Lone Star Cinderella (7 page)

Because Melody had decided something important. Yesterday, she'd turned tail and quietly given up…like the good, passive little girl she'd been taught to be. But today she knew she couldn't live with that. Nope. She couldn't…she was on the trail of a piece of American history. Goodness, a fire was burning inside her and she knew no matter what she
had
to bring out the truth. She had been given a mission…and, by George, she was going see it through.

Seth Turner was afraid the crazies would come if
word of a treasure got out. And he was absolutely right, only, if he didn't get on board he was about to find out that the first crazy was already here!

“M
elody, girl—we need to talk,” Lacy Matlock called as soon as Melody climbed out of her car the next morning. As usual, the little church parking lot was bulging with cars and trucks. She scanned the group and found the one she was looking for. Seth was here. As she hurried toward her friend, she checked on the various clumps of people visiting on the lawn. When she saw him standing on the edge with a group of other cattlemen, her heart did an aggravating tumble. When his gaze caught hers and held, she suddenly found it hard to breathe!

She looked away quickly—not exactly the powerhouse of determination she was shooting for.

“How've you been?” Lacy asked, giving her an exuberant hug. Lacy was the local hairstylist who'd moved to town and helped bring the dusty, dying place into the wonderful, welcoming community that it was today. When Melody had come to teach at the school Mule Hollow shared with the small rural communities she'd had to live in Ranger, which was seventy miles away.
There wasn't anything to draw her to live in Mule Hollow. The schoolhouse was twenty miles from town and honestly back then the dead clapboard town was only a place cowboys could love. Sam's Diner, Pete's Feed and Seed, Prudy's Garage and not much else…But that had all changed when Norma Sue, Esther Mae and Adela, the three older ladies who loved their little town, had come up with the plan to advertise for wives for all the cowboys. Why, Melody and the other schoolteachers had been so shocked to see the ad in the paper. And the next thing they knew, almost before the ink on the first ad was dry, Lacy had driven into town in her
pink
1958 Cadillac convertible!

The exuberant hairstylist was like a tornado when she hit town. She'd come to open a salon with her friend Sheri, who was riding shotgun in the Caddy. And she'd come to help the ladies succeed in their plan to bring women to Mule Hollow. It had been amazing. Really, for a quiet gal like herself, Melody had been curious to watch what was happening. Even though she was too shy to come looking for a husband, she'd been one of the first women to move to town when Adela turned her big old home into an apartment house. But she'd watched as women came and fell in love. And now, some were even having babies. Even Lacy was trying, but so far no luck. Melody hoped it happened soon for her and Clint, though.

Several times when she'd really felt down, she'd thought about telling Lacy about her “other” life. But she always held back. “Hi. I'm in the nursery for Sunday school so I've got to head in,” she said, glancing toward Seth from beneath her lowered lashes. “You want to walk with me?”

“Sure do,” Lacy said, falling into step beside her. “It seems like forever since I've seen you. You did just what I thought you'd do.”

“What's that?”

“You disappeared the minute you moved to the boonies.” Her bluebird-colored eyes twinkled.

“I've been busy.” Melody wanted more than anything to share the news about the treasure map. She felt like a kid with a dollar burning a hole in her pocket.

“I know, I know. You've buried yourself in all that research and you're swimming in happiness. But we miss you.”

“I'm coming to the July Fourth planning meeting on Tuesday.”

“And you're going to help with one of the booths this year, too. I'm not letting you hide in a food cart this year.”

“But—”

“Nope, nope, nope. You are getting out and about this year. Two years hiding in the cotton candy trailer is just not going to cut it anymore. I'm putting you somewhere with a little more life, and there is just nothing you can do to change my mind.”

They'd reached the nursery door. “Okay, I'll do whatever you want.” There, she was stepping out of her comfort zone and as impulsive as Lacy was, Melody still trusted her.

“Great! The posse is getting back from their little vacation on the high seas tomorrow night so I'm going to huddle up with them, and by the time you show up Tuesday night we're going to have you all situated. Do you want to come out to the house after church for lunch?”

