was way too close, and she knew what kissing him was like, and she didn’t want to be alone right now. She’d just survived a traumatic incident, and she didn’t want Jed to leave her.

  HE RECOGNIZED THE LOOK in her eyes. It spoke more eloquently than her “let’s not get started” and “what’s the point?” and everything else she’d ever said to turn him away. She’d had a scare—he’d had a scare—and now they both needed some comfort. That was what her eyes told him.

  He straightened up, lifting her to her feet as he stood, and then covered her mouth with his. She tasted like spearmint, and her cheeks were still warm and soft from bed. Her shirt did little to conceal the curves of her body, and the fabric was so thin he could practically feel the texture of her skin as he flattened his hands against her back.

  She could have gotten hurt. That idiot Toad Regan could have injured her just so he could steal a gold coin.

  Jed was a modern man, with great respect for feminism. Most of the women he knew could defend themselves, and wanted to. Erica had defended herself with a boot and a hanger. Christ. If something had happened to her, it would have just about killed him.

  She kissed him with more passion than he’d known her slender body could contain. She held on to him more tightly than she’d been holding on to her hanger. He felt the roundness of her breasts through her shirt, the swollen tips of her nipples, the heat down below, where her hips met his. If they hadn’t been standing in the middle of her kitchen, he’d have torn off her shirt. And his own.

  They were going to have to get the hell out of this kitchen, because he needed them both naked, and soon. His body ached with a craving much deeper and more harrowing than his craving for a cigarette just a few minutes ago.

  He broke from her, and she made a desperate little moan. He had to close his eyes and take a breath to keep that sound from triggering something crazy inside him. He liked women, he loved them, but he’d never wanted one as much as he wanted Erica right now. This brave, crazy woman with her boot and her hanger, her dark, dark eyes and all that hair, and her ability to turn a pound of ground beef into the most tasteless slop he’d ever eaten—but he’d eaten it because she’d made it, because she was Erica and he wanted her.

  She gazed up at him, and h
er expression made him want her even more. He bowed to kiss her again, just a quick, light kiss to tide him over until they reached her bed. Gathering her hand in his, he ushered her out of the kitchen and down the hall. Halfway there he had to stop for another kiss. She pulled him to her, sliding her hands under his flannel shirt and across his T-shirt, following the contours of his chest. He pressed her up against the wall and leaned into her, making himself even crazier. He couldn’t seem to help himself, though. Her hair rained over the backs of his hands and her tongue tangled with his and her hips met his, and he wanted to break out of his skin, to burst wide open, to give himself, body and soul, to her.

  He shoved up her nightshirt, bunching it up around her waist and sliding his hands underneath. She jumped, then sighed as his hands moved over her, tracing her waist, the lower edge of her rib cage and upward. She moaned again when he cupped her breasts. He moaned, too.

  “Jed,” she whispered.

  Don’t stop us, he prayed silently, brushing his thumbs over her nipples and feeling her jump again. Whatever you do, Erica, don’t shut me down.

  She arched slightly, her fingers fisting against his sides. “I have…” Her voice faded into a sigh.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Condoms.”

  Thank you, God, he mouthed. He hadn’t brought anything with him. He hadn’t expected this.

  “They’re in the bathroom.”

  That was an odd place to keep them, unless she was in the habit of having sex in the tub. But then, if Pop Hackett had been telling the truth about her social life, she wasn’t in the habit of having sex at all. Maybe she kept the things there because that was where she stored items she never used.

  He slid his hands out from under her shirt and backed up, giving her room to pass. He was so aroused it hurt to walk. She led the way into the bathroom off the hall. Opening the mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink, she stared at the bottle of ibuprofen, the tube of first-aid cream and the small white box of dental floss, then abandoned that for the vanity under the sink. There, amid stacks of toilet paper, bottles of shampoo and a plunger, she located an unopened package of rubbers. Bless her. Bless the world. Jed wasn’t a religious man, but he was definitely experiencing the more miraculous side of life right now.