A Gift from the Past

As she stepped closer to the tree, she spied him. His back was to her and he was far too well-dressed for a treasure seeker. Dark-blue dress slacks encased long muscular legs and slim hips. A white dress shirt stretched across an impossibly broad back, the center of the shirt damp with sweat.

“Looks like you beat me to the punch,” she said dispiritedly.

He whirled around to face her, and she gasped and stumbled back a step as shock riveted through her.

“Joshua.” She whispered his name as she stared at the man she hadn’t seen for five years, the man who had been her husband…the man who was still her husband.

“Hello, Claire.”

His voice, that deep, whisky voice, raked millions of unwanted memories through her at the same time as his eyes, as green as the woods that surrounded them, swept over her from top to toe.

Defensive walls shot up inside her. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, irritated by the fact that just for a moment she’d wished she was wearing something other than her oldest pair of jean shorts and a T-shirt streaked with the remnants of white paint.

He gestured to the shovel stuck in the ground. “I’m treasure-hunting.”

He certainly didn’t look as though he needed to find a treasure. The loafers on his feet looked Italian and had probably cost enough to keep her and Sarge in groceries for a year.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized she was in shock. The last person she’d expected ever to see again in her life was Joshua McCane. “I meant, what are you doing here…in Mayfield. Nobody told me you were in town.”

He pulled the shovel out of the ground and leaned it against the base of the tree. “I got in late last night. I had coffee this morning in the diner and read the clues to the Pot of Gold contest and thought I’d try my luck in figuring it out.”

“Why don’t you go try your luck someplace else? This is where I was going to dig.” She sounded like a petulant child and she wasn’t sure what she resented most, the fact that he looked like a million dollars or that he was thwarting her chance to gain ten thousand dollars.

“It appears I beat you to it, Cookie.” To accentuate his point, he grabbed the shovel and dug into the earth at the base of the tree.

She bristled at his use of her old nickname, the one he used to call her when his eyes were lit with love or fired with passion—the name he’d used when he’d loved her…when she’d loved him.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded once again. She didn’t want him in Mayfield, and she certainly didn’t want him here at the Dragon Tree.

“I told you, digging for treasure.” He scooped up a shovelful of dirt and threw it to the side, the muscles of his tanned forearms taut with the exertion.

“I mean, what are you doing back in Mayfield?” He was being thick on purpose, not answering the question she was asking.

His gaze met hers, a stranger’s eyes holding her captive. “I decided it was time I came home.”

She leaned against the tree trunk. Her legs felt shaky and she wasn’t sure if it was from shock or anger. Time he came home. He had no home here, at least not with her. She watched him dig for a moment. “I can’t imagine Mayfield would hold much appeal for a jet-setter like you.”

“Ah, you’ve been keeping tabs on me.” He flashed her a quick grin.

The passing of years hadn’t diminished the force of his beautiful smile, and she felt it stab her deep in the pit of her stomach. “Not really,” she returned unevenly, although it was a lie. “You know Mayfield. People like to gossip and you’ve become something of a folk hero…the bad boy who made good.”

Sun drifting through the leaves played on his dark hair, and she saw that he needed a haircut. For most of their life together, Joshua had needed a haircut. Her fingers tingled for a moment with the memory of his thick, rich strands of hair beneath her fingertips.

Resentment ripped through her and she pushed herself off the tree trunk. “You don’t need this money, Joshua. Why don’t you go away and let me dig?”

He glanced at her once again, but continued shoveling. “You wouldn’t need this money if you’d cashed the checks I’ve sent you over the years.”

“I didn’t want your money.” She hadn’t wanted anything from him after he’d left her, and all she wanted from him at the moment was for him to go away.

“How’s Sarge?”

“He’s fine. We’re all fine, and now you can go back to California or London or wherever you came from.” Again she heard the petulance in her voice and she hated herself for it, hated him for creating it.

“Is he still keeping the streets of Mayfield safe from crime?” he asked, obviously ignoring her outburst.

It took her a moment to realize he was talking about Sarge. Apparently he hadn’t kept tabs on her over the years. Otherwise he would have known about Sarge. “No, he retired three years ago.”

“Really?” One of his dark eyebrows quirked up in surprise. “I can’t imagine Sarge retired.” At that moment his shovel hit something hard and metallic-sounding.

“Oh, my gosh. The treasure…it’s really here.” She sprang forward and peered into the hole he’d dug. Any anger or resentment she felt toward him was squashed beneath a rush of excitement.

“Hang on…move back…I’m not sure what I’ve hit. It could just be a rock.”

But it wasn’t a rock. She watched as he used the point of the shovel to dig around the object, which appeared to be an old tin box.

“I can’t believe it’s here,” she said, watching as he scooted dirt from the surface and freed the edges. “I thought this was where the clues led, but I couldn’t be sure.”

He laid the shovel aside and reached into the hole to pull out the box. With a grunt, he freed it and stood. It was a plain gray tin box tied in the center with what looked as though it had once been a piece of lace.

“This doesn’t look like it was buried a couple of weeks ago,” he said, a frown marring his handsome, broad forehead.

“Open it!” she exclaimed eagerly. “We won’t know if the money is inside unless you open it.”

Suddenly her mind worked to process the fact that Joshua was back in town, that he looked as if he’d not only survived the years away, but had thrived. And he had her treasure…the money that had been going to change her life.

It wasn’t fair. But if there was one thing Claire had learned in her twenty-six years on earth, it was that life wasn’t fair and seemed to take particular pleasure in kicking her.

She watched as he attempted to untie the piece of lace. It disintegrated beneath his fingers and fell to the ground. Once again she took a step toward him and smelled the pleasant, spicy scent of his cologne. It was different from that he’d once worn.

When he’d left her five years before, for months she’d smelled the scent of him lingering on her skin, whispering in the air, taunting her with all that had been lost.

She shoved all thoughts of the past aside as his long, strong fingers worked to open the box. The box opened toward him, so she couldn’t immediately see what was inside.

She watched his face as he peered inside, saw a look of bewilderment, then shock. “What…what is it?”

He looked at her, his green eyes filled with confusion. “I hate to burst your bubble, Cookie, but there’s no money in here. There’s just an old photograph.”

“An old photograph?” Disappointment swept through her. “An old photograph of what?”

“I think you have to see it to believe it.” He plucked the picture out of the box and held it out to her.

She took the photo and looked at it, for a moment not comprehending what she saw. It was obvious the picture was old; it was on faded paper in sepia tones.

It was a young couple, a formal sitting with the woman in a straight-backed chair and a man standing at her side. They wore clothing that dated the picture to the 1800s, but it was their faces that sent an electric shock through Claire.

The man was the spitting image of Joshua and the woman was a mirror image of herself. She looked back up at Joshua, the photo shaking in her trembling hands. “They look just like us. I mean, they look exactly like us. How…how is that possible?”

Joshua looked at the woman he had once loved to distraction, unsure what caused him more confusion, the fact that there was a picture of the two of them that had been buried in a tin box or that after all these years something about her still managed to touch him. She looked much the same as she had on the day he’d left, except perhaps more fragile. Like a thin wisp of smoke, she was slender enough that it appeared as if the slightest of breezes might blow her away.