Page 25 of Stolen Time
The corners of his eyes crinkled ever so slightly as he smiled. “I suppose you will.”
A pause then as we both looked at one another. In a different time and place, this might have been the moment when we shared a kiss, standing there alone on a moonlit street.
But this was the twenties, and I knew things were very different here. Maybe they were roaring somewhere else, and people were drinking moonshine in speakeasies and dancing the night away in beaded flapper dresses or smoking cigarettes in long ebony holders, but Jerome was very far away from the wild nightlife in New York or Chicago.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said, and Seth nodded.
“Oh, you’re welcome. Perhaps we can do this again later in the week? We could even drive down to Cottonwood and try something there.”
He was asking me out on another date. The logical thing to do would be to politely refuse and tell him I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea, considering my current situation.
I didn’t want to be logical, though. Not with the way he made me feel.
“Sounds wonderful,” I said.
8
MOONSHINE AND MYSTERIES
Seth walked awayfrom his aunt’s house, wearing what he knew was probably a huge, silly grin on his face.
Deborah had agreed to see him again.
No firm date set, but just knowing she was fine with another dinner out lightened his step as he made his way down the hill. If she hadn’t been interested in him at all — if she’d only accepted his invitation to have dinner at the English Kitchen tonight out of politeness — then he doubted she would have said she would like to share another meal.
As he walked along Main Street on the way back to his bungalow, a big Dodge truck moved past him. Under most circumstances, such a thing wouldn’t have been much cause for comment, as people came and went this way all the time, since this was the only route that went over Mingus Mountain and down into Prescott Valley.
Except he knew no one else in Jerome had a Dodge truck that was painted dark green and had wooden slats protecting the bed.
No, that was the McAllister Mercantile truck. And although Seth hadn’t seen the driver, he somehow doubted it had been hisfather behind the wheel. His mother didn’t drive at all, which meant the truck must have been piloted by his brother Charles.
What on earth would he be doing out and about in the family truck at this time of night? Although they made trips to Prescott on occasion, going over the mountain to pick up shipments of supplies for the store or various items that couldn’t be found in either Jerome or Cottonwood, there was absolutely no reason in the world to take such a trip well past sundown, when all the warehouses and shops in the state’s former capital would have been closed for the day.
Something about this didn’t smell right at all. Although he would never call himself a psychic, not when he couldn’t read people’s minds or see the future, Seth knew he’d always possessed a gut instinct that generally steered him in the right direction.
And right now, the pricking of his thumbs told him something wasn’t right about this situation. No, not at all.
For some reason, the image of the boarded-up mine shaft popped into his mind. He hadn’t wanted to question the superintendent when he’d first spied the shaft being closed off, but more and more, the whole situation felt wrong to him.
Well, it would be easy enough to find out whether his imagination was working overtime for no reason, or whether something really was strange about spotting his brother out and about after dinner like this. Most likely, he’d realize his suspicions were entirely wrong and that Charles had been sent off on his nighttime errand because a particular item was needed at the store as soon as possible.
However, Seth knew he couldn’t simply let this go.
An eyeblink, and he was at the site of the closed mine shaft. Luckily, several large boulders that sat off to one side provided decent cover, and he crouched behind them as he surveyed the scene. All seemed still enough, with nothing changed about theboards that covered the gaping hole in the hill…or anything about the immediate surroundings, either.
But then a pair of headlights raked through the darkness, and Seth dropped to his knees, not wanting to risk those headlights catching the top of his head over the boulder if the angle turned out to be wrong.
A truck stopped a few feet from the shaft, and a man got out of the driver’s side. Not just any man, though.
His brother Charles.
After sending a furtive look in several directions, Charles approached the boarded-up entrance and then lifted a claw-head hammer to carefully pry loose a few of the nails. Once that task was done, he pulled off one of the boards, providing just enough space for him to squeeze past.
What in the world was he doing?
For just a moment, Seth had the impulse to call out to his brother, to ask him what errand could have brought him here long after all the miners had gone home. Some instinct stopped him, though, telling him that Charles would not be very happy to learn someone had been watching his movements.
Not too long after he’d gone into the shaft, his brother emerged, holding a heavy jug in either hand. He opened the passenger door of the truck, set the jugs down — on the floor or possibly the seat; Seth couldn’t tell for sure — and then went back to fetch more.