“Hell. That’s too bad.” Jake gave her a pitying look. “Then my advice is to be very careful, Sarah. Very, very careful. Gid and I had a verbal understanding before we went into that jungle five years ago. I not only didn’t get my cut, I nearly died in that damned cave.”
Sarah heard the shower stop but her entire attention was on Jake Savage. “You’re trying to frighten me, aren’t you? Trying to make me distrust Gideon.”
“All I’m saying is, watch your back. And your treasure. If you don’t know how to do either, hire me. I’ll do it for you. I’ve had experience in both departments.”
“Hire you?”
“Why not? Call me a consultant. I’ll handle the media and Gideon for you. Gideon’s useful but you’ve got to keep your eye on him.”
“And in return all you’ll take is a nominal fee and full credit for finding the Flowers?”
“I think you’ll realize that I’m worth every penny, Sarah. Just ask any of my old clients.” Jake reached across the table and covered her hand with his own. His blue eyes were serious and full of understanding. “All you want is the Flowers. All I want is the publicity so I can attract some really big investors. This downed-airplane-full-of-gold thing is going to be a major score. You and me, we can work together, even without Gideon. Like I said, we don’t actually have to find the treasure.”
“What about Gideon?” Sarah removed her hand from under Jake’s.
“Yeah,” said Gideon from the doorway. “What about me?”
Sarah jumped and turned her head to see him buttoning his shirt as he walked into the room. She saw the cold expression in his eyes and knew he’d seen her hand under Jake’s. She wanted to go to him and reassure him that everything was all right, but he was already helping himself to the coffee.
“If you join us you’ll get your cut, as usual,” Jake said easily. “I’m just trying to convince Sarah here to let me handle the press for her.”
“We don’t need any attention from the media,” Sarah said, her eyes on Gideon.
“Right,” said Gideon. “The last thing we need is an orchestrated media blitz. It’s time for you to leave, Jake.”
“We can do each other a lot of favors, Gid. We were big once. We can be again.”
“No.”
“Think about it, Gid. And don’t tell me you don’t miss the old days. Or the money.”
“Get lost, Jake.”
“Come on, Gid, this is me, your old buddy talking.”
“Get out of here,” Gideon said very softly. “Now.”
Sarah froze at the steel in Gideon’s voice. She looked at Jake and saw frustrated rage flash for an instant in his blue eyes.
But the anger was gone almost immediately as the self-assured gleam came back into Jake’s gaze. He got to his feet. “Okay, okay. Take it easy. Hey, I’m gone already, right? So much for old times. You’ve changed, Gid.” He turned to Sarah. “Listen, if you change your mind, Sarah, let me know. You can leave a message at this number any time of the day or night.”
Jake scrawled a phone number on the back of a business card and reached across the table to press it into Sarah’s hand. He folded her fingers around it with an intimate gesture and then he got to his feet and sauntered out of the room. A moment later the Jeep roared off down the drive.
Sarah looked down at the card in her hand. Slaughter & Co. James Slaughter, President. There was no address, just a box number in Anaheim, California. That made a certain sense. Anaheim was the home of Disneyland. She looked up and saw Gideon watching her over the rim of his cup.
“The two of you got involved in a nice, cozy little chat while I was in the shower, didn’t you?”
“Don’t get defensive. It’s not my fault he showed up this morning.”
“Is that right?”
“It certainly is. Now stop trying to bully me.”
“Let’s eat breakfast and get packed, Sarah.”
“Packed?” Sarah frowned. “Gideon, I did a lot of thinking last night and I still feel we shouldn’t leave the Flowers behind. Not now that Jake Savage is hanging around. Something tells me he’s going to try to find the Flowers, that he’ll come close, maybe even get his grubby hands on them. I’ve got this feeling…”
“I’ve told you he won’t find them. Damn it, Sarah, don’t argue with me. We don’t have the time. The Flowers are safe enough for now. We’re getting out of here.”
“Not without the Flowers, Gideon.”
“Forget the Flowers. We’ll come back for them. Eventually.”
“But, Gideon…”
“I want to be out of here by eight o’clock.”
Sarah shot to her feet, exasperated. She planted both palms on the table and glared at him. “I’m in charge of this little expedition, remember? I say we stay and dig up the earrings so Jake Savage won’t get his hands on them.”
“No.” Gideon sipped his coffee. “You’re not in charge. We’re partners.”
“Oh, yes, that’s right. You’re in this for a cut of the action, aren’t you? I almost forgot.”
“I’m sure Savage reminded you.”
“He did say something about the fact that you never work for free,” Sarah retorted. “But I was beginning to think our partnership was a little more than a mere business arrangement.”
“Did you think I’d give up my claim to one of the Flowers just because we’re having an affair? Is that why you’re sleeping with me? You figure you can persuade me not to take my cut when this is all over?”
He might just as well have slapped her across the face. Sarah gasped with shock. She took a step back from the table, her eyes widening in hurt and anger.
“You’re right,” she whispered, aware that she was trembling from head to foot. “The sooner we get away from here, the better. I’ll go and pack.”
