Page 30 of The Treasure Hunt Hookup

I giggle. “Meanwhile, she’s just been told she could inherit a million dollars from some distant relative, but only if she gets married within ninety days,” I suggest, getting into the spirit. “She’s scheduled three dates a night, trying to find Mr. Right before her evil cousin inherits everything.”

“Hey, for a million bucks, she should just offer him a cut,” Reeve grins. “I bet he’d fake it, to buy back the pup.”

“But of course, as any fake-dating aficionado knows, they’ll fall in love for real, and live happily-ever-after,” I finish with a smile.

Across at the other table, the couple make strained small-talk – having way less fun than us and our wild stories.

“Clearly, the best first dates come with costumes,” Reeve comments, taking a sip of his drink. “They’d probably be getting on like a house on fire if they had some spandex and a whip.”

Memories rush back to me, hot and urgent. Damnit, am I ever going to be able to have a casual conversation with this man without remembering the scratch of his stubble on the inside of my thighs?

Not tonight.

I gulp the last of my wine, and make a show of checking my watch. “I should call it,” I say quickly, already getting to my feet.

Reeve looks disappointed. “So soon?”

“Yup. I have a busy day at the museum tomorrow,” I tell him, and it’s not even a lie. Two school groups, and a visiting archivist wanting to check our storage for some old Appalachian folk art.

Reeve pays our check, and then walks me out to my car. “This was fun,” he says softly, looking down at me in the golden glow of a nearby street-light. “We should do it again sometime.”

“As neighbors,” I remind him – and myself. “This wasn’t a date.”

“A movie and drinks?” Reeve asks, grinning. “Sounds like a date to me. I mean, I let you eat all the fries. That makes it date-ish. Date-adjacent.”

“Uh-huh.” I can’t help but smile, opening my car door. “Keep telling yourself that.”

Reeve chuckles, and sticks his hands in his coat pockets. “I’ll be seeing you, Ivy,” he calls back, as he strolls away. “I still want my jacket back!”

I watch him go in my rearview mirror, wish I was brave enough to ask him to stay.

9

IVY

I wake earlythe next morning, full of determination to keep my distance from Reeve and his dangerously charming smiles … and to contain whatever havoc my idiot ex-husband is about to unleash.

Because I realized something, driving home from the movie last night. The only thing worse than Jake steamrolling through my life in Milford Falls in a futile quest for Earl’s treasure would be … if he actually found it.

He wouldn’t.

Couldn’t.

Could he?

I was always the brains of our operation. Jake has natural charisma; he can get anyone to open up on camera, and somehow makes digging through an old pile of garbage seem exciting. But when it came to actually tracking down our treasures – researching, combing through old papers, picking up on the tiny details that could mean something – well, that part was all me.

Still, what if he gets lucky? What if, after all this time, Earl’s treasure really is still out there – and Jake somehow stumbles over the miracle clue?

I wake up in a cold sweat, just imagining the scene: Jake, standing over a casket of gold with the cameras flashing; smugly taking all the credit – and probably, the cash, too. Bragging nonstop at our college reunion, to all the fancy professors.“Looks like it was right under her nose, all along,”he’d say, with that fake-modest shrug of his.

I’d never live it down.

And he sure wouldn’t let me.

I leap out of bed, fired up. The man already humiliated me personally, made me look like a fool in front of all our family and friends. I can’t let him embarrass me professionally, either.

I need information on what he’s planning. An inside source.

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