Blooms Bones and Stones Box Set

by Olivia Swift

  “Is this a proper date now?” she asked with a quick smile, and he nodded and squeezed her arm.

  “I sure hope so,” he answered and held the door for her to go inside. They both waved to the owner who was behind the bar and found a table beside the window. The place was used by all of their friends.

  “Don’t need the menu,” Kat said to the waitress and ordered vegetable pizza. Ben said he would have the same and a beer. Kat said she would have a beer also.

  “Great minds thinking alike again,” Ben remarked and then wondered if they liked other things the same.

  “Well I do like your choice of where to start the garden,” she said. “The view is just staggering.”

  “I haven’t shown it to anyone else,” he confessed. “People have come to deliver concrete and stuff, but even my mom has not seen the site.” He told her that he was scared people would see things wrong with it. She reached out and touched his arm.

  “There is nothing that anyone could find to dislike,” she said. “Unless they like to live cheek to cheek with hundreds of other people in town.”

  “I would hate to live like that,” he said. “I like the outdoors.”

  “Me too,” she said. “We lived for a long time in a big trailer when dad was starting his business and I loved it. We kept chickens and a goat.” She added that the bungalow where they lived now was still pretty much out of town. She thanked the waitress as she brought the enormous freshly made pizza. She smiled. “I guess mom and dad were hippies in their younger days, and we still have the chickens.”

  They both managed a dessert as well as the huge pizzas, and he asked if she would like a bit of a drive to finish off the night.

  “Yes, please,” she said and then hesitated. “Maybe after the drive we could just go back and check if the stones are still under the trailer?”

  The drive took them toward the mountains where the road snaked around the curves of the foothill. He found a parking space and pointed across the valley.

  “You can see it. This is the road you see when you look across toward the hills.” It was quite a distance, but once you worked out a few landmarks, it was possible to pinpoint Eagle’s Cry.

  “Let’s go back and check that the stones are still under the trailer,” she suggested, and they grinned at each other like a couple of kids and climbed back in the truck. The road twisted down into the valley, skirted the town and climbed up again to the land he had bought.

  “Why is it called Eagle’s Cry?” Kat asked as they turned into the entrance. Ben said that the man who sold it to him named it that on the deeds.

  “Never seen an eagle,” he answered as they opened the doors and waited until Kat put on her flat shoes before jumping down to join him. The light was fading, and the place had a lovely quiet feel about it as they walked across to the trailer. Then Kat gasped and pointed. The stones were spread out in a line almost toward the original pile of stones. The neat little collection they had left beside the wheel was scattered.

  She pulled out her camera and tried to take a few shots to prove they were in a different place. Ben put the flashlight on his phone to look around to see if anyone had been on the property.

  He opened up the trailer and switched on the lights. They looked inside, outside, and around the area of the pile of stones, but there was no evidence that anyone had been there.

  “We wouldn’t see tire tracks or footsteps,” Kat said, “because everywhere is dry.”

  “Nothing is disturbed or moved except those five stones,” Ben remarked.

  “And why would anybody scatter a few stones? It doesn’t make sense,” Kat added. Then she asked if he had the makings of a coffee in the trailer. He smiled and pulled out mugs from a cupboard.

  Sitting, sipping coffee, they went over the strange affair again, but there were neither obvious answers nor reasons.

  “I think,” Kat said, “that we should take the stones with us. Then they can’t be moved. I’ll let Simon see them and see what he thinks. If they were valuable, whoever moved them would have stolen them, not left them lying around.”

  “Valuable?” Ben repeated. “Can things like that be worth stealing?”

  “Well, people with metal detectors seem to make a living from some things they find. I suppose they could be rare.”

  “But who would know they were there?” he asked. “It is really very odd.”

  She put her coffee cup down and held his arm.

  “I can tell you are worrying that there is something wrong with this land you bought. Stop it.” He smiled and put his arm around her shoulders. “Did anything strange happen before the stones arrived?” He shook his head.

  “No. I enjoyed getting started and getting the foundation laid for the house. I measured up the garden area and started to draw up plans. It was really peaceful.”

  “So, it’s just the stones,” she decided, and he agreed. “I think,” she went on, “that we need to run this past Carly and the others. They might just spot something that is staring us in the face, but we are missing it.”

  “Good idea,” he said. “I knew your ideas would be a help here.”

  “And I love the place you chose,” she answered. “Thanks for the visit and the meal.”

  Ben still had an arm around her shoulders and asked if she would like to do it again sometime.

  “Yes, if you let me pay for the meal,” she answered.

  “That’s an easy thing to agree to. I like this modern woman stuff.” He grinned, and they stood up to head for the truck.

  “Before you switch off the lights, let’s get these stones into the car,” she said and picked up the nearest two. Ben took the other three, and they put them behind the driver’s seat. Then they went back, had a quick check around, and he locked up. It was suddenly very dark, and she grabbed his arm to get back over the uneven ground. They were giggling by the time they managed to get inside and onto the seats. The machine roared into life, and they drove away to where Kat’s parents had their bungalow.

