Hidden Treasures (20 page)

She could have gotten hurt. That idiot Toad Regan could have injured her just so he could steal a gold coin.

Jed was a modern man, with great respect for feminism. Most of the women he knew could defend themselves, and wanted to. Erica had defended herself with a boot and a hanger. Christ. If something had happened to her, it would have just about killed him.

She kissed him with more passion than he’d known her slender body could contain. She held on to him more tightly than she’d been holding on to her hanger. He felt the roundness of her breasts through her shirt, the swollen tips of her nipples, the heat down below, where her hips met his. If they hadn’t been standing in the middle of her kitchen, he’d have torn off her shirt. And his own.

They were going to have to get the hell out of this kitchen, because he needed them both naked, and soon. His body ached with a craving much deeper and more harrowing than his craving for a cigarette just a few minutes ago.

He broke from her, and she made a desperate little moan. He had to close his eyes and take a breath to
keep that sound from triggering something crazy inside him. He liked women, he loved them, but he’d never wanted one as much as he wanted Erica right now. This brave, crazy woman with her boot and her hanger, her dark, dark eyes and all that hair, and her ability to turn a pound of ground beef into the most tasteless slop he’d ever eaten—but he’d eaten it because she’d made it, because she was Erica and he wanted her.

She gazed up at him, and her expression made him want her even more. He bowed to kiss her again, just a quick, light kiss to tide him over until they reached her bed. Gathering her hand in his, he ushered her out of the kitchen and down the hall. Halfway there he had to stop for another kiss. She pulled him to her, sliding her hands under his flannel shirt and across his T-shirt, following the contours of his chest. He pressed her up against the wall and leaned into her, making himself even crazier. He couldn’t seem to help himself, though. Her hair rained over the backs of his hands and her tongue tangled with his and her hips met his, and he wanted to break out of his skin, to burst wide open, to give himself, body and soul, to her.

He shoved up her nightshirt, bunching it up around her waist and sliding his hands underneath. She jumped, then sighed as his hands moved over her, tracing her waist, the lower edge of her rib cage and upward. She moaned again when he cupped her breasts. He moaned, too.

“Jed,” she whispered.

Don’t stop us
, he prayed silently, brushing his thumbs over her nipples and feeling her jump again.
Whatever you do, Erica, don’t shut me down.

She arched slightly, her fingers fisting against his sides. “I have…” Her voice faded into a sigh.

“What?” he asked.

“Condoms.”

Thank you, God
, he mouthed. He hadn’t brought anything with him. He hadn’t expected this.

“They’re in the bathroom.”

That was an odd place to keep them, unless she was in the habit of having sex in the tub. But then, if Pop Hackett had been telling the truth about her social life, she wasn’t in the habit of having sex at all. Maybe she kept the things there because that was where she stored items she never used.

He slid his hands out from under her shirt and backed up, giving her room to pass. He was so aroused it hurt to walk. She led the way into the bathroom off the hall. Opening the mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink, she stared at the bottle of ibuprofen, the tube of first-aid cream and the small white box of dental floss, then abandoned that for the vanity under the sink. There, amid stacks of toilet paper, bottles of shampoo and a plunger, she located an unopened package of rubbers. Bless her. Bless the world. Jed wasn’t a religious man, but he was definitely experiencing the more miraculous side of life right now.

He took the package from her, then clasped her hand and drew her out of the bathroom, this time heading straight to her bedroom. No more detours, no more delays. He needed her now.

Without fanfare, he shrugged out of his flannel shirt and dropped it on the floor. His T-shirt followed, and when she ran her hands over his bare shoulders, her fingers cool and graceful, it felt so good he fumbled with his fly. If he couldn’t even handle a belt buckle and a zipper, how was he going to handle her? He felt like a kid again, that first time—with JoAnn Meese, in
the back of Stuart Farnham’s flatbed. He’d been sixteen years old, awkward and way too eager. Fortunately, she’d been kind of tanked, so she hadn’t noticed what a lousy job he’d done of it.

