Page 83 of These Reckless Hearts

I lift my hand and flip Wyatt off. “Nice try.”

Stone shakes his head with a small smile creeping over his lips. As Lance watches, Stone, Wyatt, myself—and Lucas from afar—form tighter bonds in the face of adversity. Something he never could’ve hoped to accomplish with them. Something so much bigger and brighter than what he’d given the boys.

I gave them a family. And in the midst of doing that, I gave myself one, too.

Epilogue

“Ifound the treasure by accident.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Wyatt chimes in, stopping me. I look up from the paper I’ve been scribbling on over the past few days. He’s sitting on our new, white couch that boasts exactly zero blood stains—just the way I like it.

“What?”

“You’re going to tell them that you found the treasureby accident?”

I smile. “You think I should tell them I found it when I was bum-rushed by an ex-military, pay-for-hire nutcase, fell, hit my head, and ended up finding the last clue as I was getting to my feet while bullets flew over my head and bodies dropped to the ground?”

He bursts out laughing. All of them do.

It’s been months since that day, but I can still see it clearly in my mind. The fear. The pain. The uncertainty of our future. The only thing that’s made it worthwhile is getting to spend every moment since with the three men in front of me.

He shrugs. “Continue then.”

I clear my throat, hands shaking a little. Tomorrow, I’m expected to give a speech at the grand opening of the Wilder Treasure Museum. As one-fourth of the founders and the only one who happens to bear the name Wilder, I was designated as the speaker even though everyone knows Stone should do it.

“I found the treasure by accident. You’d think that would be a misnomer since I’ve been trying to find the treasure all my life, but at the moment I discovered the last clue that led me to the mine, I was actually just trying to stay upright.” I pause. In my head, I imagine people chuckling in the crowd tomorrow. I mean, it is supposed to be funny. “That’s right. I fell into the treasure.” I glance at the guys who are all still staring at me. “Obviously we know what really happened, but semantics.”

Lucas gets to his feet, pulling his walker in front of him. He uses it to get around when he tires himself out. His hip replacement surgery went well, but rehab is ongoing.

It took us ages to head back into the mountains to actually figure out the last clue, but even faced with having it within reach, I suddenly wasn’t in so much of a hurry. I love those months I spent helping Lucas in rehabilitation and forming the family with the three of them that we’d always wanted. The calm after the storm. I’ll treasure those moments the most.

With two hands gripping the walker handles, Lucas leans over to kiss my cheek on his way to the kitchen. “The truth is much more harrowing. Think of all the little girls who’ll be listening to your speech tomorrow. If you tell them you fought off attackers in the midst of finding a historical treasure, you’ll be the new Wonder Woman.”

Stone watches his friend move toward the kitchen with a grimace. Lucas gets pissed if he catches us studying him. It’s hard not to hate what happened while simultaneously being so thankful that he’s still here with us.

“Maybe say...you were just walking by and the sun shone in the perfect moment in the perfect spot. You gasped, and there the initials were: N. E. C.” Wyatt’s theatrical diatribe is somewhat impressive, but I doubt I could pull it off. He pulls me onto his lap. “You don’t like it. I can tell by that little pout.”

I sink into his embrace, then place my feet on Stone’s lap. He immediately starts rubbing them for me. Despite the trouble I’d thought we’d have with Stone’s father, it all worked out smoothly. Cole absolutely knocked it out of the park, and since we already knew Lionel was on the take, it wasn’t that hard to get Lance convicted of capital murder five times. Now, he sits in the same damn prison as Wyatt’s mother—a place we’ll never set foot in again.

“Can you believe NEC meant North East Corner this whole time?” I ask for about the thousandth time.

Stone shakes his head. It’s one of thoseduhmoments that once you discover what something means, you ask yourself why you didn’t see it in the first place.

Since the initials had come up again on the boulder, we researched what they could mean while Lucas was recuperating. We knew it had to point to something. It wasn’t the initials of a person like my father and I had always suspected. Not even close. North East Corner. And the mine? You guessed it. It was in the northeast corner of the valley. There. All that time.

Sure, it was hidden by brush and a well-placed rock that I think my ancestors left there on purpose but knowing where to search was not half the battle, it wasthe wholebattle.

Stone, in particular, still grouses that we didn’t pick up on the NEC thing earlier.

He tickles my feet, and I screech. “Hey!”

“You’re bringing that up to pick on me.”

“Not me,” I protest. “That sounds like a Wyatt thing to do.”

Wyatt shrugs behind me. “What can I say? I’m rubbing off on her.”

“Ugh. Stop,” Stone complains, playfully shoving my feet off him. “No one wants that.”

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