“I can't. I really want to get home and back to my
work.” Over Lacy's shoulder she saw Seth come in the annex door and head for the singles class. He looked handsome in his twill western-cut dress slacks and cream-colored blazer. The buttery tone of the jacket made his smoky eyes pop with intensity. And her nerves jangled like a load of bangle bracelets when their gazes met. Despite trying not to, she was attracted to the maddening man.

“I'll see you later,” she said to Lacy and ducked into the nursery. Chicken Little had nothing on her. That little chicken was silly for foolishly thinking the sky was falling…but if she fell for Seth, she'd take the prize for being foolish. Especially since they disagreed so strongly about almost everything.

 

Seth had been going through the journal and contemplating the different aspects of the map ever since Melody had brought it to him on Friday. While he did have a sense of exploration that had been awakened, he hadn't been able to just give himself over to the idea. He understood the magnitude of the discovery of the map and the journal. While the facts about the man were slim, her documentation of his grandfather's infatuation with the finding of the treasure was unbelievably poignant. He wasn't sure if her writing had any real historical value, but as a link to understanding his ancestor, it was of great value. His grandfather had basically abandoned his family, leaving Jane and his son, Mason, to handle the running of the stagecoach house on their own. Oh, he was a regular at the town saloon and the gambling tables, but now Seth knew what he did during the day. It was ridiculous. Unconscionable. And after reading the journal, he was all the
more convinced no one would ever find the treasure if it existed. If Oakley had spent years pursuing the treasure, how did Melody think they would be doing anything but wasting their time? After all, his grandpa wasted his life…and missed out on his family's life, too.

But even knowing this with his practical brain all it took was one look at the hurt and anger he glimpsed in Melody's eyes for his impractical brain to make an aggressive attack on him.

He was standing at the back of the church auditorium when she entered the side door. The women rotated in and out of nursery duty and hers must have just been for the Sunday school hour. He watched her scan the room, hesitate when she saw him and then take the seat. He'd never before thought that she purposefully chose her seat according to where he was sitting…after all, they'd hardly known each other before she moved into the stagecoach house. But today, he knew without a doubt that he was exactly the reason she chose her seat. And that was exactly the reason he excused himself from his conversation and made his way across the room, up the far, outer aisle and slipped into the seat directly behind her.

Leaning forward, close to her ear, he murmured, “Still mad at me?” The soft scent drew him closer than necessary so when she turned sharply to look at him their faces were a mere inch apart. She leaned away to meet his gaze more fully.

“Yes.”

It was so matter-of-fact that it startled a chuckle from him. He'd half expected her to deny it when he knew just by looking at her that she was fuming inside. And hurt…and that was what bothered him. She was too
gentle, too easily victimized and he didn't like the idea that holding back on something she wanted so badly hurt her. The choir had started singing, and everyone was standing to sing the first song. He realized he and Melody were staring at each other and still sitting. She realized it, too. Jerking to a standing position, she grabbed a songbook and began furiously flipping pages. He stood more slowly, plucked a hymnal from the back of the pew and flipped through it as he contemplated his next move. The song was almost over when he realized he was holding his songbook upside down.

 

The man was haunt—no he was
taunt
ing her, Melody thought an hour after she left church. Settling on the floor amid a stack of computer printouts on money stolen and attributed to Sam Bass and his gang, she vowed to kick Seth out of her head. Hours later as darkness fell, she kept coming back to Sam's biggest score. Coffee in hand, she carried the pages to the couch and curled up with a blanket, letting the stories roll through her head.

The outlaw, in her estimation, was more of a bungler than a skilled outlaw. The single documented robbery of a substantial amount was the sixty thousand dollars in gold pieces that he and his gang stole when they robbed the Union Pacific in Ogallala, Nebraska, in 1877…or, depending on which account she was looking at, it was documented to have taken place in Big Springs, Nebraska—the next stop over. It was the largest documented train robbery to date, but Melody was always struck by the fact that Sam couldn't get the safe open on the train. The man hopped on a train unprepared to get the safe open in the event that no one had the combina
tion—why would you go to all that trouble without a backup plan? Inside that safe was
two hundred thousand
dollars, but Sam didn't have a plan other than to get the porter to open it for him. And he hadn't been the good ole boy many gave him credit for being, because he pistol-whipped the poor man, trying to force him to tell the combination, which it turned out the porter didn't know.