8
SARAH STARED at the mountain scenery through the car window. “You can drop me off in Seattle.” They were the first words she had spoken since they had left the cabin.
“I’m taking you back to the coast with me.” Gideon’s refusal was quiet but resolute.
Sarah shot him a seething, sidelong glance. “What are you going to do? Kidnap me until you can figure out a way to get your hands on all of the Fleetwood Flowers?”
“I’m not kidnapping you. I’m giving you a lift back to where you left your car. It’s still at my place, remember?”
“I remember.” She sank down low in her seat, her arms folded tightly beneath her breasts. He had a point. “You’re right. I’ll need my car.” She looked at her watch. “We’ll be at your place shortly after noon. I’ll drive back to Seattle this afternoon. I’ll be home in plenty of time.”
“Plenty of time for what?”
“For whatever I want to do.”
“Planning on going after the Flowers by yourself?”
“It’s none of your business what I do about the Flowers. Our partnership is hereby dissolved. Finished. Terminated. Liquidated.”
“I’m not ready yet to be fired.”
“Oh, yes, you are. You and Jake Savage had both better stay out of my life from now on. If I catch either one of you anywhere near my property, I’ll have you both arrested for trespassing.”
“Sarah, you’re not being rational about this. How are you going to catch Savage or anyone else hanging around your property when you’re in Seattle?”
“I’m heading back up here just as soon as I can,” Sarah vowed. “This time I’ll bring my own shovel and a shotgun.”
“Have you got a shotgun?” Gideon asked.
“No, but I expect I can get one. Guns are readily available these days.”
“You don’t need a shotgun or anything else to protect your damned Flowers,” Gideon said wearily. “I’ve told you a hundred times, Savage won’t find them.”
“Is that right? Well, what about you?”
“If you want to make certain I don’t dig them up on my own, all you have to do is stick around and keep an eye on me.”
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“I’m a busy woman, Trace. I’ve got more important things to do than try to keep tabs on you. No, the fastest solution to this problem is for me to dig up my earrings before either you or your old buddy gets to them.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“I don’t care what you think any more,” Sarah said. “I’ve told you, you’re fired as a treasure-hunting consultant and as my partner.”
There was a long silence from the driver’s side of the car. Gideon concentrated on the narrow, twisting road that was taking them down out of the rugged terrain to where the main freeway sliced through the mountain pass.
“Does it occur to you that you might be overreacting a bit?” Gideon said eventually.
Sarah gritted her teeth. “Overreacting to what, pray tell? Do you think it’s possible I’ve gone a bit overboard in my response to your insults? Perhaps I should have just laughed off the accusation that I slept with you in order to get you to help me find my treasure. Maybe I overreacted to being accused of trying to use sex to stiff you out of your cut of the action.”
“Sarah…”
“Or perhaps I’m being just a tad irrational now that I’ve come to my senses and realized I’ve been deluding myself about you right from the start. The famous Fleetwood intuition screws up again. I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Hell, you warned me, yourself.”
“Sarah…”
“Then again, maybe I’m being a bit petty and overly defensive now that I’ve discovered I’ve got to protect the Fleetwood Flowers from not one, but two professional opportunists. Yes, I can see where I might be overreacting. I’ll have to watch that, won’t I?”
“Do you get worked up like this a lot?”
“What do you care? I won’t be around you long enough for it to be of any great concern to you.” Sarah continued to scowl out the window for a minute. “I wonder if I should just turn around and drive straight back up here this afternoon instead of going back to Seattle for the night. I know you don’t think Savage can find the jewels on his own, but my intuition tells me he can and will. And now there’s you to worry about, too, of course. Yes, I think I’d better get right back up here today.”
“Forget it, Sarah. You’re not coming back into these mountains to dig up the Flowers on your own.”
“Who’s going to stop me?”
“Me.”
“I knew it, you are kidnapping me. Well, you won’t get away with it. If you think you can just lock me away in your cellar or something and have no one notice I’m missing, you’re crazy. My best friends in the whole world know I went to find you and if I turn up missing, Margaret and Kate won’t rest until they’ve found out what you did to me. And Kate’s husband will probably help them look.”
“I’m beginning to see why you’re successful at writing novels of romantic suspense. You have a very unique imagination, don’t you?”
“And that’s another thing. Better not forget what I do for a living. I’ve got an outstanding contract to complete. If I don’t finish the last book on it, my publisher and my agent will come looking for you, too.”
His mouth flickered suspiciously, but all Gideon said was, “I’ll keep that in mind before I do anything rash.”
Satisfied she’d made all the threats she could for the moment, Sarah lapsed back into a brooding silence. She needed her anger. At the moment it was all that was keeping her from tears.
“Sarah, I know you’re in no mood to listen to explanations.”
“You’re right.”