Erica would notice, and there was no way in hell he was going to do a lousy job with her, if he could only slow down a little, get a grip, catch his breath. But how was he supposed to do that when she nudged his hands away and undid his fly for him, when she skimmed her hands under the slack waistband of his jeans and pushed them down? His briefs got caught on his erection, and when she freed him from the fabric he gasped at her touch.

Erica.

He hauled her nightshirt over her head, then hesitated at the sight of her panties. They were cream-colored lace, fancy and sexy without being obvious. Feminine. Ladylike—no,
woman
-like. He stroked her bottom through the lace, then brought his hand forward and down between her legs. She sank onto the bed, and with some small regret, since they were so alluring, he pulled the panties off her.

Where was the package of condoms? He’d tossed it onto the bed, but the blanket was rumpled and…damn, he had to slow down. Had to touch her all over, first. Had to kiss her all over, had to taste the skin of her throat and take her breasts with his mouth. They were plumper than he’d expected, not large but big enough. Oh, and her belly button, a narrow slit centered on her flat, smooth abdomen. He slid his tongue down into the dark curls between her legs and she let out a cry. He nearly came just from that sound.

Where the hell were the condoms? He rose onto his knees and groped the bed linens in search of them,
distracted by the dance of her hands on his back, on his thighs, grazing his balls. He located the box behind a lump in the blanket, tore frantically at the plastic wrap and finally broke it open. Square foil packets spilled out, and as he grabbed one she made his life difficult by rising up and kissing his chest. Did she know how insane she was making him? Did she have any idea?

Of course she did. She was intelligent, a teacher, a Harvard grad. She knew exactly what she was doing, brushing her tongue over his nipple, reaching down again to caress him. When he pulled back to look at her, he wasn’t surprised to see a shy smile curving her lips.

Shy. Yeah, right. Any shier and she’d be giving him a heart attack.

He barely got the sheath on before she lay back, bringing him down with her, guiding him home. Oh, it was good. She was so hot, so tight and wet. So sweet, her hips rising to welcome him, her legs wound around his, her hands on his back, one at his waist and one sliding up into his hair. Her whole body moved with every thrust, every part of her responding, every bit of flesh, bone and blood sharing in the pleasure of it. She breathed in rhythm with him.

His muscles ached from holding back. His soul ached from wanting something so much, wanting
someone
so much. He’d never realized making love could be so wonderfully painful.

Making love. This wasn’t just sex. This was Erica, smart and stubborn, the worst cook he’d ever met, not much better at gardening, but so optimistic, so eager to find beauty in a place as crummy as Rockwell. So willing to give. He’d wanted to give himself to her,
but she was doing all the giving, opening to him, drawing him deep, holding nothing back.

Her hand fisted at the small of his back. Her other hand tugged at his hair. Her body tensed like a bowstring and he stopped moving. “No,” she whispered, “Don’t stop, Jed, I need…”

He started moving again, harder and faster, and she let go, shaking, pulsing, clinging to him as a quiet sob tore from her throat. She seemed to surround him, wrapped as tight as a second skin around him, and it was all he could do to keep pumping, trying to give her just a little more, take her just a little further. He felt the second wave sweep through her, heard her cry and gave up, gave in, gave her everything he had.

For a long time afterward he remained where he was, on top of her, buried inside her. The sweat on his back began to dry, cooling him. Her hands roamed slowly along his spine, his sides, the back of his neck, and her breath danced across his shoulder. He tried to think but his mind seemed to have short-circuited. Every half-glimpsed thought sizzled and fried and dissolved into nothing. He ought to get off her, but he wasn’t sure he had the energy to move, and anyway, he didn’t want to. Lying right where he was, still hard inside her, felt way too good.

“Jed?” Her voice came out low and scratchy.

He hoped she wasn’t going to start a conversation. He lacked the brainpower to sustain his half of one.

“What?” he asked warily, finding the strength to lift himself enough to see her face.

She smiled hesitantly. “Don’t leave,” she said.

Perfect. No demands for commitments. Just two words, two perfect words. “I won’t leave,” he promised, then lowered his lips to hers.

S
OMEONE WAS POUNDING
on the back door.

Erica opened one eye and squinted at the clock-radio. Ten-thirty. She heard the pounding again.

