Читать книгу Fortune Hunter's Hero - Linda Turner, Linda Turner, Marilyn Pappano - Страница 8

Expecting a map of some kind, Buck unfolded the single piece of paper and frowned at the letter that was written in Spanish. “This is your proof?”

“You wanted something in writing.”

“Something I could read!”

“You didn’t say it had to be in English. Would you like me to translate it for you?”

“Oh, sure. That’ll really inspire confidence. Is this all you’ve got?”

She hesitated, studying him with wary eyes that told him more strongly than words that she didn’t trust him any more than he trusted her. That should have done nothing to reassure him. Instead, her wariness told him that she knew something. Why else would she be leery of him?

“You do have something else,” he said accusingly.

“I do not!”

Her denial was too quick, too fierce. “Yes, you do,” he insisted. “I’m not blind. I can see it in your eyes. You’re afraid I’m going to take whatever you have and cut you out. And you have every right to feel that way. You don’t know me, don’t know what I’m capable of. That must be the most difficult part of your job…knowing who to trust. You could lose a bundle before you even knew you were in trouble.”

She didn’t even bother to deny it. “It happens,” she retorted. “Not often, but enough to make me gun-shy. I learned a long time ago not to trust a man who said he wasn’t going to take advantage. So if you want me to trust you, Mr. Wyatt, you’re going to have to give me something other than words.”

He had to give her credit—she didn’t pull any punches. Surveying her through narrowed eyes, he started the bidding war. “One percent.”

She didn’t even blink. “Twenty-five.”

Shocked, he laughed. “You can’t be serious!”

“Me? What about you? One percent? How serious is that?”

“Okay.” He chuckled. “So I was testing you, just to see if you were listening.”

“Oh, I’m listening,” she said dryly. “And your offer is…?”

He had to grin. She was like a dog with a bone. Not, he silently amended, that she in any way resembled a dog. Did she have a clue how cute she was? He’d always been drawn to blondes, but there was something about her black hair and the sparkle of amusement in her blue eyes that he found impossible to ignore. She was sharp as a tack, and he found that incredibly appealing. Did she know that when she smiled, he couldn’t take his eyes off her? How was he supposed to negotiate with the woman when he couldn’t even think straight around her?

Suddenly realizing where his thoughts had wandered, he stiffened. What the devil was he doing? This was a business deal, for God’s sake! If she had the slightest idea what he was thinking, she’d take him to the cleaners in a heartbeat.

Which was why he kept his eyes shuttered as he studied her speculatively. “If you’re expecting a lot of money up front for whatever information you think you have, you’re out of luck,” he said coolly. “The ranch is taking just about every penny I’ve got, and Hilda, unfortunately, was land rich and dirt poor. There’s no money right now for a big payoff.”

“And when you find the mine?”

“If we find the mine—and that’s a big if—then that’s another matter, of course.”

“So give me a number, Mr. Wyatt. A reasonable number. That’s all I ask.”

How did he put a price on something he didn’t have? He didn’t even know where to start. “If the mine is found, I’ll be the one who will bear all the expense.”

“True,” she agreed. “But without me, you would never find it. You’re looking in the wrong place.”

“Ten,” he said flatly. “It’s my last offer.”

“Twelve, and you’ve got a deal,” she retorted. “I want twenty-five, you want one. Twelve should work for both of us. Of course, I’m losing out on a half of a percentage point, but that’s all right. I’m willing to compromise even if you’re not.”

Ignoring that last remark, he knew he should have said no and stuck to his offer. After all, he was giving her a hell of a deal, and she should have appreciated that. But no! She wanted more.

And if she didn’t get it, she just might walk away.

Scowling, he knew he couldn’t let her do that. And it wasn’t because she was a damn interesting woman, he assured himself. She knew where the mine was.

“Twelve,” he agreed, caving in. “But that’s based on net, not gross. And you don’t start collecting until six months after the mine is up and operating, and that payoff ends after ten years.”

“I’m not just turning my notes and maps over to you and walking away for twelve percent or a hundred and five or whatever number you want to throw out there,” she told him. “I already informed you I want to be involved in the search for the mine.”

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes,” she insisted. “My father and I spent years researching the mine, tracking it halfway across the world. I promised my father before he died that I wouldn’t stop looking for it. I want to be there when you find it.”

He should have said no. She was too cute, too sassy, too hard to ignore. And the last thing he wanted in his life right now was a woman. He’d had one and lost her and he wasn’t going there again.

