Distinguished Service & Every Move You Make (Uniformly Hot!) (28 page)

He frowned, trying to compile all the information that had gathered in his mind over the past twenty-four hours. There was the thief who had showed up first at the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Alabama looking for the same suitcase they were. Presumably it was the same thief who had snatched the bag when he and Mariah were on their way to the airport.

Then there was the whole issue of Peggy Sue having to drop fifty pounds in the next three days if she hoped to fit into the dress in question in time for the renewal ceremony.

And what of the details Mariah had gathered? That the dress had been worn by a Boston socialite at her wedding a mere two weeks ago? Would a new bride sell her wedding dress?

He absently rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. Throw on top of that the whole Claude Ray fiasco and you had yourself a mighty fine mess.

He watched Mariah, who was crouched down close to the earth, smoothing her hand over the soil. To say she’d been quiet during the ride out would be an understatement. Sure, he supposed that Claude Ray’s tying her up and leaving her alone in the kitchen for him to find would ruin anyone’s day. But he suspected her dour disposition was a little more complicated than that.

He squinted his eyes. And why shouldn’t it be? Everything else was turning out to be complicated as hell. Why should whatever was happening between him and Mariah be any different?

“Find anything?” he asked as he stepped to stand next to her.

“No, I was just thinking.”

“That could be dangerous.”

She swatted at his leg then stood to her full height. “Very funny. No, I was just considering everything that has happened on this simple case of the missing wedding dress so far.”

“I was just thinking the same thing myself.”

She wiped her hands on her jeans. “Okay, so there’s this guy in Odessa who’s been married God knows how long, and he and his wife decide to renew their vows, you know, because a number of years have passed and, well, maybe they forgot them.”

Zach watched her begin to pace back and forth in front of him.

“So he, or his wife, who knows which one, finds the perfect dress to do it in—”

“A dress that wouldn’t fit if she had a body-sized shoehorn,” he interjected.

Mariah blinked at him. “You didn’t tell me that.”

He shrugged. “You didn’t tell me about the bracelet.”

She made a face and resumed pacing. “Okay, so this couple find the perfect wedding dress, whether it fits or not is immaterial…” She paused. “Only the bag the dress is in gets lost in lost baggage hell.” She stopped again. “Did they tell you where they got the dress?”

He shook his head. “Irrelevant information.”

“Yes, of course, because being in a bag on its way to them already denotes ownership, right?”

“Are you saying the Gawlicks stole the dress to begin with?”

“I’m saying that the Gawlicks had someone steal the dress. The same someone who showed up in Alabama Unclaimed Baggage Center, then stole the suitcase—sans dress—from you outside the hotel.”

“Go on,” he said.

“This same someone, well, if he’s working for Gawlick, then it’s safe to assume that he knows who you are, because Gawlick hired you. Which makes you an easy target to follow.”

“Yes, but why try to essentially steal the bag from himself? Seeing as Gawlick hired me to retrieve the dress and get it to him, then that’s what you’re saying he was doing.”

“Because…” She trailed off, obviously thinking.

Zach looked out on the prairie again, noticing that a vehicle was kicking up dust about a mile or so away. “State land.”

Mariah stared at him. “What?”

Zach pointed a finger at her. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that Gawlick did steal the dress. If that’s the case, then he did it not because his wife refused to wear anything else, even if she could fit into it. No. He did it because—”

“Because he knew about the map on it.”

“Which means that he was—”

“On a treasure hunt.”

He nodded. “Only if the hunt were fruitful, then he just spent a whole lot of resources giving the state of Texas a lot of money.”

Mariah frowned. “I don’t follow you.”

Zach stomped his foot against the ground. “This land became the property of Texas when Bisbane died, bit the dust, disappeared, whatever.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So anything found on the land also belongs to the state of Texas.”

“When the bag was lost, Gawlick hired Jennifer Madison’s agency as a front to find the dress,” she continued, understanding dawning on her face.

