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Authors: Carla Cassidy

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BOOK: A Gift from the Past
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As she watched him efficiently transforming the area from a wild tangle to a neatly trimmed yard, she felt a curl of heat unfurl in the pit of her stomach.

All too vividly she could remember how that broad chest felt against her naked breasts, how the scent of his skin would linger on her own long after they'd finished making love.

All too painfully she could remember how eager she would be during the day for night to come, knowing that in the darkness of the night they would make love and talk about dreams and eventually fall asleep in each other's arms.

She still couldn't believe he was here. In the five years that he'd been gone he'd written fairly often, and in each of those letters she'd expected him to tell her he wanted a divorce, but the letters had never indicated anything about the status of their marriage.

Was that why he'd returned? Was he here to tell her he was finally going to sever the last of his ties with her? He was a good-looking man in his prime. Had he fallen in love with another woman? Was he ready to begin again, to marry and have a family and live happily ever after?

She'd been expecting it, so why did the thought of him making a life with another woman fill her with a small surge of jealousy and a touch of regret?

“He's a good man, Cookie.” Sarge's voice pulled her from her thoughts and she turned away from the window.

“I suppose.” She moved to the counter to pour herself some more coffee. “Why didn't you tell me he paid off the mortgage on the house two years ago?”

Sarge backed his wheelchair several inches away from the table, indicating that he was finished with his breakfast. “Because I knew it wouldn't sit right with you, not that it was any of your business anyway. He paid the mortgage and the house is now in his name and yours.”

“Mine?” She eyed her grandfather in surprise. Joshua hadn't mentioned that little fact when he'd told her she'd been living in his house for the past two years.

“This place is all I had that was worth anything. I was going to put it in your names anyway. You and Joshua can fight it out after I'm gone.”

“What is it we're going to fight about?” Joshua asked as he entered the back door. Instantly Claire felt as if he filled every corner of the kitchen with his masculine scent and half-naked body. She was struck with a flare of desire so intense it cramped her stomach.
“Nothing. We aren't going to fight about anything,” she replied quickly and moved to take Sarge's bowl off the table.

“Good.” He walked over to the sink and reached in the cabinet for a glass. “It's far too pretty out today to fight with anyone.”

Claire watched as he filled a glass with water then brought it to his lips. He drank deeply, a droplet of water falling from the bottom of the glass and landing in the center of his chest.

Her head suddenly filled with the memory of a dream she'd had the night before, a dream about Sarah and Daniel Walker. In her dream they had stood by the edge of a creek, and Daniel had bent down and scooped up a handful of the crisp, clean water. He'd raised his hands to his mouth and droplets of the liquid had escaped and fallen on his beautiful chest.

He'd grinned at Sarah, his eyes filled with a love so intense that it had ached in Claire's heart when she'd awakened that morning.

“Hello? Anybody home?” Joshua said.

The image of Daniel and Sarah disappeared and she stared at Joshua blankly. “Excuse me?”

“I said it's such a beautiful day why don't we do a picnic lunch and take it out to Miller's Park? We can take all the clues to the treasure hunt and brainstorm in the fresh air and sunshine.”

“You kids go ahead,” Sarge said. “It's too much trouble to get me and my chair out for a
picnic. I'll be fine here alone for a couple of hours.”

Claire was unsurprised by Sarge's words. She'd been unable to get him out anywhere since he'd had his stroke.

“Oh, no, you don't,” Joshua exclaimed. He set his glass in the sink. “You aren't weaseling out of this. If you don't go, then Cookie and I won't go.” He winked at Claire. “And I can tell by the look on Cookie's face that she really wants to go on a picnic, and you know how she pouts when she doesn't get her way.”

A burst of laughter exploded out of Claire at his audacity. Joshua smiled at her and for a moment in the depths of his spring-green eyes she saw a glimpse of what had once been. Desire, rich and bold spilled from the green depths of his gaze.

She broke the eye contact, disturbed that what she felt was a deep wistfulness, a yearning for something that had never been…would never be.

“I reckon we don't want Cookie pouting, so I guess we'll have a picnic,” Sarge finally replied. “Besides, it will be kind of like old times, won't it? We had some fine times in the past picnicking out at Miller's Park.”

