Silver Bracelets: A Loveswept Contemporary Classic Romance (7 page)

“Can you open this?” He cocked his head toward the safe. “Without destroying it?”

“Probably. What is it?”

The man was pale. Either he hadn’t been in the sun much, or had been ill. He kept glancing at his watch and at the street outside as if he was expecting someone.

Finally he raised his eyes and stared at her. “It’s a safe, an old safe that came out of my family’s home. The house is being renovated. The safe was … discovered during the reconstruction. It dates back to the mid-eighteen-hundreds. Have you ever seen one like it before?”

“No, I don’t think so. Is your house around here?”

“Yes.”

Sarah considered his story. The only house in the city of Smyrna that was being renovated was the old Grimsley house, which lay in the middle of the new Smyrna Village project. Jake and the city council had decided to incorporate the Grimsley house, along with the recently refurbished Bank of Smyrna building, into the Village.

“You mean the Grimsley house?”

He looked startled. “Yes, do you know it?”

“Sure, everybody does. The house escaped being burned by Sherman because the first Miss Lois sat on the front porch with an ax and threatened to cut off the head of the first man to reach the steps. Her namesake taught most of us in first grade at FitzHugh Lee Grammar School. She died last year. I didn’t know that there were any relatives.”

“Yes, I’m Miss Lois’s great-nephew. I … I was away. I only just found out about the project. Of course I don’t own the house. Miss Lois left it to the city. But I’d heard about it all my life and I … I had permission to look around before they began the restoration.”

He held out the hand with no thumb. “My name is Lincoln Grimsley.”

Sarah shook it.

She studied the safe. It was very old, the custom-built kind. The lock was a series of irregularly shaped squares with worn numbers on the surface. It was unlike anything Sarah had ever seen. From the look of it, short of blowing it up with explosives, the only way she’d get it open was by trial and error.

“Have you tried to open it?”

“Yes. I took it to two other locksmiths first. They finally said that the only way we could open it was to blow it up. But because it’s so small, explosives might destroy it. I’d rather not do that.”

“What’s in it?” Sarah asked, trying to be as efficient in her approach as possible.

“Well, I’m not certain but, according to my
grandfather, the safe was hidden during the Civil War. It was never found—until now. The safe was to be inherited by the oldest male child. But nobody knew where it was.”

“How’d you find it?”

“I’ve been staying in the house for the last week. When the workers began their renovation they found a room that had been sealed off. I was able to find the safe hidden there.”

“Does the city know you have it?”

“No,” Lincoln admitted. “Please, don’t tell them. It isn’t that I mind their knowing. Legally the safe is mine. It’s just that it wouldn’t be safe for this information to become public knowledge.”

“It wouldn’t?”

“Please, ma’am. I’ll go to the authorities when the safe is open. I promise. First I need to know what’s inside. It’s very important.”

Along with being tired and shaky, the old man seemed desperate.

“It isn’t anything dangerous,” he promised. “In fact there may be nothing at all inside. It isn’t heavy enough to contain gold or silver. The story I was told was that the safe contains a great deal of money, hidden there during the war. I’m guessing that if that’s true, the money will be Confederate and therefore worthless. It’s just that I only have a week to—I mean I have an appointment next week and I need to know. Could you hurry, please?”

“Look, Mr. Grimsley. There’s no way I can possibly open this safe in a few minutes. I’ll
have to study it. It may take days, even weeks.”

He looked stricken. “I’d hoped to have it open by tomorrow. Couldn’t you try?”

Sarah looked at her watch. It was late and she was tired. She wanted nothing more than to get home and think about what had happened in the last eighteen hours. Still, she couldn’t just walk away and leave the old man. It was obvious that he was worried.

“I tell you what. Let me take it home and work on it the rest of the weekend.”

“Take it home? I’d hoped to keep this confidential. I’d planned to stay with you as you worked on it.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Grimsley, but I have no way of knowing how long it will take. I promise you, it will be safer with me than here in the shop. I’m personal friends with the deputy sheriff,” she said, trying to reassure him.

“Sheriff?” This time there was no mistaking his distress. “Oh, but—” Then he seemed to resign himself to her plan. “Well, I guess I don’t have any choice. You’re my last hope. And maybe it would be safer there.”

