Page 51 of Off Plan
From the other side of the enormous checkered blanket he’d laid out across the cool sand, Fenn chuckled and turned on his side toward me.
“Pretty sure there’s a flaw in that statement,” he mused, his words mumbled and slow. “Not sure I care enough to figure out what it is right now, though.”
I turned my head to face him and blinked my eyes open. The setting sun was kind to Fenn Reardon, settling into the dips and hollows of his muscular arms, glinting off his scruffy cheeks and messy hair, gilding him all-over gold.
I’d jerked off thinking of this guy.
Could he tell, just by looking at me? Could he scent it on the breeze, like Dale Jennings with his ridiculous pheromones?
Fenn was every bit as scruffy and unkempt as he’d been a week ago—I wasn’t going blind—but he was objectively beautiful, too, with the artless, rugged appeal and grace of motion that, per Victoria, most guys on Instagram would kill for.
Since I was several beers deep in the cooler Fenn had provided, I was also perfectly comfortable admitting Fenn wassubjectivelybeautiful, too. His blue, blue eyes and sleepy smile made my head spin and my pulse race in a way that had nothing to do with the alcohol.
I wasn’t sure how it was possible for someone to drive me crazy and make me feel so damn comfortable andsafeat the same time, but that was a conundrum for another time. A sober-er time.
A time when Fenn hadn’t just brought me to his favorite spot on the whole island—a kind of natural cavern where some long-ago tide had scooped out the foundation of the rock bed, leaving an awning of rock hanging over the sand maybe two feet high, three feet deep, and six feet wide, under which the sand stayed cool despite the warm breeze and the late-day sun.
“You know, I walked this beach three mornings ago,” I said, turning my face back up to the sky and enjoying the way the light burst in kaleidoscope sparkles across the inside of my eyelids. “I didn’t even notice this spot was here, what with the overhang and that giant sort of treelikethingblocking the view from the shoreline.” I waved at an enormous piece of driftwood that seemed to have washed up on the beach decades or centuries before, and now stuck out of the wall of tide-deposited rocks like a marvel of nature’s architecture.
Fenn snorted. “Thatgiant treelike thingis an actual tree, Loafers. A dead tree, but still a tree.”
“I’m justsaying. This place is like a secret fort. This is where I would—” I sat bolt upright. “Oh my God! This is where I would hide a treasure!” I squinted around at the rocks, hoping for a subtle-but-distinct X to suddenly become visible. “Maybe Resolute Goodman—”
Fenn laughed out loud and turned onto his back. “Ah, Loafers. You’re about two hundred years and forty-five treasure hunters too late.”
“Oh.” I frowned. “Am I?”
“Yeah.” He grabbed my elbow and tugged me so I was lying down again. “Resolute left instructions to find the treasure. I told you. If it ever existed, it was never around here.”
“But you told me no one had found it!”
“Yeah, but not for lack of trying. According to Resolute’s diary, the treasure ‘lay in the garden of dreams’ meaning the extensive garden he built to his wife’s precise specifications up on what’s now Margot Lane, near the mansions. But Sarah Goodman tore the gardens apart after he died and never found any treasure. I think Resolute and Jacob spent all the money. Maybe he meant the garden was the treasure because of the value of the land or something.” He shrugged.
“And did Jacob Godfrey know what Resolute meant?”
Fenn shook his head. “Jacob passed a few months before Resolute, so he wasn’t around to ask. But anyway, over the years, treasure hunters have given up on trying to solve the clue and just combed every beach on the island instead. Later on, they brought in metal detectors and ground-scanning equipment—none of which worked reliably, since the island has a high limestone composition.”
“Oh, limestone. That makes sense.” I nodded. Then I shook my head. “What’s limestone?”
Fenn laughed again. “Seriously, I need to get you tipsy daily, Loafers, because it’s a revelation. Limestone is a type of rock. It gets eaten away by the acid in rainwater and washed away.”
“And turned into sand.” I grabbed a handful from beside the blanket and let it filter through my fingers.
“Nope. That’s a whole different thing.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong.” I couldn’t help it if my smile was just the tiniest bit superior. “But I’m pretty sure sand comes from rocks, Fenn.”
“Yep. And my geology degree says I have a pretty fair understanding of how rocks work, Loafers,” he said mildly. “Different rocks, different types of erosion. Limestone erodes and leaves behind pockets that cause caverns and sometimes sinkholes, which is why it’s really hard to narrow down a hole that’s hiding a bag of gold, versus one that’s full of nothing but air and water.Quartz, on the other hand, is the kind of rock that eroded into the sand we’re sitting on. This stuff probably washed down from the Appalachians and into the Gulf.”
“Wow. And ended uphere. Right where it’s supposed to be. Like destiny.”
Fenn looked at me again, and light danced in his eyes like sunshine on water. “Deep Thoughts With Loafers. That deserves another beer.” He sat up and took a dripping-wet bottle from the small cooler, then popped the top before handing it to me.
I hesitated before rolling up on an elbow to take it. “You know, I haven’t had five beers at once since…”
“Ever?” Fenn suggested.
“Notever, but a long time. High school.” My eyes flickered to his, and I added darkly, “For good reason.”
