Chapter Thirty-One
chapter-seperator
SLOUCHING LOWER on the couch cushions, Gwynn pinched the lead bullet between her fingers and studied its deformed edges.
This is a miracle.
God has more work for you to do.
Laughter drifted from the foyer as Uncle Russ and Aunt Maude saw Sheriff Lee to the door. Across the room, the Christmas tree lights twinkled merrily, and Aunt Maude’s Santa Claus wore his perpetual cheery expression.
Gwynn should radiate just as much cheer. God had spared her life—not once, but twice now—in her old house. So why did she, instead, feel like she’d been baked in Holly’s kiln, dashed against a wall, then glued back together?
Stop asking “why,” and start asking “what.”
Ugh, and when would Cash’s words quit playing in her head like an ad that kept popping up online?
Now that her memories had filled in the missing gaps and rounded out the police report, the cold case of her parents’ and Mr. Cooper’s murders would officially close. No unknown killer roamed free, and Charlie no longer needed to fear the cops’ suspicions.
Not all issues had been resolved, however. Fisting the bullet, she glanced at the canvas bag on the floor by her feet that held the recovered treasure. Where did things stand between her and Cash? Had he meant what he’d said to Tessa—and did it matter anymore? If either of them owed the other an apology, it was Gwynn for the part she now knew she’d played in Mr. Cooper’s death. Would Cash forgive her?
And what about that odd Meister K, who had asked her to remain in Prospect until he delivered some kind of letter? He’d said that five days ago. What happened to getting it to her “in another day or so”?
She let her head fall back as Brisket barked in the central hallway. So many questions. So few answers. But God couldn’t possibly expect her to hang around until they were all answered. Tickets for her flight to Boston already waited in her email, and she counted the hours until she returned to her normal life.
Or was she taking the coward’s way out?
She groaned and draped her arms over her eyes.
Gwynn had faced down her nightmares, but she hadn’t faced her dreams. She’d set those aside long ago and feared to reexamine them now. If she didn’t let herself hope, she wouldn’t be disappointed when they didn’t come true.
“What do I do, Lord? Return to Boston, or stay here? Or is there a third choice I don’t even know about?”
“If you’re taking a vote, I’d like to weigh in.”
Just as it had done in the airport last week, the smooth baritone slipped over her collar on a delightful shiver. Gwynn opened her eyes. “Eavesdropping again, Cooper?”
Cash propped a shoulder against the living room doorjamb, his barn jacket open over a charcoal gray fisherman’s sweater, his eyes like the light blue horizon on a cloudless day, popping beneath his Stetson. A playful grin flitted across his mouth. “I learn a lot that way.”
She sat up and repositioned herself on the couch as he approached. “If you’re here for the pie, you’re out of luck. Sheriff Lee ate the last slice.”
His grin broadened. “I accept rain checks.” He settled on the cushion beside her and removed his hat. “Actually, I spoke with the sheriff as he was getting into his car. He said you weren’t pressing charges against Charlie.”
“You probably think I’m crazy, but enough people’s lives have been damaged because of what happened years ago.” She rolled the bullet between her palms. “I didn’t want to add to the pile. So, I decided as long as the authorities revoke Charlie’s gun license, and he receives help from a community shelter in one of the nearby cities …” She lifted a shoulder.
Cash stretched forward and placed his hat on the coffee table. “I may not have done the same thing were I in your shoes, but knowing the hardships in Charlie’s past, I can understand your reasoning.” He braced his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers. “And while we’re on the topic of reason, I’d like to set the record straight with what you apparently overheard at The Nutty Bean.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve been thinking, and—”
“You said something yesterday about me using you, and ‘believing Tessa,’ so I went to confront her.” Cash rubbed his hands along his thighs. “She admitted she exaggerated the truth when talking with her coworker, trying to ‘manifest’ her own reality or whatever.”
“Okay,” Gwynn said slowly. She pressed the bullet into her palm, its rough edge digging into her skin. “But how does she exaggerate a ‘means to an end’? Or that I’m your ‘opportunity to find the money’? You even told me yourself, before you knew I was Hadley, that you’d been searching for the treasure for a while.”
“I never intended to use you to find it. It’s true that during the … uh”—his ears turned pink, and he stared past her at the fireplace—“lunch date with Tessa last week, we talked about the promise I’d made my dad regarding the lost money. But you had just apologized to me, and that threw everything off-balance.”
Cash drilled a hand through his hair, his curls flopping in disarray. “Suddenly, I wanted the chance to rekindle my friendship with you—and maybe more, if it were possible. I couldn’t admit that out loud, though. Not only would I have sounded insane—emotions couldn’t change that fast, could they?—but I knew how Tessa felt about me, and I … didn’t want to be a complete jerk. In my attempt not to say too much, however, I ended up saying the wrong things. Tessa misunderstood me and ran with it.”
Gwynn doodled an imaginary design on the couch cushion with the bullet, her hopes rising with his words. Then they dipped. “Right before you left for Miles City, you were so confident I’d remember what happened that it made me wonder which you were more interested in—me or my memories. And then you called me—”
“Hadley. I know.” He grimaced. “I wish I could take it all back. Flippant words I never should’ve said.”
“Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks,” Gwynn said.
Cash scowled. “Out of distraction and impatience, the mouth speaks, as well.”
She stared at the faint lines she’d created in the couch. And out of desperation, one can act with just as much flippancy.
“What do you mean?”
She snorted. Of course , she’d said that out loud. “Meaning”—Gwynn tossed the bullet at the coffee table, and it landed in Cash’s hat brim—“so much has happened since your lunch date with Tessa that it would be wrong of me to hold a few careless words against you. Especially when you now know the truth of how your father died—”
“I don’t blame you for that.”
“—so please forgive my reckless behavior that night.” She bent over and lifted the canvas bag by its straps. “And may this compensate for my mistakes, although it rightfully belongs to you anyway.”
She placed the bag on his lap. Slanting her a wary look, he untied the straps then peered inside at the money and tin she’d transferred from her backpack this morning. His face went ashen.
Silence sank between them like a sodden wool blanket.
“I don’t blame you for what happened, Gwynn,” he murmured at last. A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “I suspected what Dad was about when he left for your house that night. He’s the other reason I went to the ranch.” Cash closed his eyes. “But I was too late.” Clearing his throat, he straightened and plopped the tote bag in her lap. “I can’t take this.”
“Well, I don’t want it.” Gwynn wrinkled her nose and pushed the bag to the floor. A plink sounded from the tin as the bag listed onto its side. “Reliving how greed and the love of money corrupted otherwise sane people …” Her body convulsed involuntarily. “No, thank you.” She toed the bag with her foot. “What a pair we make. Given the age of those bills, they could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. When you include the gold nuggets—”
“That money ruined our past. I won’t let it ruin our future.”
Several bills fanned out at the bag’s opening. A piece of twine around one roll must have come untied from the manhandling and transfers from drawer to backpack to canvas bag. Gwynn angled her head.
That wasn’t a fancy, turn-of-the-century profile of a smirking Ben Franklin.
Cash shifted on the couch. “Our future is what I want to—”
She grabbed his knee, her chest tightening. “Cash.” His name came out strangled. “Look.” With shaky hands, she reached for the old paper money, which began to flake apart in her fingers. Not the pile of greenbacks she’d expected.
They were greybacks.
Cash leaned close and whispered, “Confederate States of America?”