Better Than Gold (6 page)

“One of the previous owners was doing something in the furnace room, but I have no idea what.” Or nothing she’d admit to—digging for treasure. Mia descended the last three stairs, and the smell of old dirt and mustiness grew stronger, until she stopped beside him. Then it smelled like—
mmm
—man.

“Not in the furnace room.” When he spoke she realized she might have zoned out a bit because he took a step away from her.

“Somewhere else? Oh, not rats. The digging didn’t look rodentlike, did it?”

His expression lightened and she knew she must be wearing what Monique called her hilarious horrified gape. She closed her mouth.

“In the old cold storage room, where the floor is still dirt and not concrete. Dug up with a shovel and probably a pickax. The dirt in that floor has been packed down by a couple centuries of use and neglect, so dug up by a very determined digger.”

“Freshly dug, I suppose.” She knew she should go inspect the hole, but she liked being just where she was. Maybe she even wanted to step closer, to take back that step he had taken away.

“Yes, and then someone tried to refill it, but you can imagine how that went. Ten pounds in a five-pound bag.”

Treasure hunters. She wondered if the trickle was already a full running stream. Or maybe just her three workers.

“I guess I should take a look.”

She envisioned Charlie, Rufus and Stella each with a pickax in their hands, or maybe it was Mickey and Tim. Smiling politely she stepped calmly around her guest. Was he just a friendly visitor? Or was he an enemy?

The old storage room, an erstwhile hold for potatoes, apples, turnips and anything that would keep in the earth-chilled room for the winter had previously had only stone walls, a dirt floor and a couple of old crates, no hole.

When she entered the back room, a shiver ran down her body. There was no mistaking the disturbance.

“Someone digging for treasure?” He sounded amused from behind her.

She wanted to punch him for that. Good thing she only had violent thoughts and not actions.
Someone digging for treasure
. There were already so many suspects.

Slowly, turning to face him, she said, “Please, don’t mention digging for treasure in this town. The people around here do not need any encouragement.”

He nodded. “You won’t get any argument from an anthropologist. Treasure hunters are a bane for any—er—archeological site.”

She laughed. “Thanks for not saying
dig
.”

“I’m finished down here for now if you’d like to go up where it’s warmer.”

“Warmer would be good.”

She put her flashlight in her pocket and they marched in silence across the old floor and up the steps. Halfway up she wondered if Daniel was watching her butt. She was a warm-blooded woman; she’d be watching his. What if he wasn’t watching? She wanted in the worst way to catch him in the act, whichever it was, but she trudged on wondering if her jeans were too tight.

Speaking of jeans. The more she saw how well this guy wore his holey ones, the more she liked them, and his raggedy sweater, as well. His slumming clothes. She couldn’t imagine his teaching clothes would look this good.

In fact, he probably looked really, really good with no clothes at all.

He followed her to the front room, where the morning light filtered in through the windows. She tried not to inhale too noticeably as he stopped beside her. Apparently, nothing could dampen her suddenly awakened sense of the male side of the planet. Unless, maybe, he decided to tell her he’d come to ruin her life completely.

“I have given a cursory check of the contents of the boxes. Are you interested in having a look?”

When she glanced at him, there was an unmistakable light of excitement in his dark eyes. Damn.

No, she didn’t want to see that light and she certainly did not want to see what was in the boxes. She wanted him to take those bones and rags and go. She wanted to move forward with her funky little life, finish the restaurant so the chef she had hired didn’t give up on her, so the banks to whom she promised payment didn’t come demanding what little she had. “Look at old bones and raggedy clothing?”

He grinned and his eagerness brightened. “That’s about the size of it.”

“Yes.” Okay, so she wanted to see them, get his opinion.

“I’ll bring the boxes out where the light is better.”

His gaze rested on her face. His eyes searching and...like expensive dark chocolate, like the moment of shadow just as the sun sets—they stopped the air moving in and out of her lungs.

She tore her attention away and took a gulp of air. “I’ll help.”

He picked up a box and moved away. She followed his lead and they carried the remains out and placed them on the floor in front of the window.

He had a very good backside.

“So I would guess people outside your department usually blow you off when you ask them to come look at your bone and rag collections,” she said. Maybe old bones would shock her back into sanity.

