Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
Bishop
With two math problems left to go, while I get the day’s dishes in the dishwasher, I hear a sudden yelp of surprise from Aspen’s office, followed by a little screech of what I’m hoping is celebration. Fallon looks up from the table and glances in the direction of her office and then looks at me.
“Which one of us is going to check to make sure she wasn’t abducted by a pterodactyl?” Fallon deadpans, and it sends a roll of laughter through me.
“I’ll go check on her. You keep going. You’re almost done, and then you can go watch TV in your room for the rest of the night, like your mom said.
” I remind her because I’ve seen her check her phone at least five times in the last five minutes, pretending to look something up when, in reality, I can tell she’s watching fan-edit videos her friends are sending her of a TV show she’s excited about tonight.
I place the last dish in the rack and start the dishwasher before I make my way to Aspen’s office, watching her rapidly scroll through something on her laptop screen.
“Everything all right in here?” I ask, leaning on the top of the doorframe as I watch her work.
“Yes, I just think that I might have figured this out. I have a suspicion, anyway; I’m just trying to see if I can find it in the photos here, anything that might—” She glances over at me, and her brows lift. “Don’t do that. It’s distracting!”
“Do what?”
“That leaning thing you’re doing right now. I don’t have time to be seeing little sneak peeks of your abs while I’m this close to finishing something.” She scolds me, and she likes the laugh I answer her with even less, given the way her brow furrows.
“I’m sorry. I mean, yes, ma’am.” I pull myself off the doorframe and walk into the room, standing behind her to see the photos she’s scrolling through.
“I swear I’ve seen this symbol somewhere before.
It looks so familiar, and then I was thinking about the rocks.
It’s pyrite. Fool’s Gold Mine… But somewhere, there were maps from a survey done back when they first opened the mine.
They thought there was a lot of potential in it, but then—” She pauses to study another folder and scrolls again.
“Fool’s gold.”
“Right. Until Grandpa anyway. When he came back from the war, he decided to give the mine one last chance. And it worked. He found a vein, and it led all the way back to a large deposit. It was enough to keep the ranch floating and pay off a bunch of debtors and then some.”
“So you think it’s got something to do with the mine?”
“What if it’s taking us to the next clue or maybe even the real sword?
If the governor and his father were superstitious, then maybe that wore off on the others.
Maybe they were superstitious and thought it could sway their fortunes.
Grandpa Stockton passed away when I was little.
I didn’t know him well enough to say how prone to superstition he was.
But if he comes back with this object and then the mine suddenly produces gold… He might have bought into that idea.”
“Sounds plausible,” I admit.
“So I’m just trying to see where I remember this symbol from, and I think—” She stops mid-sentence and shrieks again, jumping up out of her chair and pointing. “Look! Look! Look!”
I lean over, and I see a piece of paper with the same symbol as the one she’s got scanned into the computer from the map-like clue she found today.
“Look at that. They’re the same.” I agree with her assessment, grinning when I look over to see her jumping up and down.
“What in the world is going on in here?” Fallon walks into the room.
“Your mom just solved a big problem we were trying to figure out. How are yours going?” I turn and look over at her.
“They’re done. I was coming to see if I could be excused to go watch TV and unlock my phone to talk to my friends.”
“You can. I’m sure they’ll be excited for you to respond to all those messages I kept seeing your phone light up with.
” I give her a mild side-eye, but then I flash a smile.
I want to give her some space to roam as we navigate things, let her know I’m not gonna call her out on every infraction so long as she’s getting things done.
“And there’s some chocolate ice cream in the freezer. If you wanna make me a bowl too.”
“Really?” Her eyes widen.
“Yep.”
“Thank you!”
“Your mom’s idea, afraid I can’t take credit for it.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Of course, honey. Go relax. I’m glad you got that homework done. And remember the heating pad is in your linen closet if you need it.” Aspen gives our daughter a sympathetic look.
“Thanks. Goodnight. Maybe fewer pterodactyls in the house the rest of the night?” Fallon teases her mom, and she rolls her eyes in return as she plops back down in her office chair but nods her agreement to be quieter.
When Fallon heads off to get ice cream and wind down for the night, I turn and put my hands on Aspen’s shoulders, massaging them gently as I watch her texting Charlotte and Levi a picture of the symbols she’s connected.
“See, they all laughed at me, but there’s a good reason to digitize the family archives. You never know when they’re going to come in handy like this.”
“You showed them.” I knead her shoulders more, and despite her elation, they’re still knotted with the stress of the day.
“We’ll have to make plans to go into the mine. But I have no idea what state it’s in or what kind of equipment we’ll need. That’s out of my area of expertise.”
“If anyone knows, it’ll be your brothers or Charlotte and her crew. We can get it figured out, I’m sure.”
“Maybe we can go down there and take a preliminary look tomorrow? I don’t have class.”
