Better Than Gold by Mary Brady Read Free Book Online Page A

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