are you doing? she wondered. She stopped from shaking her head. He didn’t move the frigging earth; he opened a door.
She wasn’t into chivalry. She quelled the urge to trace what she could see of the tattoo’s design through the thin cotton. When her fingertips—and other areas—grew hot at the idea of tugging down the collar of his shirt altogether, she moved over the threshold out of his way.
Harmony seized the moment by shouting across the room, “You two! We’ve got frozen lemonade over here. Stop letting the heat in!”
Mavis rolled her eyes at her friend for calling them out. “I’m surprised you came,” she muttered at Gavin.
“I haven’t had Gerald’s cooking in years,” he pointed out. “When he and Briar get going in the kitchen...it’s like religion. Also, I heard there’d be a show.”
“Oh.” He meant her and Zelda. Olivia and Gerald had called them to their orchard in hopes that their EMF meters might be able to help find a lost time capsule of Olivia’s grandparents. Decades ago, the orchard had belonged to them—Ward and the first Olivia. Rumors of activity at the grove had been rife among their circle for decades. Olivia claimed she could still hear her grandmother’s laughter tinkling on the wind in autumn months. Gerald told intriguing anecdotes about the scent of pipe smoke heavy in the evenings near Olivia’s grandfather’s old woodshop. Their second son, Finnian, could jaw for hours about supposed conversations he’d had with Ward. His brother, William, was more close-mouthed, falling quieter whenever the topic was broached.
Today Mavis and Zelda weren’t here to debunk the Leightons’ claims. They were on hand to aid in what was sure to be an exhaustive search. Mavis had come dressed for dirty work in a gray cropped T-shirt and a thin plaid work shirt unbuttoned over fitted workout capris and black-and-white high-tops. She came prepared with EMF readers and a shovel of her own. Olivia had called on Briar, her first cousin, and Cole. It was Gerald’s idea to prepare the family-style fiesta.
“I thought you weren’t interested in what Zelda and I do,” Mavis said as they joined the queue for plates.
“I’m not interested in joining the revelry,” Gavin claimed. “But I bet from a distance it’s fair entertainment.”
“That proves you’ve never seen EMFs operate,” she said. “Ever worked with a metal detector?”
“At least they find treasure,” he said, handing her a plate off the stack and motioning her ahead in line. “Or tinfoil.”
“Depending on the contents of Olivia and Ward’s time capsule,” Mavis replied, “we might be finding more than that today.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it, Frexy.”
* * *
THE BLADE CUT deep into the dirt. The smells of earth, clay and rain enriched the air as Gavin worked under the baking sun.
“Mind you don’t come up against any bones,” Olivia stated. “‘Round here’s ’bout where we buried Rex.”
Gavin’s shovel paused. Visions of a clumsy Irish wolfhound he’d chased through the inn gardens alongside Kyle hit him full force. Next to him, William Leighton’s shovel stilled, too. “Now you tell us?” he demanded of his mother.
“No worries, gents,” Gerald said, and grunted. He’d joined the digging. The polished vowels of his British upbringing rang clear. “Rex is entombed under that iris bed over there. Remember, love?” He addressed his wife. “To keep a fair distance from the roots.”
The roots. Right, Gavin thought. They’d come up against a rough dozen as they dug around the tree closest to the brick house. It was an ancient specter. On the few occasions he’d visited Olivia and Gerald and their boys at the pecan orchard in the past, it had been an impressive sight. He recalled thick gnarled limbs weighted by healthy green foliage, perfect for climbing. It had had a rope swing tied in its boughs and the initials of Olivia’s grandparents carved into the trunk.
It was difficult to reconcile memories with what remained. According to Gerald, the tree had taken a direct hit from a lightning strike. Now it was as black as night. Not a speck of green decked its stark skeleton. Most of the branches had fallen or been removed for safety. From the house, its bare silhouette looked like a dancer stuck in a painful arabesque.
But the damned roots remained. Gavin’s arms sang as the shovel blade sliced into another thick offender. He lifted the shovel with both hands, bringing it down in decisive strokes to break it up. The tree was dead. How was it that so many of its roots remained lodged in the earth—as if time or disaster had never taken place?
He stopped to sweep his forearm across his brow. Sweat had built there. It soaked through his clothes. He thought of removing his shirt.
“They should take a break,” he heard Briar say. “The heat. It’s getting worse.”
“They can hear you,” William called to her. Humor lilted from his voice.
“Yeah,” Cole piped up from Gerald’s other side. “They’d like a beer, maybe.”
William and Gerald made affirmative noises. Gavin kept slicing the blade through unbroken ground, tuning in to the song of metal and clay. His blood, too, was singing. He ached with effort. The release was sweet.
His head had screamed all morning, since 3:30 a.m. when dreams had tripped him awake. With a meal in his belly, however, and the lull of early afternoon on the orchard, plus the added work...the feeling of industry...he could almost convince himself he was enjoying all of it.
And there was Mavis. It had all started with her, the shovel in her hands. The EMF meters had found anomalies, suggesting activity of some kind. Gavin had heard her struggling with the blade near the woodshed, then the front porch of the house, and finally closer to the irises. When she’d stopped to drink the glass of lemonade Briar brought her, Gavin had yanked the shovel and picked up where she left off. William and Cole had followed his lead. Soon there was a trench around the dead tree beside the irises.
“We close, Frexy?” he called out to her without looking. He felt her watchful eyes.
“It doesn’t work like sonar. There could be something here. There could be nothing.”
“It’s a hotbed, for sure,” Zelda said.
“If it’s buried here, it shouldn’t be but a few feet down,” Mavis said.
“They wouldn’t have buried it deeper,” Olivia said.
A hand found Gavin’s shoulder. He looked around to find his father as flushed as a red pepper. “Dad,” Gavin said, alarmed. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Cole grunted. He leaned into Gavin.
Gavin cupped an arm around his shoulders. Like the others, Cole had sweated through his T-shirt. His breathing was a touch more labored. “Sure?” Gavin asked.
Head low, Cole nodded. “The heat. Can’t take it like I used to, I guess.”
Gavin had already lifted a hand to his stepmother.
Briar linked an arm around Cole’s waist. With the other, she took a firm grip
