Dangerous Tease (12 page)

“You need to stop talking right now.” Sam stood in the doorway, clad only in jeans, his
forehead deceptively smooth considering the venom in his tone.

Uncle Harlan pursed his lips and shook his head. “There's nothing you could have done to save Michael. It's about time you accepted that.” His stance softened and the flush drained out of his cheeks as quickly as it had appeared. “Even if you'd found it, the money couldn't have helped him.”

A powerful silence descended, pushing down
on Josie's shoulders like an unbearable weight. She'd gotten lost in a family drama that had been playing out for years with no resolution.

If Sam noticed the tension, he refused to acknowledge it. He stood as silent and solid as a statue, his face a mask of banality, giving no clue as to his emotions at the moment.

A chastened Uncle Harlan stepped forward, closing the gap between the two men
to an arm's length. “Sam, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—”

“If you leave right now, I won't tell anyone you're here.”

“Sammy—”

“Just go.”

Uncle Harlan sighed and walked toward the door, pausing to rest his hand on Sam's shoulder. The men stood in the quiet for a few heartbeats, neither speaking nor moving.

The elder Layton gave Sam a quick pat and cleared his throat. “Well then, I'll be seeing
you next Thanksgiving.”

When Sam didn't say anything, Uncle Harlan flashed Josie an apologetic smile and brushed past her and out the door. The subsequent click of the front door announced he'd left.

Josie looked around at the office's disarray. Papers were scattered everywhere. A stack of books had been knocked to the floor. For most people, this would be a bit more than daily wear and tear,
but for Sam's house it equated to disaster-level carnage.

As if unsure about what to do next, Sam trudged to the desk and pushed at the papers on the floor with the tips of his bare toes. “Michael was my twin brother. He died of leukemia when we were twelve.”

“Oh God, I'm so sorry.”

“I spent an entire summer before he died searching for Rebecca's Bounty, convinced that if I could just find
the treasure, we'd have enough money for some magical miracle cure because the treatment he was getting wasn't doing a damn thing anymore.” He kept his back to her, misery thickening the natural bass of his voice. “I climbed that stupid bluff every day. Hank, Chris and Claire came with me in the beginning, but by the end of the summer it was just me searching. I must have touched every square inch
of limestone, crawled into every crevice and cried on every rock at McPherson's Bluff. Michael died, but I never stopped looking. Ever. If someone was meant to find Rebecca's Bounty, don't you think I would have found it by now?”

Josie took a tentative step toward him, her chest tight. “Sam, what happened with Michael, it wasn't fair but it wasn't your fault.”

But Sam wasn't listening to her
anymore. Like a man suffering from shell shock, he stared past her, unblinking, confronting whatever demon only he could see. Tension turned his flesh to steel and he clenched his jaw so tightly, Josie worried he'd break something.

Wanting to ease his pain, Josie crossed to him. When he didn't brush off her nearness, she stepped behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, laying her face
against his bare back. They stood intertwined like that for several minutes, until his erratic breathing calmed under her damp cheek. He unwound himself from her embrace and stepped to the other end of the large desk. An all-to-familiar emptiness took the place of his warm body.

“Harlan took it.” Sam's shoulders slumped as he gazed into an empty cigar box in the middle of his once pristine desk.
“I had hoped, for once, to be wrong.”

“The map? It's gone?”

“Only a copy of a fake. I figured if someone came looking, they wouldn't stick around here to confirm its authenticity.” All of the anger he'd suppressed burst to the surface in a howl of frustration. “You. Harlan. Who's next to use me because of Rebecca's Bounty? I've been looking for that damn treasure for my entire life. I've wasted
years trying to it, to fill some missing part of me. Not anymore.”

He flung open a file cabinet and tossed out papers in such quantity the sheaves flew around him in a tornado of fury. Next, he attacked one of the book shelves, chucking worn books to the ground.

Josie slunk back to the doorway as he continued his path of destruction. Who knew better than her the pain of betrayal? God, what
had she done?

Sam paced the length of his home office, running his fingers through his hair and grumbling about false hope and crazy relatives. He'd had enough. No more searching or failed attempts to fix the past. Uncle Harlan was right about one thing. Finding Rebecca's Bounty wouldn't do a damn thing to bring back Michael.

Just as his
invectives slowed from a flood to a trickle, something sharp jabbed the arch of his bare foot and pain shot up his leg. He hopped awkwardly on the uninjured foot until he could lean against his desk. Holding his bum foot in one hand, he peered down at the diamond-shaped gold pin piercing his tender flesh.

Michael's Little League pin. Mom had given it to him to wear to the funeral in his twin's
memory. Sam slid down the desk and sat surrounded by the papers scattered around the floor and surrendered to the pain.

The cloying scent of lilies, thick in the small church, had nearly choked him. His father sat on Sam's left side, ramrod straight and perfectly still except for the shake in his hands that wouldn't stop. His mother sat on his right side, crying silent tears and squeezing his
hand tight as if to keep him from leaving too. A sunburn still chapped his nose and cheeks from his failed attempt to find Rebecca's Bounty and brand-new stitches held together the gash across his cheek, caused by a tumble down one of McPherson's Bluff's steep inclines. Dirt caked under his nails, embedded during fruitless digging after he'd flung the shovel off the bluff in frustration. He hadn't
spoken in three days and couldn't imagine ever wanting to again.

