Page 5 of Ethan

“I’m hungry. Do you have anything to drink? I have a case of water in the truck. However, it’s not very cold. Even though it’s cooler out, the water has been sitting in the sun all day. My truck, too, I guess.” She didn’t seem to understand him—nor did he understand himself, so he let it go. Ethan was happy as he followed her into the depths of the house. Christ, it was a huge home. “I was out on the Taylor farm this morning. Didn’t findmuch. Not worth a great deal anyway. I believe that the elderly have a different view of what’s a treasure than I do. Which is fine. The few things that I was able to find, they were happy with them. I’m starving all of the—”

“What’s happened?” Ethan had to swallow twice before he could ask her what she meant. “You’re not one to spout off whatever is in your head. I kind of liked that about you. But you’re just talking to be hearing your voice right now. What’s going on?” Nodding, he asked if he could have a seat. “So long as you understand that I’ll kick your ass out if it’s something stupid you have to say. Like we’re related or something. Worse, being mates. I don’t need a mate any more than I need a second hand. What’s up?”

“We’re not related. Not yet, at any rate. But I am your mate.” He sat down in one of the most comfortable kitchen chairs he’d ever been in. “Is this from that set that Georgie got you? This is really nice. I might have to have her—”

“Stop babbling and tell me what you mean, I’m your mate.” He corrected her. As soon as he did, he thought that it was a terrible idea. “What the fuck…Who cares who is mate to who right now. What makes you think—and I’m thinking that you have to be thinking that wrong makes you think that we’re mates at all?”

“This is going to piss you off more, but I can smell you. Your scent, not at all bad, calls to me. And according to my brothers, we should be able to shift and have clothing on when we shift back. I’m not willing to try that today if you don’t mind. I have a feeling that you’d maim me in some way right now.” She told him that she might maim him anyway. “I don’t want to test this either, but you’re not supposed to be able to harm me. But I don’t know about that one. Not with you right now. You seem to be pretty intense.”

Not saying another word, she pulled the bread from the ovenand laid it, still steaming, on the table where they were sitting. As she sliced it, he put copious amounts of butter on it so that it would be all melty and gooey when he had his bread. Since the bowls were out, he labeled the soup into them, giving them both a full bowl before pouring the tea in a beautiful glass pitcher into their already iced glasses.

He was on his third bowl, her a second one, when her son came into the room. He was just as he’d been told, a stick in the mud that seemed to have a large chip on his shoulder. Since they were both about the same age, him being a little older, he ate his soup while Shawnie dealt with him.

“I suppose you’ve done this to piss me off, Mother.” She asked him what he was grumpy about now. “I’m not grumpy. What a thing to say. I’m upset that you have invited men here, and you’ve not cleared it with me. What if I had been going out? The two of you would have been here alone in the house.”

“I’m going to ask you this again, Shamus, but just what century were you born in? Even my grandparents weren’t as bad as you are.” She pushed her half-empty bowl away, and Ethan pushed it back. “I’ve come to a decision. Two of them, actually. You are moving out. And I’m having the locks changed. You’re driving me insane with your old-fashioned values. Which, I might point out to you, has nothing at all to do with me. Secondly,” Shawnie looked at him. “I want you to move in here with me. My son seems to think that I need a caretaker and someone around all the time. I don’t know how he figures that I made it this far in the past four hundred or so years without his guidance, but I’m sure that he’ll figure it out. I was planning to sic Georgie or Brandy on him, but I think you’ll be able to handle him. What do you think?”

Nodding once, he looked at the man who was going to be his stepson. Because he was in such a great mood, he told the other man that he didn’t have to call him Daddy if he didn’t want to.But he would be respectful to him and his mother.

Shamus left. While the two of them enjoyed their soup, seemingly ignoring the part where Shamus had been a true bastard, they talked about the treasures that they were going to find.

Chapter 2

Shamus had never taken a cotton to someone as he did the young man who was helping dig with his Shawnie. Ethan hadn’t told her that she couldn’t dig with him—wasn’t strong enough or something like that. The two of them took turns if the place was sort of small, too. When water was drunk, he opened hers for her first, then his own. He was surprised, too, that Shawnie made the water cold for the two of them, her showing him a bit of the magic that she had.

“Hey there. Watch what you’re doing.” Ethan told him he was sorry. “You’ve dug down deep enough for this treasure. So you have to pull—did you just speak to me?”

“I suppose I did.” Ethan looked at him from the depth of the hole he was standing in. “You’re a good-looking man, Finn. Someone took care that you looked good when you went to see your maker. Or not. I have no idea how that works. I’ll learn though, don’t you think?”