  “Thanks for the evening,” Kat said when they reached the gate. “I did enjoy it.”

  “Me too,” he said. She leaned across to kiss his cheek as a thank you and then opened the door to slide out. He reached out and caught her hand, and she turned back toward him. He claimed her lips with his own, and suddenly the same sensations raced through her veins as they had when they kissed before. It took several minutes before either of them was able to pull away and speak.

  “Good thing that I’m already sitting down this time.” She smiled a bit shakily, and he said he would come around and help her to the door. At the door, she put her hands on his shoulders and kissed his lips lightly before letting herself into the house. Ben stood transfixed on the spot for a few seconds before pulling himself together and going back to the truck.

  The morning found Kat coming in to see Carly even though she was not due to work in the shop. Her dad needed her in his shop, but she had taken a few minutes to tell Carly about the stones.

  “So, he finally took you out.” Carly smiled. “Thank goodness for that. I can tell it went well,” Kat nodded and gave her a brief outline of the evening before but then said that there was something really strange about these stones.

  Carly shook her hair, which was a startling deep purple that morning, and said she was intrigued. She put down the jewelry tools and listened properly.

  “I just thought that the rest of you might spot something that we missed,” Kat finished. Carly picked up her phone to call her husband Dex.

  The tale was repeated yet again, and he declared that they should have a get-together that night and have a look at these stones. As Carly was pretty sure that would be his reaction, she asked him to tell Evan and Jazz, and she would run up later to help.

  “I can come in after lunch and let you get away,” Kat offered, so they made plans. Kat called Ben to tell him about the evening get-together, and he said he would pick her up.

  “Now I want all the details
of the date.” Carly grinned. She did a double take at the look on the girl’s face. “It was something special, wasn’t it?” Kat just nodded and slipped away back to help her dad in the shop next door. Carly called her husband again and related the parts that she had not said in front of Kat.

  4

  Chestnut Hall was home to both of the Sutherland brothers and their wives. Initially, Evan had bought the place as somewhere to get away, but now it was halved between the brothers and had been brought up to date. Carly and Ben had worked on the restoration of the gardens with Jazz and that was where it all started. He knew the place well, but Katarina had only come along later and became part of the group through working in the shop.

  That evening, Ben picked up Kat again at her dad’s house and drove along the tiny country road to Chestnut Hall. The big house was now in two parts and what had been the original back door was the front entrance to Evan and Jazz’s half of the building. It was wide open but a baby gate was closed to stop young Molly Kim from stumbling out and down the steps. The delicious smell of homemade burgers was wafting out to greet them. Evan was presiding at the stove as usual with a striped apron tied around his waist.

  “Come in. Come in,” Jazz called and flicked open the baby gate to let them step inside. Carly waved from across the room, and they went to join her on the sofa. Ben stood up and looked at the garden that he had helped to restore. The huge rockery could be seen from the terrace and the viewing platform at the top. They had been proud of the effect they had created there. Jazz came and stood beside him.

  “Looks good, doesn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “Maturing nicely now,” he answered. “The pile of stones I bought is just about as big as that,” he told her.

  “And they are all to be moved one by one,” she said with a knowing look. “Good luck with that, Ben.”

  They both looked at the door as Kim, Rob, Jules, and Miller all arrived together. There was a lot of noise and commotion as everybody greeted everybody else.

  “I love it when we all get together!” Jazz exclaimed and went to hug her sister and her friend. Her sister Kim had a nursery garden, and her husband, Rob, had built the viewing platform that they had just been looking from down the garden.

  “Come and get it,” Evan called. They didn’t need to be asked twice as they grabbed rolls and burgers to make their own selection of sauces and salads. Evan’s burgers were legendary. He picked up his daughter and put her in a high chair to eat her own special burger. The baby was already in bed in the nursery and a video monitor gave a pretty picture of the sleeping child.

  The noise subsided as everyone enjoyed the first mouthfuls of food, but then Jazz called to Ben to tell them what had happened. With interjections from Kat, he related the story.

  “Nobody else has seen the place I bought, but Kat has a thing for stones, and I figured I could see what she thought and then we’d get a bite to eat,” Ben told them, and Kim put in that it was a date with a viewing attached.

  “Okay. Get over it—all of you. Kat and I went out for a meal,” Ben said, but he smiled as he said it.

  “Anyway,” Kat joined in, “the date was not the strange part.”

  “What was?” Evan asked, and she told them about the moving stones and what they found when they went back after the meal.

  “The stones are in the car,” Ben said and went off to find them.

  “We thought that they couldn’t move if we took them away.” Kat added, and Ben brought the stones inside and put them on the floor. They were all flattish stone that looked as if they had been part of a building once upon a time. They were creamy colored with hints of something greenish in them and had marks scored into the surface.

  “They’re quite pretty,” Jazz remarked. “Make a good garden feature.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Ben said, “but why would they move?”

  “And why would anybody move them?” Dex put in.