“Gave up long ago. Most prefer museum replicas.”

“That’d be my first choice. The woman who runs the museum here claims to be a descendent of Liam Bailey.”
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Don’t pique his interest.

He pulled on a pair of disposable gloves, hunkered down and flipped open the lid of one of the boxes.

The light flared again in the professor’s eyes. He loved this, the hunt for antiquities, even if they were only old bones and tattered cloth.

“We could be looking in on a pirate.”

She hunkered down beside him. “I can see you on the deck of a two-masted schooner, long dark hair flowing in the wind, shirtsleeves billowing.” She touched his arm as if touching that sexy sleeve.

He leaned away from her touch and reached under the top layers of bags to pull out a large plastic bag containing remnants of brown fabric.

The bag and the sudden look of all business on Dr. MacCarey’s face dispelled all the visions in her head of the romance of pirates.

The dead man’s clothes. The man in her wall’s clothes. The answers to many of her questions and maybe enough of Daniel’s.

Or maybe they would raise too many more questions, and Dr. MacCarey wouldn’t leave for a month—maybe he’d stay and look for the treasure while Pirate’s Roost became just a memory.

CHAPTER SIX

M
IA
WATCHED
D
ANIEL
take on the persona of college professor as he hand-measured the weight of the bag of clothing remnants. “The cloth is substantial in weight when compared with much twenty-first-century clothing, some noted exceptions being denim and felted wool.”

“I keep trying not to envision a fully dressed human,” Mia said, but leaned forward anyway.

The creases beside Daniel’s mouth became visible through the darkness of his trendy stubble. As a teacher of young adults, he must have practiced this look of stern concentration many times before today.

“Clothing allows one to envision a living breathing person.”

“That’s my problem,” she replied as she studied him.

Whatever measure of rapport the two of them had was diminished to instructor and student. The change felt like a loss, so she smiled.

“There isn’t much left of this specimen’s clothes, except the type and content of the cloth and dye. Any remaining structure will help determine the cut, style and time frame in which he lived.”

“Is the cloth brown because it’s brown cloth or because it spent time in the wall with a—um—dead man?” She found she couldn’t call him a specimen.

“That’s a very good question. The lighter-weight cloth is most likely part of his shirt.” The anthropology professor turned the bag over so she could see the remnants of what was a mottled-brown ruffled collar or cuff. “The heavier cloth was pants and jacket. Most likely that cloth was brown before the body went into the wall.”

She kneeled down beside the box and ran her fingertip across the plastic-covered ruffle. “What about his shoes? Wouldn’t they tell you a lot about what time period he came from?”

“The shoes weren’t in the crypt.”

She peered into his dark, teacher-mode eyes. Something else lurked there. Something dark and sad.

“You know I would love for you to take your boxes and release my site.”

He held her gaze, giving her one of those
I hate to tell you this, but...
looks. “Sometimes the disposition of a site is not up to the people closely involved. The importance of the find determines whether or not the site is quarantined.”

“
Quarantined
scares me, but it won’t deter treasure seekers.” She thought of the two high schoolers, the men at the docks and the shop owners. “It’s started already, you know.”

“What has started?”

“It’s not just someone digging in my basement. Have you ever seen mayhem before?” She stood, putting her hands on her hips because she never knew what to do with them when she was anxious, and right now she was very anxious.

“I’m not sure what you mean.” His dark eyes did not move from hers.

“Nice normal people behaving like crazed—um— What are those nocturnal rodent things in the desert that steal shiny stuff?” She broke the gaze between them to stop herself from putting a hand on his cheek and testing his stubble for its degree of softness.

“Wood rats, pack rats.”

“Yes, those, but these rats have big pickaxes and shovels, and they know no boundaries. I’m going to have to sleep here.” She clasped her hands together and twisted them into submission. “Unless, you find this is just a specimen, a man from, say, fifty years ago, who was afraid of being buried in the ground, so they put him here, in my wall.”

This anthropologist, this hot guy, this man who couldn’t hide that he had secrets of his own, held her fate in his hands.

She intended to wrench it back.

He shook his head, but he didn’t look as regretful as he should look if he was going to crush her hopes to dust. “At least as long ago as the beginning of the twentieth century.”

“How do you know?”

