“Uh-huh.” Smith glanced up at Sam. “Any ideas?”
Plenty. “Not a single one.”
Smith eyeballed him skeptically, but Sam refused to give an inch. His orderly world had been shuffled and he would be the one to set it to rights again.
“Can I go now? I need to go get my nose X-rayed.”
Smith leveled a cop-to-cop gaze at Hank. “Can you vouch your uncle won't disappear?”
“He won't unless he wants to miss out on Mom's baked mac and cheese for the rest of his life.” Hank led Uncle Harlan to the door, stopping just under the archway. “We'll talk soon, Sam.”
Not if he could help it.
After a quick discussion with Smith, Josie and Sam were back in his spanking-clean Volvo, a stark reminder of the mess they'd just left. Damn, the whole thing pissed him off and put him right in the center of attention for Dry Creek's gossips. The place he'd hated being more than anywhere else.
Then again, he seemed to be doing all sorts of things that were out of character whenever he was near Josie. It wasn't that she pushed him to be someone different. Strangely enough, he just felt more himself around her.
Josie cleared her throat. “So where to now?”
“O'Neill's.” The single word was all he could manage as he pulled out of the parking lot, the smell of her amber perfume swirling around him in the enclosed space, distracting him from the plan he'd started working on as soon as he'd gotten the news about the break-in. Years of research about Rebecca and the family jewels she'd supposedly brought West, along with the map in his pocket, meant he had the best chance of finding Rebecca's Bounty. Once he found it, the woman who beguiled him could go back to Vegas and his life would return to normal. Exactly what he wanted. He didn't give a damn about the treasure itself. Now he wanted to find it just to check that off his to-do list and get his life back to the way it always had been. And should be.
They drove in silence, if not in peace. Josie sat ramrod straight in the passenger's seat, the afternoon sun glinting in her hair as they drove south from Dry Creek. Tension as tightly wound as the platinum curls surrounding her heart-shaped face filled the car's interior.
“Okay, so what's the plan you're cooking up in that head of yours?” She arched an eyebrow at him.
“What makes you think I have a plan?”
“Of course you do. You wouldn't make breakfast without a plan so you sure as hell wouldn’t go on a treasure hunt without one.”
“You know me that well, do you?”
“You’re the one who just told me all about how much you love routine, but I know plenty more about you than just that. I know you love your family and this town. I know you are curious about everything. And I know that if you'd ever let anyone close enough to scratch your anal-retentive surface, they'd find there's so much more to you than tan furniture and mad organizational skills.”
Sam concentrated on the empty road ahead of them much more than needed. He had no clue how to r
espond to her declaration. On unsure emotional ground, he resorted to the best self-defense move he had—being a prick.
“What makes you think I'm going to help you find the treasure? Maybe I'm planning to turn you and that buffoon Linc over to Hank as soon as I get back to town.”
For once, Josie didn't have a smart-mouthed rejoinder—something Sam didn't realize he'd miss until it wasn't there.
The fallow, snow-covered fields whipped by as they sped down the highway, clocking in at fifteen miles over the speed limit. Being the sheriff's brother in a small town had its benefits, but getting out of speeding tickets from the state patrol wasn't one of them. He eased his foot off the gas and settled back into a more professorial pace. Much more like him.
“Are you going to tell Hank?”
Her soft question thrummed his conscience. “No, I won't tell him.”
“So you'll help me find Rebecca's Bounty?”
“No.” He was going to find the treasure on his own. At this point, getting her any deeper involved than she'd already made herself would just put her in more danger, and he wasn't willing to risk that—even if they did have to go their separate ways. Josie had burrowed her way into him, making a place for herself in the nooks and crannies of his soul that had stayed vacant for far too long. If he wasn't careful, he'd never be able to get her back out. Hell, it was probably too late.
“Then what is your plan?” Her cheeks had turned beet red.
He parked the car in front of the only guest cabin at O’Neill’s where the windows hadn't been shuttered for the winter. “Not to see you until I have the treasure.”
Chapter Thirteen
Under the cover of darkness, Josie inched up the window to Sam's house. Her held breath burned in her chest as she strained to hear the slightest noise—or the blaring of an alarm system. After two break-ins in two days, if anyone in this small town needed a security system, it was him. But instead of an alarm, the only sound she heard was the rushing of blood in her ears.