Seaside Heartbeats: A Sweet Romance (The Seaside Hunters Book 2) (16 page)

Funny how they could see the same events but come to such different conclusions. Maybe the day would be a success, but Brayden would likely sleep with one eye open.

"Has your family finally relaxed?" Brayden asked. "They've seemed more like themselves the last few times I've seen them."

"Yeah, mostly." Lana's tone made it sound like she was holding back.

"What do you mean?" Brayden slid his right hand down from the steering wheel and took her hand. He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.

She took a deep breath. "My dad and I haven't been getting along so well."

"Really?" Brayden asked, surprised. Dwight seemed like one of the most easy-going guys he'd ever met. Aside from never letting go of work, but Brayden couldn't blame him for that, being a bit of a workaholic himself.

"We're not seeing eye to eye on some stuff right now."

"I'm sorry. What about?"

Her hand tightened in his. "I've been thinking about not leaving Kittle Falls at the end of the summer."

Brayden's heart skipped a beat. "You…? Why not?"

Her grip tightened even more. "Well, I really enjoy the time I've spent with you. I know it probably sounds crazy. We've known each only about a month, and now I'm thinking of changing my whole life."

He opened his mouth, but words escaped him. She liked him enough to consider staying in Kittle Falls?

"Please say something," she said, her voice small.

"You're not crazy. In fact, you've completely flipped my world upside down, too. I've never felt like this before."

Lana squeezed his hand harder. She was surprisingly strong, and his hand was going to be sore soon if she kept it up. "You haven't?"

"No. You're the first person I've ever dated seriously."

"Really? Me, too. I've been too focused on my studies." Her grip loosened.

"Maybe that's why we seem to work together so well," he said.

"That and our sense of adventure. Part of me can't believe we're actually chasing a one hundred-sixty year old lead."

"I never would've thought about it before meeting you."

"You haven't wondered about what happened to your town's founder?" she asked.

"Plenty of times. I just never thought there was anything I could do about it…until you came along." Brayden took a deep breath. He had the urge to pull over to the side of the road and kiss her. He'd been wanting to run his hands through her hair again since that day in the museum.

Brayden's phone buzzed. He took it from the console and handed it to Lana. "Can you check the text?"

She took it. "Cruz says he stopped at a rest stop." She looked out at some signs. "Looks like he's about ten miles ahead."

"See why he thinks I drive slow?" Brayden asked, shaking his head. "I'm going ten over and he's still that far in front of us."

"Well, I don't think you drive like a granny."

"That's all that matters. Can you text him back with our location?"

"Sure."

From the corner of his eye, Brayden watched her. She sent it and then put the phone back where it had been. They rode in silence for a while. Brayden tried to figure out what to think of what she'd told him. He couldn't believe she was even considering staying. It didn't feel real—almost like it was too good to be true, so he couldn't accept it.

After a while, Brayden asked if they were approaching their exit. Lana looked at the papers. "Too bad Kittle didn't have an address we could plug into the GPS." She laughed. "Yeah, it looks like we're less than two miles from it."

Soon, Brayden pulled off the highway and onto a bumpy country road. Even with his expensive vehicle, they weren't protected from the potholes. Lana nearly spilled her coffee, which had a lid.

Finally, they turned onto a gravel road and stayed on that for a while before they came to the parking lot. Cruz stood at his bike with a cigarette in his mouth. He dropped it and squished it under his boot when he saw them.

Brayden and Lana got out of the car and stretched their stiff muscles. Brayden looked at Cruz's boot. "Thought you quit."

"Mostly."

"How do you mostly quit?"

He shrugged.

"Don't you know what that stuff does to your—"

"Let's get our gear out of the trunk," Cruz interrupted. He turned to Lana. "How was the ride?"

"Couldn't have been better."

"You certainly had plenty of time to enjoy the scenery."

Lana looked Brayden up and down. "All I needed to see was inside the car."

Cruz raised an eyebrow and then turned to Brayden. They all pulled everything from the trunk and then Cruz threw his helmet and riding leathers into the trunk. "Won't need those for hiking, yo."

Brayden brought out the printout of the two maps. "We're here." He pointed to a little square on the contemporary map. "We want to go here." He followed a small line of a trail until he hit his penciled in line. "This is where it might get tricky."

Cruz took the printout of the old map and compared the two. "That looks about right. You really think we'll find a clue about Bi—"

"Don't say his name out loud," Brayden said. "We have to be careful. You're staying at mom and dad's house, and I don't want them to be the next victim, okay?"

"Understood, man. But I'll have you know I'm looking for my own place. After the summer crowds die down, I want to find something. Maybe even start my own tat parlor."

Brayden looked at him. "Really?"

"Yeah, dude. You've inspired me with your plans to build that emergency room."

"Urgent care facility."

"Whatever. Just take the compliment."

Lana giggled. "I can tell you're brothers. You sound like me and Cora."

"Really?" Brayden asked. He turned back to Cruz. "If you wait until I'm done with the facility, I can help you with your parlor. Or better yet, you can help me and then I'll help you."

"I can even help both of you with designing the buildings," Lana said. "I do have a little practice."

"You've got to keep her," Cruz said.

Brayden planned to.

Twenty

"Is this the place?" Lana asked. She stared at the overgrown trail—or what appeared to have once been a trail. Thick plant life made it look like no one had ever been there.

Brayden and Cruz stared at the maps.

"This is going to be more work than I thought," Cruz said, looking back and forth between the maps and the trail they needed to cut.

"Maybe we can find another way in," Brayden said. "This is going to take all day just to get in a few feet."

