We glare at each other, so much tension between us we could bring the whole damn miracle of a tree down. Jaws locked, breathing labored, if we weren’t fighting, it would feel an awfullot like foreplay. Like if either of us took one step closer, it would be all we needed to rip our clothes off right here.
“Fine,” I finally say. “He’s not the father.” I fold my arms over my chest. “Happy?”
“Happy?” His laugh is angry. “Not even close. And you let a four-year-old have a knife in a tree?”
My eyes narrow. “Four?”
“You said she was five, and last year she climbed a tree with a knife. Guessing that would have made her four.”
“Right.” I laugh robotically. “She’s spirited.” When he opens his mouth, I talk over him, redirecting this disastrous conversation. “The point is, I think we should try to get closer to the tree and look. Anson wrote ‘you will never believe it and need to touch every branch and crack of the bark just to know its real.’Maybe that was the clue. We should come back.”
“Come back?” Nash lets out a preposterous laugh. “And what? Climb it?”
Bennie must have been onto something with her observation of the need for being daring in a treasure hunt, because I glance from him to the tree. “Yes.”
Cap barks out a laugh, and I pin him with a look.
“What?” He shrugs and scrubs a hand through his beard. “I never could have made it up there. Never thought of it. Ain’t a bad idea, kiddo.”
His needed alliance overrules my annoyance at his term of endearment.
“Please, Nash.” I put my hands together and bounce with my beg. I have never felt more desperate in my life. I need to see what’s in that tree. I need it yesterday. And I need his help. “I’ll climb, you just—I don’t know—be the lookout or something.”
“The trunk is probably thirty feet tall, Rue,” he argues. “How’ll we do that?”
“A ladder.”
“You want us to climb over this fence”—he gestures at said fence, tall and lined with barbed wire—“with a thirty-foot ladder?”
He has a point.Dammit.
“We can climb up one of the branches.”
Cap chuckles, waving his hand like a white flag when I give him yet another glare.
Nash’s gaze is loaded. Like he has more questions, and they aren’t about this gold or my plan to climb a sacred tree. But to my surprise, when he opens his mouth, it’s with a torn, “Fine.”
I clap, bouncing up and down with a genuine smile. After yesterday’s bust, I need this win.
Nash, however, doesn’t react. He’s pissed. And he doesn’t even know the full truth.
“Let’s go,” I tell him, ignoring my lie and wrapping my hand around his inked forearm to drag him in the direction opposite of where we parked.
“Where?”
“To case the joint.”
Cap snorts a laugh; Nash says nothing.
“I’m serious.” I tug his arm twice. “We need to scope out the security. Check the fence. Come up with a plan.” I raise my eyebrows. “Case the joint.”
He doesn’t say yes, but with his lips in a tight line, he lets me lead us, his well-warranted anger coming along for the ride until my loudmouth of a conscience stops my feet.
“Bee’s my daughter,” I admit. “That’s why my mom asked about her. I lied because it felt like too many things with her and—” I blow out a soft breath. “Everything.”
He’s quiet and I’m quiet; I wish I could tell him the truth as much as I wish he already knew.
He looks up at the tree, tongue batting around his mouth. “Who’s the father?”