“No zipper in his pants, what was left of the pants.”

“No zipper? Oh, so how old is the zipper?”

“First patented in 1851 by the man who invented the sewing machine but not used much until the 1930s.”

She worked hard to listen to his words and not the drumming inside her head telling her
this is it
. He was in full professor mode talking about zippers and the body being older. The drumming grew loud.

He stopped, slid his gloves off, and gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry, when you weren’t taking notes, it occurred to me we weren’t in the lecture hall.”

“No problem.” The noise subsided.

The corners of his mouth turned up. Daniel had returned and Dr. MacCarey had again dropped into the background.

“So the body could be from the late 1800s or early 1900s then.” She wanted so badly to believe that so she could collapse in a heap of relief.

She gestured toward the remains in the box. “Tell me this is a body from the last century.”

He reached for her hand and curled his fingers around hers for a moment. Then he let go, cleared his throat again and stepped away. “I wish I could.”

His reaction to touching her interested her. What was that about? Secrets. Maybe some mystery.

“At any rate,” he continued, “all things have to be considered.”

“Considered? As in studied for a few days or considered as in a couple weeks?” Months, years? She walked over to the grimy window and directed her stare out at the street.

The shivers of dread began to skitter across her skin again and she knew why.

Hot live man. Old dead man. And one man who a few months ago pulled up stakes because she wasn’t good enough. Well, this was all a great reminder, any kind of man was not a good idea in her life right now, or maybe ever.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

When she turned to face him, he raised one dark eyebrow.

“About what? About having an old guy in my wall? About treasure hunters already in my basement?”
About you and me, baby?

“You said you might have to sleep here. Where are you going to set up your cot?”

She laughed out loud in spite of everything and shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m laughing. If this guy in my wall turns out to be a founder of the town, if he is the privateer Liam Bailey, I’m...”

“Hey.” He reached toward her but then must have thought better of it and dropped his hands to his side. “It’s too early to tell much except he’s probably pre-1930. I’m going to do some research into the building. I’ll start at the museum. When I have anything, I’ll let you know. I’ll also take these remains to the university and get some of the more eager students started on inventory and examination.”

That spark of anticipation flared in his eyes again. He was lusting after an anthropological find the way she was lusting after demolition.

Heaven help them.

“Yeah, that’d be great.” She’d just go wait some more, go over the blueprints again, check the vendor lists one more time, count the pile of bills to see if she’d broken a hundred yet, listen to her mom’s voice mails about her latest club meeting and how Mia should join. Worse, her mom’s messages could be to enumerate her dad’s faults.

She picked up a box and he picked up the other.

“Tell me about the woman at the museum, the one who claims to be related to Liam Bailey.” He followed her out into the bright sunshine.

“Her name is Heather Loch. She comes from a long line of Mainers, or so she says, including Bailey. We don’t really know much about her.”

Mia placed her box in the trunk of Daniel’s car and he put his in beside hers. “No one believes any of her claims to Bailey because it’s believed he died without offspring. Her family money did rehab the exterior of the old wooden church and for that we’re all grateful.”

She wondered if she should warn him about Heather, but quickly decided Ms. Loch was something a person needed to learn about on their own. “Tell her I sent you. She might be—um—more to the point.”

“Thank you, for all your help.” He held out his hand.

She took hold of his outstretched hand and pressed her palm firmly to his as she tried to read whatever was in his face. “Daniel.”

“Yes, Mia.”

She ignored the flush spreading through her as she held on to his hand.

“I don’t want you to break the hearts of the people around here, and I fear it won’t take much. All they will need to get their hopes up is for you to hint that any one of their fantasies might be real. No one has any proof that Liam Bailey ever had treasure to bury, but if they think he died here and didn’t go off and spend his wealth...who knows. So please, be careful.”

She let go of his hand and stood and watched as he drove away.

* * *

D
ANIEL
HAD
SEEN
the old church on the way into town and headed back that way. As he drove, he found his thoughts turning to the soft smoothness of Mia Parker’s hand, the sparkle in her blue eyes, his reaction to her, as though he had some right to start anything with her or any woman.

He’d keep his guard up. Keep his hands to himself. He knew very well how to play the distant, observer role.