Cruz shielded his eyes with his hand, looking up and down the side of the trail. "Dude." He let out a slow breath. "I don't see anything else better, and I don't want to travel farther just to find out that this is our best bet."

"You want to start chopping stuff away?" Lana asked. "Brayden and I can go a little farther and see if we can find anything better."

"Fine by me." He pulled a water bottle from the side of his backpack and took a drink.

Lana looked at Brayden. "What do you think?"

"We can explore a little, but I don't want us splitting up. So we won't go more than shouting distance from Cruz."

"Go," Cruz said, pulling out a knife that looked more like a small sword.

"Sure you don't want something bigger?" Lana joked.

"This is the smallest one I brought," Cruz said. "I'm going to warm it up for you, dude."

Lana rolled her eyes. "Thanks."

Brayden took her hand and they hurried down the trail, looking at the foliage. None of it looked any easier to get through than the area they needed to cut through.

"Maybe we should have brought a whole crew," Lana said.

"That wouldn't have been a bad idea. Let's go a little farther. I can still hear Cruz hacking away."

They went down the path, finding the plants growing thicker as they went. "This isn't promising," Lana said.

"No. It's almost as though someone did this on purpose."

She stopped. "You think so?"

"Why not? If there's something to cover up, wouldn't you bring in as many plants as possible to hide it?"

"Yeah. And most of this looks like it's been growing for a long, long time."

"We should turn back and help Cruz," Brayden said.

Lana peered down the trail and then nodded. "We're just wasting our time."

They went back and Brayden took off his pack and dug into it, pulling out some knives nearly as big as Cruz's. He handed one to Lana and removed the sheath from the other.

"Is it as bad as it looks?" he asked Cruz.

"Maybe for you, dude. It's easy enough for me."

Brayden laughed and then put his backpack on again before cutting away at thick ivy. Lana pulled the sheath off her knife and shoved it into the side pocket of her pack next to the water bottle. It was a tight squeeze, but it would have to do. She picked a branch near Brayden and cut back and forth.

It didn't take long before the muscles in her arms ached. She changed position and tried slicing from a different angle. It helped for a little while, but soon new muscles burned. Sweat beaded on her forehead and it dripped toward her eyes.

Lana stopped and wiped her forehead.

"Getting to be a bit much for you?" Brayden asked, sweat shining from his forehead, too.

"Weaklings," Cruz teased. He whistled a tune.

"Is he always like this?" Lana asked.

"No," Brayden said. "Sometimes he's annoying."

Lana burst out laughing. She drank some more water and then got back to work. It had been her idea to solve the mystery, so she needed to work just as hard as the guys.

They all worked hard without speaking. Hours went by and the sunlight began to fade. It didn't help with the heat, though.

Every so often, one of them would take a drink of water or move forward, having cut a little deeper into the path. Lana's muscles tightened to the point that every little movement hurt. She didn't want to appear weak, but she needed to stop and stretch her muscles.

Neither Brayden nor Cruz seemed to notice, and if they did, they obviously didn't mind her taking a break. Brayden moved ahead of their small pack and cut through a thorny vine. "Look at this."

Forgetting her exhaustion, Lana stuffed her water bottle into her pack and ran to see what Brayden was staring at. It was a clearing.

The meadow spread out toward hills with only a random tree here and there. Tall grass filled the ground, but at least they could get through it without needing to cut anything. A waterfall ran down the side of a hill at the far end. Lana wanted nothing more than to burst into a run and soak herself in the sparkling water.

"Does this match our maps?" asked Cruz, wiping sweat from his brow.

Brayden pulled them out and studied them before looking around the clearing. "Other than being smaller than expected, I think so. At least according to the old map." He handed it to Cruz and then looked at the computer-generated one. "This one makes it look smaller than it is. I think because of the trees shading it."

Lana made her way over to them, peeking over their shoulders. "Are the caves supposed to be in the side of the hill here?"

"Looks like it," Cruz said. He held up the hand-drawn map and looked back and forth between that and the clearing. I don't see any caves, though.

"You don't suppose this is an ancient joke that we've fallen for?" Lana asked.

"Don't joke about that," Cruz said. "We made it all the way out here, and we're going to find something. I don't care what."

"There's a nice waterfall." Lana looked at it, not wanting to admit how much she wanted to run to it.

"We might have to cut away more weeds to find the caves," Brayden said.

"Weeds?" Lana asked. "I don't want to know what you'd call vines or trees."

He wrapped his arms around her. "I got through it quicker convincing myself that they were just little things."

"It's going to be dark soon," Cruz said. "Whatever we do, we should get to it, dude."

"We should check out the hillside," Brayden said. "That's the only place caves would be."

Lana held back a groan. The last thing she wanted was to cut anything else. Why had she been so insistent that they figure out what had happened to Billy Kittle? She didn't care anymore. The only thing that sounded appealing was to sleep for the next couple days. Maybe some mysteries were better left alone.

She dragged her aching feet as the guys ran ahead. Cruz went to the far left of the giant rocky hillside and Brayden went to the far right. Lana had a feeling those brothers always went separate ways. Could they be any more different? Brayden, the disciplined doctor and Cruz, the tattoo artist. It was hard to believe they'd even come from the same family. Yet she was certain either one of them would also fight to protect the other one if needed.

Lana swallowed, hoping it wouldn't be. She looked around, studying the woods behind them. If someone had followed them, surely she'd feel hairs standing up on her neck. Wasn't that what happened when people were unknowingly watched? But then again, neither she nor Brayden had experienced anything before the break-ins which had to be related. It was too much of a coincidence.