Page 22 of Tempting Fate
Only one hundred and ninety-nine acres to go.I’ll be crippled by then.
She got in her truck and examined the map again, then peered out at the land. If she was reading it right, the gold was somewhere in the vicinity of the very trees she was standing under. Raylene was starting to think Levi, her great-great-grandfather’s brother, was a real dipshit. Why couldn’t he have just put the gold in a suitcase and stowed it in the attic? Or, even better, gotten a freaking safe deposit box?
According to legend, Levi had been bad to the bone. Unsatisfied with the modest—but steady—income from selling beef to the prospectors, he started out stealing horses from miners and selling them across state lines in Nevada. When that wasn’t lucrative enough for him, Levi became what the Australians called a “night fossicker.” He spent his days sleeping and his nights pilfering gold from the richest claims. It didn’t take long for the miners to catch on, and soon they gathered a posse to come after him. Ashamed, his family wouldn’t take him in. So Levi buried the gold on Rosser land, planning to excavate it as soon as the heat was off him. That day never came. He was shot and killed after drawing down on a sheriff’s deputy who’d been trying to bring him in.
When Raylene had asked her granddaddy why he’d never searched for the gold, he’d rolled his eyes and said the lore was worth more in the ground than in his pocket. But Ray swore by the story, and had even shown Raylene historical accounts of the gold in various newspapers and books. From time to time, Ray had had to shoo enthusiastic treasure hunters off the property. But most people, including Butch, thought the story was a crock, something told around the Thanksgiving table for shits and giggles.
“Sell the fucking land, Raylene, and forget that bullshit,” Butch had told her before the divorce. “We need the money to pay off your goddamn Neiman Marcus bill.”
Well, he wasn’t getting a dime of it now. Not the proceeds from the sale of the property or the gold, when she found it.
She got out and leaned against the hood, surveying the fields. The last rain had left the grass green and the river full. And she could smell pine and eucalyptus and the moss of the river rocks. She walked to the embankment, crouched down, and tried to skip a stone over the rushing water. It was so peaceful she could hear her own heartbeat. In the distance, the mountain peaks were white, covered in snow, and the sky so clear she could see to eternity.
No wonder Ray had never developed the land. Her father had been a ruthless bastard, but he knew a good thing when he saw it. She let out a breath. What if she didn’t find the gold? What if it didn’t exist? She was down to her last few thousand dollars, not even enough to cover the lease on her beach house or a first and last month’s deposit on an apartment.
Unless she could find a job training horses or giving riding lessons, she had no skills. Nothing that would earn her a living wage, anyway. She supposed she could learn to wait tables or clean houses. But there were others to consider, people who needed the money even worse than she did.
Nope, holding on to the property until someone more suitable than Moto Entertainment came along to buy it was out of the question.
Don’t stand in the way of progress.
She walked back to where she’d left the shovel on the ground and got back to work. After the wedding, she’d return on Sunday with gloves and a metal detector. Not bringing one today had been shortsighted. But she didn’t think Logan and Annie had one, and she didn’t know where to rent such things.
“Digging your own grave, or someone else’s?”
She jumped, then turned to see Gabe leaning against her truck. He looked as though he’d just walked off the cover of one those soldier of fortune magazines. He wore a green army jacket and camo cargo pants, a boonie hat, and a pair of Gatorz sunglasses. He held a thermos in his hand, and the sweet smell of coffee wafted through the air, making her mouth water.
“Why are you always sneaking up on me?”
“I wasn’t sneaking.” He pointed at her shovel. “You were distracted.”
“Well, now that you’re here, make yourself useful.” She grabbed the pickax and shoved it at him. “Start here.” She tapped the toe of her turquoise boot a few inches from where she’d been digging. From the looks of the map, the gold could be buried anywhere in the general vicinity. Or, she could’ve been reading it upside down.
“Not until I know what I’m digging for.” He took a swig of the coffee.
“Soil samples. I’ve got a buyer interested but they want soil samples. Be sure to dig deep.”
He continued to drink his coffee and survey the hole she’d dug. “Let me see the map, Ray.”
She jerked in surprise. “What map? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He didn’t say anything, just stood there, drinking his coffee, watching her dig.
“Seriously, you’re just planning to stand there?”
“Yep, unless you’re willing to admit that you’re looking for the gold.”
The man was insufferable. Logan didn’t even know about the legend. “How’d you figure it out?”
He reached in his pocket and held up his phone. “Google. I saw you digging, wondered why, and did a little research. Most of what I read said the story’s more than likely bullshit.”
Ray didn’t think it was. “How’d you know I was here?” She stood up and leaned on the top of her shovel.
“I was in the neighborhood.”
“The neighborhood, huh?” She stared out into the distance, where a mama deer and her two babies ran across the pasture. Besides being insufferable, he was a lousy liar. “Have you been following me?”
He laughed. “A little high on yourself, aren’t you, Ray?”