“But I’d like to point out that it’s not entirely fair to blame me for wondering about your motives. You landed on my doorstep like a small tornado and I feel as though I’ve been swept up and carried along in a high wind ever since. From the first day you acted as though we were long-lost lovers—as if we’d known each other for ages. You practically begged me to make love to you every time I kissed you. You told me you were going to court me, which is another way of saying seduce me. You went wild when I did finally make love to you, as if I was some irresistible, private fantasy of yours that had come to life. It was crazy, Sarah.”
“So I made a teensy little mistake.”
“That was one explanation,” Gideon said dryly. “But the other, more likely one is that you had a few private motives for wanting to ensure you had me tied up in knots. I don’t blame you. You figured you needed some expert help finding the Flowers.”
“Shut up, Gideon.”
“I’m not saying you were faking your response in bed. I don’t think any woman could give that convincing a performance, although that may just reflect my own lack of experience. I haven’t been involved with that many women and none of them ever had sufficient reason to want to—”
“I said shut up and meant it,” Sarah hissed. “If you dig that hole any deeper, you may never be able to crawl out of it.”
“I’m just trying to point out my side of this.”
“You’ve made your point. Damn. When I think of all the excuses I made for you based on the trauma you’d been through with your ex-wife and Jake Savage, I could just spit. You don’t need any excuses for the way you’ve been acting, do you? You come by it naturally. Let’s change the subject.”
“To what?”
Sarah chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. “Why didn’t you want us to dig up the Flowers before we left this morning? Jake was gone. If we’d hurried, we could have gotten them without him ever knowing. Are you planning to come back on your own and take all of them for yourself?”
He didn’t rise to the bait. “I didn’t want to start digging for them knowing Savage was still in the neighborhood.”
She caught her breath. “You mean you think he might wait until we’ve dug them up and then try to steal them from us? I never thought of that.”
“I know.”
“But he was your partner.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Of course, he did steal your wife. I can see where you might wonder a bit about his trustworthiness in other matters.”
“It’s not because of what happened with Leanna that I’m worried.”
“It’s because of what happened on that last trip you two made into the jungle, isn’t it?”
Gideon concentrated on the slow-moving truck ahead of them. “I can’t help but wonder bow he survived.”
“You survived.”
“I’m better at it than Savage.” There was no arrogance or ego in his voice. It was just a simple statement of fact.
“So you’re wondering how he got out of that jungle?”
“I’m wondering how he managed to get out of that cave alive, let alone find his way out of the jungle.”
“How do you think he managed?” Sarah asked slowly,
“I think it’s possible he had help.”
“But the only help around from what you’ve said would have been the smugglers and they were the ones who staged the ambush.”
“You’ve got it.”
Sarah was shaken by the implications. “You think it was a conspiracy? That Jake was part of it?”
“I think it’s a possibility.”
“That would mean he deliberately set you up that day. That he intended to get you killed. But the plan failed because you sensed trouble.”
“Savage was never very good at the planning side of things. Believe me, it would be totally in character for him to have screwed up the timing on the ambush.”
“I don’t get it. Why would he want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?”
“A goose, hmm? I never thought of myself that way, but I guess that’s one point of view. To answer your question, all I can say is, there was a lot of cash involved.”
“How much of it did you get out of the country?”
“All of it except what I spent bribing the captain of the fishing boat. I used the remainder to set myself up in business with Cache.”
“Good heavens. You did lead an adventurous life, didn’t you? I see w
hat you mean about adrenaline. So what this all boils down to is you’re afraid we’ll be standing there plucking the Fleetwood Flowers from the ground and your old buddy Jake might show up to take them away from us at gunpoint.”
“I’d just as soon not take any risks.”
“I can understand that. You’ve got a lot to lose. Just one pair of those earrings will be worth a lot of money. I’ve got an even bigger problem, though, don’t I? I have to figure out a way to protect the Flowers from you and Savage.”
“Sarah, if you continued to make not-so-veiled accusations about my trustworthiness, I’m eventually going to lose my temper.”
“The way I lost mine when you started making nasty cracks about my reasons for sleeping with you?”
Gideon shook his head ruefully. “Something like that. For the record, and not that you’ve bothered to ask, I give you my word I’ll abide by our original bargain.”
“We don’t have a bargain. I fired you, remember?”
“I warned you that I don’t fire that easily.”
“Which, translated, means you’re not going to give up your claim to the jewels.”
“I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that I’m more worried about you than I am the Flowers?”
“No.”
“Sarah, be reasonable. As long as Savage is hanging around, it’s dangerous for you to even think about digging up the earrings. Leave them where they are until he gets bored and leaves the vicinity.”
“What makes you think he’ll get bored?”
“I know him. If he believes I’ve really given up on the Flowers, myself, he’ll give up on them, too. He got used to trusting my instincts. And he never hangs around too long if there’s no percentage in it. One of these days he’ll disappear and leave us in peace. When he does, we’ll go back and get the Flowers.”
“It might interest you to know,” Sarah said slowly, “that Jake doesn’t trust you any farther than you trust him.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“We had quite an interesting conversation this morning while you were in the shower. Jake tells a slightly different version of what happened that day in the jungle. According to him, you more or less abandoned him to his fate.”