Better Than Gold

by Mary Brady

  Mia ordered her usual, oatmeal pancakes with maple syrup, and got her mother’s usual response. “I don’t see why you can’t eat normal lunch food.”

  “Because I like pancakes and the oatmeal is good for me.”

  Her mother tsk’d as she dug into her chef’s salad.

  Lunch had to be cut short. Her mother had a meeting of the herb society to run to and Mia had records to read, not to mention, when she’d arrived that morning at the station, word was the police might be finished with the Roost this afternoon. Not that it would mean much for her if she still wasn’t allowed to work on the remodeling, but she could always hope. With the crypt demolished, Daniel might be able to release the building to her.

  And be gone.

  Her steps faltered. By the time she put the key in the lock she wished she was anywhere but there. Reading records by herself might have its moments, but it was not much fun.

  She swung open the door and sitting on the floor beside the boxes was Daniel.

  He looked up. His eyes were tired and his face more drawn, as if he hadn’t slept since she saw him last.

  She stopped. What was she supposed to say? She felt her smile desert her as she closed the door behind her.

  He leaped to his feet and was standing right in front of her in a blink. He searched her face and then drew her into his arms.

  The warmth of relief swept through her followed closely by heat.

  “It’s good to see you,” she said as she put her cheek against his chest. He smelled good, like shower and shaving cream.

  She pushed back to look at him.

  “You shaved.” She reached her hand up and stroked the softness of his cheek.

  “Disappointed?” He smiled at her.

  She shook her head, her eyes glued to his face. He was good-looking before, but now... She swallowed. “Um—no.”

  “I needed to be at the university this morning to go over the processing techniques again with the students. They’re good, but need a lot of guidance.”

  She plucked at the sleeve of his pale blue oxford shirt and then looked down at unholey jeans and professorish shoes, definitely a departure from worn leather boots. “So, Mr. Indiana Jones, do new students fall in love with you every term?”

  “All the time, but I make it a point not to fall back.”

  “I missed you this morning.”

  “I’m sorry about the note. I tried to wake you, but you were in too deep. Maybe we worked too hard.” With that he leaned in and kissed her hard on the mouth and just as quickly broke away. From arm’s length he said, “If I start that, I won’t get any work done.”

  She grinned and felt happiness wash down her body and settle as warmth in her heart. “Sometimes I think work is overrated.”

  He slid his hand into hers. “Come and do some overrated with me.”

  * * *

  DANIEL MADE HIMSELF let go of Mia’s hand. What he wanted to do was take that hand and put it against his heart to tell her how much he had hated leaving her so early this morning, how much he loved to touch her, have her touch him.

  What he needed to do now was to keep his hands off her, his hands, his lips and everything else. She did not need his problems in her life.

  “I saw you finished with the first box.” And I see your heart in your eyes right now. He knew what he saw there because he felt the same longing. Their connection was strong and undeniable, but he had to keep telling himself that it could not matter.

  “Liam Bailey’s account of maintaining law and order in the early 1800s is a combination of fascinating and mind-numbing.”

  “I don’t suppose he built a tomb and walled a man up in it.”

  She sputtered out a laugh. “I’ll kill him if he did. He has messed with me enough.”

  “Remind me not to cross you.”

  “Oh, please, you have crossed me too many times to count.”

  He quit paging through the file in his hand.

  “Okay, so some of the times you crossed me, I liked it.”

  She grinned at him and he wanted to make love to her right there under Chief Montcalm’s nose. Instead, he studied the file.

  She told him eagerly about Bailey and Fletcher and Fletcher’s daughter, about the Sea Rose Inn and the mansion on Sea Crest Hill, and about there being no hint about what happened to Bailey.

  Then she continued with reading the nineteenth century and he started in the middle of the twentieth. They read to the shuffling of paper, the sound of the clicking clock and the vibration humming between them. When he came across a file from 1956 he read until he knew he had to share the information.

  He held out the file toward her. “There is something in this one I think you might want to see.”

  “Read it to me.” She gazed steadily at him as she made the request.

  “It’s from the 1950s. The name on the record is Chief of Police Buddy Knox. ‘The town is restless. An outsider has come to claim the treasure of Liam Bailey. She says it is buried in a building of much importance to the town.’ The next day he says: ‘Henrietta Loch has destroyed us.’”

  Her eyes were wide with alarm. “Loch. L-O-C-H?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you suppose that Loch is the same Loch family as Heather? Do you suppose that’s why Heather came here and turned the church into a museum in the first place? I mean, she has always claimed to be a descendent of the pirate. She wouldn’t have broken into the Roost, I mean, I’ve never had any reason to suspect her of anything so nefarious as to break in and destroy someone’s property.”

  He wondered if she knew how beautiful she was with excitement gleaming in her eyes.

  A crisp knock got their attention and she jumped to her feet.

  “Hello, Chief Montcalm,” she said as she opened the door. “You have arrived just when we had something to show you.”

