Read Hidden Treasures for Free Online Page A

dropped her panties for him when he was there.”
    “Including you?” Erica had asked.
    “If he’d asked? You bet,” Fern had said fervently. “I probably would even today. Look at him.”
    Erica had looked. She wasn’t sure she’d drop her panties for him, but admiring his rough-hewn face and honey-blond hair had been the highlight of John Willetz’s funeral.
    Actually, it had been just a church service not a funeral. The ground had been too frozen for a burial. As Erica had learned, no one got buried in central New Hampshire in January. People stored their loved ones’ remains until mud season, when the ground was soft enough to enable the digging of graves. Erica found this tradition morbid, but it was what Mother Nature demanded.
    Jed Willetz remained where he was, a few paces back from the foot of the porch stairs, with his hand still outstretched. She shifted her knife to her left hand, marched down the steps and shook his hand. His palm was as smooth and hard as finely sanded pine. “Erica Leitner,” she introduced herself.
    “You bought this house from my grandfather.”
    “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
    He made a face, apparently not in the mood for platitudes. She hadn’t meant it as a platitude, though. She was sorry.
    “Have they buried him yet?”
    “Who, my grandfather? He was cremated,” Jed Willetz said. “I’m up here to bury his ashes.”
    Well. Wasn’t this a fun topic for two people justgetting to know each other? “What can I do for you?” she asked a bit more congenially.
    “Put down the damn knife.”
    “Ah.” She climbed back onto the porch and balanced the knife on the railing. After considering her options, she decided to remain on the porch. Jed Willetz was too tall. When she’d briefly stood next to him, she had felt small enough to need the knife. From the top step, she loomed an inch taller than him.
    “Can I ask you a question?” he inquired, his gaze drifting to the knife perched on the railing and then back to her empty hands.
    “Of course.”
    “Has anyone been in my grandfather’s house since he died?”
    “I don’t know. I’m not here during the day. I have seen your—I guess he’s your father, or your uncle? Jack Willetz. He’s been in and out a few times.”
    “My father.” Jed nodded, his forehead creasing into a frown. “So, he’s been around?”
    “I don’t keep tabs on him,” she said, a bit irked. His father’s comings and goings weren’t her business.
    Jed scruffed a hand through his hair, an easy, casual move that made her think his father’s occasional visits to his grandfather’s house didn’t matter much to him, either. She liked the way his shoulder rolled when he lifted his arm and then lowered it.
    “So, tell me about the box,” he said in an offhand voice.
    She stopped thinking about his shoulder as wariness overtook her. How had he learned about the box? If he knew of its existence, who else did? She didn’t want the entire town of Rockwell badgering her about her possible archaeological find.
    “What box?” she asked with feigned innocence.
    “The box you dug out of your garden.”
    “Where did you hear that?”
    He chuckled without smiling. “By tomorrow morning everyone’ll know about it.”
    “Why? It’s just a box.”
    “Can I have a look at it?”
    She hesitated. She didn’t want him to see it, partly because, for all she knew, it could be extremely valuable, but mostly because she’d promised Avery she wouldn’t show it to anyone else before he arrived in town. “I’ve put it away for safekeeping,” she said.
    “If it’s just a box, why does it need safekeeping?”
    Jed Willetz was a lot pushier than his grandfather had been. With shoulders like his, and those hard, cool eyes, he probably thought he could persuade anyone to bow to his will. But she wasn’t about to drop her panties for him. No way. “Look, Mr. Willetz. I don’t know you, and I don’t have to show you anything I don’t want