When thoughts of Mia faded, anger surfaced, and he forced himself to pay attention to the town instead. There were more residents out now. A man and a woman each pushing a baby stroller. Two middle-aged women in jogging suits strolled casually off onto a side street.

A redbrick building sandwiched between two white-painted wooden buildings appeared to be an upholstery shop and one of the white buildings, a small grocery store. The other white building seemed currently unused.

Apparently, pink was out because equipment had been set up and was blasting the peeling pink paint from the tattoo parlor, exposing the brick below.

At the church, he parked in the gravel lot, got out of the car and shoved his fists deeply into his pockets. When he touched the old velvet pouch with his aunt’s last secret, it did not lift the darkness.

He hadn’t taken the beautiful old ring out of the pouch since the evening at the nursing home. Maybe in the dim light of the room he had made it all up. For all he knew the ring was a glass bauble set in brass.

No. It was real.

Walking around the perimeter of the old church some of the anger abated, leaving an empty ache in its place.

The old church stood unpainted, facing the elements naked. Modern updates like concrete steps and replacement wooden siding probably spoiled things for the purist, but if the Loch family money had preserved the artifact, they should be applauded. Preserving history belonged to everyone.

As a breeze of the warming day brushed his face, he squeezed the pouch in his pocket. Margaret MacCarey had left a secret as her legacy. A secret he’d have to discover, someday, when it felt easier to probe into the history of the very dear woman.

Mia’s image floated into his thoughts, and when he concentrated on her beautiful face, a little of the darkness faded.

He knew he could face Heather Loch now and she might help him find what he needed to free up Mia’s building. He pulled his hands from his pockets and headed back toward the entrance.

Gulls pecking at something on the sidewalk squawked and flew away as he approached the front entrance, where the sign above the door read, simply, Bailey’s Cove Museum.

Below the sign were a pair of weathered but well cared for doors of exotic wood in an arched doorway, most likely mahogany. They looked out of place in a church so small and so old and had probably been imported, perhaps as an offering by a rich church member who had sinned badly or a dowry of sorts by the establishing clergy.

Suddenly, one of the peaked doors swung open and a small, smooth-faced woman with a bush of flying white hair charged out. “Where the hell have you been?”

Daniel glanced behind him to see to whom she was speaking.

There was only him.

“Dr. Daniel MacCarey, get in here.” She indicated the open door of the museum.

There might be promise in the Bailey’s Cove Museum, at the very least enthusiasm.

* * *

“M
ONIQUE
,
HE
’
S
EASY
to look at which wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t just as easy to talk to.” Mia paced furiously between the dry cleaner’s reception desk and the front door, and then back again.

“So you let your guard down, gaped at his gorgeousness and ran off at the mouth.”

“I did that. I did all of that in spades.”

“Well then, let me say that I’m truly happy someone can still push those particular buttons for you.”

Mia felt flushed and swiped a hand up to her forehead to push her hair out of her face.

Monique merely grinned.

“He’ll be gone soon and forever, so if I did
gape and run off at the mouth,
there will be little impact on my life.”

“I don’t see why you can’t just go after him, get yourself some. Make hay while the sun shines.”

“Hay? Do I have to make hay now?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do, unfortunately, but you know that’s not my way. Jumping in the sack and then bidding a fond adieu is not my style.”

“And how’s that workin’ for ya?” Monique struck an ear-cocked pose.

“I’m a miserable picker, Monique. Is giving up an option?”

“I’ve seen you hang on tooth and nail to lesser things. I don’t think it’s in you to just walk away.”

“He’s put everything in a holding pattern. If I have to wait for more than another two or three days I’ll get stuck at the end of Markham Construction’s jobs queue.” She smoothed her hair down.

“You’re brave people, Mia Parker. You can do this.”

“Sorry for so much moaning. How’s your granddad doing? In light of everything I didn’t speak with him yet. I was afraid it would reinforce his idea that he should leave if I asked him to work for me and then had to put him off.”

Monique smiled and said, “Jim O’Donnell tapped him to help for a couple days on his boat. I guess Timmy is going to have another little brother or sister soon and Jim had to take the missus into Portland to see the specialist. That quieted Granddad down a bit.”

“I’m so glad.”

“So, what will you do now?” Monique asked as she turned away to insert several shirts into the clothing carousal.