Chapter 19 Ilsa #2
Cosi pulled ingredients from the fridge to make an alfredo sauce, setting the chicken on the cutting board to rest. He rolled his shirt sleeves up his forearms, and I nearly swooned. His muscles flexed as he whisked the sauce in the pan, veins popping beneath smooth skin.
God, that was sexy.
I could spend a lifetime in this kitchen, watching this man cook. Tonight, I wouldn’t need any foreplay. Everything about him was a turn-on.
Gwen was a fool. Her loss was my gain.
“I wrote her back,” Cosi said. “Told her he wasn’t ready for that. But apparently, she thought another letter would change his mind.”
“Can she demand time with him?”
“No. I went to the county courthouse when he was three and made sure I had all the rights when it came to my son. Her parents moved away around that time, not that they ever had anything to do with him. If we accidentally bumped into them around town, they’d pretend like we didn’t know each other.
Wouldn’t so much as make eye contact with their own grandchild. ”
Assholes. “And Gwen’s aunt?”
“Also gone. When everyone realized Gwen wasn’t coming back, I think she felt guilty. Like she could have been a better influence. From what I heard, she moved to Texas.”
“Which means she has no reason to come here other than to see Spencer. She can’t fake a visit to a relative. Hence the letters.”
“Yes.” His jaw clenched. “The first letter was to me. I could understand that one. But the second? Addressed to him? Damn her.”
“What are you going to do?”
He took a long breath, then pulled a colander from the cupboard. “It’s Spencer’s call. Whatever he decides, I’ll support him.”
The perfect answer.
Cosi didn’t want Gwen around his kid. But he’d set his own feelings aside. He’d let Spencer make that decision.
“My parents had a strained relationship,” I told him.
“My mother didn’t want to live in Montana, and my father didn’t want to live anywhere else.
There were times when I know Mom wanted to strangle Dad.
He never visited me after we moved to Arizona.
He made very little effort. So she made it for him.
Every summer, she’d drive me up here to spend a few months in Dalton.
Not because she wanted to live without me for three months.
Not because the trip was all that easy to make.
But because it’s what I wanted.” I walked over and put my hand on his arm. “Spencer is lucky to have you.”
Cosi stared down at me, the flecks of green in his hazel irises brighter tonight. “Thanks, baby.”
“That’s three times today.”
“You’re counting?”
“You were right. I like it.”
“Good.” His eyes crinkled at the sides as he smiled. Then he dropped a kiss to my forehead and nudged me aside so he could drain the pasta.
I went to the cabinet where he kept his plates, opening it, as movement caught my eye.
Spencer stood in the mouth of the hallway, his boots gone, his socked feet quiet on the floor. Without a doubt, he’d seen Cosi kiss me.
My cheeks flamed, but all I could do was offer a guilty smile.
He rolled his eyes, clearly unsurprised.
I guess Cosi and I hadn’t been as discreet as I’d thought. Damn.
“You okay?” Cosi asked as Spencer walked into the kitchen.
“Did you read her letter?”
“I did.”
Spencer raked a hand through his hair, a move that made him look so much like Cosi it was uncanny. “I don’t know what to do.”
Cosi crossed the room and put his hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “No need to decide tonight. Let’s eat. Sleep on it.”
“Okay.” Spencer fell into Cosi’s chest.
Cosi wrapped him up, holding tight. “Love you, pal.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
A part of me felt like an intruder again. The other part felt like I was exactly where I should be.
After a quick kiss to his son’s hair, Cosi let Spencer go and went back to the food.
Spencer shuffled to the table, staring down at the mess. “What’s all this?”
“The ramblings of a depressed man who was giving in to his own delusions,” I said, taking out three plates.
“Huh?”
“Stuff of my dad’s.”
He picked up the letter that Jerry had given me, reading it before setting it aside. Then he touched the open page of the journal. It was one of the pages with a squiggled line and random numbers.
“So you have the atlas.” He picked up the book of maps. “I don’t get the tap dance thing. But where’s the key?”
“On my key chain.”
“No, to this.” Spencer picked up the journal, separating a page with a line and numbers. He bent back the rest of the journal, so that single page was alone. Then he flipped through the atlas, to the page that included Dalton.
With it open, he overlayed the page on the map.
“What do you mean?” I walked over to see that line match up perfectly on the atlas.
It wasn’t a line at all. It was the Blackfoot River.
My jaw dropped. My knees buckled so quickly I nearly dropped the plates, but then Cosi was there, taking them from my hands to set aside.
The blood drained from my head so fast I got dizzy, but Cosi’s arm banded around my back, holding me to his side as he bent over the atlas.
“No fucking way,” he murmured.
Spencer pulled the page away and traced his finger over the river in the same shape as the line on the page.
“How did you know that?” Cosi asked.
“We’re learning Dalton history this month in social studies.”
“And you paid attention in class?”
I elbowed him in the ribs. “Cosi Raynes.”
“What?” He didn’t even flinch. “I’m just asking.”
I shot him a frown as Spencer placed the page back on the atlas. “These numbers must mean something. Miles, maybe?”
No, not miles.
Find the atlas and the key
A key.
“Can I see that?” I took the journal from his hand, flipping to the list of items Dad had made. Then I took my favorite red pen from my briefcase and wrote a number next to each line.
1. Buck Knife
2. License
3. Chisel
4. Mirror
One of the numbers along the line was 1,2,4. The commas were small ticks on the page.
“Buck knife. License. Mirror.” I looked to Cosi. “I don’t know what that means.”
He stared at the map, his face hardening before he pointed a finger to the place where the numbers would have lined up against the page. To a section of forest without any roads or markers. “This is BLM land.”
“B, L, M,” Spencer repeated. “First letter from each line.”
The key. It wasn’t a physical key. It was a key to Dad’s strange code.
I sank into a chair, my heart racing so fast it felt like it would gallop out of my chest. “Does this mean what I think it means? Are we staring at a treasure map?”