Claire felt Joshua looking at her once again, but she refused to meet his gaze. “Yeah, we did,” he agreed softly.

“Why don't I finish mowing the front lawn and
Claire can pack a lunch, then we'll take off around noon.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Sarge replied.

Claire supposed she should be grateful that Joshua had managed to get Sarge to agree to an outing. It would be good for Sarge to get out of the house for a few hours. And she
was
grateful, but that gratefulness was tinged with a dark uneasiness as she thought of the planned picnic.

Sarge was right, some of the best times of their life together as a family had been spent on summer-day picnics at Miller's Park. But she didn't want to remember that happy time in her life and she didn't want to think of the emotion she'd thought she'd seen momentarily shining in Joshua's eyes, an emotion that looked surprisingly like desire.

If Joshua had come back here to ask her for a divorce, then something inside her would be broken forever. But if he'd come back here seeking some sort of reconciliation, then he'd be disappointed.

There was no way she could go back, no way she could allow herself to fall back into loving Joshua again.

Chapter Four

M
iller's Park was a favorite place for families to while away the lazy days of summer, especially on Saturdays and Sundays when the children were out of school.

This Sunday was no different. By the time they arrived at the park the playground was already filled with children. Mothers sat on the benches nearby, reading books or crocheting, looking up often to check on their offspring.

Claire chose the picnic site farthest away from the playground and Joshua wondered if she'd done it on purpose. As he carried Sarge's wheelchair to a spot beneath a shady oak tree, he thought of Sammy.

If an undetected heart defect hadn't taken him when he'd been almost two, he would have been nearly seven now. Joshua and Claire would have come here often to watch him climb the jungle gym or slip down the slide.

He unfolded the chair, then went back to the car for Sarge, shoving away the thoughts of what might have been. As Joshua carried Sarge, Claire grabbed the blanket and the picnic basket and followed just behind him.

“It will be good for Cookie to get out and spend a little time relaxing,” Sarge said, as Joshua set him in his chair. “I'm afraid I'm a terrible burden on her.”

“She doesn't look too much the worse for the wear,” Joshua replied.

“Would you two stop talking about me as if I'm not here?” Claire exclaimed as she flopped down in the center of the blanket she'd spread out.

“She might not look stressed, but listen to her, she's stressed,” Sarge exclaimed and winked one sightless eye in Joshua's direction.

“Ha-ha, you're very funny,” Claire replied dryly. “And now, the big question of the day is, do we want to eat, then brainstorm on where the treasure might be, or brainstorm, then eat?”

“Definitely eat first,” Joshua said as he joined her on the blanket. “I always think better on a full stomach.”

“Me, too,” Sarge quipped. He raised his face upward and sighed in what appeared to be peaceful contentment.

Joshua turned his attention to Claire, who was busy pulling items from the picnic basket. She had changed clothes for their outing and was now clad in a yellow tank top and shorts.

She'd been wearing yellow the first time he'd seen her, when they'd both been fifteen years old. And she'd been wearing yellow on the day he'd left her, a canary-yellow sweater and slacks that were in stark contrast to the darkness in her eyes.

As they ate lunch, Sarge chatted about the changes the past five years had brought to the small town. He seemed to know who had married whom, who had divorced, who got liquored up on Saturday nights and the issues that were facing the town council.

Joshua's attention was torn between trying to concentrate on what Sarge was saying and watching Claire eat. He'd noted that she had eaten hardly any of the breakfast she'd cooked that morning, her attention focused on making sure Sarge had what he needed. She looked as if she'd missed far too many meals in recent weeks.

She attacked the picnic fare with abandon, smiling sheepishly as he caught her licking her fingers. “Fresh air definitely does something wicked to my appetite,” she exclaimed.

“It's good to see you enjoying yourself,” he replied. “A few extra pounds certainly wouldn't hurt you.”

“If that's the case, then how about you split the extra sandwich with me.”

He smiled. “You go ahead. I'm stuffed.”

When they'd finished with the meal and had re-packed the basket, Sarge moved his wheelchair out of the shade and into the sun and promptly fell asleep.

“Thank you for getting him out today,” Claire said, her gray eyes filled with a grudging gratitude. “He needs to get out more, work at getting his strength back, but he's so darned stubborn with me.”