He was embarrassed when he thought of the things that he’d been spouting off when he didn’t think that the younger man could hear him. Telling him how sorry he was, the man asked if they could shake. Since they couldn’t touch, Ethan told him that he wanted to be his friend from now on. If he didn’t mind.

“’Course not. Everyone…I’m plum sorry for the way that I was talking about you. But you should have said something. I was only spouting off like I usually do. Sorry about that.” He looked over at Shawnie, who was staring at the two of them. “Cat got your tongue, missy? Or did you not believe him when he said that he was your mate? That’d be just like you to not believe a man when he comes a courtin’.”

Ethan laughed as he pulled out the first treasure chest that he knew had been buried on his land. It might not be worthspit right now, but back in the day, it was worth a lot of money. Of course, to him, a dollar was a great deal of money. When the chest was loaded into the truck without opening it, he asked Ethan what he was doing.

“We’ve decided to open them at the house instead of out here in the open. There is no telling who might be flying a drone around, just looking for us to be out and digging things up.” He didn’t know what a drone was but nodded. “Finny, if you don’t know what something is, please ask me. I don’t want you to assume that I’m talking over your head when all I’m doing is telling you what could be going on.” He explained to him what not only a drone was but also how it was flown around without having a man inside of it.

“Well, I’ll be diggity dog. I think I might have seen one of them things flying around when I was out and about. I thought it was a monstrous bird, but nope, what you’re telling me could be right. It was one of them drone planes.” Ethan nodded, then asked him where the next treasure was, like he’d not been talking to a dummy or nothing. “It’s a fer piece from here. We can go to the barn if you want and see about the things left in there. The missy here, she had lights and that electrical stuff put out there so that she can see when she’s about.”

So, after taking the trunk into the house and put in the kitchen, they made their way to the barn. They could have walked, he knew that, but having that truck around, it sure did come in handy at times, like hiding things up under the tarp that was in the back of it. However, this time, Ethan pulled the truck, and he and Shawnie right on into the barn. Like they used to do with tractors in his day.

It was fun out there, talking to the two of them while they were getting to know one another. What surprised him most, he supposed, was that Shawnie didn’t seem a mean as she’d been before Ethan had been coming around.

There were all kinds of things in the big barn. Farm equipment, for sure. Then there were the odds and ends that people, and family would put in here to store it, thinking that they’d make use of it somehow. He didn’t think that nary a person who set something down in here ever got back to it.

Finny had had it built, a much smaller version, about five years after they’d taken over the property from his mom and dad. It had been well made then and it showed in how the thing was holding up after all these years. The barn had cost him a pretty penny, too, but to see what kinds of things that were found in the place made him happy for having stuff stored away in it.

Now, it was about three times the size it had been when he’d put the first standing wood in the ground, and he thought that it was just fine. As he was showing Ethan around, Shawnie went into the kitchen to get them both a sammich. They’d already made plans to stop at six and have dinner. It was only about two in the afternoon now.

“Finny, why are you still here? I don’t want you to think that I’m being rude, but it’s something that I’ve been thinking about. You had a family, correct?” He told him that he had seven girls and seven boys when he’d been alive. “My goodness. That is a huge family. Where are they all now? Again, you don’t have to answer me.”

“Well, son, back then, you had to have yourself a big family when you had as big a farm as I had. The boys, two of them, didn’t live much longer than their first birthday. Hard on my missus, I tell you. Hard on me, too, but it was hard on EmmieLou more. She was a good momma.” Ethan stopped digging around in the upper floors as he sat waiting for him to continue. “The girls? Well, the last one, you know, she was born after I had the flux. Died right there in the bed that she was birthed in. Had me a bad ticker anyway, and it just plum took meout when I was only a man of fifty.”

“You were a young man by today’s standards. I’m sorry you didn’t get to see your baby grow up.” He wiped his nose with his handkerchief and was glad every time he had to use it that he’d been buried with one. “Tell me about your wife.”

“Oh my goodness, the things that I could tell you. She was a good cook, she was. Right after I married up with her I had to get me some new drawers. I’d outgrown them in about a year. Emmielou, she sure could get the ground to give her a bounty, that’s for sure. But she had herself one of them mulch piles that she’d have me and the boys dig up once a year to take out to her land. Little bitty spot, I tell you, but we had more than enough food for us and some of the neighbors, too.” He thought of the trees that had long since died up for lack of anyone caring. “She sewed too. Darned my socks when they were needed and could cut down some clothes that you’d never know had been someone’s work pants.”

Shawnie joined them then, sitting on the top of the barn’s upper floor like there wasn’t a thousand little mice turds around. He supposed they’d have no more rats around now with the mister here. He thought of something else, too.