“That old tale went around the family before I was born,” she scoffed, sitting back and shaking her head. “All of us looked for it. I’ve heard men from a couple of past generations were supposed to have searched endlessly. No one has found anything and most of us came to the conclusion long ago that it was merely a myth.”
“Still, it persists though all the generations.”
“Just try to get a kid to stop looking. Tony and his friends have probably dug up a total of a dozen acres with all their hunting for gold. Look at you and Wyatt, hunting for Lavita Wrenville’s fortune, which might not ever have existed.”
“I can imagine. I’ve hunted with my brothers on my side of the boundary that divides our adjacent family ranches. Since part of the boundary line is the river, the boundary keeps changing slightly. Going back to my great-great-grandfather Henry Calhoun, there was a sketchy map. No one in our family ever had interest in sharing it with anyone in your family. I’m guessing that maybe in the early days one or more family members offered to make a deal and split, but your family member refused.”
She smiled and his heart turned over. Desire heightened and he suddenly wanted to see her laugh, to hold her, dance with her—to have the past vanish. That wasn’t going to happen.
“So you have a map.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think there was a shred of truth to the legend.”
“Occasionally, legends are built on something—maybe not always exactly the way it’s stated in the legend, but something caused the legend to spring up.”
“It’s hard to believe there is a treasure hidden on our ranch.”
“That’s not so far-fetched. There was a lot of lawlessness in the early days, train robberies, later bank robberies. People just hiding something. This is a vague, damn poor map and has never made any sense to anyone in my family. I don’t think it will to you, either, but you know your land better than any outsider.”
“All these years. Why would your family even have a map?”
His gaze ran over her features, her skin that looked soft, flawless. He wished she had worn her hair down.
“No one can answer that one. The map may be bogus, although it has been in the family for generations. I’d bet that someone or maybe several in my family have tried to sneak onto Milan land to find the treasure.”
“I’m sure you’re right there. Why wouldn’t they? These ranches are big with wide, open land. Someone could easily search without anyone knowing about it.” She sipped her tea and shook her head. “So there’s really a map. All these years, actually all my life, I’ve heard the legend and heard various relatives talk about searching for it, but by the time I was grown, I just figured it was a tall Texas tale with nothing to it.” She sat back, smiling at him. “So you want permission to come on our land to search for the treasure.”
“That’s not all.” As her big green eyes focused so intently on him, he forgot the map, the treasure and his whole purpose for the evening. He wanted to close the last bit of distance between them, place his hand behind her head, wind his fingers in her hair and pull her closer to kiss her.
“There’s more?” she asked, looking at him with curiosity in her expression.
Desire raged in him, blatant and hot, until he remembered their past and then anger returned, smothering his feelings for her. He inhaled deeply, looked away and focused on his purpose.
She leaned closer. “So what else is there, Jake? What else besides a map have you kept secret all of these years and never told me when we were so close?”
“At the time we were in high school, we talked about it. It was mysterious and exciting to speculate about the legend, even though neither one of us believed it. Of all the people in both families, you and I seemed the most willing to forget the feud.”
“Yes, and I know we both thought the idea of a hidden treasure was exciting. I’m surprised you didn’t tell me about the map then.”
“I didn’t know it then. There’s a rule in our family—no one gets told about the map, and sworn to keep it in the family, until he or she is twenty-one years old.”
She laughed, a soft sound that played havoc with his insides again and made him forget what he was after.
“That’s probably why your family has kept it secret all these years. Kids talk.”
“Probably,” he said, smiling at her. “When you heard the legend, did the version you heard mention a shoot-out?”
“Yes. I heard there were Milans and Calhouns who would discover each other searching for the treasure and the Milans would run the Calhouns off our land.”
“Did you ever hear if any were killed?”
“Yes, but truthfully, I was a kid and didn’t pay that much attention to talk about someone who had lived generations ahead of me and who I never knew.”
He sipped his beer before he continued. “According to the Calhoun version of the legend, wherever the treasure is buried, your ancestors and my ancestors had a gun battle. Two Calhouns were killed and three Milans. They’re buried in shallow graves where they had the gunfight. This goes back to the first generation of each family to settle here and it was before both families had their own cemeteries. Now we have our own burial ground and I imagine you do, too.”
“Yes, we do.”
“I want the bones of the Calhouns brought home. Hopefully, we’ll find the treasure, which is yours since it is on your land.”
“You want bones,” she said, frowning slightly. “You could search every day for the next ten years and never find graves or bones or treasure, if it even ever existed. I can’t imagine that’s what’s behind this dinner,” she said, beginning to sound angry.
“Just one more thing besides the bones. There’s supposed to be a deed one of our ancestors was carrying. It was a deed won in a poker game. According to the story my family tells, the deed gives the Calhouns rights to a large part of the McCracken place to the east of us all along the border of his ranch.”
“A deed to the McCracken land,” she said, staring at him while she seemed lost in thought. “If that exists, it’s worth more than any treasure you could possibly dig up.”
“Jeb McCracken is mean and ornery and has fought with every neighbor,” Jake replied.
“That includes my family. There are people in town he’s aggravated. He’s left unpaid accounts all over this county and he’s spent more than a few nights in jail for brawls on the weekend in town. No one would regret seeing you get a chunk of that property.” She stared at him with a speculative curiosity in her eyes. “My ancestors are supposed to have been in that gunfight, also. Suppose we find the deed with my ancestors. Are you still going to claim it?”
He gave her a faint smile. “Not if their name is on the deed or it’s in a bony skeleton hand.”
She had to smile then and he felt another punch to his insides. Her smiles and her laughter had always been his undoing. He ached to reach out and touch her.
“I have no intention of searching long. I want you to look at the map I have and see if you can recognize anything. You probably have aerial photos of your land, all sorts of photos. If anything seems likely, then I’d like a chance to see if the deed exists, see if a treasure is buried with them and get my ancestors’ bones to take back for a proper burial. I have time in my life for that now and it would please my grandfather.”
She laughed softly, shaking her head. “You don’t seem the type for this. Why do I feel as if I better look at this from all angles, that you’re up to something—like surveying my land to drill for oil or gas?”
“All I want is what belongs to the Calhouns—namely my ancestors’