A muscle ticked in his jaw at the thought of Melissa. How could he have been so taken in by her? He’d dated his share of women, and he’d always seen them for what they were…until Melissa looked up at him with those big blue eyes and stole his heart. He’d never seen the mercenary light in those same blue eyes, never realized that she loved what he could give her more than she could ever love him.

Never again, he thought grimly. He didn’t need a woman, didn’t need another kick in the teeth. He’d welcomed the solitude of the ranch, the time to himself. The last thing he wanted or needed was a woman like Rainey Brewster following him around the ranch, looking for the lost mine and making it impossible for him to ignore her.

But she was the only one who had a clue where the mine was and she wasn’t sharing that information unless they had a deal. Damn!

Frustrated, left with no choice, he sighed. “Deal. There. Are you satisfied?”

She didn’t even attempt to hold back a triumphant smile. “Once it’s in writing, I will be. So…when do we get started?”

She was serious, he thought with a groan. She was really going to insist on helping him search for the mine. And he’d agreed to the insanity. He must have been out of his mind.

“Eight,” he said curtly. “I want to get an early start.”

“I’ll be there,” she assured him, grinning. “You bring the contract, and I’ll pack a picnic lunch.”

“Just make sure you bring the map,” he retorted. “I want to find this damn thing as quickly as possible.”

Later, Rainey didn’t know how she slept that night. Her thoughts in a whirlwind, she lay in bed for hours, wide awake, her heart racing with excitement, just like a child waiting for Santa Claus. When her father died, she’d given up any real hope of finding the mine—there were so many things that had to come together when you were searching for treasure, and doing it alone wasn’t easy. But here she was, so close she could practically reach out and touch it.

If her father had been here, everything would have been perfect. Instead, Buck Wyatt would be at her side, working with her to find the mine.

Her heart stopped in midbeat just at the thought, and that bothered her far more than she liked to admit. The last man who’d stopped her heart that way had also been incredibly good looking and charming. Carl. Just thinking about him tied her stomach in knots. She was eighteen when she met him and had just graduated from high school. He’d wined her and dined her and, worse yet, he’d said all the right things. He’d claimed he hated working in his family’s hardware business and couldn’t wait for the day when he could quit and join her and her father hunting treasure, and she’d fallen for him—and his story—hook, line and sinker.

He’d lied.

No, she corrected herself. He’d done a hell of a lot more than lie. He’d manipulated her and come close to trapping her in a life he was determined to force on her. He’d never had any intention of leaving the hardware store. Instead, he’d pressured her to give up treasure hunting and stay home and have babies. She wasn’t ready for children, and when he promised he would give her time, she thought she could make things work. But the wheels came off the wagon when he not only refused to let her search for a fortune in stolen bank money in Wisconsin, but also washed her birth control pills down the drain with the announcement that he’d decided they were going to have a baby now. She, according to him, didn’t get a vote.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Just thinking about that day still had the power to infuriate her. Outraged that he’d thought he could dictate to her when she had to have a baby, she’d walked out and filed for divorce the very next day. She’d sworn then that she was done with marriage.

Never again, she promised herself. She wasn’t setting herself up for that kind of heartache again. She knew who she was and what she was, and she wasn’t letting any man mold her into what he wanted her to be.

But there was something about Buck….

Irritated with herself for even letting that particular thought surface, she drove through the entrance to the Broken Arrow and reminded herself that the only reason she was here was because of the mine. Okay, so Buck was one of those men who could walk into a room full of people and draw the eye of every female in sight. That didn’t mean that she intended to give him so much as a second look. She was a professional and planned to stay focused on the treasure. Nothing else mattered.

Her resolve firmly in place, she felt her heart kick into overdrive as she braked to a stop in the circular driveway in front of the house. She had her map, her notes, but she knew it would take more than that to find the mine. The ranch was huge—it covered thousands of acres of trees and canyons and mountains. How much had the landscape changed since the first missionaries arrived and excavated the mine? There must have been earthquakes and landslides and forest fires that forever altered the face of the land. What if everything she found in Spain no longer applied to any section of the ranch? Then what?

Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t realize that Buck had opened the front door and was watching her until he stepped over to her VW bug and knocked on her window. Startled, she jumped and glanced up to find him watching her through the window in amusement. “What are you doing?”