“Then he hired another man, or ordered the thief who was already in his employ, to steal the dress from us. When that happened, so far as we would know, the dress would be lost forever.”

“And Gawlick would go on to secretly claim the treasure, there would be no renewal ceremony and no one would be any the wiser.”

They stared at each other for a long moment without saying anything.

“Awfully complicated.”

“Oh, no, it’s quite simple, really. The circumstances are what make it complicated.”

A couple yards away, the old prospector made an odd, throaty sound more animal than human. Zach lifted his brows and he and Mariah simultaneously shifted their gazes to watch the old man lift his arms as if giving praise to some unseen entity, his mouth moving, his skinny barrel chest vibrating.

Hughie moved to stand next to Zach, cupping a hand over his mouth. “It’s something, watching him work.”

“Is he Native American?” Zach asked.

“Nah. Never even been around ’em. Says this is how he’s always worked.”

“Ah.”

On the other side of him, Mariah stifled a laugh.

The old man suddenly dropped his arms, startling the threesome where they stood watching. They all laughed uneasily as Clooney crouched down in a position Zach was half afraid he wouldn’t be able to get back up from, then started hopping on each foot, swooping side to side like an airborne eagle with his feet stuck on the ground.

Mariah released a long breath next to him. “We probably could have found something quicker with the metal detector.”

“Assuming the item we’re looking for includes metal,” Zach whispered.

Another loud sound issued from Clooney and Zach cleared his throat, determining to keep quiet from here on out…after he asked one more question.

He leaned closer to Hughie. “How long does this usually take?”

Hughie blinked at him. “How am I supposed to know? It takes what it takes.”

“You mean you haven’t worked with him before?”

Mariah leaned against Zach’s side. “Remember, it’s a legend.”

Oh, great. Here they were standing out in the middle of nowhere watching an old coot imitate something he probably saw on TV, waiting for some sort of divine intervention to find the treasure of a man who had been dead for over a hundred years and who had traced a map of seed pearls onto his ill-fated bride’s wedding dress.

It suddenly struck him how…bizarre this all was.

“Where are you going?” Mariah asked, grabbing his sleeve.

“To get the metal detector and a shovel. You with me?”

Hughie grabbed his other arm. “Wait. I think he found something.”

Sure enough, Clooney was bent over at the waist, appearing to stare at the ground with unerring intensity.

“I think he threw his back out,” Mariah whispered.

“Here,” Clooney said, pointing a finger at the earth and surprising them all by uttering something intelligible. “It’s here.”

Zach blinked once, twice, then rubbed the back of his neck again.

The spot Clooney had pointed to was at least twenty feet from where they had reckoned the X on the map was. Did they start where Clooney indicated? Or where common sense and math dictated?

Mariah grabbed Zach’s shirtsleeve. She stared at something in the distance. A truck. Black, silver-tinted windows, appearing to emerge from the dust, and rolling up quickly.

Clooney turned toward Hughie and held out his palm. “That’ll be twenty bucks.”

14

“W
HAT
IN
THE
HELL
is Gawlick doing here?”

Mariah blinked at Zach’s words as the truck bearing down on them drew to a stop mere feet away and two men climbed out from either side. One was Gawlick and the other looked oddly familiar. Then he realized where he had seen him. In Alabama. More specifically, holding the suitcase he’d taken from him as he ran away.

Mariah blew out a long breath next to him. “How much can happen in one day?” she whispered, then leaned closer to Zach. “I think he’s about to prove our hypothesis.”

“What in the hell is going on here?” Hughie asked.

Having collected his twenty, Clooney walked in the other direction, away from the threesome and away from the vehicles. Zach frowned. What was he planning to do, walk all the way back to town?

“Letterman,” Denton Gawlick said, coming to stand in front of him.

“Gawlick,” Zach said back, squinting against the late-morning sun that rested over the other man’s shoulder.

“Do you mind explaining to me what you’re doing out here, boy?”