“Sure. Sounds like a plan. But I think you need to take a load off and relax a little tonight. You want to have some ice cream with me, maybe watch some TV?”
“Maybe. I need to shower and get into some PJs first. Did you take your shower yet?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. I was running around and got home just before you.”
“Do you want to take yours first? You’re faster than I am.”
“You got it.” I give her one last little squeeze before I release her shoulders.
“And maybe some more of that.” She grins, and her lashes lift until her green eyes meet mine.
“Anything you need. I’ll put the ice cream back in the freezer for now and go get in the shower. Don’t stay on there too long, all right? You solved your mystery. Give yourself some downtime. Find something to watch.” I worry about how much work this woman puts in every day.
“Yes, sir,” she teases me in return. “Just one more thing, and I’ll be done. I promise.”
“All right.” I leave her reluctantly because if there’s anything I know about Aspen, it’s that one more thing turns into three.
A few minutes later, I’ve got the shower running to heat up the water while I strip down.
One of the other advantages of living here is that there’s always an endless supply of hot water.
I’ve been working on ideas with Anson to come up with a solution that would allow us to do something similar at the homestead.
Because even I’m going to miss the creature comforts of this place.
I can see why Levi and Grant still spend so much time here despite the fact that they have property elsewhere.
Just as I strip out of my shirt and jeans, hanging them over the back of the chair Aspen has in front of the vanity, there’s a knock.
“Yeah?” I call out, and the door opens.
It’s Aspen with a bowl of ice cream in her hands, stripped out of work clothes and in a robe she has on over her panties and bra.
She walks around me and pulls out the chair, moving my clothes to the empty towel bar on the other side of the room, and then sits down and begins to eat her ice cream.
Looking up at me innocently, she takes a bite and lets the spoon linger in her mouth.
“Am I supposed to know what’s happening right now, Jones?”
“You told me to find something to watch. I flipped through a couple of channels while I was getting changed out of my work clothes, and then I remembered there’s a show I got a preview of in the doorway back there that I want to see the end of.
” She gives me doe eyes as she watches my expression morph from confusion to amusement.
“Oh yeah?”
“It was a good preview. Lots of plot happening, you know? I need to know what happens next.”
“Well, I regret to inform you that this show isn’t free.”
“It’s not? The last I checked, I was a member of this club.” She holds up her ring for me to see.
“Mmm. Yeah. See… club fees don’t cover private showings like this one. That’s extra.”
“I’ll have to talk to the owner about that.”
“I hear he takes bribes.”
“Does he? Any idea what sort might work on him?”
“A couple of bites of ice cream might help your case.”
“And here I am with a whole bowl of it.” She plays along and smirks down at her mountain of chocolate ice cream, dipping her spoon into the scoop that’s already starting to melt and holding it out for me.
I take the mouthful, letting out a soft moan of appreciation for her benefit before I let the spoon slip free from my mouth.
She feeds me another and then holds it back, looking at me expectantly.
“Thoughts you want to share?” I ask.
“I think two bites earn me admission, don’t you?
” Her eyes rake down my chest and land on my boxer briefs.
I’m already getting hard for her. There’s really no fucking pretending I’m not.
I glance back at the shower, checking to be sure it’s not going to be freezing cold when I step inside.
The steam’s started to rise and billow out from behind the frameless glass door.
“You coming inside with me?” I ask as I look back and see her sliding the bowl onto the counter.
“Hmm… I heard the owner’s wife has rules.” She hums as she stands and runs her fingers up the center of my chest until she reaches my dog tags, slipping them off my neck and onto the tray she keeps her jewelry on.
“Ah. I’ve heard she’s pretty strict on the enforcement of those.”
“Well,” she continues as she takes off her bracelet.
Her ring follows, and she takes mine with it, and her earrings are the last to go after her necklace.
“I heard that in this particular club, it’s the owner who calls all the shots.
Whatever he says goes.” Her lashes lift, and her eyes meet mine, the challenge behind them even more evident when she drops her robe over the chair next to her without losing my gaze.
“I haven’t heard that particular rumor yet.”
“His wife’s a real pain in his ass, and he’s constantly doing her bidding.
Trips to the store. Helping with homework.
Ordering dinner. Doing dishes. Keeping everyone happy.
And that’s after a long day doing backbreaking work at the ranch because he gave up his very lucrative career to muck stalls and fix things around the place in order to spend more time with his family. ”
“I don’t think she’s a pain in the ass at all.”
“Oh, she is. She knows it. He knows it even if he won’t ever say it. He’s too perfect for things like that. Which is why when they’re in their little private club, one night a month when she’s been so busy she hasn’t given him the date night she promised, she lets him have whatever he wants.”
“Whatever he wants?”
“Anything his heart desires.”
“This sounds like it’s well outside the bounds of their usual agreement.”
“I would guess it is. But see, he only gets it on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“He takes it.”