Sarah bent down and lifted the safe. Lincoln Grimsley was right. It wasn’t that heavy. After she got the safe into the back of the van, they returned to the shop. He promised to check back in the morning to see whether Sarah had been successful.

“You’ll keep this confidential, won’t you, Miss Wilson?”

“I promise. If you’re worried, I could give you a claim ticket.”

He started. “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary. But if you do get it open, you won’t disturb the contents, will you? I mean I can trust you to leave everything just as you found it?”

“Certainly.”

But that didn’t seem to satisfy the man. In fact he was becoming even more agitated. “Your friend, the sheriff, won’t bother it?”

“Of course not. Who sent you to me, Mr. Grimsley?”

“A police officer down at City Hall, an Officer Martin, who let me into the house. He said that I could trust you completely.”

“Give me until Monday, Mr. Grimsley, and I’ll see what I can do. Otherwise, you’re welcome to take the safe back with you.”

“No. That wouldn’t be a good idea. I’ll leave it.”

“Can I drop you somewhere?” Sarah asked in an attempt to coax him out the door.

“No thanks.” He peered once more out the window, then quickly slipped out. By the time Sarah had pulled the blinds, turned off the lights, and locked up, he was gone. She didn’t know how he could have disappeared so quickly. She didn’t even know how to reach him.

Sarah shook her head. There were a lot of strange people in the world, and locksmiths ran into many of them. But Miss Lois’s great-nephew? Sarah found it odd that she’d never
heard him mentioned before. Older people often rattled off their family history at the drop of a hat.

But apparently he’d checked with City Hall for permission to enter the house. They wouldn’t have let him inside if he wasn’t who he said he was. Anyway, if Paul had sent him over, he had to be all right.

It was getting late. She was tired and dirty. No wonder the old man had asked if there was someone else around. If she’d come into the shop she wouldn’t believe that she was a locksmith either. As she drove away, Sarah tried to concentrate on the safe in the back. She couldn’t. All she could think about was a stern, lean figure who loped in measured strides.

When she reached the barn Sarah backed the van directly below the hayloft. She ran upstairs, opened the second-floor doors, and lowered the old iron grate she and her father had fashioned into a dumbwaiter for lifting equipment. Later, when Sarah had turned the loft into her living quarters, she’d been grateful for the setup. With it, she’d been able to pull building supplies and furniture up to the second floor.

With a little effort she rolled the small safe out of the van and onto the grate. By using a system of pulleys she raised the grate up to the hayloft doors, then ran back upstairs and pulled it, and the safe, inside.

She’d have a look at the safe as soon as she was relaxed enough to concentrate. First she
drank a glass of iced tea. Several minutes later, she made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and poured herself a glass of milk. Nothing satisfied her.

By midnight she’d given up on the safe and was pacing the floor while carrying on a debate with herself. Asa Canyon might be accustomed to being by himself, but he didn’t like it. He’d lost someone he cared about and she knew how that felt. And he ought not to be alone now.

Sarah reached into her closet and pulled out the first thing she touched, a deep rose sundress with slim ribbon straps. She stepped into a pair of white sandals and dashed down the stairs. Besides, she couldn’t be mistaken about the way he’d responded to her kiss.

No, Asa Canyon shouldn’t be alone. And he wouldn’t be, if Sarah could help it. A kiss was a promise, and if she was right, Asa would welcome her. If she was wrong, she’d turn around and come home and nobody would know but her.

Four

Across the lake the moon hung low over the stand of loblolly pines. Asa studied the golden reflection on the water and decided that it looked like a spaceship, its exhaust wavering outward where the water rippled against the shore. The spaceship made him think of Sarah.

Everything made him think of Sarah.

He stood in the doorway listening to the silence, restless, unable to settle down, waiting for something he couldn’t explain.

A layer of fog began to roll in over the surface of the water as the night air cooled. A frog’s voice pierced the air exploding like the urgent siren of an emergency vehicle on a rescue mission.

The phone rang. It was Jeanie.