  “I have some information for you, too. The preliminary investigation of the break in and damage to your property has been completed, Ms. Parker. We have some persons of interest, but no arrest warrants.”

  “Thank you, Chief. I appreciate everything your department has already done.”

  “We’ll continue to keep an eye on the place and if we find out anything else, we’ll let you know.”

  “We have a couple of things that might interest you, Chief. The house on Sea Crest hill was originally built by Liam Bailey.”

  “That one should stay under wraps for now.” This was, of course, an order from the chief, not a request.

  Daniel handed over the report from Chief Knox. “The page of interest is on top.”

  The chief scanned the document and handed it back. “If either of you has any questions, please feel free to call me. I expect you’ll wrap up by four-thirty,” he said as he nodded at the clock, which said four-fifteen. “Dr. MacCarey, if you’d come up to my office, I need to speak with you in private.”

  The chief marched away, closing the door softly, leaving Mia and him alone in the room. They stood facing each other, no boxes separating them.

  He wanted to pull her into his arms again and kiss her, give her everything a man should give a woman, love, respect, himself. All he had to give Mia were promises he couldn’t keep. He broke away from her questioning gaze and moved toward the door. “I’d best go see what the chief wants.”

  As he climbed from the basement to the first floor, the daylight got brighter and his thoughts darker.

  Chief Montcalm motioned him into the office when he arrived. “I don’t have anything more to tell you, but I need to ask. Do you want Ms. Parker kept away from the site?”

  “Do you know something I don’t about Mia?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Then she can have free access.”

  The chief gave a half nod.<
br />
  “Have a good day, Dr. MacCarey.”

  Daniel’s phone rang.

  “Please, take the call here. I have business elsewhere in the building.” With that the chief left.

  Daniel looked at the screen. It was his department chair, Dr. Donovan.

  “Dr. MacCarey, congratulations are in order for you.”

  “Thank you. What did I do?”

  “That find of yours in that little town is going to get you a chance to take a big leap forward.”

  “I’m listening.” This already sounded like good news that was very bad news for the little town and one of its entrepreneurs.

  “We have a donor family that is just itching to get behind what you are doing. All you have to do is prove that’s Liam Bailey you have in your lab and this family is willing to fund a pirate dog and pony show and launch your career with it.”

  A pirate dog and pony show... And ruin the charm and uniqueness of the town? As well as destroy Mia’s chances with Pirate’s Roost? “Sir, this sounds very interesting. Great for the university, but...do we know these people?”

  “What we know, Dr. MacCarey, is that they are very rich, a husband and wife each with family money to give away, and you are correct if you think this is a boon. Do this and you will have brought in a huge donation to the university, to our department more specifically, and that kind of thing counts more and more these days. And I haven’t even gotten to the best part for you.”

  He heard an ax fall somewhere in the back of his mind.

  “The best part,” his boss continued, “they will fund your work for two years with the option for three more if they see what they like. And if this comes off, I have to tell you your name goes to the top of the list for the next big project.” The older man coughed his decades-of-cigar-smoking cough. “I know I don’t have to remind you how long it has been since you were in that position. I wanted to tell you myself so you would understand how important this is to the department and the university and to you.”

  “What if it’s not Bailey?”

  His boss ignored the question and went on and on about how beneficial this would be for the university and how precarious the money for good projects was these days. Daniel replied, “Yes, sir,” several times until he just let his boss continue uninterrupted.

  “So come through for us, Dr. MacCarey. We’re counting on you.”

  The phone in his hand went silent and Daniel knew he was alone again. His boss hadn’t waited for a final “yes, sir.”

  The person who could change his fate with the stroke of a pen had just laid out his future in a crystal clear either/or. Notoriety or anonymity. Destroy or be destroyed.

  He pushed up from the chair at the chief’s desk.

  If it were just between Mia and him, the choice would be easy. Mia’s livelihood depended on getting the Pirate’s Roost launched.

  If he turned his back on this pirate show, he’d be turning his back on the dollars to keep people working on projects that really mattered to the study of humans on earth. The money for the serious work sometimes came from donors who wanted to be associated with something splashy, like pirates. Where humans really came from, and how we got where we are, often took a backseat unless a good spin could be added. The Blackbeard type of pirates had been good for spin for a hundred years.

  The most important factors weighed on his mind and to the man’s credit, his department head had not once mentioned the huge debt Daniel owed the university. For three years the university supported him, kept him on, gave him anything in their power to give while his life and his family fell apart. That was not a debt Daniel took lightly, and his boss had just called in a whole fistful of those markers at Mia’s expense.

  He left the chief’s office, said good-night to the evening dispatcher and stepped outside. At five forty-five, Mia would be long gone. He wondered where she went, who she was with, and wished it was him.

  The fresh, salty air took him by surprise. He’d forgotten how good it felt to breathe the sea air. He looked around as the lights of the town blinked on one by one.

  He hated himself for allowing things to go too far with Mia. She’d hate him for it soon enough and rightly so.