“I was just about to ask you the same thing.” He chuckled. “You’ve been sitting there, staring into space for the last ten minutes. If you’re having second thoughts about searching for the mine with me, don’t feel like you have to. I’ll certainly understand if you want to back out. The land’s pretty rugged—”

Her chin came up at that. “I’ve searched for buried treasure all over the world and I haven’t had to back out of a search yet. Don’t worry about me, Mr. Wyatt. I can take care of myself.”

“Buck,” he reminded her with a knowing smile. “The name’s Buck. You don’t mind calling me by my first name, do you?”

Just that easily, he put her on the spot. For all of five seconds, she considered admitting that she did have a problem with his request, but she couldn’t. Then he would realize that he only had to look at her in a certain way, and she couldn’t think straight. Her heart tripped, her breath caught in her throat and she couldn’t focus. It was totally ridiculous!

Suddenly realizing he was watching every shift in her expression, she stiffened. “Of course I don’t mind calling you by your first name, Buck,” she said coolly. “Why would I?”

“Why, indeed?” he asked, grinning. Stepping around her car, he opened the door for her. “Now that we have that settled, we need to plan our search. Have you had breakfast? I was waiting for you. We’ll go over your notes while we eat. How do you like your eggs?”

“Oh, I don’t usually eat breakfast.”

“Well, maybe it’s time you did,” he teased as she followed him into the kitchen. “Now…about those eggs. How’d you say you like them?”

She wasn’t really hungry—she was too excited—but it was probably going to be a long day and there was no McDonald’s out in the middle of the ranch. “Scrambled,” she sighed. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Toast,” he told her, nodding toward the toaster on the counter near the microwave. “I’ll take three. There are also English muffins in the refrigerator, if you like.”

Somehow, without quite knowing how it happened, Rainey found herself making breakfast with Buck and feeling as if they’d done it a thousand times before. She was far more intrigued than she liked. There was no question that he knew his way around the kitchen, at least when it came to breakfast. Cracking eggs one-handed, he whisked them with an expert hand, then poured them into the melted butter in a hot skillet before she even had the bread in the toaster.

Where had he learned to cook? she wondered as her gaze wandered freely over his long, lean frame. What woman had stood at his side at a stove and taught him how to crack eggs, how to scramble them so that they were so light and fluffy that they looked like they’d just melt in your mouth? Were they lovers? Had they had late-night cooking lessons after they’d made love? Had he loved her? Did he still?

Why did she care?

His eyes on the eggs he was cooking, he glanced up suddenly and caught her watching him. “What?” he asked, his smile crooked. “The men you date don’t cook?”

Heat stung her cheeks, and she looked quickly away. “Actually, I don’t date,” she retorted stiffly. “I don’t have time. But my ex-husband didn’t even know where the kitchen was.”

“Ah, so you have an ex. Kids?”

“No. How about you?”

“An ex-fiancée,” he said flatly. “She broke things off when I moved to America.”

Shocked, she blurted out, “Just because you moved? She must not have loved you very much.” Too late, she realized what she’d said and quickly apologized. “I’m sorry! I had no right to say that. I don’t know the woman. Whatever happened between the two of you is your business.”

“Don’t apologize,” he told her as he carried the skillet of eggs to the kitchen table. “You’re right on the money. She’d be here if she really loved me. At the very least, she would have tried to find a compromise. Instead, she handed me my ring back. There was nothing else to discuss.”

Suddenly realizing he was telling the details of his private life to a complete stranger, he quickly changed the subject. “Enough of that. Is the toast ready? Let’s eat.”

The wooden table that sat before the old rock fireplace at the far end of the kitchen was worn and scarred from use by generations of Wyatts. Taking a seat across from Rainey, the warmth of the morning fire at his back, Buck silently acknowledged that he wasn’t a fanciful man. But as he watched Rainey dig into the eggs she really hadn’t wanted, he could almost feel his ancestors crowding into the room, hovering close as they waited for word on the whereabouts of the mine.

You’re losing it, old chap, he told himself, shaking off his imaginings. There was no such thing as ghosts, and if there were, surely they wouldn’t need Rainey Brewster to tell them where the mine was. That kind of thing had to be common knowledge in heaven.

Swallowing a silent groan at that thought—what was he thinking?—he finished his eggs, then sat back in his chair to study her with sharp eyes. “Okay, back to the mine. If it’s not near the Indians’ summer camp, then where is it?”

