Page 5 of Side Hustle
By the time I made it to the parking lot behind Hill Hotel, there were storm clouds in the distance, which didn’t bode well for my ride home. My poor little Jeep was the cutest thing that came out of the ’90s, but she didn’t have a soft top, which made winter interesting in Auburn Hill. I put my belongings in a waterproof backpack and shoved that under my seat.
That same pulse of energy that had drawn me here last night hit my chest like a physical touch. At first I thought it had to do with the full moon. Granny had always called me Little Moon, and try as I might to disprove all the woo-woo, I couldn’t deny the spark of energy and creativity that flooded through my body each full moon. After last night’s discovery, I had no idea what it said about me that I was even more in tune with a cave loaded with gold.
The dirt below my shoes and the tree branches swaying all the way up to the star-studded night sky, it was all a part of me, having grown up here in Auburn Hill. I loved this land. I loved the town legend. I didn’t love that I’d discovered the gold with Rip Bennett. He could take a flying leap headfirst into Granny’s huge kitty litter box.
“Think happy thoughts, Hazel. Think about what all that gold could do for this town,” I muttered out loud.
And just like that, my mood cleared and meeting up with Rip wasn’t such a hardship. After all, I was pretty sure this land was all his family’s. They could do whatever they wanted with it. Being nasty to him wouldn’t help solidify his plans to share the wealth with the town.
“Psst.”
The whisper jolted me from my thoughts. Rip stood over to my left, a shadowy figure under a large tree branch, as skulky as he appeared on any given day.
“Why are you hiding?” I walked over to him, looking around to see if there was some danger I was unaware of. He wore a dark, long-sleeved Henley with a pair of jeans that couldn’t hide the fact that this man worked out. I wasn’t one to drool over a man’s thighs, but damn, Rip looked like a soccer player with those quads.
Oh man, he looks good. No! Bad Hazel! Focus on the gold!
“Why are you making that face?” Rip looked at me with a single, thick eyebrow raised.
Great. Now my crazy thoughts were informing my face and letting the world know I talked to myself. Often. Repeatedly. And usually it led to an internal argument.
I smiled, hoping the blush on my cheeks hid behind the darkness surrounding us. “Nothing! So, did you look at the you-know-what again?”
Rip’s lips tilted into a slight grin. “You mean the gold?”
“Shh!” I put my hand on his mouth to shut him up before anyone heard us. The jolt of electricity that ran up my arm had me snatching my hand back.
Whoa. What the hell was that?
Rip lost the grin, probably just as disturbed by me touching him. We’d tried to avoid any touching over the years. Hell, we’d mostly ignored each other entirely by pretending the other person didn’t exist. Usually it worked. Rip had a tendency to blend into the background on purpose. I noticed him, of course, but I saw how other people just looked on by. He did it on purpose and I never understood it.
“No one’s around, Hazel,” he said full volume. “We can talk about the gold.”
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. “No! We need to be extremely careful. Do you know what people around here would do if they caught wind of a cave full of gold? And you do realize that Poppy has bionic ears, right?”
Poppy was the town mail carrier with multicolored hair pushing the bounds of retirement age. She was also the town chief of gossip, with the ability to overhear conversations that was beyond the human realm. I wouldn’t put it past her to show up on this hill, claiming she heard us talking about gold and demand her fair share.
“I highly doubt they’re bionic, but yeah, you’re right. The townsfolk would freak out about their precious legend coming true. How about we use the code word ‘honeycomb’ instead?”
I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “Ew. No. There’s literally no way I’d get excited about bees that buzz around and sting me. Oh, I know! How about we found a Jumanji game buried in this hill?”
Rip ran a hand through his hair, making the dark strands lie in a mess, which only made him hotter. Stupid boys and their perfectly messed-up hair.
“Seriously? Jumanji? I’m not invoking worldwide disaster by messing around with that. How about we found an arrowhead and wonder if it’s from some ancient tribe?”
I pursed my lips and thought it through. “Fine. That works. Do you know for sure your family owns this property where we found thearrowhead? The, um, tribal people will want to verify that before they dig around.”
Rip looked like he wanted to laugh, but caught himself just before he dared to express an emotion like joy. “I’m pretty sure my father owns this land, but I’ve decided to sneak into his office to see if I can find the deed.” He made a face. “If this land is his, he’s not going to share the, uh,arrowhead.”
My heart dropped. I remembered Rip telling me back in high school that his dad was money-hungry. He’d lent money to poor Janey when she was in danger of losing her goat farm. When she couldn’t pay him back, Mr. Bennett had kicked her off the land and she’d had to move all her goats to a smaller plot of land outside of town, resorting to goat yoga to make ends meet. He hadn’t cared that her late husband had been a key member of the town for decades. All Mr. Bennett cared about was money.
“Well, crap,” I muttered, spinning away to think better. It helped my brain cells to fire when I wasn’t looking directly at Rip. His soulful brown eyes held depths I got lost in when I wasn’t careful. “Can you talk to him and see if he’ll transfer the land to you?”
It was a long shot, but all possibilities needed to be explored.
Rip was already frowning when I turned back. I hated the way all the light in his eyes died out at the mention of his dad.
“No. There’s no way he’ll give it to me. Plus, I won’t ask him for anything anyway.” His jaw clenched tight, and I wanted to smooth my hand over his face to comfort him.