The heavy arm slung around her waist shifted, and she began to piece together where she was, what she’d done and whom she’d done it with. That sinewy arm offered a pretty strong hint. So did the solid warmth of the man lying behind her, his chest against her back and his legs paralleling hers, his knees bent behind hers, his insteps offering a convenient perch for her feet.

Jed. Having him in her bed made her feel deliciously lazy, suspiciously achy and in no hurry to find out who was knocking on her door. “Ignore it,” he whispered into her hair.

“It could be reporters.”

He hoisted himself high enough to peer over her at the clock. Then, probably because, like Everest, it was there, he kissed her shoulder.

Heat flooded her. She had figured Jed would be good in bed—he had such a rugged aura, such certainty in his movements, such confidence in his attitude—but she hadn’t expected the tenderness, those little kisses and caresses that had nothing to do with pleasing him and everything to do with making her feel special and beloved.

“If reporters were going to come to your house,” he said, pushing her hair out of his way so he could drop another kiss behind her ear, “they’d have shown up hours ago.”

She remembered the morning a few days ago when reporters had indeed shown up before sunrise. They’d remained in her front yard, too. This morning’s visitor was at her back door. It must be someone local, someone she knew. Fern, maybe? Fern and Avery Gilman, armed with a bottle of champagne to celebrate their engagement?

Where in Rockwell would they get a bottle of champagne?

“I’d better go see who it is,” she said, reluctantly pushing herself up to sit. Jed groaned, but he didn’t restrain her.

She found her panties on the floor and her T-shirt dangling over the edge of the dresser. After donning those items, she pulled her bathrobe from its hanger and tied it around her waist. She’d learned her lesson last night. A lot could happen if you wandered out of the bedroom without a bathrobe on.

Turning, she gazed at Jed for a minute. The blanket covered certain sensitive parts of his body, but enough was exposed—the muscular hump of his shoulder, one lean leg, a sleek stretch of chest—to ignite another rush of warmth inside her. His jaw sported a stubble one shade darker than the tousled hair on his head, and his eyes were closed. He looked exhausted.

As if that was surprising. What they’d done last night—all through the night, one heavenly time after another—had required a greater output of energy from him than from her.

“You can go back to sleep,” she offered.

He rolled onto his side and burrowed into her pillow. The motion sent a square foil packet flying from the folds of the blanket. They’d used a fair number of condoms last night, but not her entire supply, the remains of which lay scattered about the bed. “If it’s Toad,” he mumbled, “scream loud.”

It wouldn’t be Toad. Jed had scared the spit out of him last night. He wouldn’t dare to come back, unless it was to apologize.

Still, she tied the sash of her robe a bit more securely around her waist before shuffling down the hall and into the kitchen. Through the window in the back door she spotted a baseball cap with the inscription Triple X, the Sexy Beer.

Sighing, she moved the chair Jed had used to bar the door, and opened it. “Hi,” Randy Rideout greeted her in his shrill, prepubescent voice. “Check this out!” He unzipped his jacket to reveal a T-shirt reading Rockwell—the Town of Hidden Treasures. Below the words was a rendering of a treasure chest, its lid open and gold coins mounded above the rim, with a few stray coins outside the box.

“Where did you get that?” Erica asked, stepping aside and waving him in.

“They’re for sale in town. Pop Hackett’s got ’em at the Superette, and my dad got some to sell in his bar.”

“How did they get them printed up so fast?”

“There’s this silkscreen place…” Randy gazed around the kitchen. Looking for food, Erica guessed as she pulled a bag of store-bought chocolate chip cookies from a cabinet. Not a healthy snack, especially not at that morning hour, but she wasn’t about to whip up a batch of whole-grain pancakes for the boy. Her legs were sore; her breasts, tender from all the attention Jed
had lavished on them last night. The skin under her chin felt tingly from whisker burn. She wasn’t in the mood to cook something nutritious.

Even if she hadn’t spent the night making love with Jed, she wouldn’t be inclined to make whole-grain pancakes. She’d tried making them once and they’d come out flavorless and gritty.

