Mary Brady - Better Than Gold

She looked up at him for a long moment and almost reached out a hand toward him. This time she wanted to snatch back every word she’d said since he had frightened the flashlight out of her hand

She pressed her lips together for a moment before she replied, “I hope not.”

He turned away and surveyed the area, the partially torn-down dividing wall, large open space, doors on either end of the room, one to the stairway and one to the kitchen, a hallway leading past the kitchen to the restrooms, a back door leading to an alley.

“I had planned to take pictures, inventory everything, box it up and be gone.” He seemed to speak to himself, as if thinking all this would have to change.

Her chest squeezed harder and she breathed to try to make the feelings of dread go away. The pressure did not ease.

“You could still do that,” she said, trying to feel some hope.

His dark brows came together. “Why don’t we start with you telling me about the man you suspect this might be?”

“I—um—don’t suspect anything.” Which was mostly true. Other people suspected Liam Bailey, the pirate who had helped found the town of Bailey’s Cove, never left, never ran away as the official records seemed to say. She wanted to bite her fingernails, but took a deep breath instead.

“What is your guess?”

“I didn’t think people like you worked on guesses.”

“Like me?” He rubbed at the neck of his shabby sweater.

“Anthropologists. Um—university—er—types.”

The corner of his mouth turned up and a different type of clenching started, this time in her lower belly. He was even better-looking when he smiled.

“Then let’s call it a hunch.” He stared steadily at her. Thorough seemed to be taking over. “What’s your hunch? Tell me all you know about this early settler.”

He used his gaze to pin her to the spot, but she wiggled free and retreated to the middle of the room where there seemed to be more air.

“I don’t do hunches very well, either. My hunch that I should build a restaurant in a historic building because it might attract tourists is turning out to be a less-than-stellar idea.”

He reached a hand toward her. “May I borrow your flashlight, please?”

She flipped it to him. He flicked on the beam and shined it in the hole.

She couldn’t stop the pirate thoughts as they buzzed through her head. Maybe it was Liam Bailey who had been in that hole, crypt, tomb, whatever it should be called. Becoming part of the legend, having the pirate in her wall, would be grand for the long-term value of her restaurant, but at the same time devastating to the construction project, and the project would have to be finished to gain any benefit. And if treasure hunters overran the town as they had in the past...well, she didn’t want to go there.

“People died from various causes back then,” Daniel said as he continued to shine the light in all directions in the foot-wide gap knocked open by Charlie’s sledgehammer blow. “Trauma and disease mostly, and a few from old age. The records, such as they were, when paper and ink were scarce and made fragile by time, will most likely be few.”

He stood and handed the flashlight back to her.

“So what are you saying? We might never know who this is for sure?” Relief and disappointment?

“Too early to know. I’ll start with the archives at the Bailey’s Cove Museum. They will probably have more information than the university has.”

“No.” She grabbed his forearm. If she sent him away she’d only make things worse. This guy had to know what the people of the town would think, would do.

He stopped and looked at where she held his arm and she dropped her hand and let out a long breath. He needed to know if he stirred up the town, he’d have to fend off the treasure hunters.

“Is that coffee?” He pointed to the thermal carafe on the floor, one cup upended on top of the pot’s lid.

She nodded. “Fresh. I brought it with me in case I got to go back to work this morning.”

“Do you have another cup?”

“Yes, sorry, and I have manners, truly I do. Would you join me for a cup of coffee?”

“I’d like that.” He smiled full-on bright and swooning came to mind.

...as if...

She headed for a closed door of the someday kitchen, glad to have a place to hide for a second to regain some of her decorum.

“Mia.”

She stopped and turned. “Yes?”

“You might want to...” He mimed brushing off his butt.

Decorum, yeah, right. “Thanks.”

She hurried through the door and made sure it closed before she began cleaning off the seat of her jeans and the back of her coat. She so-o-o should not be distracting herself with the hot professor, no matter how great his smile was, not when life as she knew it might soon be tossed into the Dumpster outside the back door, along with all the rest of the useless debris.

She leaned against the old sink, pressing her hands against the cold porcelain. If she gave him all the information she had, he could take his boxes and leave. No, he’d investigate the site thoroughly first.

She pushed off. Get back out there. Nothing would happen until she did. A smile. It was just a smile, she told herself and brought her guard back up.

Several ceramic coffee mugs rested in the dish rack. She grabbed one, shoved a handful of cream and sugar packets into the pocket of her coat and headed back out to face fate or the enemy or whoever this guy turned out to be.

He stood, pensively staring at the gap in the wall. When he turned to face her, she shook her head at the flash of warmth that she could not stop as it spread through her.

“Let’s go outside,” she said as she approached. “It’ll be warming up some by now.”

With the carafe and cup in his hand, Daniel followed her out to where benches on the old sidewalk flanked the front doorway.

“You can see the harbor better from that one.” She pointed at the bench to the right of the doorway.

“Very nice. Very Maine,” he said as he sat down on the far end of the white-painted bench where he could see the boats, gulls and Mainers doing what Mainers did every day.

She sat on the other end and held out her cup as he loosened the lid of the carafe and poured.

“Cream or sugar?” She reached into her pocket and then held out her hand with the packets on her palm.

“Black.”

She wasn’t surprised.

He sat back and as he gazed out over the harbor, she studied him. His profile, with well-defined nose, sharply defined upper lip and full soft bottom lip, looked good in the morning sun. Who was she kidding? He probably looked good in just about every light—or maybe very little light—like maybe that of a bedside lamp.

Hmm. She put her coffee on the bench near where he’d placed the carafe and folded her arms over her chest. These were things she definitely shouldn’t be thinking about when her future was at stake.

She turned her attention to the endlessly changing but always wonderful view five blocks or so away on the docks at the end of Treacher Avenue. The water of the bay sparkled dark blue, and the fishermen and those who serviced the boats hurried around in their morning scurry, some starting their day, some already well into it.

A woman with a baby stroller stopped as she waved to someone on a boat in the water, but the boats were too far off to see who waved back. The town’s stray brown dog stopped and sat beside her until she moved on and then so did he.

His cup sat beside hers and he had leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “It’s like an artsy movie.”

“Evidence that life does go on even in a small town the world has never really noticed. I don’t ever get tired of it,” Mia said as she relaxed into the view.