Okay, so the man was twenty years Zach’s senior, but he didn’t much like anyone calling him
boy,
as his conversation with Hughie the other night attested to. Especially someone he figured had set him up as a patsy.

Zach took in the man with Gawlick. At somewhere around six feet, he equaled Zach’s height, but had at least thirty pounds on him—in raw muscle if the tight shirt was anything to go by. Zach tried to penetrate the mirrored glasses the dark-haired guy wore, but to no avail. He’d have to go with his unsmiling demeanor and set jaw to read his mood, which didn’t look to be too good.

“Actually, Gawlick,” Zach said, returning his attention to his client, “I was just about to ask the same of you.”

Denton gestured toward his friend. “I had Allan tail you.”

Mariah crossed her arms over her chest, drawing Zach’s gaze there. “I would have known if we were followed.”

Gawlick grinned at her. Zach didn’t like the way he did it. “There is more than one way to tail someone, Miss Clayborn.”

Hughie puffed out his chest, apparently not liking their visitors any more than Zach and Mariah did. “Just who in the hell are you two and what do you want?”

Zach grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “Hughie Clayborn, this is my client, Denton Gawlick.”

The two men stared at each other, but it was Hughie who spoke first. “You mean the guy who paid you to find Ellie’s dress.”

“So you know then,” Gawlick said, looking around the barren location, “though I probably should have figured that out given your location.” He squinted off into the distance. “Bisbane’s Bluff?”

“How did you know?” Mariah asked.

Gawlick chuckled. “Everyone knows about Bisbane’s Bluff, my dear. It’s the exact location of Jock’s treasure I was unsure about. Considering that the old man had over two hundred thousand acres, that’s a lot of land to cover without any guarantees.” He stared at Zach. “Give me my dress, Letterman.”

“Don’t you mean you’d like to have your wife’s dress?”

Gawlick scratched his chin, his head bobbing as he laughed. “You didn’t really think I’d spend a dime to remarry that old bag, did you? Hell no. I want the money Jock buried so I can leave the battle-ax and move on.” He clasped his hands behind his back then rocked on his heels. “You know all the wealth you saw when you came out to my estate? Well, it’s hers. From her family.”

“After thirty years of marriage you’re still entitled to half,” Mariah said.

“Doesn’t matter. All that money wouldn’t be worth anything to me in what it would cost my reputation.”

“What? For taking your part of the family money?”

“No, for taking her part of the family money.”

Zach stared at the man as if he’d gone insane. “Okay, so let me see if I can get this straight. You arranged to steal Ellie’s wedding dress from an unsuspecting bride in Boston…”

Gawlick shrugged. “She was done with it. How do you think I found the damn thing? The last proof of its existence was from a wedding over twenty years ago. Again, in Boston. I knew if I waited long enough, searched diligently enough, it would pop up again.”

“You’ve been waiting for twenty years?” Hughie asked, obviously incredulous. “Damn, man, ain’t no woman worth that much if you can’t stand to live with her.”

Gawlick’s face contorted. “You haven’t seen the way I’ve grown accustomed to living.”

“I repeat,” Hughie said, spitting tobacco juice near Gawlick’s shiny Italian shoes. “Ain’t no woman worth that much if you can’t stand to live with her.”

Gawlick’s jaw tightened. He turned his attention to Zach. “Where’s the dress?”

“Gone.”

“What do you mean gone?”

“Gone, as in taken. Stolen. Pinched.”

Gawlick looked immediately to his cohort, who shrugged his shoulders and said, “It wasn’t me. If it were, we wouldn’t be way out here in no-man’s-land.”

Gawlick cursed then paced away and stood with his back to them.

“Is this guy dangerous?” Mariah asked quietly.

Zach looked at her, an overwhelming sensation of wanting to protect her hitting him straight in the solar plexus. “I don’t know, Mar.”

Hughie lowered his voice and pretended an interest in the ground and the spit he was covering with dirt with his boot. “The old man might not be, but I’m not too sure about his friend there.”

