Page 59 of These Reckless Hearts

“Still not in a position to demand answers, little girl. Your family never was. Or...” he offers, “I guess they were, but they never did know how to use things to their advantage. When my team found the canister and brought it back to me, we found the ring and the gold nugget, but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t more.”

I swallow, my throat suddenly thick and the beating in my head returning with a vengeance. “More than an actual piece of the treasure? Why would you think that?”

“Tell me what else you have.”

“There’s nothing,” I growl.

He presses his lips together, the humor all but gone. “Nothing?”

“Nothing,” I reaffirm, my hands clenching to fists at my side. My pinky brushes against the knife I stole. It’s probably dull, but at least it’s something if I need to defend myself.

“You wouldn’t be trying to hide anything from me, would you?”

I scoff, trying my best at acting. Lucas says I wear everything on my sleeve, but I pour every ounce of believing into that one action. “What more could you think we had, Lance? Don’t you think if we had anything more that we would have found the treasure a long time ago?”

Lance leans against his chair, making it creak, but this time, it doesn’t break his concentration. He’s too fixated on me. “I would’ve believed that, but you see, I found something else in that canister. Something you might have overlooked. It was stuck in the lid. A little folded piece of paper.” Lance reaches into his pocket and takes out a square of lined notepad that he unfolds in slow motion until I’m almost coming out of my seat. I don’t recognize it at all.

He clears his throat, placing one hand on his sternum as if he’s about to give a speech. “Dear Dakota….”

The earth tilts. I grip my thighs, putting every ounce of new energy I have into not falling over.

Lance peers over the piece of paper at me, as if to make sure I’m still paying attention, but I don’t think it’s that at all. I think he wants to witness the part where I pass out. To finally see a Wilder where they belong: on the floor and hyperventilating.

He smiles, turning the note around to show me the stilted writing on the other side. “I can see that you don’t know what this is, but you’re probably guessing correctly at this moment. It’s a letter from your dad. Your long lost, missing father.”

The sides of my vision turn dark, and all I see is that lined notepad page. I can envision him hunched over his messy desk, writing something to me. But, my brain also rejects the idea. Wyatt, Stone, Lucas, and I opened that canister, and we didn’t see a thing.

“Shall I read it to you?”

My brain buzzes with retorts, but I swallow them down. I’m caught between wanting to hear it and outright dismissing it as a fraud right here, right now. But with the way Lance is acting, he certainly thinks he knows something I don’t. “I reckon I don’t have a choice, do I?” I tell him, falling back into a pattern of speech my father used.

“No, you don’t. You seem to need a reminder about what else was in that canister. But I don’t need to give it to you, your father’s going to. Right here in his own words, Dakota.”

My mind whirs. “What does it say?”

My father wouldn’t have known he had to keep anything a secret if he left a note for me. We never intended on that rugged safe of ours to ever make it into anyone else’s hands. It was only a tin can with a screw top. It’s nothing like the safes they have nowadays with locks and passwords and codes. We thought the land would hide it. After all, the same kind of land had been hiding my family’s legacy all along.

But we were wrong.

I’mto blame for this. For all of this.

I can only cringe as Lance begins to read from my father’s note from the grave.

26

Dear Dakota,

If everything happens as I see it happening, you’ll be the sole keeper of this safe. I knew the things I did in my past would come back to haunt me at some point. I worried I would never find the treasure, but what I feared more was the day you found out what I did to you.

Someone has been following me, closing in on me for my wrongs. I’m too much of a coward to tell you to your face, so I’ll leave you with this: No matter what you learn, you’re a Wilder. It’s all your mother and I ever wanted. And I’m sure you have your doubts about my intentions, but a child is more than a vessel to pass a legacy down to. You were so much more than that to me. I may not have always had the capacity to show you that, but I hope that by saying it now, you’ll see.

Take care of our legacy, Dakota. You were always the one who deserved to find it. Use the map. It’s the key, it has to be. Remember the stories. Make them come alive for a new generation.

I know it’s too much to ask of you, but I’m going to do it anyway.

I love you.

Dad

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