  “Do you think that they are valuable?” Kat asked as she had the night before. Rob picked up one of the pieces and ran his hand over it. He looked at Evan.

  “Remind you of anything?” he asked, and they all looked at both men. Evan looked at the stone but shook his head.

  “Peru,” Rob hinted. “Peru. That freakin’ awful cliff face. I thought I was stuck there forever.”

  Evan picked up one of the stones and gazed at it.

  “Ye gods. I would never have remembered that,” he said, “but you are absolutely right,”

  “What is he right about?” Kim demanded.

  Evan explained that he and Rob had climbed together in their army days.

  “And Evan went on to be famous for climbing,” Rob added. “He could still do it, but it’s way in the past for me now”

  “Anyway, we did have a go at steep climbs in Peru, and this vertical wall was a horror, but it did look exactly like this rock,” Evan added.

  “It could be split quite easily as I remember and the locals used it for all sorts of things,” Rob finished.

  “So, did this come from somewhere else or is there a source of the same stuff here?” Kim queried. Evan said that he could find the mountains in Peru and see what the rock was called.

  “Then we can just Google it to see if there is any in this area,” said Jazz. Carly had been rubbing her fingers over one of the stones and said that she thought the green shading could be copper.

  “There were houses sort of built into the rock. They had windows and doors, but they were part of the mountain.” Evan thought back to the place where they had climbed.

  “Were they old like Aztec old?” Carly queried, and he said that they could have been.

  “The caves and mountain houses certainly looked ancient,” Rob added. “I was so scared on that rock face I couldn’t have cared less if they had been aliens from outer space.” Everyone laughed as he remembered the climb.

  “I’m glad you don’t do that anymore,” Kim said to him.

  “Me too,” Jazz said. “Writing about it is much safer.” In the meantime, Evan had found the mountain range on his tablet and the name of the stones. He Googled it for the same rock in their area, and there was a small region where it could be found.

  “So, it probably is a local rock.” Kat said and the rest agreed.

  “I don’t recall any cave-dweller houses though,” Kim said, but Kat thought that there might be some off the beaten track in the mountains.

  “I am taking these to the dig and see what the archaeologists think. Ben knows where the buildings were demolished that provided the stone. Maybe we can pinpoint it.”

  “Well that was certainly a first date to go down on record.” Jazz smiled at Ben and Kat. “Are you going to discover a goldmine for the second one?”

  “Not quite.” Ben laughed. “But Kat is paying, so almost a goldmine.”

  “You know,” Carly said as she ran her hand over the stone. “If you have small pieces break off when you work with this, it might tumble into really pretty beads.”

  “I’ll save all the pieces for you,” Ben promised.

  “And let us know what the archaeologists say,” Jazz added as they headed for the door.

  “Thanks for the food and drink,” Kat said, and they took the stones back to the truck.

  “Can I keep one?” Carly asked, and they left one for her. They waved goodbye.

  “Well that was interesting,” Kat said. “I’ll phone Simon and ask if he’ll look at these pieces.” Ben felt a sudden onset of a strange feeling when he heard that Kat had the phone number of this archaeologist.

  “Can you not just take them to the dig?” he asked, and she shot him a quick sideways look.

  “I thought we might find out more quickly. You can come along with me if he says he’ll look at them.” She smiled as she almost felt his relief. “You’ll like him.”

  She said that she would call Simon in the morning and let him know the situation.

  “What about this second date?
” Ben asked as they drove up to her parent’s house and parked. She put her hand on his arm, and he covered it with his own.

  “Let’s see what Simon will do about the stone, and then we can arrange what to do after that,” she answered and then added, “What do you think about a day trip with a picnic to where the stones were demolished? Has somebody started to do some work there?”

  “No work as far as I know. I think they just wanted to clear it away. A picnic would be great.” She laughed and told him she would still pay for the next meal after the picnic. He went around to open the door of the cab and helped her down from the seat. It was just so amazing that this girl that he had been dreaming about going out with for some months now was standing right there in front of him.

  He gathered her in his arms, and she reached up her face for the kiss that seemed to be in both of their minds at the same time. The power of the force that surged through both of them was something that neither could explain. It was a magical feeling that let the world around them slip away and leave them in a space that was only for the two of them. It made Katarina slightly dizzy, and if he had told the truth, it was doing exactly the same thing to Ben.

  They clung together for some time and after the kiss, she leaned her head against his chest. He could feel his own heart pounding and wondered if hers was doing the same. She lifted her head and looked into his face.

  “See, the heels put me almost on your level.” She smiled. “I like that.”

  “No complaints here,” he answered. It wasn’t a date, but it felt like one.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, and we can plan the picnic. I am curious to see where the stones came from, anyway.”

  “We can picnic beside the waterfalls,” he answered. “And we hope that this Simon can shed some light on the markings.”

  He claimed another lingering kiss and she pecked his cheek before slipping inside and closing the door. Ben stood and felt the spot on his face where her lips had touched and let his heartbeat settle into a more normal rhythm. Then he walked to his vehicle with a smile on his face.