  In two hours he was staring out the window of his condo wondering if his life would ever be anything but rotten.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MIA SAT IN her darkening living room. Monique would be shocked at how sparkly and orderly her place looked. She had worked fiercely to clean every trace of Daniel MacCarey from her house.

  Conversation fragments kept coming to her mind from the call he had made to her from his car, like I am so sorry and for the best and if there is anything I can do.

  Now that she could think clearly, yes, there was something he could do. He could return her building to her. He could love her.

  But what she had wished they could have had been a fantasy and the less she thought about him, the better.

  Her phone rang. Monique. The perfect distraction.

  “Hey, Monique, how’s it going?”

  “He’s packing.” Her friend could hardly speak for the tears in her voice. “He’s...he’s...”

  “Who is packing, sweetie? Lenny?”

  “Grand-père. I stopped over there after work and he’s going to Florida.” Monique only called grandfather by the French term when she was profoundly sad, like when her mother died and left the two of them alone. “It’s the beginning of the end.”

  “Monique, is he going for a visit?”

  “He’s visiting the Kellys. Says he wants to see how the other half lives.”

  “I’m coming over.”

  “It’s all right. Lenny’s coming over for his dinner break.”

  Mia could hear her friend trying to compose herself.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come over?”

  “I don’t want to scare Lenny. We’re a pretty intimidating pair. I think he took so long to ask me out because he knew he’d be dating a woman and her fierce protector friend.”

  “You’re afraid I’ll beat him up if I come over.”

  “Something like that. If he’s not breaking up with me, he’s in for a big test. He gets to see me all weepy-eyed and scared.”

  “Well, for sure if that scary sight doesn’t send him running in the opposite direction, he’s in for the long haul.”

  Monique bubbled a laugh. “I’m so glad I called you.”

  “Did your granddad say when he’s leaving?”

  “No. He needs to finish helping on Jim O’Connell’s boat, so he doesn’t have a definite date.”

  “I’m so sorry, Monique. Are you sure I can’t do anything for you?”

  “You already have.”

  “Call me back if you change your mind and want me to come over. And about your granddad, maybe he’s scared, too. To paraphrase a good friend of mine, I cannot see Edwin Beaudin sitting under a palm tree with an umbrella drink in his hand.”

  “Oh, Mia, I hope you’re right.”

  “Now go blow your nose and put a cold washcloth on your pretty face.”

  As soon as she hung up, Mia pushed up from the couch and headed for the door. She couldn’t fix her own heart. She couldn’t help with Lenny, but she knew where Edwin Beaudin hung out this time of day with his cronies. Maybe she could go swat some sense into him, or at least feel things out.

  In ten minutes, parked in front of Braven’s Tavern, Mia leaned against her SUV, looking into the darkness across the street. Pirate’s Roost would one day attract tourists, provide a few modest jobs and be her anchor. She hoped.

  She shook her head.

  Well, she couldn’t fix the Roost right now. She strode across the quiet street with purpose and opened the old door to Braven’s, one of those heavy, solid wood doo
rs that held the mystery close until you pushed on the worn brass handles and let yourself inside. The tavern was almost as old as Liam Bailey’s building. Another town treasure serving beer for almost two hundred years.

  Inside, there were seven fishermen at the U-shaped bar, three at the bottom of the U and two on each leg. Each with an empty seat or two between himself and the men on either side. “In case a good-looking woman comes along. I don’t want to be sittin’ next to an old bag of wind when I can be sittin’ next to her,” Edwin Beaudin had explained to a twelve-year-old Mia, only he and most old-time Mainers pronounced “her” as a version of “h-ah.” He had gotten a swat from his daughter for such an explanation, but that didn’t make it any less the truth.

  The arrangement worked out well tonight. She took the seat on the bottom of the U between Edwin Beaudin and Whister Carmody, ex-brother-in-law of the widowed cat lady who pestered Monique with her fake Persian rug and cat poop.

  Both men turned to see who had come to invade the space between them. As one they grinned at her. Whister quickly turned back to his beer, red-faced. Edwin grabbed her in a big hug that made her wonder if her ribs would survive.

  “What brings you down here, a beauty among all these hairy beasts?”

  “I came to see you, Edwin Beaudin.”

  Edwin took a big gulp of his beer. “Well, I’d like to be all kinds of flattered, but what’d I do?”

  “What can I get for you?” the bartender asked, clearly happy to be serving someone that didn’t have bushy whiskers and rumpled clothing.

  “Whatever white wine you have open, Michael.”

  “My kind of lady. Not makin’ any trouble.”

  She didn’t take offence at that. Michael Erickson had been giving her a hard time since they were in the second grade.

  “How’s Francine?” she asked.

  “The sweetest woman on the face of the earth,” he said and went to get her wine.

  Mia sipped her wine and listened as the fishermen talked about what they had brought in that day or hadn’t. Edwin told her his granddaughter could be expecting another lobster soon. Jim O’Donnell was paying him in the catch of the day.