Chapter Five
Brady
The bus hit another pothole and rattled hard enough to make the windows buzz. The kids in the back erupted.
“Do it again, Dad. That was a good one.”
Bruce glanced over his shoulder at his son and grinned. “You sure you can handle it, champ? We still have ten miles of this road.”
“I’m not scared,” Stevie shot back, gripping the seat tighter.
His sister leaned across the aisle. “He screamed last time.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Dad, tell her to stop.”
Without turning, their father said, “Stop.”
And, miracle of all wonders, she did. With a dramatic sigh, but a win was a win.
I twisted around in my seat and grinned. “I’m the youngest of three and today is making me miss when my mother used to take us on day trips. We didn’t plan it, but looking back, we seemed to take turns being either the most excited or the most miserable. Should I call her and apologize?”
Their Aunt Rita reached over and patted my knee. “Nah. She’s probably selectively forgotten when you were a pain in the ass. Leave her with the good memories.”
“True enough. Were my kids hard to toilet train? No idea,” their mom, Sally, said. “But I treasure the one time they loaded the dishwasher correctly.”
“Wait, there’s a correct way?” I asked.
“That’s my point,” Josh, the pained teenager, muttered without sitting up. “If they all get in there and get washed, does it matter how?”
“It matters to me.” Their mom handed me a water bottle. “Stay hydrated, Brady. First time rock hunting?”
“Yes, ma’am. And thank you for letting me tag along.”
“Don’t thank us yet,” Bruce said. “We’re new to this too.”
“Not me,” Stevie added. “I’ve watched videos.”
“What I’m most excited about is lunch,” Uncle Pete said.
“I’m finding the best rock,” Stevie declared.
“I bet your brain is a rock,” Mindy shot back.
I chuckled. “My brother used to say that. Then we’d wrestle. He’d get in trouble because he was older.”
Mindy folded her arms. “It’s not fair.”
“But now,” I said. “Now he’s someone I’d go to war for. It’s strange how that works.”
She sighed dramatically. “I’m traveling solo as soon as I can.”
“That’s fun too,” I said. “But this? I could’ve done it alone. It’s better because you’re all here.”
She pretended not to like that.
“Where’s your family from?” Sally asked.
“Boston.”
She blinked. “Where’s your accent?”
“My family couldn’t afford one,” I said lightly.
Laughter rippled through the bus.
“You’re with us now,” Bruce said, like that settled something. And somehow, it did.
Yesterday I’d been standing in a coffee shop when this crew rolled in.
Sally had taken one look at me and declared I looked like I needed an adventure.
They were heading out the next morning to hunt turquoise at an old mine past the ridge.
I’d never done it. I said yes before common sense had a chance to weigh in.
“Seven a.m.,” she’d said. “Don’t be late.”
“Or bring snacks,” Bruce added.
“Or both,” the kids had chimed in.
So I showed up. On time. With snacks.
Why not? I’d rebuilt engines with Roy and played cards with retirees. Rock hunting with a loud, happy family sounded like exactly the kind of day that usually turned into something good.
The desert stretched wide around us. Sagebrush. Dust. Sky that went on forever. Heat already rising in waves.
The bus slowed, turned onto a rough dirt track, then stopped. The engine cut. The doors hissed open. Heat rushed in.
“Everybody grab your stuff,” Sally called. “And no one wander off unless you want to become a cautionary tale.”
“Define wander,” Bruce said.
She pointed at him. “You know exactly what I mean.”
We piled out, buckets and hammers in hand. The ground shifted under my boots as we climbed toward a pile of mining waste.
“Look for anything that doesn’t look like dirt,” Bruce called out. “Blue or green.”
Sally pressed a spray bottle into my hand. “Mist it. The color shows up better.”
“I can do that.”
“You say that now,” Bruce muttered. “But I bet the kids mist themselves in this heat more than they’ll mist the rocks.”
“Rocks over comfort, got it.” I crouched near the edge of the pile and turned over a few rocks. Dirt. Dust. More dirt.
Then I spotted a faint blue-green streak in a chunk of brown rock. I sprayed it. The color deepened immediately.
“Hey,” I said, picking it up. “This looks like something.”
“Hold it up!”
“Higher!”
Bruce leaned over my shoulder. “Yeah, that’s a keeper.”
“I wanted to find the first,” Stevie stated.
“But you didn’t,” Mindy shot back.
“I’ll find one before you do.”
“Bet you don’t.”
I laughed and tucked the stone into my bucket. “I’ll just put this away.”
“No worries, they’ve already moved on to arguing about something else,” Sally said. “Tomorrow they’ll be telling everyone how fun this was.”