He'd denied for so long that his twin was really dying that when it had actually happened, he'd gone into a kind of shock. When he emerged a year later, some part of him had remained trapped in stone—until Josie had shaken it loose.

The woman in question hunkered down beside him, brushed aside the papers and settled next to him.
She rested her head on his shoulder and her amber scent tugged him away from his dark memories.

He should shake her off, but her warm flesh pressed against him helped anchor him to the here and now.

“After L.A., I was lost. Usually, I'm the one taking care of everyone, but I couldn't even remember to brush my teeth on a daily basis. Cy came for me, helped me set myself to rights. He's my twin.
I can't imagine what it would be like to lose him. I'm so sorry.”

The news she had a twin didn't shock him. Intrigued him, maybe, but didn't surprise. That dormant twin part of him must have sensed it and latched on with all its might. Of all the people who knew about Michael, she'd understand most of all.

“The pain, it never goes away. You just get used to it.” He relaxed back against the desk.
“After Michael died, I was so angry. I didn't speak for a year after he died. And everyone was always staring, whispering when I walked by, calling me 'that poor boy’. They weren't trying to be mean, but I hated being the center of attention, a hook for the town to hang all their pity on. I hated Michael and myself.

“Then, I came across Rebecca's diary. You've read it; you know what her life
was like. Her story of giving everything up and starting all over inspired me. I started going out to the bluff again, but it didn't take long until I realized I needed more information. My first words after Michael died were to ask my mother for our family tree. She was taking a tray of baked macaroni and cheese out of the oven at the time and dropped it. The glass pan shattered on the floor, sending
shards of glass and pasta flying everywhere. Then she was holding me tight and we were both crying.”

He stopped to inhale her scent and brush his cheek against her platinum curls while he regained his iron control over his emotions. God, he'd miss her, but she was an aberration, a wild flower sprouting in the hayfield. Just as the farmer yanked out the trespassing weed, he'd have to remove her
from his life. The only true thing he had left was his sense of order and Josie was chaos personified.

Still, he couldn't stop himself from taking one last whiff of her perfume. “I haven't stopped looking for Rebecca's Bounty since that day, but it's time I admit it. There is no treasure.”

Josie's stomach tumbled at the hard look in his
eyes. He wasn't just talking, he really believed it. The realization struck her as hard as a fist. She'd never be able to save her parents without that treasure.

“I think you need to go.” Sam stood and walked to the window, not bothering to turn and look at her. “Go back to Vegas.”

Pushing past the prick of his words, she strode to his side, stopping next to him as if to dare him to try to
ignore her. “I'm not leaving Dry Creek without the treasure. It's out there and we're going to find it.”

His jaw hardened. “Then you're an even bigger fool than that old man. There's nothing for you here.”

The words sucker-punched the air right out of Josie's lungs. It took her a minute but eventually she dragged in a ragged breath. “You would think so, but you're wrong.”

She swept out of
the room, unsure of what hurt more, Sam's dismissal or the fact that leaving him hurt like she was stabbing herself in the eye with a cocktail umbrella. She stuffed her legs into her jeans, slipped on her shoes, swiped her shirt off the floor and considered switching out of Sam's T-shirt before deciding it wasn't worth the bother.

Josie slammed the front door shut behind her and grabbed her
keys out of the front pocket of her backpack as she stomped over to her crappy car. She’d figure out a way to get Sam to come around. Her parents’ lives depended on it. And dammit, she needed him.

The car door creaked open on rusty hinges. Like her, it was barely holding it together.

J
osie scanned the crowd outside of the small house in the middle of nowhere for Sam's auburn-streaked hair. Nearly everyone wore ski caps or these weird hats with earflaps, frustrating her efforts to find him.

The idea had seemed perfect this morning when she’d read about the auction of Beth Martinez's house in the
Dry Creek Gazette
. The article had been accompanied by a photo
of Beth and her fiancé, Sheriff Hank Layton. Josie figured Sam would have to show up to his soon-to-be sister-in-law's big event.

She hadn't expected it to be so crowded. There must have been a hundred people milling around in the freezing temperatures. Though her fingers felt like skinny blocks of ice, she'd rolled the dice on finding Sam here and she wasn't ready to give up yet. Perseverance
seemed to be her word of the week here in Dry Creek.

Check that. The word of the week had to be desperation. She had to persuade Sam to work with her to find Rebecca's Bounty. Her secret hope was that he’d welcome her into his arms again too, but after she made her confession, there was no way that would be happening. But Sam was a good man. He’d help her save her parents. He had to, time was
running out and she didn't expect Snips to offer her an extension.

Josie rubbed her gloved hands together to ward off the arctic-level cold as she hung out at the edge of the crowd at the Martinez auction.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” Sam hissed in her ear.

Heat flooded her body and she was transported to the tropics. “Looking for you, of course.”

“Well, you found me. Now go away.”

How did he make it through a day without someone clobbering him? “Did anyone ever tell you that you can be a real ass?”

“Happens all the time.” His gaze traveled down her body before snapping back up to her face. “Don't you have a real coat?”

“What do you call this?” She held out her leather-covered arms.

“An invitation for frostbite.”