And then, a sweet groan cut through the cool air—a sound he’d heard a hundred times in reality and a thousand times in his memory: Lily stretching as she got up for the day. Even separated from her by the fabric of his tent, he could picture it perfectly: her arms snaking above her head, the way her body twisted, catlike, from left to right. She would tilt her face to the sky, eyes closed, and let out that low, sexy sound that—more than once—had him reaching to pull her back into bed. Instinctively, his body tensed, responding with a rush of blood so intense it made him light-headed. Wild that, given the circumstances and the downright clusterfuck they found themselves in, his brain had no problem going directly to how good it would feel to have her warm body next to his.
Truthfully, he thought he could face anything with her at his side again.
She was awake, getting the day started, and he was about to do the same when he heard another voice only a few feet from his tent, closest to the campfire. “You get any sleep?” Nicole asked.
The glugging sound of water being poured into the kettle, the metallic scrape of the kettle set on the grate over the fire. “Not much. You?”
“A little.”
They fell quiet, and he settled back down, propping his head on his hand, shamelessly eavesdropping. Blame it on the fog-like surreality lingering from yesterday or the way Lily seemed at once so familiar and so unexpected; he wanted to know how she was, and he didn’t know if she’d be honest with him.
“Okay, Dub,” Nicole said. “What’re you thinking?”
Lily’s answer was quiet, like she might be worried someone could overhear. “I went around and around all night.”
“Same.”
“We can’t just ignore the situation.” A quiet pause, and then, “Terry, I mean.”
“Of course not. That’s not what I’m suggesting.”
“But you were right. Heading straight back won’t make him any less dead.”
“Sure won’t.” They were silent for a few seconds, and he wondered if they’d moved farther away, until Nicole spoke again: “Here’s how I see it: You can have just shit, or you can have gold and shit.”
“Nic, I’m not even sure Duke ever found anything, and if he did… I mean, that’s just a lot to think about.”
“I know.”
“I thought I was done being disappointed by him.” The way Lily’s voice went thin, cracking at the very end, made Leo’s chest ache.
“I know, honey, but here’s a chance to maybe get something out of everything he did,” Nicole said gently. “Say Duke didn’t find anything. Say it’s a game, or that we’re wrong about the riddle. Then what? We’re talking a couple days, tops. Down and back up. We don’t find anything, we come back and tell the cops Terry took off and we went to look for him, thought we knew where he was headed but it was a bust.”
“They’ll eventually find his body at the bottom of the canyon below our campsite,” Lily reminded her.
“Well, and what do we tell guests on day one? Not to wander off. We can all testify he did it before. Who’s to say he didn’t Peter Pan it in the dark? Not a soul would question that.”
“I know.”
“Worst-case scenario, we don’t get the treasure, but we do get a couple more days of hope and living a dream. And you get to stare at that hot nerd for a few more—”
“Nic. Shut up.”
Wait. What?
Leo nearly had to smother himself with his pillow. If he could take out his eyeballs and roll them over to where the two women were sitting to watch Lily’s expression while she said this… he would voluntarily be blind for the rest of eternity.
He barely made out her whispered “I’m not staring at him.”
“Are you for real?” Nicole said, decidedly less quiet. “You’re a worse liar than I am.”
“I’m not!”
“Well, he sure is. That boy stares at you with the horniest eyes.”
Heat crawled up his neck. He was positive Nicole was correct.
“Okay, now: Imagine if it’s real,” Nicole said, redirecting. “Imagine finding even a little bit of cash. Even if you think there’s, like, a five percent chance that Duke found it, Dub, even a fraction of the Butch Cassidy money is enough to buy your land back. It could change our lives, girl. Isn’t this fate? Right when your land goes up for sale, this chance lands in your lap?”
Leo stared at the tent ceiling, reeling. Wilder Ranch was for sale?