“I know.”
“I thought it was for her—for her fifty-first anniversary or something!” I sputter.
“I figured. Violet bought that for me as a present. It was anX-Fileskey chain; we used to watch that show together.”
“And here I’ve been wearing it! Well, don’t I feel stupid.” I immediately reach for the back of my neck, fumbling with the clasp, but his hand shoots out, fingers closing over mine.
“No, keep it,” he tells me earnestly. “Please.”
I grumble, embarrassed. It’s good I can look away, busying myself studying the ground for any markers, any disturbances that might hint at treasure in the vicinity.
“I like that you wear it,” he tells me in a tone so soft and genuine that my chest cavity feels hollowed out. “For months, I wasn’t able to find it. Then one day, there’s that missing piece of my key chain around your neck.”
“Wesley.”
He stops. I raise my arm to a tree with a trunk curving into theshape of an S, the side facing us scratched with a largeXat eye level.
Wesley stares. “Well, that was a lot easier than I thought it’d be.”
“No kidding. An actual X?” I glance from the tree to the map and back again. “They guessed the location with perfect accuracy.”
He unzips the outer pocket of his bag and withdraws a tool that resembles an oversized box cutter. Then he presses a button and waves it over the grass at the base of the tree. “What’s that?” I ask.
“Handheld metal detector.”
“Ooooohh, aren’t we a Boy Scout.” I’m teasing, but he nods in the affirmative.
“Eagle Scout.” He scans my face, adding wryly, “I was super popular in high school, as you can imagine.”
To look at him, you’d think hewouldhave been super popular. A hot jock type. But Wesley Koehler isn’t anything at all that he seems.
Every new detail about him makes me want to know more. “Did you grow up near here?”
A small light on the metal detector flashes green as it beeps. He switches it out for a shovel, then juts a thumb. West, according to my compass. “In Stevenson, where my family still lives. You won’t have heard of it, it’s a very rural town.”
I’m amazed that he knows which direction is west without looking up. “I bet you were big into FFA in high school.” He definitely seems like the Future Farmers of America type.
“I got detention for being late to English all the time because I was taking care of other students’ plants in our ag class’s garden.”
“Giving those kids A’s they didn’t deserve, I bet.”
“Worth it. None of them knew anything about tomatoes.”
The tip of his shovel clinks against something underground. We lock eyes. “Aye, here be ye gold, matey,” I say, dead serious.
Wesley snort-laughs. We kneel, dusting dirt away, and wrench a dinged-up cookie tin out of the ground. Royal Dansk Danish butter cookies.
“Not quite a treasure chest, is it?” I observe doubtfully, the bars of gold in my mind shrinking down. Maybe it’ll be gold coins instead.
“Hey, I like cookies. I’ll take it.”
“Mmm, decades-old cookies.” I try to prize the lid off but it’s rusted shut. I hand the tin to Wesley, who pops its lid off in one easy motion. I’ll be honest, it makes me a little bitter.
“Well, it’s not cookies.”
It isn’t gold, either.
I lift an art deco diamond ring from its bed—a faded washcloth—and twist it to catch the light. Wesley selects another piece of jewelry, an engagement ring with a large emerald flanked by two diamonds on a gold band. The third item in the tin is a diamond bracelet.