“He's probably angry, depressed…afraid.”

She nodded and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “All of the above, but he won't listen to me and he refuses to do anything to help himself. Of course, I'm not complaining about having to take care of him or anything like that,” she hurriedly added.

“I didn't think you were,” he assured her.

She studied him for a long moment. A breeze caressed her hair, sending a strand of it flying outward. He fought the impulse to reach out and capture the shiny silk between his fingers.

“How on earth did you get into video games, Joshua?” she asked. “I didn't even know you
knew how to turn on a computer when you left here.”

He smiled. “I didn't.” He stretched out on his side, close enough to her that he could smell her sweet scent. “When I left here, you know I had no real skills and no education.” During the course of their marriage, he had worked pumping gas, sacking groceries, on heavy construction, whatever it took to support Claire and Sammy.

“Anyway, I knew if I was going to make something of myself I needed to learn a skill, so I took out a loan and enrolled in computer programming. To my surprise, it was something I excelled at. When I graduated from the school, I had a dozen offers with companies for more money than I'd ever dreamed of making, but I had a dream of owning my own company.”

He sat up and leaned his back against the trunk of the tree that provided the shade where they sat. “Anyway, I took out more loans, started DreamQuest and nobody was more surprised than me when the games started taking off.”

“What kind of games are they?” she asked.

“Mostly adventure. Remember those stories I used to tell you when we were younger?”

She smiled, the first real uncomplicated smile he'd seen since he'd arrived. It lit up her features with a warmth that spilled over him, and he wished he could capture it. “You mean, those stories
about lonely Lonnie looking for his parents and having to face the perils of the city all alone?”

He laughed. “Exactly. Little Lonnie now has three games of his own and they're my top sellers. But there are also games about Mr. Blue, a crayon who doesn't want to be blue anymore, a carrot named Raymond who is trying to stay out of the clutches of a hungry rabbit and a lot more. And speaking of games, we're supposed to be brainstorming to find that treasure for you,” he reminded her.

“Right.” She opened the picnic basket and pulled out a notebook. “I've got all the clues that have come out so far written down here, along with the places I've already looked for the money.” She stretched out on her stomach, the notebook opened on the ground in front of her.

Joshua lay down next to her, also on his belly. He was careful to keep an inch or two between their bodies, knowing he no longer had the right to lie intimately close to her.

Still, he was close enough to feel her body heat, to inhale her scent surrounding him and the combination of the two created a ball of familiar tension in the pit of his stomach.

It was the same kind of aching need he'd always felt for her, and it stunned him to realize she still had the power to make him ache for her.

“The first clue that appeared in the paper was,
‘With a scream like a banshee, the sound rides the wind. With this clue in mind, let the contest begin.'”

She turned her head to look at him. She was so close he could see the metal-gray flecks in her eyes, the small spattering of freckles across her nose. If he leaned forward just an inch, he would be able to capture her lips with his.

“Joshua?”

“Yeah, I'm thinking,” he replied and tried to focus on the task at hand instead of the memory of how sweet and yielding her lips had once been beneath his. “Remind me of the second clue, maybe something will click in my head if I hear all the clues together.” He stared down at the blanket beneath them, attempting to concentrate on what she was saying.

“The second clue was, ‘Red is the color of my true love's hair. If you figure this out, the money is there.' And the last one was, ‘The roots of fire and ash yield sweet fruit. If you find this place, you've got the loot.'”

He shot her a quick glance and saw her chewing on her bottom lip, a habit of hers when she was in deep concentration. “That's the one that made me go out to the Dragon Tree yesterday morning,” he said.

She nodded. “Me, too. I remember how the kids used to talk about how the wind whistled through
the leaves and I figured maybe it sounded like a banshee.”

“And the leaves turn bright red in the autumn, so that would fit with the second clue.” He smiled at her. “The Dragon Tree was a smart guess.”

“Yeah, unfortunately it was wrong,” she replied wryly. She shifted positions and her thigh made contact with his. She quickly moved to break the contact, but not before he saw the slight flush that reddened her cheeks. She rolled away from him and onto her back, putting several additional inches between them. “So, any other ideas?” she asked.