Then, no safe to rob, one of Sam's gang members found some silver bullion in bricks but it was too
heavy
for them to carry…oh, yes, a greedy, stupid gang, to her mind.

It wasn't until one of the gang members found two small boxes sealed with sealing wax that they hit pay dirt. When they opened the boxes, they discovered the sixty thousand in gold coins. Luck, pure and simple! There was absolutely no skill involved. And that's why the line between legend and truth fascinated her. How could a loser like Sam Bass get such a mystic admiration built around him?

Especially since after the discovery of the coins they continued on and robbed the
passengers.
This netted a total of four hundred dollars. So there it was, if they hadn't happened upon the gold coins, this robbery would have yielded the gang a mere four hundred dollars and the only memorable part of the tale would have been the fact that the gang had been too unprepared for the job to steal the large money. Instead they'd gone down in history as the gang who'd, to date, pulled off the largest train heist ever. It was laughable; it was so crazy.

Melody was of the mind that Sam Bass was a legend that was stretched way out of proportion. Much of the
money supposedly buried across Texas by him and his gang was probably pure legend. But there was the real mystery around what exactly happened to that sixty thousand dollars.

Once leaving the train, the men split the money and separated into pairs. A set of men was killed a week later, another set separated and one man was captured while it was rumored but not confirmed that the other escaped with his gold to Canada. The last two men, Sam Bass and Jack Davis, came back to Denton, Texas, and within four months were back robbing stagecoaches. What happened to all their money? Some stories were that they'd spent it on a life of extravagance. But ten thousand dollars each—that was an exorbitant amount of money in the 1870s and seemed too large to blow in such a short time period. So some believe they hid it in caves in the Hill Country…and this was only one of a massive amount of documented tales. And it did nothing to help her figure out who was supposed to have been on Seth's property. These two men didn't die here in the stagecoach house. In 1878, Sam was shot during a bank robbery and died in Round Rock, Texas, and
The Ballad of Sam Bass
was written soon after and became a song sang by cowboys for years to soothe restless cattle—go figure. Davis, though, seemingly disappeared, though some said he went to New Orleans.

Unless…Melody sucked in a sharp breath as an idea came to her. It was logical. Doable.

Jumping from the couch she did a little happy dance. She may have just figured out the map's creator.

M
elody prayed for courage. She felt like the lion in
The Wizard of Oz
as she drove toward Seth's the next morning. It had taken all her self-discipline not to hop in her car and rush over here last night. Still, in the bright light of day, she was full of hope that today he would listen to her. And she was going to have to get back the courage she'd had when she'd told him she wasn't giving up her lease on the stagecoach house. She needed that rebellious gal to show up and stand up for what was right.

Driving over his cattle guard, her adrenaline was pumping and inside she felt that burning excitement. He was pulling away from his barn in his truck pulling a horse trailer behind him.

Heart pumping, she slammed on her brake and bounded out of her car. He halted too, but before he could get out she was at his open window.

“I think I know who our man is. The one who wrote the map.”

“Are you all right?”

“No. I'm not. Didn't you hear me? I'm almost certain—well not certain but have an idea that our man is one of two people. He might have been Canadian Tom Nixon from Sam Bass's gang. Or Jack Davis.”

Seth had gotten out of the truck as she talked and was grinning at her. “I had a feeling you were poring through your research yesterday. So what makes you think this?” He leaned a hip against his truck and crossed his boots at the ankle, doing the same with his arms across his chest. He looked so relaxed and in tune to what she had to say that Melody's mind went blank looking at him. Goodness, but the man had a way of throwing her off-kilter.