Apologetic, anxious, at the same time undeniably happy, she wanted Asa to know that
she and Mike were married. They were truly in love, perfect together. Mike loved to travel and he could go with her, wherever her assignments led her. She hadn’t known what Mike had done until they were on the plane. She hoped that Asa wouldn’t hate her for loving Mike.

“I won’t, not if you really love him,” Asa said. “But you tell that smart aleck you ran off with that I’m planning his torture. He can just get ready.”

Mike came on the phone. “I wouldn’t have done it, old buddy, if you’d understood. But you weren’t about to, and we didn’t have time for you to come around, so I had no choice.”

In the end Asa gave them his blessings. He wondered, after the connection had been broken, if he would have been so willing to wish them well if it weren’t for Sarah.

When he answered the knock on the door a moment later and found her standing there, he wasn’t sure whether she was real or he was hallucinating.

Then she threw her arms around his neck and for a moment he gave in to the feeling of contentment she brought with her. Until he realized that what she was giving was more than comfort, and that he had no right to it.

“You and the mayor were both wrong,” he said tightly. “Running doesn’t work, and cold showers only give me goose bumps.”

“I know,” she responded softly. “Neither does peanut better and jelly. That’s why I came back.”

“Maybe we’d better talk about this.”

“Must we? I’d rather you kiss me.”

“Sarah, I don’t think what you’re asking for is that simple. Let me put on my pants and we’ll go for a walk.”

“Put on your pants?”

Asa turned back into the dark cabin.

Sarah followed.

He stepped into a room off the small living area and turned on the light. Through the crack in the door Sarah could see him clearly. Tonight his underwear was blue. He stepped into a pair of faded worn jeans and picked up a pair of sneakers.

She blushed and walked over to the window overlooking the lake. Waiting for him to dress, she sat on the sill in the moonlight.

“Deputy Canyon?”

He tied the last shoelace and slid his arms into the sleeves of a knit shirt, pulling it over his head as he joined her. “I think we’re past Deputy Canyon and Ms. Wilson, Sarah. My name is Asa.”

She looked up at him, her face showing a spark of humor. “All right, Asa. I just wanted to point out that nobody is watching now. This isn’t in the line of duty.”

“It isn’t?”

“It isn’t.” She kissed him.

He knew he shouldn’t let it happen. Last night’s first kiss had been a necessary ploy. The second, an accident.

He groaned.

This kiss was a crazy wonderful mistake
and he gave in to it with full cooperation and little thought of where it might lead. He had a sudden vision of a beach, a hot summer night, and two lovers, linked together on the sand by some secluded lagoon. The sound of a water creature breaking the surface and falling back into the darkness gave way to the call of a night bird in the distance. It all seemed part of the moment, tied with the touch and feel of the woman in his arms.

It was the blowing of a car horn that finally broke through his rapture and interrupted their embrace. Asa walked out onto the porch, giving silent thanks to Officer Paul Martin, who was driving up behind Sarah’s van. Behind Paul was Asa’s silver truck, being driven by another blue-uniformed officer.

“Believe it or not,” Paul called out, “we found your truck parked in the mayor’s space at City Hall. There was a pile of clothes on the seat and a note that said the keys and your gun were under the mat and would we please deliver them to you. So, here we are.”

“City Hall.” Asa scowled. “That figures. Mike wouldn’t dare leave Silver Girl some place where she would be stolen. Thanks, Martin. I owe you one.”

The driver of the truck pulled into the space at the corner of the house, slid out, and climbed into the patrol car. Without a comment on the late hour, or Sarah’s presence, Paul gave a thumbs-up salute and drove away.

Asa looked down at Sarah and realized that her very presence here linked them together,
whether or not he wanted it. She’d rescued him, handed over the keys to her van, and made him a part of her softball team, all of which tied them to each other. He worried that even though Smyrna hugged the perimeter of Atlanta, it was still a small town at heart. Members of the inner circle, those whose parents and grandparents had been born here, were still protective of their own. And Sarah was one of theirs.

He caught her hand. “Let’s go for a walk before I do something to get myself arrested. Deputies aren’t immune from the wrath of a man who believes he’s protecting a woman.”

“Who? Paul Martin?” Sarah asked, putting her arm around Asa’s waist as they walked across the yard. “He’s just a friend.”