Randy gave her a grateful smile before digging into the bag of cookies. “Anyway,” he continued, “Pop Hackett called up this silkscreen place and ordered some T-shirts. They said it would take a week, but Derrick Messinger—you know that TV star—well, he was at my dad’s bar and he said he could pull some strings and get the shirts printed up overnight.”

“Really.” Erica pursed her lips. Messinger struck her as just the sort of man who could pull strings.

“Hey, is that a candy cane?” Randy scampered to the table, lifted the candy cane and laughed uproariously. “It’s April! Who has a candy cane in April?”

Someone who’s just quit smoking
, Erica almost answered, wondering if Randy had noticed the hanger and the hiking boot lying on the floor in the table’s shadow. She discreetly picked up those items and carried them into the dining room.

Randy tossed the candy cane back onto the table, opting for the more substantial satisfactions of chocolate chip cookies. “I think that Derrick Messinger guy charged my dad to get the shirts printed faster,” he said as Erica returned to the kitchen. “My dad and Pop Hackett were talking about paying him.”

She nodded and beelined to the coffeepot. After placing a filter in the basket, she measured the coffee, adding a few extra scoops even though she hoped Jed would remain out of sight.

“And Mrs. Ettman said she ordered these little souvenir boxes shaped like the actual box, and she was gonna sell them. She said the boxes already existed, but she was gonna put stickers on them that say Rockwell—the Town of Hidden Treasures just like the shirts. She says this is going to put us on the map.”

“Wonderful.” Erica couldn’t quite bring herself to share Randy’s enthusiasm. Was her backyard find going to turn Rockwell into a tourist destination? Were legions of treasure seekers going to descend upon the town armed with picks and shovels? Was this quiet little village in the shadow of the Moose Mountains going to become the site of the next American gold rush?

If she’d wanted to live in a community overrun with money-hungry treasure seekers, she could have settled in Boston.

The coffeemaker gurgled and the air grew heavy with the aroma of fresh coffee. “Would you like some milk with those cookies?” Erica asked as Randy bit into a second cookie.

He opened his mouth to answer, then froze, staring past her. She spun around to discover Jed looming in the doorway. He was clothed, thank goodness, but disheveled, his eyes squinty and his jaw in need of a shave.

“I smelled coffee,” he said.

Randy might be somewhat naive, but he wasn’t an idiot. Would he figure out why Jed Willetz, sleepy, rumpled and barefoot, was standing in her kitchen at ten-thirty in the morning? When she was wearing a bathrobe? Not that she’d done anything to be ashamed of, not that she had to justify her private life to anyone, let alone an eleven-year-old kid. But this wasn’t Bos
ton, or New York, or even Brookline. It was Rockwell, where folks made everyone else’s business their own and where she was a third-grade teacher to whom Rockwellians entrusted their children for six hours every weekday.

“You’re that guy,” Randy said, evidently recognizing Jed. He wagged a finger. “That guy from the picture in the
Gazette
, with Ms. Leitner and the box. And you came into my dad’s bar, too.”

“That’s me,” Jed said amiably. He opened cabinets until he found the one containing coffee mugs and pulled out two. “I just need a little coffee to start my engine, and then I’ll be on my way,” he told Erica.

“Oh, you don’t have to…” Well, yes, he did have to be on his way. He had things to do. So did she. She had to go to the bank with Avery, retrieve the box and send it and him back to Cambridge, where he and his expert colleagues could figure out the box’s age and significance and what it was worth. She had to return at least some of the calls she’d gotten last night—a list Jed had neatly jotted on a pad beside the phone. Her mother, her college roommate and her cousin Diana all merited calls from her. She wouldn’t bother returning the calls from three old and nearly forgotten boyfriends, who probably assumed she was now rich and therefore worthy of their renewed passion.

She had no passion for them. She had passion for only one man, an amazingly virile, tender man who, in a matter of days, would be gone from her life.

Why on earth had she slept with him last night, knowing he was only passing through?

She’d been needy, frightened, overwhelmed. No, that wasn’t why. Once Toad had been banished, she hadn’t been frightened anymore. Or overwhelmed. A
stiff drink would have calmed her nerves. She hadn’t turned to Jed for therapy.