“In a canyon that runs east and west,” she said promptly, and pulled out the small map she took with her everywhere. “I copied this from the records I discovered in Barcelona. This canyon is where the mine is,” she told him, pointing out the canyon that looked like nothing more than a bunch of meaningless lines. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but there’s a place on this ranch that looks just like this. The Ute Indians considered it haunted. They wouldn’t go near it, so the last thing they would have done was camp near it. There’s no way the mine is near the Indians’ summer camp.”

Buck frowned. “The ranch library is full of books about the Utes in this area of Colorado. I don’t remember reading anything about a haunted canyon. And I certainly haven’t see any canyon on the ranch that looks even vaguely like your map.”

“It must be incredibly remote,” she replied. “As for any mention of the haunted canyon, I never ran across any reference to it, either,” she replied, “until I went to Spain. Maybe they didn’t talk about it. It’s not uncommon for certain tribes to not speak of their fears of the spirit world. They were a suspicious lot. They would have been afraid of empowering the demons that inhabited such places.”

Buck couldn’t argue with her logic, but she didn’t have a clue how complicated she’d just made their search. “Do you have any idea how many canyons there are on this ranch?” he demanded, frustrated. “There are fifty square miles of them! The mine could be in any one of them. If that’s all you’ve got,” he said, motioning to the map she was folding to return to her purse, “then you’ve made a trip out here for nothing.”

“But that’s not all,” she said when he rose to collect the dishes and carry them to the sink. “There’s a stream that hugs the north wall of the canyon.”

“There are streams all over the ranch, and they all look alike.”

“And there’s a bell—”

Frowning, he gave her a sharp look. “What bell?”

“The missionaries brought it with them from Spain.”

“Yes, I know,” he said. “The Spaniards took it back to Spain after the mine was lost in the landslide. It’s in a museum in Madrid.”

“No, that’s the ship’s bell,” she corrected him. “The bell that I’m talking about was forged in Italy. The bell in the museum is from Portugal. I know. I’ve seen it.”

There was no doubting her sincerity. “So where’s the bell?”

“According to the records in Spain, it never left Colorado,” she replied.

“So it was lost in the avalanche.”

“There’s always that possibility,” she agreed, “but I don’t think so. According to one missionary’s diary, the bell was located a hundred yards due north of the mine’s entrance. For all we know, it’s still there.”

“But you can’t be sure of that,” he retorted. “So all we have is a rough map of one canyon out of thousands and a bell that may or may not still be there….”

“And a cedar tree at the entrance to the canyon!” she finished for him triumphantly. “The Spaniards wanted to be able to find the mine easily, so they planted one of the cedar trees they brought from Spain to mark the entrance to the canyon. All we have to do is find that tree!”

Buck couldn’t believe she was serious. “This is a joke, right?”

“No, of course not,” she said automatically, only to turn wary when his question registered. “Why would you think I was joking? Granted, the tree could be dead after all these years, but cedars are hardy—”

“And prolific,” he added dryly. “There must be ten thousand on the ranch alone.”

She blanched. “Ten thousand?”

He nodded. “Possibly more. Cedars love this climate. They sprang up everywhere the wind blew. Haven’t you noticed? The canyons and the lower slopes of the foothills are covered with cedar as far as the eye can see.”

For a moment, he saw despair spill into her eyes, but just that quickly, she blinked and it was gone. She straightened her shoulders, her chin came up and determination glinted in her eyes. She didn’t have to say the words for Buck to know she wasn’t giving up. And he was damn impressed. Another woman might have been in tears, but not Rainey Brewster. She looked as if she was ready to take on the world.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t find it,” she said stubbornly. “The bell’s got to be somewhere nearby—”

“Not necessarily,” he argued. “Someone could have found it years ago and melted it down for bullets or something. Or the Indians could have carried it off. There’s no way to know.”

“Yes, there is,” she insisted. “There are no records of its existence after the landslide. And the Indians wouldn’t have come near it because it was in the haunted canyon. It just dropped off the face of the earth. It’s got to be there!”

She looked so determined—and desperate—he felt for her. “Rainey, love, you’re looking for a needle in a haystack,” he said gently. “You know that, don’t you? The odds on finding the mine—”

“Are immaterial,” she said promptly. “My father taught me a long time ago that you can’t consider the odds when you’re looking for lost treasure. That’s why other people give up.”

Frowning, he said, “I can appreciate your father’s philosophy, but at some point, you have to consider the odds and how cost effective your search is—unless you want to spend the rest of your life futilely searching for something and never getting anywhere. When you and I made a deal, I thought you had more information on the mine’s location.”