He had other ideas all right. He had the idea to lean over her and capture her rosy lips with his own. His fingers itched with the idea of tangling in her hair or cupping the warmth of her breasts. He entertained the idea of kissing her, touching her, caressing her until her soft gray eyes darkened to the dark smoke of passion.

Desire, rich and hot, flooded through him, creating an ache deep within that he hadn't experienced in years. It shocked him and threw him mentally off-balance.

He rose from the blanket, feeling the need for some distance. She looked at him in surprise. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Going for a walk. I think better when I walk. I'll be back in a little while.” He headed out toward a jogging path, wondering why in the world
the woman he'd come to divorce still managed to fill him with such depths of emotion.

 

Claire blew out a sigh of frustration and sat back on her haunches. She was on her knees on the floor of the basement of City Hall, surrounded by box after box of old documents, newspapers and miscellany from the past.

Bertha Bellew had been a one-woman historical society and had made an attempt at organizing the material, but unfortunately Bertha had passed away several years ago. Since that time, the old records and documents had been shuffled and reboxed and rearranged without much regard.

She'd already gone through two boxes of items and had found nothing from the year 1856. At this rate it would take her months to find out anything about Sarah and Daniel Walker and she certainly didn't want Joshua hanging around for months. It was bad enough that he'd already been in the house for almost a week.

Six days, to be exact. Joshua had been in the house for six days and never had Claire's nerves been stretched so taut. His presence seemed to have taken over every corner of the house. His scent seemed to have permeated the nooks and crevices of the very structure itself.

There were times when they were all together in the evenings, that she almost felt as if it were five
years ago and Joshua had never left her. And that irritated her more than anything.

She pulled herself up from the floor, deciding it was time to pack it in for the day. It was almost dinnertime and even though Joshua had insisted that he would be in charge of the evening meal, she couldn't remember a time he'd ever cooked anything substantial in the past.

Tomorrow morning the new clue for the treasure hunt would appear in the morning paper. She wanted to get a good night's sleep so she could get up bright and early to read the latest clue.

As she walked home, the sun bore down on her with an unusually intense heat, portending the midsummer days to come. She faced the summer with dread. So far she and Sarge had managed to get through the days without the air-conditioning, but it wouldn't be long before they would need to turn it on and that meant higher electric bills.

She thought of all the checks Joshua had sent her over the years. Whenever she'd received one, she'd instantly ripped it into tiny shreds and placed it in her ‘confetti box,' an empty tissue box that held the tiny tatters of both checks and letters he'd sent to her.

She'd thought the checks were guilt money from him and that somehow in cashing them, she would be helping him assuage his guilt over leaving her.

Maybe she'd been selfish in not cashing them
and using the money to make things easier for Sarge, but hurt and bitterness had tainted any decisions she had made where Joshua McCane had been concerned. Now, with a droplet of sweat scooting down her back beneath her cotton T-shirt, she wished she hadn't been so stubborn where that money had been concerned.

I just need to find that treasure, she told herself. That money, although certainly not a fortune, would make everything okay.

As she entered the house, the first sound she heard was laughter coming from the kitchen. She paused on the threshold of the front door, for a moment savoring the sound that had been almost nonexistent in the house for the past five years.

Joshua had always been good at evoking laughter. Even though he had the good looks of a matinee idol, he had the heart and soul of a witty comedian.

She leaned against the door, for a moment remembering when he'd entertain her with fanciful stories of make-believe creatures and crazy worlds.

She hated to admit it, but she'd missed his stories and his laughter. And if she looked deep within her heart, she'd find that she'd missed him, too. But that didn't mean she ever intended to invite him back into her heart or her life again.

Steeling herself for the onslaught of seeing him again, she squared her shoulders and walked into
the kitchen. For the first time since walking through the front door she became aware of the odor of fresh garlic, minced onion and spicy tomato sauce.

Joshua stood at the stove and Sarge was at the table as she walked into the kitchen. “Something smells marvelous.”

Joshua smiled and moved a large pot off the stove burner. “My world-famous tomato sauce.”

“I didn't know you had a world-famous tomato sauce,” she said as she sank down at the table.

BOOK: A Gift from the Past
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