Taking a deep breath, she regrouped and told him about the story she'd kept going back to and how it had finally dawned on her. “You see, here it is, and it's a big what-if, because it would mean Tom Nixon didn't do what everyone thought he did. See, after the gang robbed the train they split the twenty-dollar gold pieces up between them, then split up into twos. The one couple was soon killed and Bass and Davis went back to Texas. The third couple, Nixon and Berry, ended up in Missouri, where Berry flaunted his money and was captured. And that's where it gets blurry. History says that Nixon then made his way back to Canada and then vanished, never to be heard from again.” She was so excited relating her story to Seth that she was talking with her hands and firing out the tale with lightning speed. It was a wonder he could keep up with her but she couldn't help herself. When she came to a halt, practically gasping to get a breath, she realized he was looking at her in a way that made her insides melt. She swallowed hard and lost her train of thought again.

“Go on. I'm all ears,” he urged.

“G-good,” she managed. “Because this is important.”

“I can see that.”

“Good. H-here's what I think. What if Nixon didn't go from Missouri to Canada, but instead headed back to Texas with plans to join up with Bass and Davis again? But he ended up here in your ravine, got sick and your ancestors found him. What if that treasure map is to his share of the train robbery? If that's the case, then that's why none of this shows up in any record. He wasn't supposed to be in Texas. Or Davis, who also disappeared into history, at least from what I can find out so far, might also have been our man.”

There, she'd finished. She stood, arms akimbo, and looked triumphantly at Seth. Sure this might not have been Nixon or Davis and sure there were tons of other possibilities. But this was plausible, and it was a good reason to convince Seth to pursue the treasure. “See, we have to go look for this treasure. You can't just ignore all of this. I won't let you, buster.”

He laughed then. It was a sudden, unexpected hoot of laughter that was accompanied by twinkling eyes that seemed to reach out and grab her.

“Do you have any idea how cute you are when you're excited like this? No, of course you don't.”

She'd thought through many things he might say to her after her disclosure, and she'd come up with counters to defend her position. Those words hadn't ever been in the running. She just blinked and felt ridiculously thrilled.

“Okay,” he said, pushing away from the truck. “Come on.”

Her brow crinkled, and her brain started working again. “What did you say?”

He grinned. “I said come on. I was on my way to your house when you drove up. I've got the horses loaded and thought today would be a great day for a treasure hunt.”

Her mouth fell open in shock. He lifted his hand and placed his fingers beneath her chin, gently lifting up, so that her lips came together. “There ya go. Want to get this show on the road?”

Melody went from being the lion in
The Wizard of Oz
to Alice falling through the rabbit hole. “Y-you were coming to get me?”

He nodded, giving her a mischievous look—it was a new look for him and it kicked her pulse into high gear. Or maybe it was just the fact that this combined with knowing she stood up for what she believed in again was doing a number on her. Or maybe it was simply that she could feel the tingle of his touch all the way to the tips of her toes—even though his fingers were now curled around his truck's door handle.

He chuckled and said gently, “Well, do you want to do this or what?”

Melody wasted no time cutting her engine and scrambling inside Seth's truck. No way was she giving him time to change his mind.

“Do you ride?” he asked as the truck bumped across the pastures toward the ravine.

Talk coherently, she urged herself. “No, but I'd love to learn.” It was the truth. “Is that possible?”

He cocked his head her way while a slow smile spread like a soft breeze across his face, filling his eyes with a dangerous light. “Oh, yeah, it's possible. But maybe today you'll just ride with me?”

She was
so
down the rabbit hole. There was no mistaking that the man was flirting with her! A thrill raced through her at the unlikely notion suddenly come true.

They'd reached the ravine, and he halted the truck and switched off the key. “You ready to go find a treasure?” he asked. She nodded. “Good, let's roll.” He opened his door and was out before she could find her voice.

After unloading the horse from the trailer, he swung into the saddle, then helped her up behind him. She was treading on territory she'd never trodden before, and she felt shaky and more unsure of herself than ever. But either he didn't seem to notice or she was hiding her nerves better than she thought.

“So, why did you change your mind?” she asked as they rode on horseback through the trees. Somewhere in the few minutes it took him to unload the sand-colored horse and pull her up behind him in the saddle she'd decided her last course of action was to realize that Seth was probably just trying to ease the tension that had been between them. With that revelation, she was able to keep her head out of the clouds and concentrate on what had gotten them here…treasure.

