Hidden Treasures (27 page)

“He probably offered to invest some of your profits for you.”

“He had some ideas. So did just about everybody else in town.” Her smile grew pensive. All those people with their ideas had been her neighbors, her compatriots, the folks who’d populated her dream.

But that dream had died, and she’d buried it as effectively as Jed had buried his grandfather’s ashes. Now she’d reached the hard part of her story, the part
that still hurt, the part about her failures and the end of her dream. “My garden is a disaster.”

Jed didn’t seem startled by the abrupt change in subject. “No more treasures buried there, huh?”

“The zucchini is overgrowing everything in sight. Most of the tomato plants died. The peas are anemic. There are weeds everywhere. I was weeding every day, Jed, every single day, and the weeds just kept coming back. And I put some fencing in to keep the deer out, but something small kept burrowing under the fence and munching on the plants. Randy thought it might be a groundhog.”

“They’re known to do that.”

“But it doesn’t matter, because even if my garden produced a good crop, I wouldn’t know what to do with the vegetables. I’m an awful cook, Jed.”

His nod of agreement didn’t flatter her.

“I studied everything I could about canning, but I knew I’d make a mess of it. I probably wouldn’t get the jars sealed properly and everything would rot, and I’d poison myself with rancid tomato sauce next winter.”

“You’re not stupid, Erica. You could have figured it out.”

“It has nothing to do with stupidity. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, Jed. My strengths are intellectual. I’m a scholar and a teacher—a damn good teacher. But I’m not an earth mother. I always wanted to be one, and I tried really hard—but it’s not what I am.”

To her chagrin, she felt a tear leak from her eye and skitter down her cheek.

Jed didn’t comment on it or hand her a handkerchief.
She would have hated it if he had. She didn’t want his pity.

“I wanted to belong in Rockwell, but I never did. So I sold my house.”

“No kidding?” He leaned back in apparent shock. “Someone actually bought that old shack?”

“
I
bought that old shack not too long ago,” she reminded him.

“Well, okay. Sorry.” He appeared to be suppressing a grin. “What about your teaching job?”

“School districts all over the place are desperate for talented teachers. Especially teachers with credentials like mine. I’ve been offered a job at a primary school on the Upper West Side,” she told him, watching him, searching for any sign of panic or dread in his face.

He maintained his poker face. “Where else have you applied?” he asked.

She should lie, but she didn’t. “Just New York City.”

Then she saw him relax, finally allowing a smile to claim him. “Good,” he said. Just that one simple word.

“Jed, when you asked me to come to New York back in April, you were just, I don’t know, caught up in the moment. I have no expectations here, no hopes beyond the fact that you’re one of the very few people I know in the city. Your invitation was never about commitment or everlasting love or anything like that. I’m sure we both understand that.” Which hardly explained why the first thing she’d done after disembarking from the bus was to track Jed down.

He reached out and pulled one of her hands from her lap. She hadn’t been aware until that moment of how much her fingers had been fidgeting. “I’m glad
you’re so positive about what that invitation meant. Because I sure as hell never figured it out.”

She wished his hand didn’t feel so warm and enveloping. He was telling her he had no idea why he’d even asked her to join him in New York. Why did his hand seem to say that he knew exactly why he’d asked?

“The few times I phoned my dad, I asked about you. He said you were rich and snooty and didn’t give a damn about him or anybody else. Then he moved on to badgering me about my grandfather’s place.”

“I
did
give a damn!” Erica protested. “About him and
everybody
else! I would have probably given up on Rockwell a long time ago if I hadn’t cared so much.”

“Hey, you don’t have to convince me. I’m just saying, I wanted to hear about you. I wanted to know what you were doing. I wanted to know if you were missing me. Because I missed you—pretty much nonstop.”

She gaped at him. “Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you let me know?”

“Erica, I asked you to come with me and you said no. What am I, a masochist? One no got the job done.” He stroked his thumb across the back of her hand, slowly, tenderly. “You chose Rockwell over me. It didn’t matter how much I missed you. As long as you chose Rockwell, nothing would ever work between us.”

“It wasn’t Rockwell I chose,” she tried to explain. “It was a dream, this fantasy idea of myself that I didn’t want to give up. Erica Leitner, the gardener, the baker, the small-town woman connected to the earth and the sky and the mountains.” She sighed. “After you left, the dream just shriveled up and blew away.
So I told Burt Johnson I’d be resigning at the end of the school year and I put my house up for sale.”

“And you came to New York.”

“I considered some openings in the Boston area. Fern Bernard was really pushing for those, since she goes down there practically every weekend to see Avery Gilman.”

“But you came to New York.”

“Tell me I’m not making a mistake this time,” she whispered. “Tell me this is a dream worth pursuing.”

His hand tightened around hers. “I don’t have any fancy college degree,” he reminded her. “I’m a junk dealer, just like my father.”

“You’re not a junk dealer, Jed. I see what’s up here, and I saw what’s downstairs in your store. What you are is a miracle worker. You transform all this stuff—” she gestured toward the jumble of items awaiting repair “—into beautiful things people would love to have in their homes. You see below the surface, below the dirt and the damage. You know how to tell the treasures from the junk. You know what’s valuable.”

“You’re what’s valuable to me,” he said. “You’re incredible, Erica. You lose a dream, and you just pick yourself up and start dreaming something new. You’ve got so much courage, so much strength.” He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against her palm. “Take the job in New York. We’ll dream something new together.”

For the first time since she’d gotten off the bus—for the first time since she’d gotten
on
it…For the first time since she’d told Jed, back in Rockwell, that she wouldn’t go to New York with him, she felt her soul flower open and fill with light. She didn’t need mud and a garden and an L.L. Bean sun hat to feel con
nected to something bigger than herself, something more important, more vital. She felt connected now.

This was who she was. Not an earth mother, not a small-town rustic but a woman who had found the man with whom she wanted to share her dreams.

He swung his leg over his chair and stood, then pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. His mouth met hers in a long, loving kiss. “Just tell me one thing,” he murmured once they’d come up for air.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Anything.”

“Who the hell bought your house?”

She grinned. “The town did.”

“What?”

“The town of Rockwell. They’re going to turn it into a tourist destination—the house where the hidden treasure was found. They’re calling it a museum, and they’re going to charge admission. For an extra fee, a visitor will be permitted to shovel in the backyard for ten minutes, in case there are any other treasures buried there. Sewell McCormick predicts the town will make a fortune on it.”

Jed threw back his head and let loose a laugh. “Oh, God, what a town,” he roared.

She plucked at his shirt. “Rockwell is in your blood, Jed. Mine, too. Look at us, wearing these shirts.”

“Well, they’re true,” he said before dropping a gentle kiss onto her mouth. “We found a treasure there, didn’t we?” He kissed her again, a lot less gently, and she decided this new dream was going to turn out fine.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-4914-5

HIDDEN TREASURES

Copyright © 2003 by Barbara Keiler.

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

Visit us at
www.eHarlequin.com