She’d turned to him because she’d wanted him, because she was no better than any of the other women in town eager to drop their panties for him. She’d turned to him because he was a friend and a sounding board, and because on the excitement scale, kissing him had surpassed receiving her
magna cum laude
diploma from Harvard University, and if kissing him could be that fabulous, making love with him would be even better.

She’d turned to him because last night she’d gotten tired of running away from her own desires, because she could no longer pretend he meant nothing to her. He meant a lot. Too much. And as soon as he drank some coffee, he would be on his way.

Okay
, she assured herself.
You did this, it was worth it, and you’ll have plenty of time to recuperate once he’s gone
. What better place than Rockwell for such a recuperation? Nothing ever happened here. She lived alone—and she’d be even more alone as soon as Jed vacated his grandfather’s house. Her life comprised simple routines and nothing unexpected: teach, come home, master wholesome recipes, grade papers, read, garden. Surely she could schedule in some time for nursing a broken heart.

“So, I was wondering,” Randy said as he polished off his third cookie, “can we finish planting your garden?”

“You’re not just saying that because you’re hoping to dig up more treasures, are you?” Erica asked him. She was grateful for the opportunity to focus on her garden—and on her young friend. It spared her from having to think about Jed standing just a few feet away,
his strong, deft hands lifting the decanter and filling a mug with coffee, his lips pressed to the rim of the mug, his tongue bathed in the hot, fragrant brew. She’d rather look at Randy, with his tacky shirt and tackier cap, than at Jed, with his luminous eyes and his irresistible smile. She’d rather think about her silly garden, which would wind up overrun either by zucchini or by crazed treasure seekers armed with rakes and spades, than about the intimacies she and Jed had shared throughout a long, astonishingly X-rated night.

“Oh, I don’t think there’s anything else buried in your garden,” Randy said. “I mean, like, it wouldn’t make sense. Someone wants to hide his gold, if he had more than one box, he wouldn’t hide it all in one place. Right? He’d spread it around. I mean, if he was going to hide it all in one place, he’d put the whole amount in a bigger box, right?”

“That makes sense.” Erica glanced over at Jed to see if it made sense to him. He was watching her above the curved rim of his mug, his gaze pensive. “Doesn’t that make sense to you?” she asked brightly.
See?
she hoped to convey.
We can forget about last night and spend the morning theorizing about the box. We can act as if nothing more important than that stupid, gold-filled artifact exists between us
.

His expression unchanging, he shrugged.

All right. Maybe he couldn’t forget about last night.
She
could, damn it.
She
could pretend last night was ancient history and this morning she and Jed were nothing more than friends and neighbors, which was probably all they were, anyway. “I’ll tell you what, Randy. Let me change into some appropriate gardening clothes, and then we’ll plant the rest of those seedlings.
But then I’ve got to go into town and take care of business.”

“Yeah, and maybe buy a shirt.” He pulled at his loose-fitting cotton T-shirt. “Buy it from my dad, okay?”

“We’ll see.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to own such an ugly shirt, and if she did decide to buy one, she wasn’t sure she wanted to purchase it from a man who’d hired an attorney and was making legal claims against her. She didn’t hold Glenn Rideout’s behavior against his son, but she was no fan of Glenn’s, especially when he might wind up becoming her adversary in court, fighting over the fate of the box.

God, these small-minded small-town people. If someone had dug up a box of antique gold coins in Cambridge, the commemorative shirts would have featured more appealing designs—some interesting colors, teal and mauve, maybe, and better lettering, and an illustration that resembled the actual box. But if it had happened in Cambridge, she wouldn’t have spent the next day working on her garden. In Cambridge, only multimillionaires could afford enough land to plant a garden, and even if all the coins in the box turned out to be genuine gold, she was no multimillionaire. Only in a town like Rockwell could an untenured third-grade teacher inching into her late twenties afford enough property to plant a garden.

Rockwell was fine. She was fine. And when Jed Willetz left town…She’d still be fine. She’d garden and cook and continue to fix up her house, and she’d join some committees. She’d find a way to weave her life more thoroughly into the town’s fabric. She had a good situation in Rockwell, a town so warm and friendly
that when someone broke into her house she knew the trespasser by name.