“My brother reminded me that—” Seth started to say, glancing over his shoulder, enjoying the feel of her arms around his waist. The reality was that he'd struggled with himself all Sunday afternoon. After seeing Melody at church and listening to a message that had him wondering if Pastor Allen had been peeking into his head. The message was that God gave us opportunities to be blessings and to be blessed, but we needed to be ready to accept and act upon those opportunities. Seth couldn't deny that he was attracted to Melody. He
also couldn't deny that despite all the treasure talk his thoughts inevitably went back to finding her crying that morning after the phone call. He didn't want gold diggers on his property, but he wanted to be around Melody and he wanted to help her if he could. All of the above had ultimately changed his mind but he wasn't about to tell Melody that. So instead he only said, “I remembered that I used to enjoy this sort of thing.”

“Really?”

He did a double take of her expression. It alone said she couldn't imagine such a thing. Had he become that much of a stuffed shirt like his brothers kept telling him? “Why does that shock you so much?”

“I just can't picture you running around out here—” She stopped and turned a tinge of pink.

They were heading downhill and he watched ahead of them.

“I didn't mean that as an insult,” she added.

“Oh, yeah right. You've been asking me to loosen up ever since you moved in out here.” Her arms tightened around him momentarily as she stretched forward to look up at him.

“I have not—”

“Have, too,” he cut in, grinning. “Me. Here. That's me loosening up, wouldn't you say?”

“Yes, you're right. And thank you,” she agreed just as Dough Boy, Seth's horse, started down an incline and her arms tightened about him.

“That's it, hold on tight,” he urged. “This might get tricky.” And he wasn't just talking about the horse ride.

“You don't have to tell me twice,” Melody said.

A few minutes later he held her hand as she slid to
the ground and then he followed. They made their way down to the rocks he'd shown her before.

“So this is where we start,” she said. “These do look pretty much like matching rocks. And this is the south end of the ravine?” Hands on hips, she intently surveyed the rocks.

Seth could see the excitement in her expression. “Roger that on both counts,” he said. “If we follow the instructions, it would be fifty steps west.”

She pointed east and looked at him. “Right?”

He grinned. “Actually,” he leaned around her and pointed in the opposite direction. “It's that way. The woods have you turned around.”

She bit her lip and got a crinkle between her brows. “I'd love to give the woods credit for my lack of direction but sadly I can't. I'm directionally challenged.”

“Then remind me not to let you go running around out here alone.”

“Oh, believe me, if I got lost out here, I'd find a rock to sit on and I'd wait for you to bring the posse looking for me.”

She smiled up at him. “Good, that's exactly what I'd hope you would do. It's the smart move.”

“The smart move will be for me to stick with you,” she said.

“Now you're talking.” They held gazes for a heartbeat.

“Th-then let's get going,” she said and started walking. She hadn't taken two steps when she paused. “Do you think he meant regular steps or small, heel-to-toe steps? I
think
he would mean regular steps.” She arched a brow in question.

“I agree…but when you get to about midway, we'll start looking for anything that might look promising.”

“Right.” She resumed walking and counting. He trailed behind, content to watch her throw herself into the hunt. With each step she counted, the excitement in her voice built.

“Twenty-five,” she sang and came to a halt. “Do you see anything around here that looks like a tower?”

Seth scanned the area. “Not that I can tell. Keep going.”

She started counting again immediately. The way had grown increasingly dense as they went. She had to push through underbrush and duck under tree limbs. Seth glanced back at the rocks to make sure they were holding their course. They were, he thought.

“Fifty.” Melody glanced over her shoulder. “What do you think?”

They were standing in an overgrown area. Pines towered above them, almost blocking all the sunlight. “I hate to tell you, but I don't see anything that resembles a tower.”

She frowned. “I know. So now what?” Disappointment rang in her voice as she scanned the area.

“I've been trying to figure out what he could have meant by towers, and I've come up blank.”

“Maybe it's just something that we'll understand when we see it.”

“Maybe so.”

“Do you think there were pines here all those years ago?”

“Probably,” he said. “Let's go this way and get out of the trees some.” Seth led the way. But he knew he was only humoring Melody. He knew there wasn't anything in this area that was a tower. He just didn't have the heart to tell her she was on a wild-goose chase.