Dangerous Tease (The Layton Family 3)

“Right. They've got a great artist colony. I'm going to spend six months painting.”

“I thought so. Turn to the first page.”

She eased open the cover, afraid the obviously old book would tear. Diary of Rebecca Morrell, Dry Creek Nebraska, 1865. Josie traced her fingers across the bold but faded script.

“I won it a few years ago in a poker match. The young man said it had been in his family for generations. It seems young Rebecca was crossing the country on the Oregon Trail with her dowry to meet her fiancé out West. She made it as far as Nebraska when she discovered he'd died. Heartbroken, she stayed in Dry Creek, where she eventually married a rancher.”

“How sad.” Like a real sap, her heart winced at the tale.

“Yes, but according to the young man and what's in here…” He tapped the diary with one arthritic finger. “She buried her dowry outside of Dry Creek. Many have looked for Rebecca's Bounty, as they call it, but none have found it.”

“I'm not surprised.”

“But they didn't have the map. You do.”

Her breath hitched. A real treasure meant money, maybe enough to pay off her mother's medical bills, Snips and a longer stay in Dry Creek. “Map?”

“Oh yes, I took the diary to be appraised and the examiner found the map secreted in a false flap on the back cover. It took me a while to realize it's a map. I thought it was just some lovely drawings—Rebecca, it seems, was an artist herself—but then one day it hit me. She'd drawn a treasure map hidden inside her landscape drawings. Quite a clever girl, that Rebecca. My Marlene would have liked her.”

“Mr. Rosenberg, this gift is truly lovely, thank you, but it must be valuable. I can't accept this.” She held out the book, but he waved off her offer.

“It is worth money but I'm too old to go on any more adventures; however, you're certainly not. Take it with you to Dry Creek. Who knows, maybe you'll be the one to find Rebecca's Bounty. If nothing else, think of it as the diary of a fellow artist and a reminder of an old man who enjoyed your company.”

She swallowed the sentiment blocking her throat. “Thank you.”

After a quick hug, he shuffled back to his poker table and she hid the diary in a safe spot behind the bar.

Mr. Tall Drink of Water sat a few chairs away from Saul, deep in conversation with the man on his left. The other guy looked a few years younger, relaxed and mellow, unlike the man who put an extra bit of sway in her hips as she strutted toward the players. He had an air of alertness about him and an intensity that couldn't be missed. Still, the resemblance between the two men—from their broad shoulders to their matching hazel eyes—left little doubt they were related. Both were handsome, but there was something about the older one that sent a tingle sprinting across her exposed skin as surely as if he'd touched her. She couldn't wait to get close enough for better inspection.

“Hey ya,” a burly player called out from Saul’s table. “Bring me a Jack and Coke.”

Yanked back into reality, Josie made a beeline toward the bar and away from the six-feet-plus of yumminess getting ready for another round of Texas Hold 'Em.

Hours later, her size-ten feet aching, she leaned against the bar and counted down the minutes of her final shift in the world's most uncomfortable shoes. She'd probably get cancer from the hazardous toxins released if she burned them with her uniform. Maybe she'd just run them over a couple thousand times with her battered Honda instead. Of course, with her luck, the Lucite heels would puncture the worn tread on the tires.

The itch of a thousand ants marching up her arms tipped her off that she hadn't gone unnoticed in the empty bar corner farthest from the poker tables. Only one person gave her the heebie-jeebies quite like this. She turned. Bingo.

Snips stood just shy of her personal bubble.

“Okay, how much does Cy owe?”

“Forty K.”

Her blood pressure exploded. “Why in the hell would he need forty thousand dollars?” Please God, don't say he's found a craps game that would take him.

Snips shrugged. “Don't know. Don't care. I just want my money, but your brother dropped off the radar. That does not inspire my confidence. If he doesn't show up soon, I'm going to have to track him down as a message to the rest of my clients.” It went without saying that Snips' threats involved baseball bats and brass knuckles. “So where is he?”

Her stomach clenched. Something was off. Way off. After Mom got really sick, Cy had cleaned up his act and joined the military. He’d left the Corps a few months ago, but was being all mysterious about how he was supporting himself. Warning sirens blared in her head.

“I haven't heard from him in a few days. I don't know where he is.”

“Well, I hope you have an extra forty thousand stuffed between those big tits of yours.” He raised up on his toes and leered at her.

“I bet you do.” She crossed her arms to block his view.

He guffawed, an ugly, mean sound. “You'd better find my money or your brother. I'd hate to have to go introduce myself to your parents. Haven't seen your mom since high school. She still in the wheelchair? I really should stop by and see how her kidney dialysis is going.”

Panic buzzed inside Josie's head like a kamikaze bee on a suicide mission. Her mom would give her last penny to help Cy. Shit, she'd already done it about a million times, that was why Josie had come home from L.A. Well, one of the reasons. But Mom couldn't afford to do it now, not with a foot-high stack of medical bills and a mile-wide stubborn streak pushing her to refuse any financial help from Josie.