“I will as well,” I said and meant it. I moved farther along the pile, tapping gently at a seam in a larger piece.
“Not too hard,” Bruce called out. “You’re coaxing, not breaking.”
“Coaxing,” I repeated, adjusting.
A small piece came loose. More blue.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “This is actually kind of amazing.”
“Right?” Aunt Rita called back. “It’s addictive.”
I straightened, scanning the area.
And that’s when I saw her.
Running along the dirt track. Dark hair pulled back. Movement steady. Focused.
Not a mirage.
Elise.
I didn’t think. “Hey, Elise!” I called, waving before I could stop myself.
She slowed. Looked over.
I held my breath and willed her to decide to join us.
She adjusted course and jogged in our direction.
By the time she reached me, she was slightly out of breath. A faint flush across her cheeks. Dust covering more than her sneakers.
“You jog here?” I asked, suddenly incapable of anything clever.
“It’s a common route.”
I glanced around, not doubting her, but also finding her claim difficult to believe. “Way out here?”
She frowned and seemed about to continue on her jog. “Not everyone likes pavement.”
Don’t leave.
“Come meet everybody.” I blurted out the invitation.
“Who is everybody?”
“A family I met yesterday who invited me out today.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know them?”
“I do now.”
I introduced her. Sally didn’t hesitate. She handed Elise a spray bottle.
“Perfect timing. You can help.”
Elise blinked. “Help with what?”
“Finding pretty rocks,” Stevie said, tugging her sleeve. “It’s easy. You just look for blue.” His bottom lip quivered. “I haven’t found one yet.”
“Come on,” Mindy said. “I’ll help you. We don’t want Brady to steal all the good ones.”
I chuckled. “One rock. I found one.”
Elise glanced at me, mouth slightly open.
I stepped in. “See that?” I pointed near her foot. “Blue-green streak. That’s what you want.”
She crouched immediately, focused. Tapped carefully. A small piece broke free. She misted it.
The color came through. Bright. Clear.
“That’s a good one,” I started. “Same idea. Copper trace.”
“Not turquoise,” she said quietly.
I blinked. “No?”
She angled it toward the light, thumb brushing away dust. “Malachite.”
I leaned in slightly. When she handed the spray bottle back, her fingers grazed mine and lingered half a second longer than necessary. My pulse kicked up and I struggled to appear unaffected.
I leaned in a little. “How do you know the difference?”
She gave the smallest nod. “Wrong color. Still copper. Just . . . not the one you’re looking for.”
“Life has shown me that often the best finds are the ones you stumble across while looking for something else.”
I expected her to blush or to meet my gaze with amusement, because yes, that was a blatant line. Instead her expression closed and she searched my face. “What else are you hoping to find out here?”
Was she still gun shy after a breakup? I didn’t like the idea of her with someone else, especially not someone who might have mistreated her. “Today? Just rocks.”
She straightened, her gaze steady and assessing. “Isn’t this one of the areas you were asking about yesterday?”
I looked around, suddenly aware that I should have been scoping out the government grade fencing in the distance. I’d fully intended to before leaving . . . “It is.”
She gave me another long look. “So, what’s your plan? Sneak away from the family? Test the security? I wouldn’t. There are signs all around that it’s a private and protected area. Out here that means likely by armed guards.”
Pursing my lips briefly, I admitted, “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. For now, I am simply enjoying learning about turquoise hunting.”
“With a family you just met.”
“Yes. They asked me to join them so I did.”
“Just like that?”
I waved a hand toward the family. “Look at them. How could I say no?”
Her gaze flicked toward the group, then back to me. “But you don’t know them?”
“I didn’t yesterday.” I smiled. “But that’s less true today. People are only strangers until you take the time to get to know them.”
Those beautiful eyes of hers narrowed again as if she were weighing the size of the shovel she’d need to move the amount of bullshit I was laying before her.
Only, none of it was bullshit. I’d grown up in a house full of big egos, tension, and secrets.
I could have resented them and that childhood, but I preferred to focus on the opportunities and strengths it had given me.
I loved my family, despite their imperfections, and that allowed me to not expect perfection in people outside of my family.
I respected that I could love people I didn’t have much, if anything, in common with, allowing me to appreciate that wonderful people came in all shapes, sizes, colors, ages, and cultures.
Seeing the beauty in others didn’t require that I want to be them.
I could simply appreciate our differences.
I would never be a hardened private investigator, but I would solve the mystery of who Thomas Steele was and what happened between him and my father.
Today? From rock hunting? Probably not.
But it would happen.
I trusted my process even if others didn’t.