Zach had to admit that Hughie had a point. While Gawlick was short and pudgy and didn’t look capable of lifting a stool in a bar fight much less surviving one, his stooge looked like he ate bar stools for breakfast.

He slanted a gaze to where Hughie was strapped, a mean-looking firearm gleaming from a shoulder holster. The sight didn’t reassure him since Gawlick’s goon sported an even bigger one. Surprisingly, Mariah wasn’t packing. It was the first time he’d seen her go anywhere without her firearm. And now that she might need it…

He caught himself up short. What was he thinking about? There was no reason for him to think anyone was going to get hurt.

Gawlick seemed to regain his bearings and strode quickly back to them.

“You copied the map, didn’t you?” he said, his face freshly animated. “Let me see it.”

Zach narrowed his gaze. “We’re going by memory.”

“My ass,” Gawlick growled. “Search him.”

The ape stepped up and grabbed Zach by the arms. Zach instantly shrugged him off, his palms itching to clock the guy just for having touched him.

Mariah stepped up and slipped the map out of Zach’s front pocket. “Here. Enjoy.”

Hughie nodded. “If you don’t mind, we’ll be leaving now.”

Gawlick stared at the map as if comparing it to what he knew about the dress.

Zach couldn’t believe they were actually just going to walk out of there. Since Hughie’s truck was a little farther than Mariah’s truck, they all headed for Mariah’s together, Zach bringing up the rear.

“Just a minute.”

Zach grimaced, knowing it was too good to be true.

“We’re going to need someone to dig this thing up.”

* * *

S
WEAT
DRENCHED
M
ARIAH
where she sat in the relative shade of the side of her truck, her hands tied behind her back for the second time that day. But unlike earlier, this time Hughie was tied up right alongside her, both of them watching as Zach drove a shovel into the hard Texas earth and tossed it aside, the mound next to his target growing higher while the hole grew deeper.

She squinted up at the sun. She judged it to be afternoon, but she couldn’t be sure given that she couldn’t see her watch. But the sun was always a good indicator.

“Hey, Gawlick, even slaves need water,” Hughie called out. “Give the kid something to drink before he shrivels up and blows away with the wind.”

Gawlick said something to the dark man at his side.

Zach stood up, his bare chest glistening as he wiped sweat from his brow. He’d taken off his shirt and used it to protect his head against the harsh summer rays, but that left the rest of him at the sun’s ruthless mercy. “There’s some water in the back of the truck. Give it to them,” Zach called out to Gawlick.

Mariah blinked at him. She and Hughie weren’t in need of water. He was.

The goon reached into the back of her truck and found the insulated packs. He held out a bottle to Mariah. She glared at him. “What am I supposed to hold it with? My breasts?”

The stranger’s eyes drifted to the area in question, then he leered at her.

Hughie chuckled next to her. “I used to wonder where you got that mouth of yours. Then I woke up one day and realized it was me. Not that I figured it out on my own, mind you. It took Miss Winona pointing it out to me. ‘Hughie,’ she said to me, ‘if you had been born with breasts, you’d have been Mariah.’” He shook his head.

Mariah stared at him. Miss Winona? When had her father spoken to Winona McFarland?

“Untie his hands,” Mariah said, indicating her father. “You’ve already taken his gun. What are you afraid he’s going to do?”

She was guessing that the goon wouldn’t think her father capable of tackling a five-year-old. Of course, he had no idea Hughie spent his days on the range.

“She’s right, you know,” Hughie said to Mariah. “Miss Winona. You’re me all over again, you know?”

The goon motioned for Hughie to lean forward. He then crouched down to cut the plastic tie he’d fastened around his wrists, then stepped back and handed him the bottle of water. Satisfied that neither of them were going anywhere, the goon walked back to the growing hole and stood holding his gun to his chest while he watched Zach.

Hughie cracked open the water and started holding it out for her. She shook her head. “You drink some then toss it to Zach.”

“God, you’re as stubborn as I ever was,” Hughie said. “Drink, girl. Now.”

Mariah glared at him then took the tiniest sip on record. He forced her to take more by refusing to remove the bottle until she did.

“Talk about stubborn,” she murmured, absolutely no malice in the response.

He was right, she realized. All these years she’d been so preoccupied with how unlike her mother she was that she hadn’t noticed she was so much like her father. She looked into his weathered face and knew instantly it was true. The fact made her…happy somehow. Content.

The truth was, she’d spent so much time counting off who and what she was not, that she hadn’t really paid attention to who and what she was. She focused on the powerful muscles in Zach’s back as he heaved, dug, then heaved again. And it had taken a Yankee to do that for her.

She’d asked him to teach her how to be sexy, instead he’d showed her sexy wasn’t just what you wore or how you acted, but was a state of mind. And damned if she didn’t feel sexy.

She swallowed hard. Or was her new sensuality a direct result of the man himself instead of something he’d awakened in her? She couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that she seemed to hear the very humming of blood through her veins whenever he was around. Aware of every sweet nuance of life and sex…and love.

She leaned against the side of the truck. Hell of a time to come to that realization. Oh, she’d long suspected that things were more serious for her than she’d ever dared let on. She’d had three whole relationships in her life before meeting Zach. But she’d been so distracted by the fact that her exes soon became engaged to other women that she’d missed all the warning signs. And it could have been that very distraction that had allowed it to happen.

God, this was so confusing. Everything. From the case of the missing wedding dress to hidden treasure. To a casual agreement with Zach Letterman that had turned into something much more intense.

Then there was her father…

She looked at Hughie Clayborn, who appeared to be holding up better than she was. He sat up straight, his eyes alert, undoubtedly formulating a plan to get them out of the mess they were in.

He was a loyal man. A handsome one. And she’d been so very selfish to ignore that he might want to move on after her mother’s death. Find someone else to love. Perhaps even marry.

The thought took her breath away.

Wasn’t anything in her life the way it had been a week ago?

Heave, dig…heave, dig. Mariah concentrated on the simple action, wishing she could take turns with Zach.

Then the shovel hit something obviously metallic, and even the wind seemed to stop blowing.

* * *

E
VERY
MUSCLE
in Zach’s back was jarred from the impact of his shovel hitting something hard and yielding.

“Get it out, get it out!” Gawlick yelled, leaping from his car where he’d been sitting with the air-conditioning on. He ran to the side of the site. “It’s the treasure.”

Zach grimaced, the thought of handing his ex-client a grain of dirt disgusting to him. “It’s a rock.”

Gawlick stared at him then motioned to the other guy positioned somewhere behind Zach. He felt the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his neck. “Get it out.”

Anger filled Zach to overflowing as he stood still, staring at Gawlick and the goon’s reflection in his sunglasses. He’d been prepared for just this moment. He moved the shovel over a couple of inches and overturned a shoebox-sized rock that he’d dug around instead of uncovering the metal he’d hit.

“A rock,” Gawlick said numbly.

Zach wanted to hit him in the head with the shovel, only he was a millimeter too far away. Probably by design.

“Drop it.”

Zach stiffened, recognizing Hughie’s voice, then a telltale metallic click.

“Next time you take a man’s gun from him, you might want to check to make sure he doesn’t have another one.”

Zach slightly turned his head. Mariah was struggling to her feet with her hands still bound behind her back. “Stay where you are, Mar.”

She glared at him. He could see how much it was eating away at her not being able to help.

The gunman behind him moved, looking at Mar, as well.

Zach swung around hard with the shovel, catching him on the hand, whacking it and the gun he held away just as he squeezed the trigger. A shot spit up dirt a couple of feet to Zach’s left. Zach dropped the shovel then caught the guy in the mouth with what had to be the sucker punch of a lifetime. The goon stumbled backward, forcing Hughie to move.